I don’t think I’m alone in being thankful that 2020 is finally over and feeling that there’s an even deeper sense of hope and relief with the beginning of this new year. 

Even though we’re still in a state of uncertainty – be it with our work, our health, our study, the new year is a great opportunity to reflect on and to be thankful for all the ups and downs that we have experienced.

I recently read an interview with Bishop Robert Barron, in which he said that the line from the Bible, ‘I am setting before you a blessing and a curse.’ (Dt 11:26; 30:19) really captured how he had experienced 2020. 

2020 brought change, challenge and frustration for all of us and for others deep suffering and loss.  And yet, for many of us, the year provided us with more time and so opportunities for reflection, for reading, for prayer.

However, we are probably still feeling a sense of dread for what the year ahead holds, and perhaps we are holding onto regrets or failures from the year that’s been. Maybe we had made some wonderful plans last January, that came crashing down a couple of months in. 

Those places I did not travel to. Those faces I did not meet. The temper I failed to control. The deadlines I did not meet. The disastrous attempts to pray more. Those times when being in ‘lockdown’ could have been used so much better instead of yielding to information overload on the internet.

Although we have an opportunity to begin again each day – even each hour – maybe we can use the beginning of this new year as a perfect opportunity to really begin again. We can acknowledge last year’s disappointments, fears, and exhaustion and simply... hand them over to God. 

It’s certainly harder to be optimistic this time around and we have all heard this ‘glass-half-full’ anecdote, but optimism is not a genetic idea or just a mood – it can be something deeper. 

Optimism is something that can come from our belief system, based on this incredible truth that we are loved by God. Speaking personally, this is what allows me to be optimistic. I know that, even if I lose a battle in one of my new years’ resolutions: I don’t get in touch with that friend as promised, I don’t read all those books I wanted to... I remember that I don’t lose the war. 

I am still loved by God! 

I’m sure that we will all have many rocky periods in the year ahead, but we can also be short-sighted in our outlook.

If I am being honest as with 2020, there were many small moments of hope, optimism, and joy that I missed. Most of the messages I received over Christmas and New Year went along the “good riddance 2020” lines. 

However, one message from a friend with serious health issues telling me to ‘count my blessings,’ forced me to face the fact that I had not in fact counted any blessings and was less than thankful for getting through it in one piece!

There were many things throughout the year that I did not recognise as small blessings. And there were moments of hope, optimism and joy that I had missed. 

I could be grateful for the new day, for my family, my job, my health, my faith. I could also be proactively thankful for those things I do not necessarily ask for and they worked out or happened without my having to lift a finger! 

To be grateful for times that are challenging, that’s another story! Instead of seeing them as happening to me, maybe they are happening for me, giving me opportunities to grow in some area of my life, become a better me - grow perhaps in my faith. 

It’s often easier said than done, but even at the end of the worst day, we can find something that we are thankful for. 

It can be liberating to think that we can choose joy! If we try to turn all of these opportunities to be more in union with God’s thinking and wisdom, we might find that this optimism becomes not just a state of mind, but a state of heart.

All I had wanted was that 2020 would end. 

So, at the beginning of 2021, still with much uncertainty ahead, I think it’s a good resolution to really begin again with optimism.

Let’s face it there will be lots of opportunities to put it into practice!