2021: Standing Tall From Beneath The Rubble of A Regrettable Year

The year 2020, a year like no other year is the year we are all eager to take off our radar screen given the torridness, the uncertainties, the decimation of the entire global population, and the fright of the most powerful and the lily-livered. Still, it has also provided an opportunity for thanksgiving and the sudden realisation that we are not in control of our lives.

It’s a year where the desire to stay alive overrides and trumps the attainment of set career targets and material prosperity acquisition.

Suddenly, the very things we held dearly as significant and indispensable have become nothing but a collection of hog-washes.

It is a year that has witnessed arguably, the most virulent virus in modern history since the Spanish flu of 1918 that is on the history books as equally destructive.

However, some of us if not all were fortunate enough not to have witnessed the carnage of 1918 that claimed millions of lives worldwide.

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Despite the gloom, the carnage and the consequential negative impact on the global economy, the pandemic has allowed me to hit the reset button and provided me with the opportunity to recalibrate my disposition and my lifestyle.

I have also been able to re-engineer the social configuration as health experts worked assiduously to stem the infection’s tide threatening to sink the wobbling ship.

More importantly, I have also realised that the only RACE that matters is the HUMAN RACE, and the human spirit is the singular spirit that can sustain the Human Race.

There couldn’t have been anything more auspicious and more compelling during this trying time than to reach out and lift those in need.

Amid all the chaos and mayhem in a year largely smeared by a ravaging pandemic, the year 2020, in its uniquely unpleasant realities afforded me the chance to introspectively and retrospectively appreciate God’s unfailing mercies over my life.

Despite the many adversities and tales of woes that the year has become synonymous with, it was He who showed me how to keep the faith, resolve and doggedness in the face of the raging pandemic. I am still standing not by my strength or power but by His strength. He has showered me with His love, and His Grace has sustained me so far. He has counted me worthy of being among the living. More importantly, He has kept my loved ones-family, immediate, extended equally intact.

He also extended His boundless love to my friends and well-wishers, and for this, I remain eternally grateful. To those who are not that fortunate, May their souls be a blessing and grant their families the strength to fill the vacuum left due to their losses.

That I can stand tall in 2021 is not about the strict adherence to Covid -19 protocols or other steps meant to mitigate the damaging effects of the virus but by the magical and magnanimous wand God’s Favour, Grace and Mercy.

I do not know what the year has in store for me, but I want to savour the moment, take one day at a time and keep thanking God for the love and the opportunity given to me, my family, my loved ones, associates, friends and well-wishers to stand tall amidst the storm.

COVID -19 IS REAL, AND IT IS STILL PART OF US

However, I, urge you all to stay safe and adhere to health protocols as the reality of COVID-19 resurgence and the imminence of the second wave of the virus dawns on us.

Welcome to 2021. I wish you all a wonderful year far better than the year 2020

Represented in the clip below is my implicit gesture of appreciating your unalloyed loyalty in graphic terms.

Otunba. T.J Abass