We all know that pithy saying: “When you plan…God laughs.” That feels SO true in the year of our Lord 2020, when everyone around the globe had their plans altered, subverted, and upended by the tidal wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that has changed our lives in ways we couldn’t have fathomed in January 2020. (Remember parties? Concerts? Walking into a store without a mask on….?)

So, in the waning days of 2020, looking back at our hopes and dreams for this year – written in obliviously cheerful pre-COVID times – is a big exercise in surrender and acceptance! Our plans for Life-Giving Wounds did not turn out quite as we had anticipated, to say the least…!

And as anyone who has gone through the Life-Giving Wounds retreat knows, it is always okay to grieve your losses. There is no shame in that; it is part of being human, and part of recognizing the good that you are lacking and missing.

This year, we greatly missed the opportunity to meet people in person at in-person retreats and other Life-Giving Wounds events. Our only in-person retreat ended up being our first one, February in Silver Spring, MD. (And it was a great one!) We ended up cancelling six other planned retreats: in New York City, Lansing, Boise, New Orleans, San Francisco, and a second one in Silver Spring, MD. And COVID essentially shut down active plans to bring Life-Giving Wounds to other new locations.

So, a big bummer! Because there’s nothing quite like the joy of being together with people (a pleasure I’m sure many of us will never take for granted again!), and there are powerful graces on an in-person retreat that can’t be fully replicated in a virtual setting..

But with that said, 2020 was not without its triumph and joys for Life-Giving Wounds! Looking back from this vantage point, we are deeply grateful for all that God has accomplished through our efforts and those of MANY generous volunteers.

(Also - you can read our 2020 Annual Report here.)

Let’s list the top five wins!

1.      Life-Giving Wounds became an official non-profit organization! (July)

This was a BIG goal for us this year, and the enforced at-home time actually helped to make it possible. IRS paperwork is not a joke, people! So we’re thrilled that we completed this process successfully and were thrilled to get our “notification letter” from the IRS. Being a non-profit means that donation and grant avenues are opened up (we have already received matching grants from donors’ employers that we couldn’t have received otherwise) and overall it raises our profile and credibility, to have a board of directors, an official tax-deductible status, etc. So, big win!

2.      We ran our first-ever successful VIRTUAL retreat! (October/November)

To be honest, doing a virtual retreat was nowhere on our radar until COVID hit. But as we saw in-person retreats getting zapped one by one, Dan had the great idea to try a virtual retreat. We had a FABULOUS group of volunteers help us with this: speakers, small group leaders, and “promoters”. In just a few weeks, we were able to get everything set up digitally and personnel-wise to do this. And the response was amazing! 140 people registered for the retreat (for comparison, a typical in-person retreat is around 30). Yes, it was different than the in-person retreats, and we sorely missed the special times of conversation, meals together, adoration, and the sacraments. But the Holy Spirit still showed up big-time! We personally felt like each of the seven retreat sessions were very graced with God’s presence (He is not limited by space!). And as a huge YES to these efforts, 100% of retreat attendees who filled out the evaluation afterwards said they’d recommend the virtual retreat to others! So we will definitely be doing this again – stay tuned…

3.      We created some new products!

Another positive side-effect of being stuck at home was having more time to focus on product creation. So we were able to create and publish both a Retreat Guide and a Retreat Journal. Both of those have been on our minds for a while – we’ve wanted retreat attendees to have something both beautiful and practical to “walk through” the retreat with. It is was fun to work with our designer (the amazing Katherine Quan of Design Q Studios) in finessing the layout, artwork, etc. We also produced some SWAG: t-shirts (seriously, they are SO soft…) and mugs (Life-Giving BREW…couldn’t resist), both designed by Aldo Penafiel.

4.      We spread the word about Life-Giving Wounds!

Around the time Life-Giving Wounds became a non-profit, we put out a press release to lots and lots of Catholic media folks we thought would be interested in what we were doing. (Thank you to our organizational development advisor, Kate Sell, for helping with this!) We ended up getting quite a bit of interest: we did four podcast interviews, five radio interviews, and were featured in three major Catholic media outlets. (See them all here.) It was a blast talking with people about Life-Giving Wounds and raising awareness not just about this ministry, but about the importance of paying attention to adult children of divorce and their needs!

5.      We built our supporter and donor base!

This “win” is on the one hand highly tangible. As of this writing, we have 95 donors on our donor list! (That is an increase of ZERO to 95 in half a year, hoorah.) This includes 19 monthly donors, whose pledges give a great base for our work in 2021. This is all SO cool – starting from literally nothing, it has been a thrill each and every time someone has donated their hard-earned money to Life-Giving Wounds. It is like a stamp of approval that the work we are doing matters. But this “win” is also more than just raising money: it is about the FRIENDS that we gained in 2020. Wow. That has been incredible. We have such amazing volunteers who give generously of their time to do SO much to make Life-Giving Wounds possible: people who write blog posts for our website (seriously, check them out: THIRTY amazing, wide-ranging posts this year); people who serve as small group leaders on retreats and support groups; people who “knock on doors” to grow support and donations; people who run our gorgeous Instagram page; people who encourage us on the days when it feels tough; and I could go on!! This honestly is probably the biggest WIN from 2020: knowing that despite all of the challenges, the work that Life-Giving Wounds is doing matters, and is speaking to the hearts and souls of people around the country. What more could we want?!

In sum, like everyone else on the planet, 2020 has not been what we expected here at Life-Giving Wounds. And that is a bummer. But God still showed up big-time, and we praise Him for every opportunity we’ve had to bring His healing to another adult child of divorce who is looking for greater peace, greater joy, and greater community in their lives. Who knows what 2021 will bring?! (I hesitate to put it like that…!) But we KNOW it will bring joy because we have our Lord and each other. Onward!