Well hello Friends! I’m baaaaaaack!
As some of you may have noticed, I took a little writing hiatus - 7 months to be exact - and completely neglected this space the entire Fall and Winter.
Those seasons were a complete blur to me. I was adjusting to the water damage in our basement and the loss of my lovely office space down there. I was working like a nomad, shuffling “office space” between my living room sofa and my parents house! And all the while, work kept getting busier (a really good problem to have!) and I felt like I was running after my own life just trying to keep up!
I was exhausted; and, I remember saying to my husband Kyle, “if I could only press pause …” But life doesn’t usually give you a pause button. Usually.
Then came spring … and, with it, the COVID-19 pandemic. A pause button.
I find it a little ironic that my last post (from 7 months ago) talked about the “light at the end of the tunnel.” There was no pandemic to speak of when I wrote those words. The words were simply a reminder for myself during a bit of a trying season. And right now, I feel like it’s the very reminder everyone is needing.
Our world has shifted in a very odd way; and, yet, not all is lost. Not every situation is good, but there is good in every situation. We can look at this quarantine as confinement to our homes - a sort of prison sentence if you will. Or we can also look at this season as a bit of gift. A rare opportunity to slow down and re-prioritize what’s really important in this life. It’s not denying the hard parts, but it is acknowledging and making the most of the silver lining.
For almost a year, I was praying for a pause button to press. I was running full tilt and didn’t know how to hit the breaks and slow down. I know I’m not alone in this. Much of North America operates this way - we’re always running on empty. Maybe it’s time we all re-fueled?
I love the Bible passage “A Time For Everything,” (Ecclesiastes 3); and, the 1960s rock song it inspired, “Turn, Turn, Turn (to Everything there is a Season)” by The Byrds.
A time to work and a time to rest.
Most of us have forgotten how to rest. We’ve got the work part nailed down, but we don’t know how to replenish and refuel so we can continue to enjoy the work we do. The quarantine has been teaching me this - Kyle and I both, actually. We’ve slowly been re-acquainting ourselves with this basic human need; and, while some days we feel sad and a little isolated, most days we feel immensely grateful for this “forced” season of rest. We are enjoying some new routines and returning to some old past times (hence the return to blogging!). And I hope, my dear friends, that you are doing the same. Stay healthy, friends!
- A.W.
Ps. What silver linings have you found during this quarantine season?