Quarantine Thoughts

It’s snowing dancing snowflakes, millions and millions of them, and I’m not going anywhere today. The lights are shining on our baby Christmas tree. I have coffee and blankets and lots to keep me busy. It’s a good day to be stuck in quarantine. This is what we dream of- a day off in a warm house as winter settles in outside. Can I pause and see the beauty? Embrace the opportunity? If course the circumstances aren’t ideal, but are they ever really?

My sister tested positive for Covid, but she’s feeling better, and I’m not sick yet. Of course I’m dreading getting sick, but to worry about it isn’t going to help me or anybody else. Can I just rest today? There have been several really stressful days recently trying to deal with life as it is right now, and I desperately need some real rest in Jesus.

The LORD also will roar from Zion, And utter His voice from Jerusalem; The heavens and earth will shake; But the LORD will be a shelter for His people, And the strength of the children of Israel. -Joel 3:16 NKJV

These days, it seems like the earth is being shaken. We are in month nine of the pandemic, and it feels like fear and confusion is what has been birthed, along with plenty of frustration. We are tired of all the drama. Let’s not even talk about the election… And in our personal lives, unexpected and stressful things happen.

There is still truth, though, if we are willing to accept it. This verse holds an important fact: In Jesus, we are sheltered. Not sheltered as in nothing bad will happen to us, but sheltered as a child held in their daddy’s arms is sheltered, though bad things are happening all around. I am sheltered today, in this cozy house, and in the strength of Jesus.

If I had to work today, I’d be stressed about the weather, because I don’t have snow tires on my car yet. But my car can stay in the parking lot all day, and it’s one less thing to worry about at the moment. It can snow all it wants to today, which is exactly what it looks like it’s going to do. And I can breathe. I need to breathe. It’s my normal to be stressed. So can I please have a little abnormality and just let it all go today?

Maybe God knew I needed recharging time, a break from the busyness. I’ve been really busy the past several months, and it’s been wearing me down. This is a forced vacation. Maybe it’ll help me to reestablish some much needed perspective on life. “It is what it is,” as a friend of mine would say. There is unfortunately nothing we can do to make the present reality go away, so we’ll have to come to some level of acceptance with it. Perhaps it can be a time of making positive memories- and there’s even the possibility it could be a time of great productivity.

I tried to convince my sister that we should start a Youtube channel. We even came up with a name for it: Commonsensical. However, she would like to preserve her reputation, and as usual, she finds the idea to be rather unrealistic. It might be realistic if we had WiFi in the apartment, but we don’t. So, I suppose I shall try to defer to the voice of reason. I have a blog already; how would I maintain a Youtube channel anyway?

There are other ways to be productive, and the homemaker within me will find things that need to be done. When you live in and care for a home, even if it is only an apartment, there are all manner of things to do. My creativity will also have a chance to prove itself, in the departments of cookery, scrapbooking, and writing. Maybe I’ll read more. And I can bake all the sourdough bread I like. The only problem is that someone will need to eat all that bread, and I’m pretty sure the neighbors wouldn’t appreciate loaves that have come from a covid-infected house. So perhaps I should rein in my Breadmaking obsession a little bit and do some sewing instead. Ugh. Or maybe I’ll just keep procrastinating on the sewing.

I think the hardest part of this quarantine will be in missing people. I don’t need many people, but the ones I need, I hold pretty close. My child I babysit, for instance. Nannies and babysitters can become very attached. It’s not just a job; it’s a commitment to loving and helping to raise the child or children. And my church family- I will miss them. This spring when we weren’t having actual church services, that was one of the hardest things for me about the new requirements. I need church, and I think that’s supposed to be the way it is.

But… today is beautiful, and God is good. At work lately, the little one has been loving three songs, two of which happen to be “Goodness of God” and Jamie Grace’s “Beautiful Day.” Both of them carry messages I need to hold on to in this time. Listen to them if you have a moment today; it’ll be good for your heart.