Week Six: Perspective

     Well, you may be wondering where week five went. Confession: I haven't finished it. There are times when I find an idea takes form, but even after several tries, I just can't seem to figure out what shape its supposed to take. So bear with me, especially those of you who like maintaining a strict sense of order. I'm going to move on to week six and circle back....soon. 

     The other day, one of my kids noticed that the photo calendar we had up in our kitchen was flipped to its last month and it was now the end of the month (I know, another shocker for those of you who like a sense of order- I started my calendar last April). As I took the calendar down, I noticed how few squares were filled out on a normally crowded grid of days. I have begun writing in Zoom calls, just to feel like we have some times to look forward to in another week of the same.

     My oldest daughter shed her school uniform in March, but has taken to wearing her favorite band sweatshirt and jogger pants....every day. My mind instantly goes to the classic Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day each time I see her and then ask how school went that day.

     “Fine.” 

     Every. Single. Day.

     And sometimes, I have to stop and think about what day it is.

     There is a temptation to let the days run into one another, like watercolor paints converging into one muddy, mess.

      Even my thoughts have puddled a bit, feeling a bit like I’m just doing the next thing, and the next thing, just to pass the time and accomplish the daily tasks necessary for school and home.

     What I miss, what many of us may be missing, are the moments that take us out of the mundane and which minister to our hearts and minds. The things that take the edge off the stress we often feel in the specific jobs and responsibilities that we have.

     I also miss giving a friend a hug, sitting at a coffee shop to have face to face conversation, teaching kids at my coop and seeing them, not as digitalized images, but as living and breathing beings who minister as much by their presence as by their words and actions.

     God made us to live in relationship, first with Him and with each other. I’ve been slowly reading through Genesis with a friend, and we thought it remarkable that God, who is Spirit and doesn’t have a body, would take on a human appearance to the extent that we understand through Scripture that God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in Eden.

     He made us to live in relationship with each other, and even though sin has broken our ability to communicate and live in peace with one another, by His grace and redemptive power, we experience relationship with one another that is life-giving and life-changing.  “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us,” writes John in 1 John 4:12. I miss face to face, community living.

      By the same token, a friend of mine who just moved to a new duty station reminded me that this season of staying in is great for our families. For those of you who just jumped in, I wrote about this in an earlier post. How thankful I was to be at home with my family, especially with my older kids who will be leaving home soon.

     I am reminded of how easily I forget and am grateful for the gentle reminder by my friend that kept my heart in the right perspective. It would be very easy to give way to the comparison mentality of what was before and what is now our new normal. And while I wholly agree with the need to grieve what was lost, I have learned in my transition life that God’s heart is not for me to stay in that place forever.

     More of John’s words echo in my heart as I write.  “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full,” he pens in John 10:10.  Does this only mean when I am in a season of time when my ideals- visibly thriving in my faith, my fellowship, my calling- are being realized? Or does God have more for us, extending that precious promise in the book of John to the times when I am feeling a lack, pushed out of my comfort zone, feeling needy?

     As I become more and more aware of that pervasive mental fuzz that the same week is being played out in our home, I need to reach into the truths that I know to be true and need to be put to the test.

     How about Isaiah 43:19: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Yes, this does feel like a wilderness. It’s hard to see the end of it, but God does. And He is the one who makes springs bubble up from a dry, barren place.

     And then there is Psalm 90:12:  Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This is not an indication that just coasting from one day to another is a good thing, but rather something that is foolish when we have a God who has ordained each day for us and has a particular purpose for us that He desires to share with us—if we are willing to seek Him and stop long enough to listen.

     My perspective is transformed when I stop and assign words to the vague feeling of thanksgiving I often feel for who God is and what He has done. My day takes a different form when I can offer up to Him that sweet smelling incense of prayer and praise, remembering what is true and good and right, instead of letting my mind sit in the mire of what could be and what I don’t have at this point in time.

     I don’t watch the news every day, for good reason. It’s largely negative and fear-inducing. But I was pleasantly shocked when a cable news show put out a special one Sunday that highlighted different acts of sacrificial love that Americans are showing for one another during this COVID-19 pandemic. One of the newscasters even quoted scripture and another asked for viewers to remember God’s faithfulness and to seek Him in the midst of fear and worry.

     Perspective, from what I have come to understand, requires us to remember. To remember that we were made for more than this world. To see our present sufferings and trials in the light of God’s eternal kingdom purposes. And to choose to look for His daily goodness shown through even our tired, mundane schedules.

     This morning, I stopped to take a mental picture of my husband and kids sitting in our living room watching our church service online. On a normal Sunday, younger kids go downstairs in the church to their Sunday school, teens go to their classes and Steve and I sit together in the service. I am grateful that we can be together worshipping the Lord, on couches, exercise balls and with our dog Jackson. Because when this all is lifted, all will change yet again.

Soli deo gloria