I’ll be blunt. This question has kind of driven me nuts the past few weeks. To be honest, we have done what we have always done. Worked our jobs and cared for our kids. These two things take Jason and me the full 24 hours on any given day.
We are exceedingly grateful to have our jobs right now, and the flexibility to care for our kids in the midst of it all. We are blessed.
Yet, anxiety builds inside me whenever I try to answer the questions floating out there like: “What will you do with your quarantine time?” Or “When you look back on this time, when the whole world paused, of what will you be most proud?” How about this one: “How are you especially cherishing and investing in these special times with your family?”
For our home, life has not paused. Our world has not been a serene scene where we have hours upon hours to reflect and wonder about life, and figure out ways to serve others better and live more fully when the world starts back up.
Our days are mostly made up of what our days had been mostly made up of before all of this started - but with LESS time overall. Now, instead of working and caring for our kids - we work while simultaneously caring for our kids.
Our bedroom has become our workspace, and the question of, “should I answer my daughter’s call through the crack in the door, or should I respond to this colleague’s question on a zoom call” is a recurring struggle. The continual interruption to a train of thought is unnerving and mentally exhausting. The mom-guilt, and employee-guilt is constant.
What have we been doing?
In-between meetings, calls and emails, our life has been made up of: preparing meals, pureeing baby food, putting socks on tiny feet, tying shoes, snapping onesies, bike helmets, and stroller straps.
We created countless chalk drawings and walked on just about every square inch in a 1 mile radius from our house - multiple times. At least once a day, we pushed the 6 month old in her stroller and watched the 3 year old on her balance bike.
We filled a plastic pool with water and played in it. On other days, we filled the plastic pool with blankets and toys and played in it. We have made “parades” using all the toys in the house. We made “trains” and “trolleys” using Amazon boxes.
We colored, painted, played with play-doh, blocks and stickers. We flew a kite, squirted water guns, and had tea parties.
We picked blueberries, twice - the second time with face masks on. We made blueberry muffins, blueberry lemon bread, and blueberry cobbler. Oh yeah, and blueberry pancakes the size of our plates.
We learned the ABC’s and read books. We danced. We sang songs. We built forts and boats and castles from blankets and pillows.
We celebrated Easter, complete with an Easter hunt and ham dinner. We are planning a birthday party for our 3 year old, albeit everyone who was supposed to be here in person will hopefully get to be a small box on a computer screen instead.
We made “thankfulness paper chains” every day. We read Bible stories, learned catechism questions, and memorized scripture verses.
Minus the daily thankfulness paper chain, all of these things are things we had already been doing, things we would still be doing regardless of COVID19, and they are things we will continue to do.
What we haven’t done
So far, we have not been able to use this time to reach global pandemic level goals that we see others being able to reach. We have not been able to devote hours to meal-planning or organizing our digital photos.
Honestly, we have not even cleaned out our closets.
We have not had conversations on deeper marriage or family issues, although we may have had both lighthearted as well as heated discussions that I attribute to the stress of the pandemic. We have not take advantage of the numerous free courses, subscriptions, or audiobooks that are available right now, although I keep saving them “to do later.”
All in all, while COVID19 may change the world as we know it, we, ourselves, at least to this point, have not experienced what we would define as life-changing moments.
Most of our moments have been the same as they would have been before.
It feels like our current moments somehow don’t count now that our measurement is so much higher thanks to the high expectations of the elite COVID19 quarantine lifestyle.
The truth is, we have made memories.
We have built positive brain pathways for our child, who may not remember these days exactly, but who will remember the general atmosphere and tone of her childhood, which now includes the COVID19 era.
It does not matter if these things get labeled as “what we would have done in our pre-COVID19 life” or labeled as “official quarantine activities.”
The fact is, they happened.
When we choose the right attitude for the moments we have, we have won.
When we smile through the potty training (after we cry in the cluttered closet), and when we can spin around to Disney songs (after we’ve had an anxiety producing discipline moment), we are winning.
When we surrender our need for control to the God who always has been and is still in control, He will guide us.
When we accept we cannot live on our own, and ask Jesus to lead us, He will save us.
When we look back on our COVID19 time and share stories with our children and grandchildren, I think this is what I want to tell them:
‘Yes, it was a strange time. It was a good time. It was hard, and it was happy. It was life. It was a time, not quite just as any other time, but a time nonetheless to trust God with our circumstances and our lives. It was a time, just as any, to rely on the truth of God’s Word, find comfort in His promises, and accept that He is working out good plans for the world.
We look back now and can see pieces of how His plan unfolded, and we trust that it will continue to unfold until Jesus comes again. We are grateful for the gift of time together. We are thankful to know Jesus. We are in awe of our God who saves us.
We have hope now because we can look back and see what God did through coronavirus, and also through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We claim this promise in light of COVID19, and for our world in the future: ‘The faithful love of the Lord never ends, His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself ‘The Lord is my inheritance, therefore, I will hope in him!’ - Lamentations 3:22-24
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