Waiting for the dough the rise
Wondering when we’ll see our loved ones again
Hoping eventually the kids will start picking up after themselves
Too many words
Not enough said about what really matters
Too much said when we should be silent
Lack of silence
Waiting for them to tell me how they are feeling
Wondering if life will ever be the same
Hoping when this is over, we’ll be glad we had this time, even if the reasons are tragic.
I wish I could say this time was bringing us together as a family. But that would be a lie. My temper is worn to a frazzle and I feel like I know how Bilbo feels when he describes himself as butter spread over too much bread.
Over every interaction and plan hangs the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question: When will things go back to normal and will there be a normal to go back to? Click To TweetIf I ever thought that more time together as a family would make us love each other more and better, I was sorely mistaken. It’s not like we’re really spending time together so much as surviving each other. The extroverts and eating the introverts alive and I never thought I’d begin the hate the sound of my children’s voices. (The incessancy and the high volume don’t help).
We are incredibly lucky that my husband’s job is mostly unaffected, though no industry can weather an economic downturn like this completely unscathed. After the roller coaster of the last couple of years, it’s hard not to revert to worst first thinking.
All we can do is wait. We can do it with calm patience or desperate rushing, but neither will make this go faster. Click To TweetWe can fill social media with our opinions and criticize every leader and public figure on the planet, but it won’t bring this crisis to an end one moment faster.
Like a race without mile markers or even a vague finish line, we continue to plunge forward a day at a time. Like a woman in labor, we have no choice, the birth must come, for good or ill. In my better moments, I choose to believe that it will be good. That when all of this is over, we will be able to look back at this and remember the best of it.
Yes, patience is a superpower! Lord, help me be patient… even if it’s just for the dough to rise. Haha.
Thanks for being so honest. Very refreshing and encouraging.
It is just me and my husband at home. When my daughter calls I hear all the voices and commotion of a household of eight. And then there is my mother in a nursing home, isolated. We all need God’s grace as we weather this time. God promises to refine us.
There is power in the patience
to take each step in turn and place,
rather like the grizzled ancients
found the way to Jesus’ grace
when they walked the roads with Him
(at times resenting one another!)
and kept their hearts all spruce and trim
(when they could be made to bother).
He built on what He said before,
and they had simply to recall
(without thinking, “What a bore,
He’s said it twice, I’ve heard it all!”).
And Life with Him became reward
beyond high crosses, bloody swords.