I left my office for the last time in I don't know how long. I took my laptop, but I left my plants. I took my books, but left my shoes. I took my coffee but left my coffee cream in the fridge. I thought I might be coming back. I was taking my things in a superfluity of caution.
And now, like everyone else in the world, I am at home. Learning new words, words I never wanted to learn: COVID-19, pandemic, social isolation, quarantine, social distancing. Feeling feelings I really don't enjoy: fear, anxiety, stress, concern, confusion, uncertainty about the future, loneliness, longing to see loved ones, longing for a hug. I am learning, whether I want to or not, how to stay connected with students scattered across the province. I have been plunged into the world of Microsoft Teams, Zoom meetings, recording lectures (and discovering some of my idiosyncrasies as I do so -- who knew my voice sounded like that?), and rearranging assignments and schedules to accommodate social distancing.
It feels surreal. I look out the window, and the sun is pouring down and the breezes are soft and little green shoots are pushing up from the ground. The birds are singing. The spring peepers are calling in the woods. My horse is shedding gobs of hair. The whole world pulses with the joyous anticipation of spring. Yet, in jarring contrast that my mind can't quite comprehend, pestilence stalks. I am uncomfortably conscious of touching anything that is not in my house. I find myself withdrawing from people I love to maintain that supposedly-safe six-foot circle. I am hyper-aware of every twinge in my body -- that tickle in my throat -- is it allergies, or the plague? The two realities are so diametrically opposed to each other, I have a hard time reconciling them.
And yet, both are true.
I was walking in my backyard the other day, thankful I at least have a yard in which to walk, thankful I am not stuck in an apartment in China or Italy or Toronto. Last fall, I planted approximately 150 bulbs in the lawn in an effort to naturalise the yard. Those bulbs lay in the soil all winter. To be honest, I had forgotten about them. And the yard is pretty wet around this time of year. Ok, that might be an understatement. The lawn is ragged and muddy and mostly underwater. It looks bad. It looks hopeless. Every spring, I nearly despair that it will ever look like anything other than a mud-hole.
But as I sloshed through the puddles in my rubber boots, I spotted something.
Tiny little spots of colour were pushing their way up through the mud. They were tiny, for sure. Impossible even to see from the deck. Definitely not 150 spots of colour. Maybe more like 20 of them.Nevertheless they were there.
They were there, and they brightened my day. They were not less beautiful for their lack of size. In fact, perhaps they were more beautiful for their delicacy, for my having to stoop down and study them. They were more beautiful because these tiny slips of colour were defying the mud and the wet and were pushing up into the sunshine and the warmth. And they delighted my heart.They are metaphorical, these little spring flowers. In some way, they epitomise everything about this strange new world we're living in.
When I look at the news, I could despair. All appears to be bleakness and fear. It is like looking at my backyard from the deck, full of flood and mud. Hope drowns if I study the obvious. Fear rises if I spend too much time reading the countless alarmist posts on my social media feeds. My heart get sucked down into the mud of anxiety if I think about what might happen tomorrow, next week, next month, whenever.
But this is the world in which I find myself. This is the life I have been given for this season. I can fuss and fume because it is not yet sandal weather and I can't go barefoot across the lawn and the yard does not look the way I want it to at this moment, or I can pull on my rubber boots and do what God has called me to do this day.
So I'm donning my rubber boots. I'm washing my hands. I'm keeping my distance. I'm avoiding my family and friends. I'm staying home. I'm keeping up-to-date, but not too up-to-date; there is nothing I can do about the numbers, anyway. It changes nothing for me. I'm avoiding social media and its alarmism. I'm doing the tasks God gives me to do today, and I'm doing my best to live one day at a time and not to think too far ahead. I'm playing music that reminds me of the sovereignty of God.
And don't I find tiny spots of colour pushing up through the mud. Another day of health. Neighbours staying safely six feet away but wanting to know how everyone is doing, offering to care for each other, assuring each other that we're there to help. Brothers and sisters in Christ reaching out across distances -- checking in. I discover a new hunger in my heart for Jesus. I look forward to my Bible reading with a fresh awareness of how much I need the Lord. I dread the news, but I am excited to open my Bible. I pray more. I pray constantly. Most precious of all, perhaps, is that I am learning to trust. I am learning that if I turn my eyes off the news and onto Jesus, he holds my heart steady. I'm learning that life out of my control but in his control is ok. No, not just ok. It is good. Through it all, it is well.
Spots of colour pushing up through the mud.
And maybe that is the way of this world. The sunshine and springtime live side-by-side with the pestilence. The pestilence makes the sunshine and springtime more precious. The sunshine and springtime make the pestilence more bearable. They remind me that, as dark as this day may be, God is there, bringing hope and joy, steadying my feet and soothing my soul. The world is groaning in travail and my heart groans with it. The world is glowing with the hope of spring and my heart soars with it.
God is on his throne and it is well with my soul.
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Here are some of the songs I'm playing on repeat. You may recognise some lines from them in my blog.
Robin Mark -- All Is Well
Bethel -- Through It All
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