It started in January.
First, coronavirus wreaked havoc on Wuhan City, the birth city of Superhero 4 and the home of his orphanage, foster family and family friends we know and love. (Thankfully, none of them contracted the disease and all of them, after months of lockdown, are beginning to return to public life now.)
Then, it cancelled the already rescheduled travel of 8-year-old Harry, who was supposed to be our third host child, from China to the United States for orphan hosting in February, as well as the adoption travel of so many families we absolutely adore.
Now, this virus that has already quarantined dear friends in both China and Italy has reached our state, where it is canceling not only NBA seasons and NCAA tournaments but all four superheroes’ extra-curriculars, after-school activities, field trips and events. There is no public school for two weeks, and we just received notice that the military has just placed a ban on all domestic travel for soldiers and families until May 11.
Though Superheroes 1 and 2 competed on Odyssey of the Mind teams that placed first at Regional Finals and were preparing to compete at States, State Finals, and possibly soon World Finals, were cancelled. Band competitions and zoo field trips are now off of our calendars, and even the much anticipated 8th grade class trip to D.C. later this year is in jeopardy.
No more honors band. No more rec soccer. No more 5K race our family was scheduled to run this morning. There aren’t even services for our church congregations this Sunday.
And we ourselves took the liberty of cancelling the cruise we had planned for more than a year to celebrate Super-Spouse’s retirement from the military later this year. (Besides the fact that Super-Spouse is now scheduled for surgery and his retirement date changed, being quarantined for 14 days in the cheapest, inner-most cabin of a cruise ship with four boys who can’t sit still through dinner in the space the size of a crackerjack box sounded far more tortuous than contracting coronavirus in the first place.)
And these are all extremely MINOR inconveniences compared to the inconveniences of those whose whose livelihoods are impacted by these shutdowns and the lives of those hospitalized, quarantined or caring for those who are.
The truth is, no matter WHERE in the world we may live (except for maybe Antarctica, where we should apparently now reschedule our retirement vacation), most of us are experiencing life disruptions and cancellations like we’ve never known them.
Some of us feel these cancellations on a mass scale are complete overreactions.
Others of us had already donned hazmat suits weeks ago and holed out in our bunkers with our three years’ supply of toilet paper and Lysol wipes.
Our family is not panicking about contracting coronavirus. Statistics show that, even if contracted, we would likely not experience severe complications, since our family members fall outside of the high-risk age group. In all likelihood, we would probably be okay. (And if not, we would get to go hang out with Jesus. What can man, or disease, do to us anyway?)
What we ARE concerned about, however, is SPREADING IT to our friends, neighbors and community members who ARE at higher risk.
We as Christians don’t live in fear. We stand on FAITH.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
Which means we refuse to be part of the panic.
But in doing so, we also choose to love our neighbors as ourselves. And what that means for us in this time of world crisis is that we choose to sacrifice some of our pleasures and conveniences for the sake of those who could be severely affected by them.
We joyfully give up some of our liberties to help protect those whose liberties could be taken away at one cough, one sneeze, one unintentional spread of a virus we might not even know we are carrying.
(Which is why Super-Spouse has now banned this physical touch girl from touching and hugging every person she greets. Because my love for hanging all over the people I love apparently makes me the worst nightmare of a “Super Spreader” my PA husband could possibly imagine.)
If we’re going to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, and if we’re really going to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are going to have to choose to give up some of the freedoms we treasure but are just that – luxuries.
Like competing in jam-packed gymnasiums.
Like blowing instruments in auditoriums filled with the elderly.
Like heading to packed-out pubic places more than necessary, simply for our own entertainment or amusement.
Experts and physicians tell us the only way to help slow the spread of this virus, besides practicing good hand washing and hygiene, is to practice the social distancing that we as fast-paced, busy, entertainment-driven Americans hate to employ.
Because it requires us to put the needs of others before ourselves.
But the thing is that giving up our NOT life-or-death sports seasons and competition seasons and festivals and St. Patty’s parades actually helps SAVE lives, and they allow us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Because according to many epidemiologists, these extreme measures taken for the most vulnerable in our society is really the only way to flatten the curve. (Read one sobering article about this HERE.)
Which leaves all of us to grapple with what we do now.
Our schools are now closed, and our normally packed-out schedule is down to mostly just medical therapies. Every weekend for the next month has just been fully cleared of commitments, and our normally rainbow-colored calendar is now white.
And with the military travel ban, we are going NOWHERE.
We have life margin like we’ve never known it, and absolutely no other place we feel like we should be. (In fact, if we’re really loving our neighbor as ourselves and being part of the solution and not the problem, there are realistically very few places we should actually CHOOSE to be in this season.)
So we’re doing what we read in Exodus: "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:13a,14)
Being STILL.
And we’re realizing so quickly that these cancellations, these seemingly “lost” occasions, are not actually obstacles.
They are actually our opportunities in disguise.
In the first blog I ever wrote this year, I prayed that 2020 would be a year not of productivity or perfection-seeking but of PRESENCE.
I wrote, “But I don’t want to miss His work TODAY because my eyes are focused on what I’m planning for or praying He’ll do TOMORROW … I want to be right here in THIS moment and in THIS conversation where Jesus has placed me, loving one second at a time the person He places in front of me, keeping my eyes and my heart in tune with not the pace of my calendar but the pace of my God.”
And this is the exact gift our God, in all His goodness, is entrusting not just to me, but to all of us in this historic moment in time.
The gift of PRESENCE.
Of STILLNESS.
Of QUALITY TIME.
The question is, how are we going to steward it? Are we going to view it as our obstacle — an absence of entertainment and competitions and STUFF? — or as an opportunity to pour into and invest in the people right before us?
Our children.
Our spouses.
Our physical neighbors on our right and left.
One wise pastor put it this way: “How are we going to leverage this moment for HIS glory?”
We have been given an opportunity we may never have again in our lifetimes.
The opportunity to POUR INTO PEOPLE and OUR PEOPLE with absolutely ZERO OTHER DISTRACTIONS on our plates.
How are we going to use it?
We held a family meeting two nights ago, and we asked our boys how they would like to utilize this new margin in our lives.
Our family’s list includes:
· Blazing a trail around our property so that we can continue to enjoy family runs, even if local parks close.
· Planting a garden that grows more than disappointment. With every travel plan for the next year now wiped from our calendar, we have no excuses to NOT attempt to grow the food we’ve been saying we’ll grow for years. (And let’s be honest, saving on produce with four boys who will now have nothing to do but sit home and eat is a huge motivation in this cheap girl’s book.)
· Purging and cleaning the garage that has been the home for painted cardboard and PVC networks since Odyssey of the Mind launched in August. Listing all those items we haven’t used in five years on Ebay. (Because I have a feeling Ebay and Amazon are going to be our new BFFs.)
· Starting a family book club to actually read and discuss all those books we said we were going to read together last summer. (The day all our activities were cancelled, Superhero 2 ordered War and Peace on Amazon. Because we apparently now have THAT kind of reading time on our hands.)
· Restarting family yoga nights. Now that we’ll all be home after school, there’s no reason we can’t be joining Superhero 4 in his stretching and yoga workouts that help all of us feel so much better at night.
· Freezer meal cooking. With four boys who LOVE testing their talents in the kitchen, we thought we could utilize this down time to stock our freezer with meals we could then use for friends, neighbors and new mamas who might need them over the coming months.
· Producing a family music video. Superhero 2’s suggestion: “Intergalactic Sanitary.” Because laughter is apparently the best medicine.
· Tackling all the house and yard projects on our “someday” list as a TEAM (even if this means they will take five years longer than normal).
· Worshipping as a family. With churches now closed, Superhero 1 has broken out his guitar and started busting out the songs we’ll enjoy together around the family room instead of in chairs in a church.
· Learning new skills. Superhero 1 wants to learn how to play jazz on his trumpet. Superhero 2 wants to read new genres and practice his Chinese. Superhero 3 wants to learn how to do wood working with his daddy. And Superhero 4 just wants to jump into everyone else’s hobbies and do it all.
· Seeking out creative ways we can serve others who have been medically, emotionally and financially so severely affected by this virus and these shutdowns from our place here at home, including making meals we can drop at the homes of the most at-risk and offering Skype and Facetime book-reading “babysitting” sessions for our friends whose livelihoods now depend on working from home with kiddos present. (Are you a working parent who will now be conducting business from home? I’ll be posting a blog later this week with lessons I learned from working from home for 13 years.)
We get this precious, priceless, once-in-a-lifetime gift of quality, solid time pouring into our kiddos, our family and our community, and I don’t want my eyes to be distracted when they could be focused on the little men who are leaving my house in five to 13 years.
Back in January, I pledged to be present.
So thankful God is giving our family a second chance to actually PRACTICE the thing He had already taught us was so important in the first place.
For ALL of us, may the cancellations of coronavirus not be our obstacle but our much-treasured opportunity in disguise in this season.
May it be a part of our story and our kids’ stories so that, when they look back on this period of their childhoods, they won’t remember the fret and the fear in these uncertain medical and economic times; they’ll simply remember the FAMILY who got to link arms facing it TOGETHER.