Virtually everything has changed for us all.
Our new normal is a highly virtual one.
In this time of abrupt and extensive loss of the way it was, I think I have experienced every emotion known to man or woman.
Initially it was all about the positivity; what does this situation offer me the opportunity to do that wouldn’t be possible in ordinary non lockdown life. There was even relief to be off the crazy merry go round of life. Not just permission but an order to slow down and stop the usual frenetic pace.
At one point I even experienced a fleeting panic that I still wouldn’t get enough time for all the things I love doing!
But after all my initial ‘can do’ positivity, I crashed.
I’ve noticed this pattern with loss and grief. No one likes loss and no one likes grief. But when we attempt to jump straight to the post grief part where we feel more able to accept, adapt and appreciate new things, without actually engaging with said grief, we will always be tripped up and pulled back.
I am no exception.
Of course I wanted to jump straight to the positivity of ‘but what is possible?’ whilst simply by passing the loss aspect.
It didn’t happen!
By that first weekend, the pain of enforced solidarity was almost too much to bear. And I’m someone who enjoys solitude and actively seeks such times to recharge and reassess. But the difference is that usually it is a choice and one where I know I can have company if I want it.
This was different.
The only way I could explain what I felt that first weekend was to liken it to feeling physically hungry and to be asked if it would help to have a plate of hot food put two metres in front of me on the condition that I couldn’t touch it.
In the same vein it was not helping to look at or listen to friends. I had never experienced anything like the longing.
There was nothing for it but to pour out the entire contents of my heart to my God; the good, the bad and the really ugly of what I felt. Experience has taught me that God is not as religious or easily offended as the average Christian! He has always been able to take whatever I throw at Him without withdrawing His love. This time was no exception and I was subsequently able to sleep more peacefully that night.
The next morning He reminded me through His word that He is the bread of life. I realised afresh that no matter how much I long for the presence of other humans, His is a presence that satisfies my deepest hungers and appetites and no matter what I cannot have right now, He offers Himself in abundance for all who will seek Him.
As I took this word inside of me, I felt it nourish my deepest parts.
And after such a feed, I was ready to reengage with my work of feeding others.
How grateful I am that at a time when so much has been stripped away from us all, our God is still very much present, very much able and very much willing to feed us what we need right now. Not necessarily what we want, but certainly what we need, be it comfort, peace, strength, wisdom, patience, tolerance, hope and anything else that this situation does not offer.
What a God we have.
It is good to be reminded of Him to whom we all have free and unlimited access to as we approach this Easter. We have lost much right now including any kind of certainty and yet Jesus is still exactly the same God He was back then and his offer to be with us and help us remains unchanging.
May I and we never lose sight of this.