As we continue to move forward following the recent ‘Freedom Day’, I cannot help but look back to where this all started.
I still recall the shock surrounding that first three week lockdown. I simply could not comprehend surviving an entire three week period with no human contact. I kept longing for the Government to announce that they had made a mistake and would therefore lift these restrictions. But they didn’t. And as we now know almost a year and a half later, that was just the beginning.
Yet as I look back I realise that the longing to go back to the way it had been gradually ebbed away. What developed in its place was a renewed appreciation for a stripped back, slower, simpler lifestyle. (I realise this wasn’t the case for everyone.)
Of course, there were challenges, huge loss and numerous ups and downs.
But I no longer wanted things to revert to the way they were. Yes I wanted to see those I love but no, I didn’t want to run back to all I had known before the intrusion of Covid.
And so in recent weeks, as the invitations to return to pre-covid living have arrived, I have found myself stalling for time.
Back when Covid first appeared, we did not have the luxury of a leisurely adjustment to lockdown. It was instant and somehow we managed no matter how steep the learning curve.
But the easing of restrictions is necessarily more gradual with more scope for individual choice and pace.
It is still another change though and having adjusted to a simpler life, I am reluctant to give this up.
This Covid pause as it is often referred to, has allowed the time and space to re-evaluate every aspect of life. I’ve seen it again and again, how this slower pace has not only allowed us to realise more clearly that which is not working, but also the time and agency to activate change. People are leaving unhealthy relationships, jobs and various other situations that are either unhealthy or just blocking growth. Life is too fragile and fleeting not to.
Whilst Covid was forced upon us, many of these subsequent changes are those we have chosen and for the better.
Both collectively and individually, we have been and continue to find a new way forward.
Whilst we will not forget the losses, particularly of life, there is still time to envision a new way of living.
We are no longer bound to the way it was but free to imagine the way it could be.
We do not have to passively fall back in to our previous lives. We have the choice to implement the changes we long for.
I keep hearing how so many people have been using this time to do up their homes and gardens that many resources are now in short supply.
Perhaps if we have also been sorting through our internal cupboards, not only will we find the pain of the past, not previously faced but also the treasure of dreams long since forgotten and overdue for resurrection.
I know that as I seek out new challenges as well as old dreams in my own life, I am grateful for the unchanging God who holds me firm whilst I take tentative steps on new pathways.
And I feel pretty convinced right now, that no matter how different it looks in each of our lives, that God Himself is calling us all in to a new way …