As you can see, my guest writers have disappeared and are apparently not yet bored enough to be regular contributors to my blog! So here we are…I think 37 days into quarantine and social-distancing.
An article was circulating social media and though I kept seeing it pop up on my friends’ pages, I never took the time to read it. Yet, after another Saturday of HGTV repeats, I finally caved and read it. You can read it here. A lot of it makes sense to me, but some of the things that stood out to me really hit me hard….
We’re going on week six, I believe, of doing church online. We took communion from home a few weeks ago, celebrated Easter Sunday from home, and have gone through an entire series, all while being apart. Not in the church building. And it got me thinking. What if this is the point. What if we were meant to have this period of quarantining to slow us down, and more importantly, remind us that the point of church isn’t the actual church building. What if it’s to remind us that the responsibility of being spiritual leaders is on us, as parents. Joshua 24:15 kept replaying in my mind. It’s a reminder to me that what’s really important is what’s happening within the walls of my home, and it’s MY job to make sure my kids are learning and growing in their faith, even without youth group and Sunday morning services AT the church.
The kids are now completely remote when it comes to school. They won’t return to their school at all this school year. And we’ve all seen the memes about what it’s been like to “homeschool” our kids this year, the truth is, it’s no joke! It’s tough! Our kids love their teachers. And we, as parents, love the kids’ teachers too! What an eye-opening way to make us realize just how much we depend on teachers to guide our kids. And what a perfect time for us to reinstitute the role of actual parenting when it comes to our kids’ education. We have this rare opportunity to reset the way we “teach” our kids, and to teach our kids some accountability about staying on task and being independent in their learning.
As parents, as people, we’ve become lazy. We’ve counted on other people to “handle” things that matter most- our faith, and our kids. Like I said, we have this awesome and unique opportunity to reset. We GET to spend a ton of time with our kids. We GET to spend EVERY SINGLE MOMENT with our spouse. We GET to call our friends on the phone instead of just texting. We GET to say hello to neighbors (from across the street, of course) during a daily walk. And we GET to slow down. Let us truly not miss the joy that can come from this time in quarantine.
(Second) Lucky Chance 