Looking Forward to the New Normal

It's been over 6 months now of living life under a global pandemic. COVID-19 has been a hard reality that's re-shaped each of our lives in some unique way. As our economy is now starting to reopen, there is constant talk about the new normal.

These past several months have been a time of both pain and joy for our family. We, like many of you, had our plans dumped out like a bin of Lego. But when God allows our plans not to work out, I have come to know that He has a much better plan if we are willing to stop and listen. 

Stop

This time has forced us all to do just that, Stop. For the first time maybe ever, the distractions and busy of our lives were brought to a halt; no travelling, no seeing other people in person, no restaurants or shopping, no church as usual and the list goes on. Almost everything stopped. With that came both calm and chaos if your home is anything like ours. After the initial shock of losing a much-needed vacation, my husband had to take a hard pivot and work twice as hard to help our company navigate the economic fallout. This duality of calm and chaos pushed our family into a new rhythm. 

Driving was no longer an option, as was everything else aside from food buying and work. Soon we discovered ourselves calm, listening again to God intently and to one another. I believe that two of the greatest gifts we can give one another is our time and our listening ear.

Listen

As we stopped, we asked God like Samuel did, "speak Lord, for your servant is listening." 1 Samuel 3:10.

When we started to listen to God, He spoke words of love and encouragement over us as well as a new vision. Then we also started listening to our kids again, where we found out that they didn't care for all the extra activities we had them in, that they liked spending time at home as a family better. We realized we didn't need as much as we had been consuming, things like extra math classes, dance classes, eating out, Starbucks, clothing and more. It became a sort of reset button for us.

As we listened, though, we also found some unhealthy habits starting. Things like too much screen time had become a new normal in COVID, and that was not doing any of us well. We have an almost teen and a preteen in the house, and the self-control to not be on Youtube but do school work was a massive struggle for one of our kids in particular. Video games became the only social outlet for one, and that also was unhealthy, but that is a post for another day. We ended up installing the Disney circle to control screentime and monitor activity, but also we worked toward school happening until 1 pm and then playtime outside. I worked on taking them for hikes and bike rides, walks and runs and outside distanced play dates until sports started back up again, and we entered that phase of bubbles allowing for our kids to play with a few other kids again.

We were reminded that we are built for community, for people. We are not made for isolation, and so we took steps to begin safe social interactions. As we listened to God, one another and our kids, we took steps safely in consideration of our mental health as well as our physical health.

As we go toward a new normal, I want to encourage you to be present with God and family and take time to stop and listen to them both. Then, as we put the Lego pieces back, may we pray and ask which pieces should go back in, which new pieces should be added and which pieces we no longer need moving forward. For us, extra math and dance classes and daily Starbucks are pieces that will be left out of our lives. The odd coffee out with a friend will remain.

Let's all go forward changed for the better, stopping, listening to God and our family as we decide what pieces we want to keep and release going forward.