An Abundance of Time
Throughout the whole Coronavirus Pandemic, obviously many things have changed in our lives. Just like for everyone else, some of those changes are obviously worrisome for me as this new way of life became the new normal for the time being. It became increasingly obvious that these next few months would look drastically different from the same months in previous year. For a self-proclaimed “busy-body,” the fact that the overwhelming flood of activities that typically comes this time of year were in jeopardy left me wondering, “What in the world am I going to do without all of this “stuff” that typically fills my time.”
As the reality set in that my schedule had opened tremendously, it hit me like a ton of bricks. God is providing the perfect opportunity to slow down and do things that I rarely get to do, an abundance of time! Play baseball in the yard with D, stain the deck with Alicia, go for a family drive on a nice spring evening. During normal circumstances I often find myself saying, “It’s already (insert month here), where in the world has time gone.” Since Alicia and I have been out of college it seems like the days pass faster and faster as we move through time. At the end of a typical day I will sit down and feel like it was a few short hours ago since my feet hit the floor. “Busy-ness” runs rampant in our normal everyday lives.
For a teacher, the closure of school on March 13th may have brought uncertainty and some worry, but after a short time it also brought a realization that this time would be much more valuable to my family than I originally realized. I’ll admit, at first, I looked for ways to fill my time and be busy again. But once I realized that God had provided the perfect opportunity to do all the things that I talk about not having the time to do under normal circumstances, my perspective of the whole situation changed.
Knowing that God has all of this situation under control helps me to see the good in it. Our neighborhood is busy with families walking and playing in their yards, people are doing everything they can to help others, and I have all the time in the world to spend with Alicia and D. There is so much we could sit and worry about during these uncertain times, but I choose to focus on the many things I have seen throughout the past few weeks that give me hope. A comforting verse that I heard discussed while listening to a podcast the other day is Ecclesiastes 1:9. “That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.” A word that has been thrown around like crazy in recent weeks throughout this pandemic is “unprecedented,” meaning have never been through anything like this before. While that may be the case for those of us who are walking the earth today, I am sure glad that I serve a God who isn’t caught off guard by anything! He is in control, He holds our future and He is always right on time!