What is it taking from me now?
The heavy news of climbing cases and new restrictions hit hard.
The noon sun pours onto my feet. My feet scrape impatience on the dirt, I walk deeper into the woods behind our home, wanting to comb out tangled thoughts.
I leave a home of mess behind- puzzle pieces littered across the floor, fruit flies dizzied round browned potatoes. I think of the morning carcass of events- emails piled as high as dishes in the sink, rimmed with unfinished business. Children somersault into the wide open- tomorrow, no longer so.
The announcement of tightened COVID-19 restrictions lay heavy on my shoulders. The sapphire of a kingfisher catches my eye, it flies into the open, a wide open that is closing in fast inside my head. In two days (today), rules kick in. Far beyond in another world, the virus is taking away lives, real people and their stories intertwined with the living- and here I am angry-fisted, struggling raw with my own petty grief of freedom taken away.
Even on a normal day, we are lusting deep for time. More time to do, to work, to cook, to clean, to teach, to minister, to wash. In so much doing, where schedules are balanced on tightrope precariousness for the everyday show to go on without missing a beat – who can handle yet one more thing?
Sapphire flits away.
In the twilight of the evening, playground mums gather socially-distanced. Their children mingle, oblivious to the changes in two days time. My heart burns. How will tomorrow unfold? Social gatherings limited to two pax. We can manage that- but what about parents like us, who need to bring two littles out? I overhear conversations I should not listen to- and my heart surges electric green with envy. Their kids are in school and after-school enrichment classes, grandparents visit- they are safe in their bubble.
But families like ours, without domestic help and which rely on one parent to watch two littles while the other works, recuperates, totter on the edge of exhaustion. A part of me chides this melodrama- we have much to be grateful for.
A greater, darker fear looms behind- will last year play out again, will I return to frontline work, armoured in PPE?
My fingers search social media frantically, wishing, hoping someone might echo my worries but find none. I catch myself, sin-struck- why is my heart anxious?
I don’t trust God. The fear of losing time, my time, more time, to more child minding, child rearing because of an outside world closing in on us drives me into quiet panic. The fear of me plunging headlong back into the frontline battle, last year’s burnout still salty on my lips, grips me cold. I am a deer, caught in the headlights of confession, nowhere to run.
Hard truth hits- I want my routine untainted. I am an amateur working-and-homeschooling mum, racing against time from the moment first light creeps in. The clock whips me hard, unforgiving.
I claim to enjoy time with my littles, homeschooling them. But the moments, those sacred moments bursting with head-throwing peals of laughter like bells, have become profane- I desecrate them by my watch-tapping, by checking my phone, as if there is always an emergency only I can fix. Time ticks fast, and I push it back hard as emails and phone calls press in. Everyone is taking something away from me- my fists clench tight. What do you want from me now?
I bark hurriedness. Eyes shimmer sadness and tiny feet teeter, tumble out. Mama has to work.
I discover, to my horror, that it is not the virus that has taken away my freedom, my time. It is myself. I am fleeing my children to get to the Important bits of my day.
The announcement unravels me, what does it mean for my work and schedule if my husband cannot take them out, even for a walk? What does it mean for his respite, if I cannot do the same?
I dare not tell anyone I lose sleep. Guidelines change even before we have figured how to cope with the latest accouncements. Another mum tells me to relax, as if I am uptight, scrounged up into a ball by my own worry. I bristle because it is true.
My frantic fingers find rest before dawn the next day- glory! I see hope. The announcement has been amended. There is flexibility for families for young children for essential activities. My mind latches onto hope- things will be okay.
But there is more bad news. It is announced seven schools will close. Then hours later, all schools will close.
The trauma of last year rears a haunting head- lockdown with two toddlers while doctoring in the frontlines. The scars feel fresh, they gash deep and feel raw to touch, still. I touch them tenderly and fresh blood bleeds.
I breathe easy again. But the truth has been exposed. I am a convict, waiting for bail, still.
My bailers are here. The two stamp in, fling off pink sandals, declare their arrival. “Mama! We’re home!” My firstborn bounces in, waiting to burst a barrel full of stories, my younger teeters in behind, bawling hot tears, tired. Like every day before this day, my pulse hammers into my head- there is too much left undone and too little time.
But today I repent, I shut the screen and rise up, arms open like a wide field, waiting to swallow them up.
Time stops, untightens its noose for us. I thank God for two little bodies, bouncing with health. I thank God for my husband, his broad chest always ready for the snuggle of tear-stained faces. I thank God the restrictions are here to prevent a catastrophe, that the catastrophe is not already here, though sometimes I smell it close by, caving in, beckoning me to leave my current routine and safety to where I might be needed again.
The restrictions spell more time for the kids to be home. I accept the inevitable- less time for myself. My feet scrape brown leaves on the musty ground. A monitor lizard ambles past. Mother-tired I am. But when I slow down, crouch low, hug deep, time multiplies, magnifies, expands into Eden. My rest, once caught in minutes between a meeting and the kids barging in, is now a long period, stretched out into the hours of the day as I begin to hold the moments in my arms, savouring their sacredness.
I discover, that the virus, the new measures, or the kids have in fact not taken my time away. They have returned it.
Is this what we have been missing?
I scamper home. The trio are coming back for lunch soon. A home full of emails and pots on the stove and dishes and toys await. I hurry to grab fistfuls of time.
But this morning is different. I awaken, hands holding the arc of a bum so small its like a fruit. Another tiny hand holds mine. The clock slows down. This confession, this waiting for bail, opens my eyes to what I don’t need to miss- the gift of being present.
I look out the window. A world punctured with scarcity lies below, and up here in our sanctuary, we have everything. In Ann Voskamp’s words, “Thanksgiving makes time.”
It is Sunday. The day the rules kick in, the day the world is supposed to close in on us. But my world, like my arms, now open up, wider than its ever been.
We sit to read the Bible, write words, do a craft. But time is no longer ticking fast. The redemptive work of thanksgiving is working a miracle- it is giving back time to me, multiplying it, expanding it. It is returning to me everything I thought the restrictions would take away from me- time with family, giggles, freedom.
I am overwhelmed with revelation. The restrictions open up my world to unrestrained, unbounded mercy. I am a little girl with my little girls, exulting in the freedom of this space of thanksgiving.
I see time with fresh eyes. This homeschooling, childminding is not subtracting from me- it is giving back, nourishing me. This invitation to be back at war is not a curse. These are the gifts of love that keeps giving. This virus and its restrictions is not demanding of me, withholding from me- it is lavishing, blessing, restoring me.
We read about an idea to make prayer cards for one another and toss them in a basket. But my eyes light up when I see yours do- how about we make a basket and the cards too?
In and out, up and down the lattices go- our lives interweaving with one another to make one thing that holds, and provides and gives to others. A basket is complete. You choose colors of cards for each of us and I ask what prayers you want for us, for me.
“Good health for Papa.
Good sleep for Meimei (little sister).
A pink bike for me.
And Mama, what do you want?”
What do I want?
I am stunned. I don’t know what I want.
I stutter a pious answer. A heart of joy, I guess?
But your answers takes my breath away.
“Mama, I pray for you to be a good planter. Here, draw a plant. And soil.”
Later, when I am left alone, I listen to a sermon and Communion. The pastor speaks of a vision of daffodils, of the importance of us doing the work of planting, mentoring, sowing on earth that has heavenly ramifications for eternity.
My eyes water. How did my firstborn know I needed this?
I stagger under the weight of her gift to me. I receive fully, the full weight of God’s glory in the words of a little child- the prophecy of being a planter, a sower, a creator, growing up lives for heavenly purposes.
In our lives of torrential hurry, have we forgotten the gift of family? Are we smug that our lives carry on untouched by the new restrictions, that our rhythm still whips clockwork, or are we brought to our knees, staggering under the revelation of priorities gone awry? Today, how will you respond to the new measures- will you, like me, fight them with panic and anxiety, or yield to His trusting hand of grace and kind mercie?
“You be a good planter, Mama. I pray that for you.”
I sit humbled, my arms spread wide as fields.
My world opens, an endless expanse of freedom.
