It's Time to Write

Today would have been a full one. Co-op from 8:30 to 3:30, then a mad dash to swim team, and finally home to shower and eat at 6:30. Instead, we slept in. Co-op happened on YouTube and Zoom. I took phone calls and finished menial tasks. We got bad news that everything co-op related is done for the rest of the year. If I was prone to cry, I would have cried.

Around 5, the sun broke through, and we ventured out for a walk. Against all common sense, I let the kids play on the deserted neighborhood playground. Then a few more kids showed up, and again I suspended common sense and let mine stay. We walked further up the street, stopping to talk with neighbors drinking green beer in their driveway. We kept a few feet between us, but certainly not six. I figured out who has toilet paper stockpiled, so I feel much better about that. The kids played with dogs. The adults exhaled. It felt like normal life.

And then, after dinner, Caleb found me at my desk.

“How long is it going to be this way, mom?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Probably a few weeks. Maybe more, but I hope not. Are you sad?”

He nodded.

He misses his friends. He misses swim team. He misses church. He misses Awana. He misses playdates. He misses his life.

“You’ll be a lot more grateful for it when this is over, huh?”

“Yes. A lot.”

I guess that’s an upside. We’ll all be grateful. Ironically, at a time when God was giving me visions of a life of freedom, of community, of relationships…I find myself on total lockdown. The things my husband has denied me…the things I’ve fought for for years now…gone entirely. And now that he’s working from home, the one thing I so desperately want to avoid – time with him – is never-ending. Reserve weekends are cancelled for the next two months. He will be here. All. The. Time. Making us anxious in one way or another.

I have some big questions for God. It’s hard for me to understand why He allowed hope to rise up in my spirit, only to hand me a setback like this. He heard me beg for respite…for time to heal…and instead he handed me more forced time with the bully. It is hard to wrap my mind around. Periodically, I want to throw myself on the floor and have a good old-fashioned tantrum.

I’ve leaned in and asked why. I’ve been directed back to Song of Songs: winter is past. I’ve felt His nudging to accept this Sabbath…to use the extra time to lean into school and projects and rest. Just now, I felt Him say the next season will be busy…so I need to let Him pour into my soul now.

And also, I felt Him say, “It’s time to write.”

Many times in the past year, I’ve stumbled across 1 Chronicles 16:24: “Publish His glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.” Well, if I knew how to publish much of anything, I would.

But I don’t. And I’ve told Him that. I’ve also suffered from a crippling case of writer’s block. All the ideas swirling in my head literally shut my brain down. I was lucky to get a few phrases into my notebook. Impossible situations…depression…anxiety…they make it hard to do much of anything except manage them.

And now I have a whole big chunk of time without wake-up calls and taxi runs. (And toilet paper, apparently.) And as I sank into a hot bath the other night, a voice in my head told me it was time.

I still don’t know how to publish anything. But it’s time to write.

That’s all I know. My heart is breaking. I want freedom more than ever before. And it’s time to write.