As I write the blog today, Mom is out preparing her garden for planting when it is dry enough and our lawns are being mowed by the best husband-wife team in the area. Myles, the cat, is sitting on my lap - a new thing since Covid-19 has changed our daily routine - but a welcome change because it means we get to spend more quality time together. My mind may be elsewhere but I've become a master of one-handed typing, which Myles appreciates.
This past Sunday we came home from drive through communion to a freshly tilled garden. Mom was so thrilled because she was sure she was not going to make the May 9 deadline that she has adhered to for at least 5 decades to get her garden in. Then it rained - hard - for a day. She couldn't even bring herself to do any baking. But when we saw dry hills in the garden late Tuesday afternoon, she got all her seeds ready for today, Wednesday.
If you read the previous two paragraphs carefully, you will have noticed some pre-Covid and post-Covid juxtaposition: our previous normal mixed with our current normal. I hesitate to call it the new normal because drive through communion is not how I want to permanently go forward in my church life. This will change.
Other things are changing on a daily / weekly / monthly basis. Businesses, once closed, are re-opening. Some with more restrictions than others, all meant to keep us happy and safe. Other businesses have followed in my footsteps by going strictly online. As you know, even that isn't the new normal for me, simply the current normal. I look forward to the day when the social distancing rules are relaxed enough to have more than one person at a time able to shop in the RV. Right now, there isn't anywhere in the RV that one person isn't within 2m of someone else and there's still the issue of everybody wanting to squish the yarn, whether or not they end up purchasing it. Have you ever tried to disinfect yarn without destroying it? So my normal-ish remains strictly online.
One part of my life that has changed and may become the new normal is connecting with people through platforms like Zoom. Even though I think it is a temporary thing for the Knit Night crew that lives in the area, now that it is an option, I think our outlying community (from Edmonton and Nfld up to this point) may continue to join us Thursday nights just because they can.
So for those of you who are mourning the loss of their old normal, don't despair. Some of the new normal will be an improvement over the old. I found this story the other day that helps sum up my outlook to all this change.
Me: Hey God.
God: Hello.....
Me: I'm falling apart. Can you put me back together?
God: I would rather not.
Me: Why?
God: Because you aren't a puzzle.
Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?
God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason. Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.
Me: You don't understand! I'm breaking down!
God: No - you don't understand. You are breaking through. What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place. Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go.
Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?
God: Only the very best pieces of you.
Me: I'm scared of changing.
God: I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING!
Me: Becoming who?
God: Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! ... Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it.
Me: There goes another piece.
God: Yep. Let it be.
Me: So ... I'm not broken?
God: Of course Not! - but you are breaking like the dawn. It's a new day. Become!!!
~Author John Roedel
p.s. I finished my One Seam Sweater. I love it but I will be making another. This time a medium.
written by Lori, content owner of TCL, who is more than happy to 'become' through all this normal-ish
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