One of the most surprising aspects of sheltering in place is that I experience little surprises almost every day.
Some of them are delightful surprises – wood ducks swimming in my pond, how quickly my dog learns new tricks, my husband cleaning the kitchen after my cooking frenzy.
But others are less delightful. I’m surprised at how little I get done now that I have all this time at home. I’m surprised by how painful it is to miss greeting friends in-person. And I’m surprised that I often feel like crying when asked “How are you?”
If you, too, find yourself being surprised by your emotions during this unfamiliar time, I want to share a simple tool that may help.
Be gentle with yourself.
We know how to slow down when we are physically sick. We know how to rest when our bodies are tired. Well, we are all emotionally sick and tired to some degree.
We are experiencing a season of collective loss.
The loss of birthday parties, baby showers, and family get-togethers; of vacations, and graduation parties. The loss of freedom to leave our homes, to go wherever we want. The loss of being able to make plans for the immediate future because we don’t know how long this experience will last. We’ve lost out on getting to meet together at church. Even the basic human necessity of buying groceries has changed completely. I know some of us have lost jobs or even loved ones.
Loss of any kind causes grief. And grieving losses is hard work. It takes a toll on us. It’s unrealistic to think that we can just snap out of it.
But if we can learn to be gentle with ourselves, to shorten our to-do lists and let God be our shelter, our refuge, our strength, we will be better able to be gentle with ourselves.
If you have the energy to tackle huge projects at home, great! Do them. But it’s okay if you don’t. If you have the capacity to talk to friends on the phone, great! But it’s okay if you don’t.
We won’t always feel like this. We will get back to a type of normalcy sometime, but until we do, we can agree with King David when he says in Psalm 62:5-8.
Psalm 62:5-8
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God[c];
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
When we let the presence of God be where we shelter, we can learn to be gentle with ourselves and come out of this time with the ability to be more gentle with others as well.
And that will be a nice “surprise.”
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Jean Street is a spiritual director and Associate Pastor at the Vineyard Church of Davenport in Davenport, IA.
