When It's Over

The Age of COVID-19 and "stay at home" restrictions have effectively changed our lives in profound ways. Let’s address the elephant in the room: our schedules drive our lives and very easily become an idol, and one big swipe cleared the board we were all playing on. No more practices. No more rehearsals. No more classes. No more parties. Our schedules look a lot like an arid plain, and at times it feels like we’re just watching the tumbleweed roll on by us. 

On paper, slowing down seems so very easy to do, but when it comes time to actually make it happen, it seems a nearly insurmountable challenge because our schedules are stretched so thin. Again, COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the shape of life for us at this moment in time. But these days, I’m trying to think of life beyond this moment, because, let’s be honest here... I got the time. 

How is our present situation impacting families? Well, as a result of all the closures, cancellations, and generally staying home, families are having to spend significant amounts of time together. Under one roof. I’ve heard from more than a few people who are finding joy in our newly freed up schedules and the time it affords them to spend with their family. Where previously it seemed like sheer luck that we could spend serious time together or sit down for just one meal together during a given week, well, we have an abundance of supply of that stuff nowadays. While I wouldn’t have personally classified our weeks as hectic, we still had enough after-school activities, practices, and events populating the Meloy family schedule each week to make certain days feel hectic. 

But this dramatic altering of life isn’t relegated to just families; the cancellation of nearly everything is having an equally profound impact on the lives of singles as well. For singles, life can be difficult right now due to a lack of socialization. Even an introvert like myself can understand the need to feel a hug from a friend or family member, to simply feel the presence of another sentient being in the room with you. But singles aren’t immune to the stress of life caused by a busy schedule either. They, too, feel at times as though they've over-committed themselves and are now enjoying the slower pace of life as well. 

Here in Ohio, we're well over a month into the governor’s stay at home order and the normalcy of it seems to have set in for most. It's quite a shift and naturally, this leads people to think differently about their lives, and rightfully so. We should be thinking about life differently; this isn't normal, and normal isn’t going to look the same once we emerge from this pandemic. 

And let’s be honest here: so many of us find ourselves stretched thin and over-committed because we want to please everyone and it’s hard to say no to things. And if we’re really being honest with ourselves, we just suffer from FOMO. The dirty little secret here is this pandemic has given us an understanding that we have some changes to make. It’s given us the ability to reset the board moving forward. It’s allowed us to push back from the idol of our schedule.

How many of us who are enjoying our newfound freedom from the hectic pace of our pre-COVID-19 lives will make a serious attempt to protect our schedules and slow our lives down once this is all over? The upside here is Ohio seems to be taking a gradual approach to emerge from this pandemic. This, in turn, lends us all some time to be thinking about how we want to live in the days that follow. It’s no secret that Americans are stressed and our schedules play an outsized role in creating that stress.

So let us ponder this question together: Will this profound shift in our lives change anything once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides and we begin to return to whatever “normal” will then be?

Obviously, I can’t answer that question for you, that ball is solely in your court. Pull up your calendar or grab your schedule book and flip back through 2019 and take stock of how you –and if it applies, your family– filled the months, weeks, days, and hours. Despite how awful this pandemic has been, there are lessons to be learned and joys to be cultivated that should shape us in profound ways. If we’re not looking for those things, then we’ve missed a tremendous opportunity. In Ecclesiastes 11, the author implores us not to be surprised by dark times, but also to remember them as well. The big takeaway there is for us to consider how we live our lives and what our joy is rooted in. For us, this helps us answer the question at hand and determine if this season helped us better evaluate how we live and what idols we've tried to attach our joy to. 

Prayerfully consider what life will look like once this pandemic ends and where the Spirit is leading you as life begins to retake some sort of “normal” shape.