Rubble, and Rebuilding

 

A really crazy thing happened at our house this week. I made a quick decision on something for the first time in my life. Kind of. 

We've been planning new floors upstairs for five years. We secured the finances to cover it a year ago. A month ago we started getting quotes, and wandering around Floor and Décor for hours. We brought home samples, and I moved them around to different rooms in our house to see them in every possible lighting. I walked on them, threw my decorative pillows on them, held them against the wall...This is how I roll. 

I figured we'd make the decision after Christmas.

Monday, we had our third quote from a guy who showed us approximately 12 (not 250) samples, gave us an excellent price, and said we could start tomorrow and be done by the end of the week. Sold.

Before I could second guess myself we were hauling everything from the upstairs into the downstairs. I had no idea what messy hoarders the four of us were until the contents of my kids' closet floor was strewn across my living room, and I had to step over piles of stuffed animals, Lego creations and every book in the Hank the Cow Dog series to get to the refrigerator. 

Tuesday I sent the boys to my parents. We haven't made a habit of them "watching the boys" since we've been extremely careful about what kind of germs we might bring into their home at this time, but with both of them doing online school, and the sounds of carpet being ripped up coming from upstairs, it was our only option. I spent the entire day in my back yard...a zoom meeting for church staff, painting baseboards (which were their own long story), and prepping a sermon. By the time I picked the boys up, I was so over it, and there was no way I was cooking and sleeping in that house. So we moved into the Country Inn down the road for a few days.

It's been such a huge blessing to be able to get this little respite. But we do feel a little displaced, especially during a pandemic, which makes dining out and running off some energy a little more complicated. Three of us on our computers doing school and work in one room is not ideal. My boys never stop talking at night.  And if one more person passes gas in this room I'm going to loose my mind. 

Yesterday, I needed to get to the office. And also I needed deodorant (I forgot) and food so during the kids lunch break I attempted a trip to Fry's. While standing in line to ask an allergy mom question about a deli item, I looked at Daniel and said, "When does your next class start?" "I think 12:20?" he said. "It is 12:20." Ugh. Pulling it up on my phone in the car didn't work, and we missed science entirely. Mrs. Perin, if you're reading this...sorry...it was mom's fault this time. But I really needed deodorant. 

After "work" Mo let me know that he had an assignment due the next day and needed the packet I'd printed out, so we went home to look for it. We went past the extension chords, power tools, and a saw table into the house. I was filled once again with an overwhelming sense of dread as I looked at the mess we'll soon need to put away. We had no idea where Moses' school supplies had ended up so we started sifting through bins of books and papers before finding it. I tried to remind myself that something beautiful was taking place upstairs and it would all be worth it. But enjoying that felt like decades away.

Back at the hotel, we ate out of carry-out containers, and Dan attended a board meeting on the unmade bed with his head phones on. We were like a little group of well-cared for refugees. But I knew soon we'd have to deal with the rubble and start putting our life back into place. 

It's weird because we've been reading about the people of God in exile, and the call to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. I can't even imagine what that must have been like. But, I'm beginning to understand the overall message that God keeps repeating for us in so many different areas. 

So many of us feel like 2020 has left us displaced-suspended for our "real" lives. And it's exhausting to even think about the mess that we will have left to rebuild from when this is all over. 

For some it's our jobs, and businesses. Some may never be able to revive what once was. Dreams feel shattered.  Even those jobs and businesses that survive have taken every ounce of physical and mental energy and resources, and still have not returned to normal.

 For some it's our health. The stress eating and boredom snacking during quarantine, the limited access to the gym, or sports teams, has been an obstacle. Or for those recovering from COVID, it's starting to feel like your body will never be the same. Energy wears out half way through the day, oxygen levels stay low, and you wonder if you'll ever be able to build your immune system back up.

 For those of us in ministry...where do I even start? The relationships and connections we'd spent years building...how much longer can they survive this...if they've even survived this far? The discipleship that had been happening easily before is now exhausting and seemingly impossible. It's suddenly not enough to show up and give the good news of the gospel...we've also got to understand how to stream a live video and lead a Bible study on Zoom! Specific to those of us in children's ministry, programs, activities, and traditions that had been in place before are hard to even imagine with fewer workers, fewer kids, so many health concerns to think through. I've had to make policies I would've never even dreamt of a year ago.  It feels like starting from ground 0. Sometimes I sit in my quiet office and can hear the boisterous, happy sounds of a van loaded with kids headed up to camp and it feels like a million years away. This does not even begin to describe the discouragement I've heard from the many pastors I'm in contact with around the country, and even the world. Youth pastors, children's pastors, senior pastors. Especially senior pastors. Our job is relational and community based in nature and this has been a year where that is especially challenging. I have 100% faith that God is using this time to get us ready for something new and wonderful. Just like He spoke to those Israelites in exile I mentioned, He has "plans to prosper and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and future." (Jeremiah 29:11). But, as the context of that verse shows, that doesn't mean it won't be a long, and hard road. If you are a part of a faith community, please pray for your pastors. Be kind and give them lots of grace. And, as a side note, while I'm at it, please do your part to protect your pastor's health. You wouldn't believe the amount of pastors who have been very sick with COVID recently. In my district alone, we lost one early on, and another is clinging to life on a respirator right now. And countless others have been hit in varying degrees of severity.

I literally used the word "rubble" recently in describing what life feels like right now. Maybe you've had some words like rubble, more or less G rated to describe your 2020. God is not new to helping people deal with rubble. In the midst of my discouragement, God turned my attention to this advent devotional in Let Earth Receive Her King, written by Scott Daniels. He writes, "Ironically, through the eyes of the prophet, the rubble of Jerusalem is not a cause for despair but a source of great joy. It is the wiping clean of the past, the opportunity, with God's help, for Jerusalem to begin anew. What the people saw as a disaster, God viewed as a new start."

So, in a few hours I'm going to go start slowly, and steadily untangling our upstairs belongings from our downstairs. I'm going to trash or donate things that we no longer need in our lives instead of dragging them back upstairs. I'm going to start working on our health, one brisk walk and one shot of turmeric ginger tonic at a time. I'm going to do the slow and hard work of rebuilding and maintaining important relationships, whatever that needs to look like in our current situation. I'm also going to start praying over 2021, and deciding which things from our previous life should stay, and which should be trashed or donated as well. This is all a one step at a time process. It is not quick or easy. But God is always with us, and He is always good.