WOMEN'S MINISTRIES BLOG

As we flipped the calendar into 2020, the church was thriving with new faces each week and great worship services drawing all of us closer to the Lord.

Growing up on the other side of the country, the summer was full of green hills, fireflies and intense thunderstorms. As a child living in a house with no air conditioning, it was hard to know when September rolled around if it was time to celebrate relief from the heat or time to mourn the loss of those glorious summer pool days.

I read my friend’s text, “I have alternated between teary and hopeful all day. It’s just more recalibrating.” Recalibrating. Yes. Constantly trying to re-standardize, to get back to true, to recognize the pendulum has swung again and nudge it back toward a balanced center without sailing off to another extreme, to grope for the rug pulled out from underfoot. Recalibrating. Or, recalculating. I can still hear another friend’s GPS unit…

How is August already here? It seems like I’ve been waiting for summer to start and my calendar tells me it’s almost over.

In my early twenties, the world was my oyster, the sky was the limit and I had what seemed like endless amounts of energy. I didn’t think twice about pulling an all-nighter before finals. Fast forward to my late twenties, and I was still pulling all-nighters . . . only this time, with a newborn. In my thirties, reality began to hit. My body didn’t bounce back the same way…

“What the heck is a lament?? Why would I ever want to do that? It’s too sad-sounding. I’m doing okay. I’d rather spend the time watching the next episode of my show.” Okay. Do that. Numb yourself. I’ve done it before, too. You feel better for the moment but in the long run, the pain remains. If our family has known anything these past seven-plus years, it’s trauma. I could…

My husband Jim is 6’5” tall. That’s tall. And it can be really convenient for those around him—he can reach the top shelf without a stepstool and he’s easy to spot at the swap meet, even if he’s at the opposite end of a row.

Coronavirus and the quarantine have been a season of halves for me. In the initial phase of the crisis, I was constantly interrupted midway between one task and another—making half of my bed before rushing off to answer half of an email, washing half of the dishes before being interrupted to assist with half of a math lesson, reading half of a news article before resuming the endless scrolling looking for information and answers.

To be completely honest, the first few weeks of lockdown were bliss. As a flaming introvert, all my dreams of staying home and having all social obligations cancelled were coming true! But by week six or seven, I hit “lockdown fatigue.”

One of my kids won this hippo at a pizza shop. It was gifted to me because hippos are the bomb! I think we have four of these little beauties: a cow, an owl, a frog and my hippo.