Our Covid Graces: Transition Blessings in a Time of Crisis
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Birthday parties and social gatherings like everyone else…from a distance!
It has has taken a spiritual discipline of sorts to intentionally see the incredibly kind answers to many unspoken prayers this unique season has provided both me and our family. Simultaneously, I could easily create a list of the ways it was disruptive and disappointing. However, for today, the graces that we never saw coming back when we made the decision many months ago to embark on a global move have continually caused us to offer up gratitude for the hidden gifts we have experienced. Here are just a few ways we experienced this season as a blessing over the last several months (in no particular order).
community cooking class!
1. Homeschool. While this hasn’t always felt like a blessing, there were definitely many times where I was grateful to be teaching my children. In November when we decided to move by the end of the school year, we wondered how far behind we would be in the new school, new system, new country. We discussed taking our kids out of their bi-lingual education systems to focus on English and some of the gaps that they would likely have. If you’ve only ever taken math in Spanish, for example there will be a steep learning curve. Fast-forward to new school year start 2020, and well, every child has gaps. The education we all received in the spring of 2020 was a bit of a wash. So today, there are holes, there are gaps and we as parents are all wondering if we’re doing the right thing. Admittedly school at home creates a ton of stress and the grace and patience we must pray for and extend to each other is increasingly evident. We’ve come to see school at home and together as a bonus in quality time in our transition. We’re not the only ones playing catch-up or uncertain of how to do this crazy school thing. And meanwhile we’re getting LOTS and LOTS of recess time and lunchroom lady experience. Being my children’s first educators in a time when they likely need our attention most, will be a highlight of this season when it’s all said and done.
2. Big goodbye parties. When we left Spain in June, connecting with people in person was strictly limited to parties of 15. For me, personally this was a huge gift. Not only could I not emotionally handle large 100-person parties; but mixing the unique elements of the many different sectors of my ex-pat and Spanish life was stimulation overload for me in a time of transition. Gratefully we had the excuse that bottom-line, this was not legal. No excuses needed! And the bonus for me was that in the end our lovely friends created a video to include people from all the different spectrums of our Spain-life to be represented. This video unto itself is a treasure for life. We would not have had this great gift without this pandemic and social distancing mandates.
3. Spreading ourselves thin relationally. While we are highly relational people, every time I’ve been in a season of transition my short-term and long-term memory significantly lack capacity for new people. I cringe at the idea of meeting anyone for the first time while I’m organizing, packing and moving. I’m aware my capacity to remember new information and people is greatly diminished with the increase of movement and new surroundings. I want to wear a t-shirt that says, “Please extend me grace when I forget your life story!” (I decided it was kindof a lame t-shirt).
Enjoying every aspect of our home
Years after this personal realization, after moving several times, I read an article that Barak and Michelle Obama said the same when they transitioned into the white house in 2008. They told people they needed 6 months to not meet new “friends”. This mentality, similar to mine was not implemented for the sake of being unfriendly but rather to extend mental energy in the necessary ways possible. Margin greatly lacks in times of transition. Permission from Covid and lack of ability to meet new people (and validation thanks to the Obamas) allowed me extra breathing room and mental space that is typically non-existent. Covid, once again a justifiable excuse that I didn’t need to take the blame for.
4. Saying goodbye to our little dwelling place. After 8 years living in just one single home, we knew our goodbye to this place of home would be hard. We had all come to love our little casita individually for different reasons. A solid 8-9 weeks in one place without the ability to go nearly anywhere (0 options for our children and only essential grocery store or hospital for us) allowed great readiness to leave our 8 years of dwelling space. By the time we were leaving at the end of May, we had fully utilized every square inch of our home. We played hide-n-seek in places we had never thought to hide (or look). We had several picnics in our back yard. We set up a bowling lane for daily recess on our slanted driveway. We had “semi-dates” and taught our children how to be waiters on our rooftop terrace and backyard. We creatively made the guest space our sorting & work space. (No guests was another hidden blessing). We had 84 days to fully embrace this quaint little space and say our thank you and goodbye to the gift of a home, just ONE home, that we had been given during our 8 years in Spain. We all miraculously, thanks to this global pandemic, felt fully ready to release this earthly dwelling and anxiously felt excited to start over somewhere new.
so excited to finally be aloud outside to exercise!
5. The re-distribution of time. Where the organizing of our schedules created space we filled it with the organizing of our belongings. While we couldn’t see anyone and didn’t want to live out of boxes for longer than necessary, we had a unique opportunity to go through EVERYTHING. And I mean every.single.thing. With kids at home for homeschool and a million details of moving continually changing, it wasn’t that we had extra time on our hands. But somehow we found that having a social life limited to zoom calls alone, afforded us the ability to organize ourselves in a way that we would not have had and quite honestly never have had in any move prior to this. By the time we were able to sell things, put a 1/2 a van load of boxes in a shipping container we were fairly confident of what we wanted and didn’t want. Organizing and making decisions always requires a significant amount of brain power. We were grateful for the re-distribution of time to be able to tend to this typically extraordinarily stressful element of transition in a gracious way.
6. People bought our treasures! How covid affected this I’m not exactly certain. Maybe it was the desire to see people, that everyone had by the time they made it to our house. (We were the firsts for many). Or maybe it was the lack of spending money that people had fasted for months. Or maybe it was simply an extension of love or feeling bad for us! Irregardless, I was blown away by how generous people were in buying our stuff. Seldom bartering. And seldom flakiness! This was a grace I can not explain after difficult times of selling and giving away in the past. By the time Spain opened up for people to be able to see one another, we had around 85% of our unwanted things spoken for. A true miracle and unexplainable gift to us in this season.
7. The grace of a soft landing on the other side. Although our departure was so eerily strange and in so many ways it still feels like we are in a time warp, landing stateside during covid provided us a slow, very slow, rather, re-entry. In the distant past, global workers would return to their homeland after years of service via a boat and take several weeks to get to shore. This time provided a space to gather thoughts of leaving and arriving. In some ways our self-quarantine of 2 weeks allowed us a similar space: The gift of seeing no one but our immediate family and cousins. And after quarantine an equally unrushed drive across the US allowed for choice interactions and limited socializing. Our lack of seeing individuals rather because of covid or transition tiredness never required an explanation. It seemed the entire world was tired and needed margin. People understood. The typical busyness was no longer a factor in meeting or not meeting with people. In a highly relational line of work like ours, we were grateful once again for the gift of limited people in a time of incredible tiredness.
8. We gather/ed outdoors! There isn’t much explanation needed for this except praise - thank you Father! If I had to choose my preference for how and where to meet people EVER, it would definitely be outdoors being active…hands down. Covid gave us that gift and excuse with everyone we saw and everywhere we went. I accepted this gift and the treasure of memories that were included. My body exhaled. My children rejoiced. This near-mandate was a hidden blessing in so many unexplainable ways.
9. Friends that got stuck stateside. We all experienced many disruptions and inconvenient change of plans during these last several months. (And might I add, getting stuck for me is a place I have a visceral response to.) However, in this scenario of lockdown, covid created an immeasurable blessing. Some of our closest friends from Spain who were taking a sabbatical stateside for 6 months had to extend their stay for several months due to the mandated restrictions. What this meant for us was great friends being bridge people for us in a new location. I could not have planned that! I had a friend on the other side! The hardest part of transition for me has always been loneliness and not knowing anyone in a new location. And while we still don’t. We currently have been given an extension of time in finding this replacement. While I know it was disruptive to them, it was (and has been) a great welcome basket gift in the form of incarnation to us! WOW!
10. Incredible over-the-top temporary living situations. Covid created unique scenarios of college students returning home and immune-compromised individuals not going out. This found us seeking new temporary housing upon landing. But like the gift of an amazing space when we left, our father once again provided. While not knowing where we would be living would definitely go on my stress/disruption list, we had to trust in faith. That’s all we had. The shut doors created by this pandemic created wonderful openings of ways we never thought to ask for…amazing people to live in community with, a pool at one house, cousins!!! memorable spacious basements, an arcade, a hot tub, a small gym, a puppy, and our own living space bigger than our previous home where we could land, unwind and breathe. We have been in 10 different beds over the course of these several months. None of them ours! Yet all of them welcoming and inviting.
Transition is hard. Re-entry arguably the hardest. But these hidden gems of tremendous proportion have continually blown our minds & challenged our faith. I know He’s got this, but truly I’m reminded, “Why wouldn’t we think that our good Father would want to provide for us in this kind of amazing way.” While we weren’t expecting most of these blessings, and this list is far from exhaustive, He knew what we needed and provided in many indescribable and amazing ways. A treasure of gifts to our body, minds and souls in this season of transition. We are so incredibly thankful!!!
My prayer: May I continually have eyes to see the hidden blessings that are right in front of me. And despite challenges and set-backs and uncertainties, may I change my mind to be gratitude and extend that gratitude to praise in all circumstances.
How has Covid provided hidden blessings for you?
List off as many areas of hidden blessing as you can. Things that came about in the last months that may not have come about otherwise.
Who can you share those gifts with?
We will dearly miss this spanish language exchange group of friends
