Up until about a week ago, I used this sand timer all day long to keep me on task. My plate was so full I had to do this to stay on task. It was working for the most part. it would tell me with a glance to keep going if the sand was still falling. It gave me permission to take a break when I saw it was empty.
Until Corona.
Corona, something I only ever associated with a lime. Today, it is a word you cannot escape unless you are totally isolated from the world. The words virus and quarantine have become our new normal and it’s hard, really hard to trust right now that it’s all going to be okay.
We just want to go back to normal.
Will we though? Go back to normal? I don’t think we can ever go back to being the same. Things like a virus shutting down life as we know it and watching the familiar constantly spiral out of our control will leave us forever changed. Speaking of control, there it is. The word that is causing more angst than the virus itself.
Control.
I don’t like not being in control and neither do you. The daunting unknown and the realization that we have absolutely no say about any of this is the chief cause of a lot of poor behavior amongst us. (You know who you are all you toilet paper hoarders!) Guess what? You didn’t have control a month ago either. Nothing has changed, except that we are being forced to accept the facts.
Life is out of our control.
This thought came to me as I was doing my devotions. When I pray, I follow an outline from a prayer guide by Matthew Kelly from his book Perfectly Yourself. A book I highly recommend, you can find it here.
He challenges you to ask yourself four questions every day.
Who am I?
What am I here for?
What matters most?
What matters least?
It occurred to me that I am putting a lot more thought into these questions in the wake of the pandemic. Sometimes avoiding them, because they are just too big to think about in these unknown times. Today, I wrestled with them again and came to the conclusion that I can control something. My thoughts and actions. My answers should not change when life does.
The short version of my answers are;
A daughter of the King
Kingdom work
Whatever He asks me to do
The material things of this earth that distract me from doing what He asks
When I need re-grounding, when the anxiety amps up and threatens to overtake, I go back to these questions and the answers. God hasn’t changed and neither have I. I find comfort in that. I hope you do too.
These are trying times we are in so I want to remind you of this verse. Put it where you can see it all day long, I find this helpful when the gauntlet of emotions that seem to run a marathon in my head everyday lace up their Nikes.
This is something you can trust in 100%.
I still need my sand timer even though I have more than enough time now to get things done. Virus or not, I am still the queen of the squirrel brain.
Take care of you,
Sherry