COVID was the best thing to happen to me

Though that's decidedly not what I thought when the positive line nearly popped off the test, it was so eager to prove its point. 

The night I got sick - rather first felt the physical symptoms - I was out at a country B&B, treating myself, in a rather black-and-white kind of way, to a 'me' getaway toward the end of a two week vacation. The only way to rest was to get away! to a B&B! by myself! and drink wine while reading magazines! and etc.! It was cute and mildly Instagrammable until I fevered through the night in that charming French-ish B&B, barely made it through breakfast, and drove straight home - save for a stop at a Walgreens where the aforementioned COVID test enthusiastically delivered the news and I broke down in self-pity while staring at in in my van in a parking lot. I needed to know before I went home to Allan & kids. 

Even on the first two days of self-isolating, my reactions remained as trope-ish as I've allowed the rest of my mental narrative to become. I whined about it in cute social media posts, solicited empathetic one-liners, binged on scrolling and Youtube, and generally felt imposed upon. Unfair! Now! While I'm 'resting'!

Turns out I know even less of true rest now. 

As the standard-issue preprogrammed responses wear out, as my interest in hearts & likes subsides, as the number of Garderners' World and Fixer Upper episodes I'm willing to consume decreases... the real rest comes calling. C.S. Lewis was of course right, and God uses pain (and sickness) as a megaphone, in only the best-for-us ways. 

I have not been more still - less frazzled - more caught up with my own, real thoughts than I am currently, on day 4 of this curious confinement. At home - close enough to observe and hear the comings and goings of the family, but not obliged and in fact very much discouraged from participating in those; sick enough to justify not thinking about cleaning, etc.; not yet officially back at work (to worry about the rat race); and with kids not yet in school - the timing could not have been more perfect to push full brakes on me. 

I have slept. I have stretched. I have drunk a lot of water. I have stuck with simple effective rituals to get the cold and congestion symptoms under control. (I have showered and dressed every day, just to keep my day/night rituals and not slip into grossness). I have read, and finally wrote. And I have finally prayed. 

What I needed, I've known all along. But God knew I wouldn't get there. Too many autopilot hacks, too deep into broken narratives, too negative and stressed, too buried in my own (frequently contrived) busyness-as-identity. He knew exactly how to make it all come to a halt and gave me a perfect out, where in the clearing, after all the thrashing around, I'd hear His voice. It's not a pleasant way to get there, and I hope not a dangerous one (not for me, and prayerfully not for the rest of the family). But I've not felt this clear-headed - this settled and at peace - this mentally healthy, oh irony - in months. 

I have thought and prayed through our family dynamics; our finances; my deepest longings and interests; I have also lounged and dreamed and continued to create, for my growing green spaces; I've been free to lie down and free to get up at any hour of the day; I have even caught up with work without immediate excruciating panic. 

I have found an oasis of peace in the most unlikely circumstance. 

El Roi. The God Who Sees.  

There's nothing wrong with my life

 That's my straightforward and unexpected conclusion from having to isolate with COVID.

I can tell we're predisposed to feel sorry for ourselves, perhaps, as default positioning. Maybe it becomes default at some point.  Also we'll do so if people around us are mostly 'victims' (air quotes intentional - it implies those who self-narrate as 'victims' vs. those who survived substantial trauma and are victims in true definition of the word - often you find among those the 'massive characters seared with scars' who offer most love - most grace). 

But beyond reason I'm grateful that the Light that's seen me and blessed me to see It, always, simply won't let me descent into self-pity. Self-assessment, aplenty; self-criticism (for the most part productive), justified; but not the blamey whining. 

In all aspects of my life, it is blessed beyond measure or justification. It is incomparably comfortable; richly endowed; safe & healthy for all of my people; wildly indulgent compared to a vast majority of the world's population. That I fail to bow in astounded gratitude every day is only my deep short-sightedness; only my weakness; only my pride. 

Undoubtedly waves are raised. Undoubtedly even a graced life experiences turmoil, and smallness of heart, and weariness of spirit. This isn't the place to minimize daily travails or discount a stumbling outlook, typical discomforts, and always (we're ridiculously good at it) worry. 

But my parasympathetic, higher, Spirit-led self always - always - knows better. It's a compass I couldn't turn off if I tried. The unerring pull toward El Roi, The God Who Sees, the uncompromising built-in conviction that Life is Gifted, that I Am Who I Am Supposed To Be, that Joy Is Now, and that Jesus is God, and is Good. 

Stripped of all the noisy bits, I was perhaps planning to excavate the nature of my recent neuroticism, unearth new anxieties that need addressing, organize my Stress Closet. Turns out all of that is just noise. It always is. Layers of cultured, artificial complexity smeared over a life that remains as simple in its intent now as it always has been. To act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. To stare at creation every day with a set of child's eyes, and wonder without ceasing at every day's breaths and moments. 

I know my attention is jerked toward all the things the societal, cultural paradigms would ask me to be. Financially independent! Socially and politically active! Parentally involved! Solidly fit! Creatively endowed! Professionally accomplished! None of those things in and of themselves are negatives. But the pursuit of this unfathomable complete human is truly destructive if done for the wrong reasons, with wrong - or misguided - motivations, or is seen as a whole-life competition with the ever-more-visible 'others' (because social media is really just life's largest scoreboard). 

Before I choose to do what's next, I need to return to my Why. Whom do I serve with my effort, time, attention, and money? The right answer will always be God, family, and community. It's tempting to write 'self', in the age of self-care, but I do believe that doing the first three correctly actually takes care of Self. It refills spiritual reservoirs, honors our bodily vessels, prioritizes and moves to health our closest relationships, and ensures we're aware of our impact on those near us - and we always have some, by doing - or not doing. 

It feels quite unsophisticated to strip fancy complexities off the Why. What would all the self-help books be about then? But the monetized complexities and conceived anxieties fed to us are the noise. The comparisons, the FOMO, the like-others-ness - that's where the focus gets lost, and the headaches begin. 

This sounds quite eloquent, yet my success rate of living this way hovers near 0%. The cheap and easy ways to stuff my head with daily gluey goo of social media, busyness, feeling sorry for myself are just too accessible, too default-y. It is HARD to keep things SIMPLE. 

To forcibly remove - and watch against the return of - the noise, the clutter, the mindless spending of days just waiting for the next one, the others-ness, the rat races - these things are hard. 

Also creativity. To let out our stories and gifts in ways that flow, that send us into this rich velvety swirling space of putting out the Light inside of us into words, art, form, landscape, song, food, dance - it is to live, to share the very 'us' with others, to outlet - let out - the things that vibe within us waiting for their time under the sun.