This post is a response to a ten-minute writing prompt from a writing workshop I attended. The main instruction was more writing, less thinking. "How are you different from the pandemic?"

If the sun was shining and I could stand to be outside without my teeth chattering, I sat on our back porch. My habitual patterns of being along had all but been abandoned. This, coupled with my relief that my family was at home with me, safe. These two I held in tandem. A cord of three, not easily broken.

That was April and May.

Once summer arrived, our world slowly grew bigger. The world that once seemed limitless, now it seemed bold and brazen to expand to maybe eight or ten. Donning masks, we ventured out into our community again. Father, forgive me, but I offered a forbidden hug to two or three who I knew really needed it.

That was June, July and August.

It was the most bizarre start to a school year on record. All the school board meetings of the summer, extra committee meetings, had led us to this. Me on the blue couch, my husband in our office, and my daughter seated at the kitchen table. She had told me early on, the couch was meant for relaxing. She would not do her schooling there. 

That was September, October and November.

What has surprised me is how I treasure things differently now. I covet any silence. I beg God in my prayers that I can continue to sit in the sanctuary of my church. I'm disappointed in the missed opportunities to feed one another - grace, hope, love. I'm thankful for an advent season; a time to reflect, share a new season with my Bible study, via zoom. It's a time to extend the invitation, Come Lord Jesus.

This is December.