There’s a gal on Instagram that I enjoying following. She’s a young lady, I think maybe in her mid 20’s, that lives in Texas. She’s a teacher and she also created an online digital planner among other cool tools. What I love about her posts and stories is her positive attitude and that she is not afraid to share her love for God, her stumbles, and her passion in life. Mostly though I am drawn to her genuine love for God.

Back in December when 2019 was coming to an end, she said one thing she does is choose a word for the new year and she shared that hers would be Obedience. I had never considered that. As December came to an end and the first days of January came around, I thought about this for myself. What word I could choose to live this new coming year with and be my guide in the things I did. It didn’t take a long time for me to realize that my word needed to be Trust, because there are moments in life where you question why this or that is happening, why someone is behaving the way they are, why I’m doing the things I am doing, etc. I knew trust needed to be my word because long before Lucy’s post (that’s the gals name) I had come across Proverbs 3: 5-6.

Little did I know that God had guided me to this word for a reason, because I had no idea what was to come. That my trust in him would be tested in so many ways and that I truly needed to lean on him, not my own feeble understanding of things.

A few days before Friday, March 13, 2020 life was business as usual. Our girls had their school schedules, after school dance activities, and life was packed and often times rushed. Even though it sometimes felt overwhelming, it was the life we knew. Someone once told me, just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean it’s okay. Isn’t that the truth. As we got closer to March 13th, the smoke that had been slowly rising up from our feet finally began to envelope everything around us. That Friday, the girls came home from school and shortly after before the sun settled down for the day, we received the email from their school confirming that the school would be closing down until after Spring break, which meant April 20th for our girls. Then we received a notice from the dance studio that in light of the events surrounding the COVID-19 virus, the studio would be following the necessary precautions and closing their doors until March 29th.

Now here we are, April 9th, four weeks later with schools, businesses, and many restaurants still closed. Last night we got an email from the girls’ school confirming what we already figured would happen, students will not be returning to the school but the online learning platform would continue. I’m not going to lie, I was hopeful in the beginning that they would go back to school after Easter break, probably like so many were.

Never in my wildest thoughts did I imagine that we would be where we are now. A new and very uncertain way of life unfolding. Now more than ever, I lean on that Trust and for God to be my guide on this uncertain path.

These four weeks have been a mixture of different emotions. Every single one of us is struggling and working on getting through different situations. Some trying to work from home while at the same time juggling their young children who they can no longer take to daycare, some left without jobs wondering when things will open up again and how they will pay for basic necessities, many worried about their loved ones health and well being, especially for all our first responders, doctors, nurses, grocery workers, seniors, everyone. These are uncertain times, to say the least. Emotional and overwhelming times.

There have been days that I’ve struggled with my 5 year old and trying to remain calm while also keeping some kind of routine with her and her school activities. With our 8 year old it’s been a little bit easier because she’s thrilled to be able to use the iPad, a very rare thing pre home-schooling. For the most part she’s excited to have the normalcy of class assignments and turning them in via the Google class platform. But every day is new, some days it’s push back from our 5 year old, other days it’s from our 8 year old not being too thrilled to do a required Zoom dance class, and then mixed in with my own feelings of not having adequate rest, craving human interaction outside of my parents and work colleagues (my work remains open, deemed essential), missing the small things that I so freely could enjoy prior to this social distancing and yet sometimes neglected or took for granted.

Which brings me to the question of Trust again. I lean on that daily. Some days I handle the hard moments well. Other days I end up in the garage, sitting in the passenger side of our car with tears streaming down my eyes trying to take a moment to pull myself together so I can go back inside and be the best mother, teacher, referee, human possible to my girls. Some days I fail and some days are amazing. And every day I wake up and I pray to God and I repeat Proverbs 3: 5-6 to remind myself that I cannot lean on my own understanding during these hard times.

And I wonder to myself…when all this is done and schools, dance studios, recreation places, sports clubs, restaurants and stores open their doors, will we all easily rush back into our old routines and embrace it? Like someone once said to me, just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean it’s okay. While homeschooling has brought along it’s own challenges and realization for me that it is not something I enjoy doing, there are other things I am enjoying. The slow down of pace is a big one. I wonder what it will look like for us when the doors finally open up.

I am left to continue to trust and lean into God, and we will see when the time comes.