Life While Swimming Upstream ~ by Angie
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am struggling to find my creativity lately. It is increasingly harder to find my inner peace and relax enough to write.
I start, wander aimlessly, then stop. Poetry requires the ability to let my mind run free. Lately, my inner voice is unbelievably quiet. People who write often encounter “writer’s block”. For me, right now, the block is within.
Underneath it all, I hold tight to my faith in God and His plans to prosper us and not to harm us. From above it all, He reigns. His prophecies are unfolding and His word will not return void. I listen to our weekly services online and yearn to hug my sisters in Christ group members on Wednesday nights. My deepest moments with Christ are usually when I am in praise at my church. The band plays and I am immersed in God’s love and reassurance. During this quarantine, sitting on my couch I close my eyes and try to connect but I am struggling.
I am a people person seeing my children or grandchildren on video chat almost brings tears to my eyes. Reality is stinging my soul.
I work in a hospital and so does my husband. The threat of the unknown is paralyzing sometimes. I find hills and valleys come close together some days. When I think about things too much it’s just too overwhelming.
As I rest in Jesus, I can breathe.
My human response is to hold my breath again. Sometimes I just want to numb myself with brain-fogging television. My mind and body just want to rest and re-group. They are saying that this is a “new normal” for us at our hospital. No doubt it has caused a new resurgence of the importance of what we do after a period of basic complacency. I lift my head and don my PPE and the reality weights me down.
How much longer? When can we go back to the way it was before? How many people are finding their way to God through surrender? Why am I feeling such turmoil inside? I think the answer is that we don’t know. We aren’t meant to know everything. God is calling us to connect in new ways, and learn through our loss how much we took for granted before all of this.
Life is different now. Our future is changed as the result. We can come to grips with that idea or try to keep fighting against the current. Swimming upstream is exhausting. Trying to capture the changing tides or hold onto the wind is impossible.