It’s only April but it feels like it’s been a year since 2020 dawned. Back in January, when whispers of COVID-19 began circulating, it seemed so far away. Impossible to travel here and completely invade and shut down life as we know it. Yet, here we are.

I’ve lost track of how many weeks since our stay-at-home order was issued. How can days run into each other and blur together, and still be unspeakably long? I’ve written about anxiety and grief. Those two things seem to sum up my world these days. I have to work really hard to practice things like gratitude and positivity.

While scientists are working round the clock to find answers to stopping this virus, the rest of us have questions that only time will answer.

endless questions

I’m sure you have your own list. But here are some of mine.

Will everyone I love still be alive when this is over?

Will the business we have poured ourselves into for the past decade survive this shut down?

What about the stores that buy from us so that we can buy from Pebble? How many of them will still be in business after this is over?

Are the women who craft Pebble in Bangladesh going to survive this pandemic?

Will my son fail his classes and have to repeat this grade?

Is my marriage going to survive all the added stress of this pandemic?

Where will our salary come from once the stimulus check is used up?

Is my son’s lingering cough and chest pain from the virus? And when will testing be readily available so we know who’s had it and who hasn’t?

My list goes on and on and on.

Sitting with the questions

In an age of Google and quick learning, microwaves, and text messaging, we are not used to sitting with questions for long. Yet, here we are, each of us with our own giant pot of questions. Slowly simmering, heat building as the molecules of anxiety and grief collide in a pool of unknowns.

We can turn away from the questions. Pretend the grief and anxiety are not there. Until one day they explode all over us. We are not made to ignore the sadness and the questions.

Or we can stand at the pot of questions, stirring it constantly so it doesn’t burn. Forgetting to see the good that is still swirling around us. Until one day the pot stirs us and consumes us. We are not made to see only questions and feel only grief.

The space in between

Somewhere there is a space that lingers between the questions and the answers. And in this in-between space, we find our humanity. We find grace. Here is an invitation to pull up a chair and sit for a while. To find Divine presence that lingers in the hard waiting places. As the questions, longings and grief wrap around us like a cocoon, we are being given a place to rest.

I would rather pace. Open the cocoon and find immediate answers. Make something happen. Now! I don’t like waiting. I get incredibly frustrated when I don’t have the answers. Ambiguity is not yet my friend.

But today I’m choosing to settle into this space in between. To see it as a temporary home. Sitting with the questions, I am also sitting with my humanity. I remember that I am but dust and to dust I will return. And I find that I am cradled with grace for another day.

Click on the button above to send me an email and I will let you know when new posts are up! If you or someone you love is in the closet, or if you are struggling with your own guttural grief and need someone to talk to, email me. I may not have time to answer you but I will read it and hold you in my heart.