Most years, our life is dictated by calendar squares filled with scribbled times. Appointments, birthday parties, meetings, classes, and other demands decided our daily pace. Very rarely did our family’s speedometer fall much below warp speed. We grumbled about being tired and wanted to slow down, but we couldn’t manage to stop.
Until this year, when God gifted us a brake job.
When the world around us closed and our circle grew smaller, it was scary. The once overflowing calendar was nearly blank. Other than zoom calls, the days were clear. They were ours to fill, or not fill, together at home. We were finally stopped. God fixed our brakes and gave us a break.
We rediscovered family game nights. We played games we forgot we even owned. We laughed, sometimes argued, and celebrated our wins. Between turns, we swapped stories and thoughts about our lives we may have otherwise missed. We heard our kids’ feelings about life. They shared their hopes and fears about the world unfolding around them. We shared our hopes and wishes for them. We created the inside jokes, love, and memories to hold together the crazy mess of our 2020 life.
We enjoyed puzzles and podcasts at the kitchen table after the kids were in bed. Instead of solely operating as the championship caliber parenting team we are to get through busy days, we laughed and talked about things other than family logistics like two adults who genuinely love each other. We had fun as best friends, not just mom and dad.
We discovered courage and grace in ourselves. We were not experts on doing life completely from home. We fumbled through Google classrooms, Zoom classes, and online church. We still aren’t flawless with it all but we’re ok with that. We did brave new things like cut hair and master third grade math. We learned to play the guitar and paint. We learned how to ask for help and passed third grade math together.
Nothing happened how we thought it would in 2020 but it turns out, that’s ok. Mary probably didn’t plan on giving birth in a stable and placing baby Jesus in an animal’s manger either but look how wonderful that turned out. This year, we finally understood the world around you doesn’t dictate the goodness of our life; the love we share around us does.