"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven..." Ephesians 3:1a
This blog was first created almost a decade ago--a labor of love, tears, and heartache mingled with joy and hope. I labored over a personal chronicle of stories and experiences intended to point readers to a loving God Who provides comfort in suffering. My mom has always been my greatest supporter in my writing endeavors. With more than forty years of typing and editing news content for a small-town paper, she had a keen eye for grammar. My mom would often proofread my articles and advised me on my writing skills. That changed after she came down with pneumonia last year. Our family ended 2019 by releasing my mom to eternity and burying her on New Year's Eve. The last thing I wrote was her eulogy. I yearned to give her memory justice, and as I poured over the content of the eulogy, I was inconsolable over the fact I could not call her for encouragement. On January 1, 2020, I left rural Kansas, bearing the knowledge that everything had changed, and we would never be the same. We drove away from my childhood town by taking a first step into the new year and a "new normal."
ANOTHER "NEW NORMAL"
"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18
In 2020, our family returned home numb and in shock over the outcome of our holiday plans. We intended on helping my mom discharge from the hospital into a transitional care setting, not plan her funeral. Sadness and grief hung over like a veil. Then, my immune compromised son came down with an unidentifiable viral infection that flattened him, and he was bedridden for almost a month with a severe upper respiratory infection and a Lyme relapse. Taking on the role of caregiver, I felt like a daughter of the "sandwich generation" who numbly embarked this "new normal" worrying over both my son and grieving father. I felt stricken and lost. It was not like our family was not used to dealing with sickness and adversity; however, this time was different because I did not have my mom to call to share in my struggles and triumphs. My mom played a vital role in my life because she cared about the little things that might seem insignificant to others. How would I ever get through it without her? Usually, I have made it my mission to face these types of struggles head on, but I was not prepared for this kind of "new normal."
THE CULTURE OF CHANGE
"The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble." Proverbs 16:4
Then, COVID hit and everything shut down, and the world was thrust into a "new normal." Like a dystopian novel, everything changed before our eyes. Suddenly, our society encountered widespread panic in which store shelves were wiped clean and toilet paper became a scarcity. There was fear of a virus that no one really knew anything about and hit our vulnerable citizens with a vengeance. There were widespread travel bans and various state and local mandates. Hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living centers shut out the public, and my only consolation over the realization that my mom was hospitalized before COVID and spared dying alone. Surgeries and procedures were canceled, and people had limited access to medical care unless they were in a critical situation. People were told to stay home as schools and churches closed and businesses were ordered to cease operations. Everyone home schooled and attended church at home. People did not see each other except on Zoom, and when they could get out, they peered at each other behind face masks. Everyone started talking about things like "fake news" and "plandemic", and we began to question what was real and what to believe. Then, people were dying, and people were fighting and rioting. Thousands of buildings and businesses were looted and burned down. Many eating establishments and local shops were unable to recover, and they were forced to close their doors forever. Innocent people were shot for no reason, their riotous executions recorded in real time for viewers to watch on social media, and hearts became calloused to rage and brutality. Extreme partisan divides and polarization on political idealization widened the gap as people raged from their position of whether to mask, get vaccinated, or even step outside of their homes. People started engaging in venomous disputes over racial relations and which political candidate to support for the upcoming election coming up. Now, we are wondering if the world has gone mad! Many of us are asking ourselves how we navigate this "culture of change" in a COVID world?
THE WAY OF CHANGE
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Isaiah 43:18-19
With the world seemingly on the brink of collapse and everyone on edge, our daily struggles have become a significant burden in the essence of our world change reality. My chiropractor recently shared that he has had more patients than ever before coming to him with reports of encountering depression and suicidal thoughts. As we grapple with disproportionate levels of change in our own lives as well as our culture, who can blame those who do battle heavy blows to the psyche? Change is inevitable in normal situations; however, it has become a startling reality in the wake of the COVID world of 2020.
For months, I was in a fog of anger and despair at the injustice of our circumstances. Everywhere I looked, I was being fed a diet of distrust with reasons to fear and dislike others. Sometimes, I would pour over news articles, videos, and TV programs reporting inevitable doom. Loss of sleep and waves of grief were taking their toll on my spirit. I felt my shoulders tense up and my jaw tightened as I threw myself into whatever work I could engage in to forget everything that seemed to be going wrong. One day, my daughter asked me why I looked so disgusted as she observed my face was contorted into a sour expression. I told her that our society stunk, and I was sick of it!
It seemed like everything outside of COVID and world events were trivial, and I lost interest in anything frivolous or nonsensical. Anything insignificant was purged from my life, and only the Lord's presence made sense to me. Outside of daily work and family stuff, I poured my time into reading my Bible, writing in my journal, praying, and listening to worship music. I replaced what would have been my morning phone calls to my mom with "God time"--painfully sweet and comforting moments that eventually spread to other parts of my daily routine. Every Sunday, our family gathered for virtual church services in our living room. After each service, my husband and I led family discussions about sermon topics and what God is doing through all these world events. These gatherings led opportunities for family prayer and reflection. Sometimes, we would invite a few kids from the neighborhood to join us. God was working in the wake of unwanted change.
REFINED BY CHANGE
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."
God will often demonstrate Himself in a changing world through the process of refining our character. His workings of character sanctification can heighten our awareness in observing the struggles of those around us. A few days ago, my husband and I said goodbye to a strong, gentle, and gracious woman who has played an imperative role in my personal healing journey over the past nine years. We prayed with her and we cried together in reflection of the unexpected changes that were thrust upon this sweet soul. The woman smiled through her tears and told us that she and her husband had planned to keep going with their business until they were in their seventies, however, she told us, "I guess the Lord has other plans for us." This remarkable couple made the difficult decision to let go of the legacy they built and move into unknown territory for the sake of her need for rest and restoration. Stage four cancer has a way of detouring a lifetime of plans to a new path of uncertainly. Her eyes reflected the courage to face whatever is set before her; the internal workings of soul strengthening, a visible image of rock-solid faith in the wake of grief. This woman's example embodies the courage to trust God when aspirations are shattered by disease and hardship. Her weary soul has been refined by a painful glory that reflects the Lord's doing.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON CHANGE
"Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22-24
My son and I recently participated in a fourteen-hour training on neuroplasticity. It was a very enlightening training with tools intended to guide us into taking a deeper look into our thought processes, coping mechanisms, habits, and behavioral patterns. These coping mechanisms, habits and behavior patterns are believed to become distorted as a result of a misfiring limbic system which negatively impacts the entire endocrine system and the immune function of the body that was disrupted by both disease and toxic exposure. This program is based on the concept of the "brain that changes itself" and involves six months of intentional rewiring of the limbic system by examining and weeding out negative and harmful brain patterns. These harmful brain patterns are to be replaced with new conceptualizations that produce a sense of joy, happiness, and euphoria. I took the program very seriously by viewing it from the perspective of the Bible. In doing so, it opened an entire new outlook on the "brain that changes itself" before the presence of a loving God. I discovered a joyful reawakening that carried over to various aspects of my life and relationships. I found something worth pursuing in renewing my mind.
BE THE CHANGE
"Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13
After completing the initial brain rewiring training, I encountered a fortified sense of self and purpose and wrote these words about my experience renewing my mind:
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As we approach the last four months of a crummy year, I have been taking a pause to re-evaluate multiple aspects of my life and implement some significant changes. I have taken a critical look at the overall purpose and mission of our family as well as my personal achievements. I am striving to reduce and/or eliminate ANYTHING that is unproductive or irrelevant to this mission which includes what I am focusing on, thinking about, viewing, reading, listening to, eating, putting in my body, and saying. I am committed to taking at least an hour a day to reprocess my focus and replace that was previously negative and not beneficial with what is helpful, useful, healthy, and most of all honors God. I am committed to doing a better job at taking care of myself so that I can best serve my husband and family. I am committed to giving myself some grace to recognize I am a human residing in an ugly fallen world and forgive myself as well as others. Although I choose to take moments to track news and events, I am committed to shutting it down regularly and keeping it in its place so that it does not create fear, anxiety, dissension, or hopelessness for me and/or my relationships. Finally, I am committed to laugh more, smile more, and NOT allow these things to steal my joy. I hope and pray we can all take these ugly times to turn to God Who can recreate it into something beautiful.
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In the wake of a renewal in my perspective, I have come to the realization we cannot stop change from happening. We cannot bring our loved ones back. We cannot stop our grief. We cannot stop COVID from coming. We cannot stop brutality, hate, fires, or looting. We cannot change the outcome of an upcoming election. We cannot change our circumstances; however, we can turn to the One Who Never Changes and BE THE CHANGE by His transforming power. I am uncertain what tomorrow will bring, but today I embrace change because He is enough.
"And he who was seated on the throne said, "Look, I am making all things new." Also, he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." Revelation 21:5
RESOURCES
For another perspective on survival in a COVID World:
For more information about Neuroplasticity:
