I did not expect the COVID-19 crisis to become a time of rest, but it has. Sometimes, I feel guilty for feeling that way because rest is not a word people in the medical field, the unemployed, and the federal workers, who are scrambling to establish process to deliver the relief aid that Congress passed last month, would use.
Still, when I speak with friends and hear them describe the way I feel, I know, too, that they and countless others needed this time of rest and slowness. One friend said she only used to exercise twice week. Under lockdown, she runs in the mornings and walks in the evenings. She said the daily walks allowed her to observe spring’s processes.
“I saw the tulips bloom,” she said with a smile.
As she talked about her day, I remember thinking, “How sad it is that we don’t have time to observe the tulips bloom because our typical lives have us rushing, rushing, rushing.”
She commented on how the tulips were here one minute, and gone the next, even though she was able to enjoy them this year. I thought of Matthew 6:30:
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you–you of little faith?
Like my friend, I thought the same. The cheerful flowers are wonderful, but as soon as they appear, it seems that they immediately wither away, and I mourn for them, even though this is nature’s typical pattern.
Perhaps this time of rest foreshadows a transition from one season to another. I am not sure, but there is one thing I do know: times of extensive rest do not happen very often in life, and it is essential to embrace them while we can.
In Rachel's Words 