4 minute read
I Had Had Enough
LIFE LESSONS
Pat Cirrincione
Okay, it is 2:23 in the morning, and I am up and writing at my computer. I have had several sleepless nights lately, and so I wake up and play my 100th game of Candy Crush, and then countless games of Solitaire, and then when I tire of that, I begin to pray. You are right, there is definitely something wrong with the order of that sentence.
At the beginning of this pandemic, I made a list of daily things I should do to keep busy and away from the TV, except for Jeopardy. It was going along fine until a few weeks ago, when I noticed that I would weep at the strangest times. What is going on, I wondered? I’m keeping busy, I FaceTime with my children and grandchildren, my husband and I haven’t argued about anything, and my projects are showing signs of completion. I wake up each morning and praise, thank and petition our Lord and continue this practice throughout the day. Yet I am weeping. This is absurd. It needs to stop. So, I decided to get my walking shoes on and go for a walk.
A-h-h-h-h, the beauty of the outdoors. The lush green grass, the beautiful buds on the trees, the high blue sky with glimpses of floating white clouds. It was all breathtaking and quite beautiful! But, alas, where were the people? Where were my fellow walkers and joggers? Where were the strollers pushed by tired-looking moms? Was I in some sort of dream? Was I the last one living on the planet? And then I saw it, another human being jogging, or were my eyes playing tricks on me? Nope, the person was coming closer, and I knew I had to cross over to the other side of the street to keep the proper social distance. I had hoped for a smile and a wave, but instead I saw a look of disgust cross the jogger’s face! Oh, imagine the joy if I had received a smile and a wave. And then the weeps wash over me again in giant waves of sadness.
Lord, what have we done? You created us to be social creatures. You yourself loved to visit with Adam and Eve and walk in the garden with them. You loved hearing about their day. Lord, what have we done? This aloneness, this isolation, this separation from family and friends, from our churches and our jobs.
I was feeling like Job, alone and lonely, but then I realized that I was falling into the trap of feeling sorry for myself. Not only that, I realized that in my excitement to get out of the house for a walk in the fresh air, I had forgotten to do some basics—brush my teeth, comb out my bed head hair, and not wear the torn and bedraggled sweatshirt and sweatpants I have been wearing for weeks.
I probably startled that poor jogger, looking like a walking dust mop or Pigpen from Charlie Brown and friends. I must have had dust puffs emanating from my body with every step I took, and soon my weeps turn into hysterical bouts of laughter, and I laughed until my sides ached. I would have scared the snake right out of paradise if it had a glimpse of me.
And then I realized that I had been forgetting the most important thing in the world. The Lord—I had him. And in him, I find happiness, joy, love, peace, contentment, and it’s okay to have the weeps, that crying is okay, but we still have Jesus. And Zoom! And the telephone! Even in this pandemic, God made sure we still have a way of staying connected and seeing people, and talking and laughing, and most of all, breathing and laughing until our sides hurt.
That is when I began to have hope again. Hope that I will enjoy the pool next summer, that we will be together with our family members again, hope that we will walk up the front steps of church and hug people we haven’t seen in a while – okay, maybe not hugging just yet, but walking up those church steps into the Narthex and entering the Sanctuary will be like winning the lottery, but even better.
In the meantime, I have decided to write weekly letters to our grandchildren, call them once a week, keep to my daily routine, with prayer being front and center, and to hang on to believing that through the Lord, all will get better, because I know he wants only what is best for his creation.
Well, it is now 4 a.m. and I’m beginning to feel tired and think that I might just be able to get back to sleep before the alarm goes off in a few hours.
