Frodo exclaims, “I wish the ring had never come to me.
I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf responds,”So do all that live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
How are you doing in these crazy pandemic days? Life here is still painfully restricted. I've found myself feeling lots of frustration and even anger this week in a situation that I have no control over. I know that there are very few things I ever actually have control over, but now I no longer even have the allusion of control either.
I don't have control over the governor of our state with all his hidden, secret plans that is making me crazy...and angry(but I already mentioned that). I don't have control over the fact that I have to do home learning with my kids right now. I don't have control over the fact that my special needs son is home 24/7. I don't have control over not being able to attend Mass. I don't have control over what the grocery store has in stock on any given day.
I have to keep reminding myself that God is in control and that He is going to take all these negative things in my life right now and bring good out of them. I just need the eyes to see, and the patience to wait, as it unfolds....and wait, and wait, and wait.
Patience is not easy for me. Not knowing a time line is not easy for me. Along with wrestling with control, I'm also wrestling with trust. I don't know how everything is going to work out. I don't know when anything is going to work out. I don't know what things will look like. What I am pretty sure of is that none of the "working out" is going to look like the way I would have worked things out. That thought certainly lacks humility, but it's an honest thought.
8 weeks of living a real life Groundhog Day where every day feels like a close carbon copy of the last day has definitely gotten old....wake up, get everyone moving and fed, home learning, laundry, pick up clutter, get everyone fed(again), dishes, finish home learning without meltdowns(mine or the kids), deal with more clutter, more cooking, more feeding, more dishes, go to bed, repeat. I'm ready to move onto the other Bill Murray movie, What About Bob, and "take a vacation from my problems".
I fantasize about being somewhere warm and beautiful and quiet...because I SO miss any semblance of quiet...and just resting without having to worry about schedules, or Zoom meetings, or homework, or meal planning, or having to adjust said meal planning in the middle of the grocery shopping trip because you can't find what you need to make the meals you spent all the time planning for(!).
I felt a lot of hope when I woke up on May 1st. The long month of April with it's constant, unchanging quarantine was finally over! It was a new month. It is the month of Mary. Things would start opening up in May. It was finally going to stop raining almost every.single.day. There were reasons to hope...and hope had been hard to come by in April.
You know when you have that feeling of peace and you just know that God's in control and everything is going to be all right...even if you don't know exactly how or when? That's the feeling I had on May 1st. I don't think it lasted an entire day before I was back to wrestling with the anxiety that was trying to bump trust out of my heart...but it still happened. And I'm trying to hold onto that memory as we reach the middle of May and not a whole lot has changed in the world around me.
I am a planner....and that's not an "essential skill" during quarantine. I'm also really good at shopping, which is also not an "essential skill" during a pandemic. (Although my Amazon, Etsy, and Wayfair accounts might say otherwise!) In my defense, there is a good reason for that...
One of the hardest parts of the pandemic for me is watching my son, Jon, and his fiance, Marisa, have to change plans that have been in place for two years. On May 12, 2018, Jon proposed to Marisa and lots of attention was given to all the details that go into planning a wedding. First was the date...May 24th, 2020...a longer two year engagement because Jon was in grad school and they thought waiting until he was finished would be easier.(Boy, is hindsight 20/20!) We booked the venue before they even had their calendar for 2020 open. Marisa and Jon are also planners extraordinaire...so there were dress colors, a flurry of Pinterest boards, and all kinds of other decisions made in very short order.
And then we waited.
And we are still waiting...
The date has been pushed from May 24th to June 28th. There will be a wedding that day...but we don't know exactly what it will look like. We will celebrate that day...but we don't know exactly what it will look like. The one thing I do know is that it won't look like what was planned two years ago. There has been lots of grief and tears over that. It's a very real loss...
...but hope is not lost.
As the groom's parents, we are in charge of the rehearsal dinner. Months ago, when the word "corona" still only referred to a beer, we all decided that the rehearsal dinner would be catered at our house. I did what I do best and started planning. As February and March rolled around and "corona" took on a whole new meaning, the details for the rehearsal dinner got a little bigger. I'm a mom, and seeing my son and future daughter-in-law have to let go of all the things they looked forward to broke my heart. I don't have control over the situation, but I do have control over the details of the rehearsal dinner. So I threw my 'rusting in the pandemic' planning skills into Pinterest and trying to make things extra special within a limited budget and my very limited ability as a crafty person.
The planner in me also started to formulate something bigger. I had to have an emergency back up plan, because my fear was that our backyard would be the location of not only a rehearsal dinner, but also a reception. That was never in Marisa's plan...and I'm still praying that this won't be the option we have to go with. But, if we have to, I want to be ready. And I want it to be as beautiful and special as it can be. Hence, all the Amazon, Etsy, and Wayfair boxes sitting in my bedroom. (And the outdoor rug I'm storing in the garage that I'm hoping Jay won't notice for a while;)
I'm not relying just on me, though. All of May I have been thinking of another wedding. It's one that happened a really long time ago in a far away place called Cana for a nameless couple that didn't have what they needed for their wedding either. Someone really special noticed and, with the help of her Son, not only provided what the couple needed but far surpassed anything they could have done without the help.
Multiple times a day, I call out to Mary, mother to mother, asking her to help Jon and Marisa. I'm asking her to coordinate all the details. I'm asking her to help me to make things special. I'm asking her to take what we have and bless it and make it better than we ever could have planned for....because she is the ultimate wedding planner.
And now I wait. And trust. And wrestle with my anxiety and fear. And remember the peace I felt on May 1st that God was in control and everything was going to work out alright.
Because He is...and it will...and these two special young adults that have lived their engagement walking with God, will have a wedding day that falls into place in ways none of us ever imagined.
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| Engagement Day<3 May 12, 2018 |
