Quarantine

I was quarantined with a twelve year old boy on April Fool’s Day. I would imagine that after the pandemic is over and we all start sorting through our trauma, there will be a support group for this. I’m joking... but only a little. He unscrewed my light bulbs, put lemon juice on my toothbrush, wooden blocks in my pillowcase, an “out of order” sign on the toilets, and smeared toothpaste on the toilet seats. When I discovered that last one, I calmly hissed through clenched teeth, “If you have laid any other pranks that involve sticky messes, I strongly advise you go clean them up immediately and never tell me about them.” His eyes went wide and he flushed a little, then he rushed out of the room to go take care of some things I don’t need to know about. Ever. I will say, though, his piece de resistance was photocopying a painting I had done, a portrait of our cat, painting a mustache and glasses on it, and replacing the original with his vandalized copy. Genius. 

But goodness! We are finishing week three of the stay at home order in Ohio, and I am struggling to remember life before. My husband’s employer has declared themselves “essential” because they make one piece of a navy ship (I’m not actually complaining, I am truly grateful that we still have an income). So rather than having a family staycation where we work on our farm together, I feel like I’ve been launched back in time to that dark season when my kids were small and I stayed home all the time and had no friends. Except this time around, instead of little people whose worship and adoration are so pure they insist on hugging my legs while I pee, I have moody preteens who think I’m a fool that can’t tie her own shoes without their input, and have all kinds of big feelings about being separated from their friends.

But it truly hurts being told to stay away from people. This is a real struggle for those of us who have much more advanced maturity than a preteen. 

I am not the only one cut off from my community, and who am I to say that it is more important to me than to my children? Right now, I represent the entire outside world to my children. And as they process frustration, anger, confusion, fear… I am the only one who can answer to them for the things happening. And what they are facing is hard. Their supportive community has been shrunken down to just me. And here I am, standing between them and the world outside, which is as it should be in a time of crisis… but it means I am the only one hearing their voice, and so I must stand up to their hurt and frustration and confusion, and I must do so without responding with my own. I must be the source of calm, of grace, of gentleness, of love and support for them.

Here is what I see:  The reality all parents face right now, is that we find ourselves, with little warning, parenting during a historic tragedy. We are parenting during one of, if not the, most global events of history. My family has been staying in contact with good friends living all over the world, and they are all experiencing the same thing we are. Most of my focus has been on managing the quarantine lifestyle for my kids, keeping people calm, diffusing drama. I am pretending that the quarantine is the hardest part of all of this, and that no one we know is going to die. The reality is that much more may yet be required of me. 

And parenting through trauma is different than parenting through drama. It requires me to be less strategic and more loving. Less rigid and more joyful. Less commanding and more peace-whispering. Less insistent and more patient. Less harsh and more kind. Less shaming and more inspiring toward beauty. Less frantic and more faithful. Less frustrated and more calm. In short, I need the fruit of the Holy Spirit in every moment I walk this out with my kids. And goodness I am thankful that the Holy Spirit is a living person that resides in me, and I don’t have to muster these qualities out of my own stores. Children experiencing trauma do not need to be managed, controlled and contained, so much as heard, supported, loved, and provided for with as much stability and love is in our power to supply them. And beyond our ability to provide those things, then there is grace. Grace empowers us to speak the truth, call things what they are, and let people feel and struggle while we stand with them.

We all want to control. And whether it is adding yet another layer of protective isolation, buying up toilet paper or ammo, or exercising our American freedom by going out anyway, all these responses are simply seeking a fix to our need to feel control if only momentarily. But protective layers of isolation, while prudent and healthy to a certain extent, do not provide guaranteed outcomes. And buying one more package of toilet paper only makes you feel safe for an hour or so. Exercising your freedom by going out anyway, leads you to feeling oppressed by judgement and criticism even if only in your own head. 

Here is what I really want to say: my experience is that God’s goodness has ALWAYS increased to match the needs of my circumstances. If we get sick, God’s goodness will increase. If we face hospitalization, it will increase even more. And if someone dies... we’ve experienced God’s goodness in that circumstance before, and I cannot find words for how tangible God’s tender support was during that time. Gosh it is hard to even write those words, and I so desperately want to add that I’m not willing to lose people. But I know I am not in control of my life (especially not on a microbiological level), and my faith isn’t in the layers of isolation, or the decisions I make in response to new information. My faith is in the Powerful Person of God Himself. And I must continue to speak those words to myself and to my family.

And that isn’t even blind faith for me. God has already shown himself way ahead of me in all of this. My husband has chronic lung trouble from a past lung surgery, so there’s a strong pull for those who love him to be afraid right now. But 6 months ago, he became intensely motivated to get healthy—eat better, rest better, cut sugar, exercise more. On top of that he became more alert to the needs of his family, and more emotionally present. I kept asking where the motivation was coming from. Did he see a number on the scale that scared him? Did someone say something? Was he worried about our marriage? When your spouse starts making big changes, you have a strong urge to know the story! He couldn’t explain it. But here we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and my husband has a stronger immune system than he has had in years.

I also bought these a box of surgical masks a couple years ago to put my younger kids’ faces in timeout, because they kept spitting on each other and no disciplinary measures were working to stop the behavior. And before Christmas, we did a painting project that required surgical gloves. I purchased a box of each and only used a few. Now I find myself having these things without contributing to any shortage for others.

And for the last several months (or maybe years) God has really been teaching me to relinquish the need to control and seek strategies, showing me that no matter how brilliant, no strategies have the power to save me from my own inflated expectations, selfishness and temper. But he has in fact already given me what I need. And instead of seeking a better plan, I must look to his Spirit inside me. Because everything I do out of that Spirit bears fruit. Everything.

So here I am, masked and gloved, with enough toilet paper and food, my family strengthened physically and emotionally, and already having broken down my systems of strategy and control, tuned in to the Holy Spirit. God is here. He has already provided. It’s still hard, but I must be clear now on where it is that I put my faith, or it will not hold out.