#pandemiclife encouragement positiveread

[mowameer]

Reading this will not change your life

Neither can the words here cure your life’s present woes. But in as much as these thoughts help me go through each day, they might help you through today, at the minimum.

All these changes have shaken our lives, and our best intentions to adjust well barely matter, our minds stay in a state of shock. The way of life that we once knew is not the life we are living now. And it just happened like we got thrown into an ocean of the unpredictable and uncontrollable. Our feet stay paddling but somehow it just feels like we haven’t had much air to breathe. Our plans, which “normally” fuel us to go on, have lost sense because we cannot paint a picture of what tomorrow will be like, no sense of constancy. Any minute, change can and does happen. So is there much point to planning and building when the certainty of them crumbling is more likely?

Some days I wake up and forget which day it is already, I have routinized my mornings- Monday to Saturday are for work and chores, while Sundays, I wake up to participate in church. Sundays are the best- we rest and just enjoy worship.

But six days a week, I find myself wondering if things can feel easier? Can I feel more certain than if I make this plan for next month, it can be executed as intended? Can I want something and feel it within reach without feeling that most things will be faced with a no. I feel tired and would like to unwind in a nice new place, no. I would like to see my friends and just hang out for hours, no. I would like to get inspiration from fabric shopping, no. I would like our workers to finish by this day; no, someone has to get sick. I wish our parcel delivery men would deliver more on time so I do not need to spend so much on GrabExpress, no.

But looking at it, even if things were “normal”, even if we weren’t in a pandemic, life just feels like one big challenge to overcome. Our days are never within our control, Murphy’s Law right? The big intent of life is not to get everything we want anyways, it’s growing and getting stronger everyday, into Christlikeness, so we can ride the waves of each day better. Our call has always been to manage the present better and be like Christ until we get taken Home, true before and true now.

Maybe this life now is plainly, life. It does not need to feel normal, or to be in the same pattern as before. Despite changes, this is just life. We do not need to look at the past waiting and wishing to go back to how they were before we can make life worthwhile for us now. This verb is too cliché but the picture it paints is so apt—embrace. Openly embrace the present.

Focus on the small things you can do today, not just to survive but also to grow. The little seeds of effort we can plant today, no matter how difficult they feel, pursue for them. “Di baleng konti, basta meron.“

Do not run on empty, find the good, praiseworthy, beneficial in your day that you can embrace, that you can grow and that you can share. There is always something even in the darkest and ugliest of days that can bless you or someone else, give it to yourself to see and embrace this. Wherever and whatever you find yourself “stuck” being in now, there is a little good thing there, may you find it today.

Then, tomorrow once more. 

Before you know it, it’s Sunday again and we get to rest.

#pandemiclife encouragement positiveread