Dear thirdborn,
I am sorry your birthday plans were buried in the shifting sands of COVID-19. Know that It’s okay for you to grieve the loss a bit, even if it’s not life or death. God cares about the small things too. He doesn’t shame you for feeling sad or down when plans get twisted and turned around in directions you never asked to go. So grieve a bit but also know this. God knows what is best for you.
He charted out the plan for your life before time even began. He knew your birthday plans would land in shifting sand. And he knew the strands of the Coronavirus would weave their way into our nation a few weeks before your birthday.
I don’t know God’s master plan. I can only tell you what I have seen from dreams that seemed to move further out of reach in seasons of grief and isolation. In my experience, I can look back and see that the time spent in the waves of grief equipped me with the very things I needed to reach the dreams God placed within my heart.
It was the disappointments and losses and searching for ways to cope that led me to sharing hope with those broken and torn apart by grief. I didn’t understand why my dreams kept washing away with the tide, but now I can see that he was only teaching his bride to sing in the storm. He was teaching me what you might need to play and praise your way through the harder days of a nation’s pause.
He told me I would start at home sharing remembrance stones with you. He made it clear that this would be a “we” kind of effort. A family going the distance together to process grief and play in the pause. A mission called Operation Gratitude, a time to thank God for the memories He gave us in a mother’s time to pause and process and give thanks for the memories that her mother and father figures gave her in summer.
I am sorry your birthday post was ten days late, but it was only yesterday that I was finally able to see what He may want to say to you. Although I know it seems the opposite, I think the pause is a birthday gift to you, a time for Him to teach you to see his kingdom from a new point of view. A time to praise and play in the waiting, anticipating the day that we come together with friends again and wrap our arms around them and say to God, “I am sorry that we took your bride for granted. I am sorry we allowed divides to linger. I am sorry we threw stones at one another. Thank you for calling us home to say thank you to the mothership, the church.”
Love, Mom
