Bountiful ~ Valerie Ronald

 

Last January when I chose my word for the year, I had no inkling that in the coming months the world would be turned upside down by a microscopic virus. The word bountiful seems incongruous with the restrictions, isolation and other deprivations forced upon us by COVID-19. Yet I am thankful it is the word God laid on my heart, because it helps me to be intentional in noticing God’s bountiful gifts in the midst of a pandemic.

The world began to shut down in the middle of March while I was three provinces away visiting family. I was there for a niece’s wedding and my daughter’s surgery, which both went ahead as planned, a day before cancellations came into effect. I recognized God’s timely provision in these two important events happening as scheduled. 

Originally I was to spend the following week caring for my daughter during her recovery while her husband worked and my granddaughter was at school. Instead, we were all home in isolation, so God gave me abundant time to care for my daughter, go for walks with my granddaughter and enjoy conversations with my son-in-law, such gifts when we normally have so little time together.

While in isolation for two weeks after coming home, I had time to consider and pray about where God wanted me to focus my priorities. He gave me peace of mind about choosing to work less, thus freeing up more time and energy for writing. At last I had bountiful, uninterrupted days to give myself wholly to God’s call to write for Him.

The pandemic restrictions brought about a slower pace of life and as I relaxed into it’s gentler rhythms, I found myself noticing more of God’s bounteous gifts. The long summer evenings spent in easy conversation with my husband in our peaceful backyard, the satisfaction of sinking my hands into fragrant dough as I took up bread-making again, recalling happy times spent with loved ones while I sorted and organized old photos. Such simple activities, yet because of the looming threat of the pandemic, they took on new value.

When our normal way of life is restricted or altered for whatever reason, our first reaction is often to complain or push against the boundaries. What if instead we look for the good within the difficult?

Not that we view the horror of this global health crisis in a light way, but rather we look for the activity of God at work in the everyday details. How His love shows up in the weary eyes of overworked healthcare staff still able to comfort patients through a plastic face shield. The way His provision arrives in cheques from the government to help small businesses survive through shutdowns. How His creativity is displayed in technology giving family and friends ways to see each other’s faces and stay connected while in isolation.

When the news tells of rising death reports from COVID-19, I imagine a face for every number; an empty chair at a dinner table, a family in mourning. Although I want to stay informed, I find the constant bombardment of bad news difficult to filter without it affecting me. So I limit my media time, choosing instead to focus on recognizing God’s bountiful blessings in the midst of disaster. It is a paradox how the jewels of God’s gifts shine brightest against a dark backdrop.

In the beginning of Psalm 13, David cries out to God because of his trials, yet by the end he has chosen to refocus on God’s eternal blessings.

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me? (vs. 1-2)

But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me. (vs. 5-6)

Choosing the word bountiful as my focus for 2020 has helped me see that God’s abundant blessings are not always about the temporal. His best gifts do not inhabit our physical world. They are heaped within our souls in bountiful measure, where even during this world-shattering epoch we can rest in the surety of God’s care for us.


Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Eph. 1:3 NIV) 

Valerie's devotionals can be read on her blog https://scriptordeus.wordpress.com

Writing in the Cracks by Susan Barclay

Writing in the Cracks

I write in isolation
In the cracks of time
Between work
And family
And home

I write in silence
Please do not disturb
Go away
And leave me
Alone

Words are like butterflies
Fluttering here and there

Or they're like morning mist
Or sand through your fingers 

Not easy to catch

And now we are isolated
The time-cracks wider
And still there is work
And family 
And home 

I hear my children's voices
They are loud
My man sits too close
The dog scratches
At the door

There is no distance
No quiet

I love them
But still they stay

Now I must grow my words
By force

Or they will not grow at all

 c. Susan Barclay, 2020
_______________________________ 
You can find out more about Susan Barclay's writing at www.susan-barclay.blogspot.com

A Spring Isolation Walk by Joylene M Bailey

~~~~~

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

~~~~~

I step out my front door and marvel at the matted brown grass on my lawn. Just a few days ago, there was two feet of snow here. It’s a puzzle. But it’s not a puzzle I need to figure out. I’m just glad spring has truly and definitely arrived in my neighbourhood.

The back alleys around here have been paved since last spring and, while I do love the natural look of two tracks through the grass and gravel, it’s a joy to travel this path without slogging through mud and dirty puddles. 

The breeze is just enough to lift my isolation-length hair off my collar, but not enough to hug my sweater around me. And the air is refreshing. Wait, is that eau de fresh-baked bread wafting by?

~~~~~

The joyful heart sees and reads the world 

with a sense of freedom 

and graciousness.

Despite all the difficult turns on the road, 

it never loses sight 

of the world 

as a gift.

John O'Donohue

~~~~~ 

There’s no traffic down these back alleys and, most surprising of all, it’s a great place to meet neighbours I’ve never met before. One man is out puttering near his garage. We exchange information on the state of our families. Everyone is healthy in my house. How about yours? Yes, yes, we are all well.

Farther on, a woman stands on her back step calling to her neighbour across the fence, “Hey Ward! How you doing? Ward! Hey, Ward!” Ward doesn’t hear her, he’s too busy hosing down his driveway. 

When she spies me, she says, “Isn’t it amazing? I can’t hear the traffic on the Henday. I don’t remember it being this quiet in the neighbourhood since we moved in.” 

I guess there are pleasant points to a pandemic. 

~~~~~

Add Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

~~~~~

There are at least five dog-walkers out on the main streets that cross the maze of back alleys I’m taking. They wave or nod or say a short hello. But they don’t stop to chat. I find myself wondering if that’s because of the current self-isolation in effect, or if it’s because I’m not walking a dog.

A couple of children whiz by on their bikes, single file. They give me a furtive glance. Obviously, they’ve been warned about the six-foot rule. I hear other children behind a fence, bantering back and forth in the high-pitched voices I usually hear drifting from the school playground. Two doors down, on a raised deck, an almost-grown girl giggles into her cell phone. 

~~~~~

Image by Lori Clouse from Pixabay

~~~~~

On the home stretch I stop behind our house. I soak up the sun-warmed surface of the fence as I peer over it into our sunroom, where hubby has set up his self-isolation home office. I wave wildly, trying to get his attention, but he is absorbed in a web-ex meeting with other grocery company executives, collectively finding their way through a corona-made obstacle course.

Not all the heroes are on the front line. 

Our windchimes bing-dong as though to say see you soon and I head towards the end of the alley. At the corner, a wren high in a towering poplar sings its tuneful song in reply to a similar song nearby. I try to find him in the tangle of limbs and branches, but I can’t. 

~~~~~

Look at the birds of the air;

 they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:26 NIV

~~~~~

Half a block later I’m back at my front door. My home welcomes me like an old friend. We have been very close these last several weeks. She has sheltered me and provided me with all kinds of things to do, places to sit and work and be. Being is what we are still doing, despite isolation and six-foot rules. Being neighbourly, being active, being reflective. Carrying on. Life is different right now, but the world is still beautiful. God is still there. Still here.

~~~~~

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay 

~~~~~

Joy enjoys her back-alley walks in Edmonton, Alberta, where she is self-isolating with The Cowboy and Babe. Most of her writing projects have been put on hold during this season as she creates community in isolation with her Tea-Time blog posts at Scraps of Joy.

Bloom Where You Are Planted by Lynn Dove

The sidewalks were pink with cherry blossom snow.  I could smell the fragrance of newly mowed grass, mingled with the sweet aroma of springtime blossoms.  The seagulls screeched their welcome to me as I walked towards the shoreline and embraced the full view of the ocean, the waves lapping in rhythmic cadence to the beating of my heart.  I was home.  Well, the home of my childhood at least. 

Several weeks before the travel bans and the Covid_19 season of isolation hit us all, I had left my wintry “home” in Alberta, to come to Vancouver Island for a week-long stay.  Had I known what we would be facing when we returned home from the Island, I likely would have fretted and not enjoyed this brief sojourn.  Thankfully, we were blissfully unaware of the growing pandemic looming just over the horizon so we thoroughly enjoyed our trip, drinking in the beauty and familiarity all around us.  Truth be told, I have been a prairie girl far longer than an island girl, having lived in the Calgary area most of my adult life.  Still, whenever I have had opportunity to visit Victoria and travel up and down the Island, I always feel like I am experiencing a homecoming of sorts.  The Island is where I spent my childhood, my teen years, and two years of university before I married the love of my life and returned to Calgary to settle permanently.  I have been a landlubber in Alberta since 1979, raising my family, and enduring the long, harsh winters there.  The getaway to visit parents, friends and family on Vancouver Island has become an almost yearly trek.  It is our annual reprieve from the cold of February and March in Alberta, to embrace Spring in all its glory there on the Island.  I drink in all the green, the budding trees, the crocuses and daffodils that grow like weeds everywhere I look.  I want the sights and smells to imprint themselves on my psyche, so I can recall them vividly when I again return to my Albertan home still in the throes of winter.

Last year, we did not go to the Island.  In April last year I was experiencing a myriad of strange aches and pains that was eventually diagnosed as endometrial cancer.  Spring was all but forgotten as I fought and battled up to Christmas.  During the darkest of those days, when the battle seemed almost overwhelming, I wasn’t sure I would ever experience another spring.  I felt the icy fingers of winter engulf me, even in the heat of summer.  I tried to remain positive, leaning on God for strength through the ordeal of chemo.  Always looking towards the finish line, when I could declare the battle over, I found comfort thinking about how I would embrace life after cancer.  The first item on my “to do” list, was to plan a trip to the Island. 

Wonderment.

 It’s the best way to describe how I felt throughout that week on Vancouver Island.  Wonderment at experiencing Spring in all its glory there, but also wonderment at being fully alive, fully in the moment, battle-weary, but overwhelmingly thankful to be thriving, not just surviving once again!
 

That feeling persists. 

Coming home to wintry Alberta, I didn’t complain about leaving the green of Spring there on the Island even when I saw the white drifts of snow piled up in our driveway.  I was home.  The break from winter had been refreshing, but the familiarity and peacefulness I feel here, even being in the last grips of winter chill, warms my heart like nothing else.  I remind myself that I must bloom where I am planted.  I must bloom, survive, thrive, and embrace life for as many days, weeks, and years that God gives me.  

I can't forget that.

Even in the midst of this Covid isolation, forced quarantine, and my inability to venture out because of my compromised immunity, I remind myself that this season will pass eventually.  I long to hug on my loved ones, and my arms ache to cuddle my grandbabies once again.  Still, I continue to stay positive.  I must enjoy each day as a gift from God no matter what circumstances lay before me.  I must continue to bloom, to look to the future, and be thankful.

After all, I praise God every day that I can bloom at all!

Lynn Dove is the award-winning author, of the YA “Wounded Trilogy”- a contemporary Christian fiction series with coming-of-age themes.  A wife, mom, grandmother, and free-lance writer with articles published in several magazines and anthologies including Chicken Soup for the Soul books, her blog, “Journey Thoughts” is a Canadian Christian Writing Award winner.  Readers may connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and at lynndove.com