Ordinary Days: Spilled coffee and a stolen summer
This morning I spilled my coffee all over the side table next the couch. I’d only taken a few sips, and it was perfectly warm, perfectly sugared and creamed, and I had a perfect half hour ahead of me before the kids came downstairs. Instead, I spent my time going through dish towel after dishtowel, wiping the puddle and catching the drips before they drifted toward the lamp and stack of books. When I flopped back down on the couch fifteen minutes later with a new cup of coffee, all I could think was, “What else is COVID going to steal?”
I know that’s not an entirely fair question. The virus didn’t steal my early morning quiet time, but it felt that way. Those quiet minutes before the kids (and yes, the dog) wake up are even more precious to me in these long stretched-out days of uncertainty, boredom, laughter, and bickering, so the loss of my quiet time along with my coffee sure felt like a theft.
I’m writing this in mid-May, and I realized only yesterday that we’ve already had what amounts to almost a full summer, and yet in three days, “school” will be over and we’ll be looking at the actual summer in the face. Usually at this time, three days before the end of the school year, everyone is practically bubbling over with excitement and glee, but this year, it all feels different. Absolutely every facet of life has been touched by change or flat-out upheaval.
And yet, this is the life we’ve been given right now. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Yes, I’d rather abundant life look more like the regular life we know, but nowhere in the Bible does it tell us we can decide what that abundant life will look like. Evil, right now in the form of COVID-19, is trying to steal and kill and destroy, and I have a choice as to how I respond. I can choose to sit and stew in all my disappointment and disillusionment and anxiety, or I can meet each day — each hour, really — with a spirit of watchfulness and expectation.
It’s hard though, isn’t it? If I’m honest, my expectation of the upcoming months involves lots of boredom and bickering. Any watching I do feels like it’ll be met with anxiety and defeat. Then I read: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Hope can seem like a wispy, ethereal thing, but I read somewhere that hope is waiting for something with the confident expectation of its fulfillment. That sounds a lot different than wallowing in my disappointment over how much everything has changed, from quiet time to vacations to my choice of toilet paper at Publix. I’d much rather feel that confidence and expectation, but I know it’s not always about how I feel. It’s about choosing the truth I know to be real over changing feelings.
The truth is God will be with us day in and day out. He will be with us if the library doesn’t open. He will be with us if the pool doesn’t open. He will be with us if we get sick or if someone in our family gets sick. He will be with us when school starts back, in whatever form that takes. He is with us while we navigate this ever-changing reality.
When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. My latest novel, “The Summer House,” is in stores and online now. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks, Twitter @LaurenKDenton, or on Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.