03/27/2020
🎵 On a Side Note...
It’s three a.m.. Sleepless since midnight, I finally obeyed the inevitable and arose to deal with the little person in my head on a perpetual ice hockey breakaway. What better time for true confessions, no?
In relation to this pandemic’s “social distancing,” my mind would not let me rest thinking about the value of human relationships...even the hard ones. The saying goes something like “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Hard truth. Maybe this time of quarantine, with questions, doubts, and fears about what’s on the other side (if there is to be an “other side”) could give us cause to reevaluate the importance of our relationships.
Nearly 28 years again, I moved my family to Manitowoc, WI. Primary reason? To help plant a church there. Secondary reasons? Weariness of large earthquakes, CA homeschool hostilities...and, I confess, a desire to put some distance between us and our respective mother’s (wow, did that sound bad). There was constant conflict between how my wife and I were trying to raise our children, and the mom’s contrary views on the matter.
It strikes me now that, although that irritant was greatly reduced (a good thing, in my estimation - like the removal of a pebble from a shoe), I’ve never been able to completely rest concerning my choice on that aspect of our move away.
What’s the point to this admission? I’m not positive, but this thought nagged my sleep enough that I had to try to answer it. And I think the answer is this: We don’t have the luxury to assume we will all be here after the storm that is COVID-19. For any variety of reasons, our days may be up in the midst of it all!
So...about those relationships, all of them — the ones who know Christ and the ones who don’t; the ones who weary you, infuriate you, try you, bore you, thrill you, encourage you, worry you, etc. How will you feel to learn that they have passed from this life—as have both of our moms—while you either took them for granted, held a grudge, or were too preoccupied to stay connected? Hard question? Yes, but blessings await the one who seeks the answer.
Though nearly all will ignore this admonition, notwithstanding, there it is. For the few, why not use at least some of this “safer at home” quarantine time to let someone know it matters to you that they are still on the planet? A fellow pastor and my oldest son did that for me with a phone call over the last two days, and I don’t have words to tell you what a boost that was for me!
So go ahead. Do it. Reach out through the technology with which we are so richly blessed, and let someone know they are cared about. Mend a fence. Reconnect the wires. Send a text or email. Make a call. Do it! We’ll all sleep better. 😴
