Time For A Reboot

Here we are.  Four weeks in to a “Stay Safe, Stay Home” order from our local government.  Texas is under a state wide shutdown.  The nation is being held hostage by a pandemic.  The world is in a panic.  What’s going on at your house?

If you’re following the guidelines, you are staying home more.  Eating out less. Cooking more. Entertaining ourselves at home. Working from home (unless you are considered an essential member of society).  Learning at home.  Worshiping at home.

How’s it going?

We’ve been given a gift, y’all.  While turmoil churns around us, we’ve been given a few weeks to consider some things.  We’ve been given a glimpse into what a different life could look like.  We’ve been given, in a sense, a reboot.  Soon everything will open up again.   We will get to choose what our family life will look like.  We can choose to go back to the way things were or we can choose to change some things, tweak our lives a bit.

Just as the waters of the river in Venice have cleared due to less boat traffic, and the air quality in Los Angeles has cleared due to less car traffic, our families have been given the opportunity to clear the air by getting to know one another, appreciating the individuals that we are and our place and purpose in each of our families.  Let’s go from here thinking about what is really best for our family.  Not what does everyone think we should do.  Not what we were doing.  But what is best — right now — for this family of mine.

The next step for my family hopefully includes a deeper appreciation for God: His care and guidance.  A deeper appreciation for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  A deeper desire to be in the presence of those who share the precious faith, hope, peace and love that only comes from putting God first in our lives.  These weeks of isolation have hopefully instilled a more profound desire to gather together and express our love for each other and for God.

“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25

The next step for my family may include less outside entertainment and more inside family time.  Have we learned that we do not need all the bells and whistles of expensive outings and extravagant trips?  Have we learned that being a family is about working together and learning together instead of going our own separate ways?  Hopefully we have learned that more family time creates happier, better adjusted children and parents.

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Deut 6:7

The next step for my family may result in rethinking who I’ve chosen to educate my children.  Each one of us, when we are blessed with a child in our family, are given the responsibility to educate that child in God’s ways and to educate that child to be a productive member of society.  Each one of us chooses who will do that educating.  Most have chosen to allow the government sponsored schools to do the bulk of this teaching.  Some have chosen to pay someone else to do this teaching through a private school.  Some have chosen to do the teaching themselves at home.  We’ve just had that last option dropped in our laps.  Maybe we’re seeing an improvement in our children’s attitudes.  Or maybe we’re realizing that there are problems that need addressing that can best be done at home. Maybe we thought we couldn’t do it ourselves.  Maybe we never wanted to do it ourselves.  But now, here we are, all of us, educating our children at home.  Maybe it’s not so bad.  Maybe when the schools open up again, more of us will choose to educate our children ourselves. 

“Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” Prov 22:6

The next step for my family may be a difficult change of careers.  Not all businesses are going to make it through this. After all is said and done, I may want to change careers to something I can have a little more control over.  Or, if I already had that, and the business has had to shut its doors forever, maybe I want to change my career to something run by a large corporation. This may be the chance I’ve wanted to change careers. Maybe my family realizes that when everything else is cut down (entertainment, eating out, school functions, extra curricular activities), we don’t need two incomes.  Maybe I have always wanted to be a keeper at home and after being forced to give it a try, this is my opportunity to make the change.

“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Titus 2:4-5

The next step for my family may be making the decision to improve my family’s health through exercise and the food we eat.  As a whole, our health is really pitiful.  We are a nation of unhealthy people.  Maybe from now on there will be a conscience effort to insist on good fresh food, prepared in healthy ways on a regular basis.  Maybe from now on there will be less couch sitting and a lot more mind and body activities.  Maybe in the future we will realize that God made our bodies in such a way that, when taken care of, it will take care of us. Maybe in the future we will take care of the body God gave us. Maybe we won’t be as unprepared healthwise for the next pandemic.

“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.” Psalm 139:14

The next step for my family may be less hoarding of things that are not important and being more prepared with things that are.  How many of us were caught without the necessities we needed to get by a few weeks?  How about that toilet paper craze?  Who knew that our supply chain was such a delicate balance of supply and demand?  That within a matter of days it could all be knocked off balance and throw us into a panic.  Maybe the next step for my family will be to be a little more prepared with an emergency savings in the bank, an extra supply of essentials in the garage.

“Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest.” Prov 6:6-8

You may be able to think of some other things that need rethinking when we all get going again, but hopefully this list will help us realize that there are things we can and should change. Hopefully we will all think about what we will change when we all reboot.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

Diana Dow