Day 4 March 20th

It’s finally Friday!! I went ahead and allowed myself to sleep in until 6:00 today.  I got my workout in and it was so abnormally warm! It was almost 70 degrees out so I decided to take a walk in the dark at 6:45.  It was so good for my soul, the warm air on my face and the birds were chirping. Oh the Lord knew that was just what I needed. I returned and got my God time in on the front porch! Today I read two chapters in Job both were letters from Job’s friends responding to him cursing his birth.  Turns out his friends did not have the most sound advice. They were basically saying he must have a bunch of hidden sin in his life for all this to be happening to him. Bottom line is that Christians are not exempt from the trials and hardships of this world. The difference is we have hope as we endure them.  

After my morning routine Parker came down. I took some time to get some good cuddles and conversation on the porch with him.  We discussed the types of birds that were landing on our tree in the front yard. A moment I would not have had if it were not for this situation.  I suggested we go for a walk since it was still pretty warm. By this time all the kids were waking up so we declared we were going on a family walk.  We went ahead while we waited for Aaron and Nancy. On the way they found the puddles! Two weeks ago the person within me would have said “no” we are not doing that and I wouldn’t want to put up with the mess and deep down wouldn’t have any reason why not to allow them other than I just didn’t want them to lol but today I stopped myself from the “no” and told them to enjoy themselves! There is joy in mud puddles and in running barefoot on an abnormally warm day…especially when you are bound to your house!  It was such a healing morning for us all. When we returned they all showered and after Alaina came to me and said “mommy, I just feel so good, I feel like this is going to be a perfect day”. My heart melted, I made the right choice to let them enjoy the mud! 

When we returned I opened all the windows to let the healing air flow through our home.  The weather was super weird in the fact that it was supposed to get colder as the day went on. So I was determined to leave them open until we couldn’t handle the cold.  It lasted about an hour. Today is catch up day for the kids’ school so they were beyond excited to have nothing to do all day! They just played and played. I did have to work though.  

Today was just a good day all around! It was cereal day! MY FAVORITE! Not because I get to eat cereal but because I don’t have to make breakfast! So about cereal day…a little over 2 years ago I changed to a clean eating diet because it healed me of my 20 plus years of daily chronic stomach aches and issues.  Not only did I change my diet, I also changed the kids’ diet. So now we all clean eat but I do allow non-clean foods once in a while so that they do not kill me! So Friday is one of those days. They have cereal and free choice for snacks! They love it because they have some freedom from clean foods and I love it because I have the freedom from the stress of preparing whole foods! This brings up one concern, can we sustain clean eating during this crisis?  I am running out of food, as I mentioned before, and will have my first experience with grocery delivery this weekend. We debated on grocery delivery or wearing a mask to the store. We are going to skip the extra germs and just sanitize the groceries that are delivered. I am curious to see what food is available. I will have to report back on all this.  

I was doing a little research on China’s lock down today and saw that they completely shut everything down and it’s been 3 months and they are just now getting to a point where they do not have any new cases and are still on lockdown! This is so discouraging.  I really do not think we will be going back to school this year. It’s really starting to sink in how serious this is and can be. I have hope though. It’s really cool to see so many people in our country doing great things for others. Even my own neighbor came over to check on us to see if we needed anything! Because of this, it caused me to send a message to our other neighbor to check on them.  I think our character really shows when we go through fearful situations. God is working in our land.  

Last thoughts and a challenge…I find myself asking what things will look like for us in 2 months?  Will we still be doing this? Will we have our normal life back? Will we ever eat Chic-Fil-A again? And on the flip side I am asking, do I want to go back to the way things were? Is there something to the way we are being forced to live at this time?  What are some things I can take with me from this season that will enhance our lives when we make it to the other side? How about you? Do you really want to go back to exactly the way it was?