Letting Go

Years ago I painted 2 murals in our daughters' room; Noah's ark and giant sunflowers. But today they have disappeared beneath a new coat of powder blue paint: "We aren't babies anymore Mum!"

I felt a twinge of sadness and sentimentality rolling fresh paint over my hours of investment, saying an official goodbye to the kiddie years of snuggled bedtime stories and sticky glitter craft projects.

Over these weeks we seem to be gradually releasing many portions of life as we knew it; in just 2 months our schedule has been shut down and flipped inside out with locked down quarantine!

Things we took for granted seem a distant dimension away as we wonder what the 'new normal' really involves? So few answers to the many questions around our family table.

The same twinge of loss resounds in the reality of numerous changes beyond our sphere of jurisdiction. I realise I am holding much sadness, most especially for our children, uncertain of what lies ahead, carrying the responsibility to walk alongside them in unfamiliar territory without sufficient answers or assurance.

It is hard to respond with "I don't know!" to pleading eyes. Only offering our love and a promise to walk together hand in hand.

It does not alter the current situation but it gives us permission to acknowledge our true position, our limitations and weaknesses. It frees us from unrealistic expectations or the temptation to dismiss the discomfort and legitimate grief that each is quietly carrying.

Can our grandparents still come back to the Philippines?

Will we have school online?

When can I see my friends again?

Why did this happen?

"I don't know!"

We grow up aspiring to bravery and yet the greatest courage is to just be honest; the open vulnerability of being unsure, or lost, disappointed, and sad.

I cannot hold both the past and the present in the same hand. BUT loosening my grip on the old gives wider space for the new; even if it is not my preference and outside my planner timeline.

I don't want to be stuck in this season, paralysed by the enforced changes or missing the opportunities available.

Embrace the new chapter or grasp on to what has already passed?

I need to practice daily.

Make my choice in each moment.

The blue wall tells me it's time to let go....!

" Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? "

Isaiah 43:18-19