When we first moved to the farm, I went from being a full-time working mum to a full-time stay-at-home mum. Not only that, I went from going to town every day to only going once a week, at most twice a week, including church. This massive change in my routine meant the I have some really bad days as we were also struggling to put food on the table for our five children and one grandchild.
At the time, my husband was working very long hours, I had three teenage girls and two small boys and as it was twenty-five years ago, no social media. The occasional phone call and the rare visits from neighbours and friends was my only connection with the outside world. There were many bad days but what I learnt was that I had better days when I had a project happening.
The first project was recovering my dining room chairs, but wait, you say, you didn’t have enough money to feed the kids, how did you have money to recover chairs. Simple, I unpicked the covers and turned them inside out, and put them back together again, the other side of the fabric looked much better anyway. Writing poetry was another one, along with getting the boys to help make a small vege garden, they even ate what they grew, a few times.
A few years ago, I found myself unemployed again, and one thing I started doing was taking a photo a day. This time, I did have social media to help.
In more recent times, I have found myself again, isolated from town as the drought drained our resources and this time, knitting with stored away wool, has been the thing that has kept me sane, along with my writing.
One thing I learnt over the years, is that routines change, yes, usually slowly, but they still change. With any changes, slow or otherwise, we need to find something that will get us to think outside to box of stress.
Yes, in the last few weeks the Corona virus has managed to turn our lives upside down on a massive scale, but there will be times when illness, accidents or the unexpected death of a loved one will do the same thing. You will find yourself trying to come to terms with a new normal and the solution will be the same, find something to do. After the death of my mother, God gave me writing.
Now, everyone is different. That means that the nuts and bolts of the solution will also be different but ask God to help you find something and He will.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11.
One final thought, do you know what the most common phase is in the Bible? “And it came to pass…..” so will this, it will not last forever only God does and our eternity in Heaven.