Letter No. 11 [quarantine]

Oh, my Friend,

I just want it to end. I know I shouldn’t say that. I know other people have it so much worse than I do, but I don’t want to live this way anymore. I just want it to be over and for us to already be on the other side. Should I wish that?

I don’t know what that other side will look like, or know if it will be better. I definitely don’t wish to go back to the way it was before this, and it was good to have our worlds shifted and our lives changed, globally. But I do want it to be over.

I want to go forward.

If I’ve learned anything in the little time I’ve been alive though, it’s that slow growth is the only growth. We can’t rush our maturing, or the days or moments we wish would pass, or some good thing we are too impatient to wait for. It doesn’t matter if we want to wait or not, we have to. We have to live through those days we don’t think we can bear, and then later, once we’re out of it, once we’ve grown in some capacity, we can look back and see how that day made us a little stronger, or a little bolder, or a little more kind.

And I do know we get better through these things, because the Lord has promised to grow us. He’s chosen us and He’s promised we’ll keep growing. How painful it is though!

Hopefully, someday I will look back on these words and shake my head. Hopefully I will be more patient and understanding and outward-looking, but right now it’s hard to think like that.

Tonight I am so overwhelmed with sadness and longing to GO OUT. To be with the families I love and to hug their little children and embrace their mamas and shake the hands of their fathers until they fall off. I long for openness—like the seashore and or the plains. I long for our society to go about its business without living in the fear of both being infected and unknowingly infecting others.

Is it good for us to be shocked out of our numbness? I think so. Is it good for us to be reminded of death, and that our lives are fragile and we are out of control? Yes, it is. Because there will be a day when Jesus returns, and then we will all have to stand before Him. And that is a terrifying thing if you are not saved. Our American lives make it easy to forget that.

So I have nothing else to say. I am here with my family, a blessing many do not have, and they are all believers, another blessing many do not have. I am missing everyone, and I am longing to be out, but I am trying to be patient. Just know that I miss you.

Tara

A little painting I made tonight—I’m missing Newport, Newport in winter, particularly, and the wind; it’s sharp and smells of seaweed and makes your eyes water, but it makes you thrill inside and look to the ocean and the sky and feel absolutely, completely alive.