Letting Go of the Status Quo

While this photo was just a comical reaction to the it's time to go to school announcement, I think it is fitting that it is the first photo of the December Photo Project 2020.  This year has been a challenging one for all, I am sure.  For us, it has provided a plentitude of challenges that have had nothing to do with the pandemic though that hasn't helped.   

While reading an advent devotional by Paul David Tripp, the prologue refers to the concept of familiarity.  Certainly, familiarity can provide some safety and security.  It provides calm in the chaos.  He refers to the dangers of familiarity.  He speaks of it in the context of our comfort with the story of Christmas.  That by being so familiar, perhaps we have lost some of the wonder of the story.   He likens this as moving to somewhere new and walking by a nearby magnificent rose garden.  When you first pass, you declare the beauty of the garden and bring others to the garden with you.  As time passes, you continue to walk past this same garden and you lose the awareness of the beauty sitting right before you.  

2020 has provided us opportunity to let go of the status quo.  We will begin to see some of the familiarity with new eyes as it returns.   When you can go to the store, without a mask or fear of infection - you will likely breathe in the store as you walk in and welcome in that old sense of familiarity.  You will have a heightened awareness of the benefits you had previously long taken for granted.   My children have all sworn they will never again want to ask to miss school because after last Spring, the pandemic taught them what a necessary privilege an education is.  A familiarity that they had long taken for granted and maybe even begrudged.  When those doors opened in August, not even the changes in normal kept the kids from feeling the excitement of the return.  

 Today was a really tough day that punctuated an already tough year.  And while the wounds are still too raw to give specifics here, I find hope in Pastor Tripp's words.   Perhaps we have gotten too complacent in our familiarity and we are being provided an uncomfortable excursion into gratitude and back into wonder.   I know that Mom's Alzheimer's has taught us to not take the familiarity of our memories and time together lightly.   The loss of my brother awakened all kinds of wonder to his multitude of amazing traits and the flood of memories we have made over the decades.  I am choosing to believe that these hard and sad things do bring blessings.   As fear and worry creep in, I will look for the wonder and those lessons that we can learn from this adversity.  

I am grateful to have this photo project to focus my season on the familiar and my advent devotional.  To bring back the wonder to those areas that have become routine that I have lost the excitement and fun.   

Some familiar moments filled with wonder today....

Lil b making his app time interactive while zooming his friends.  This has been a fun way for him to connect during the increased time at home.   Even though I know how hard this pandemic has been on kids, it is amazing how they find ways to connect, to interact, and to continue to learn.  On these zoom calls, I hear lil b having to work through conflict as individuals negotiate the terms of the games giving me hope that some of those necessary elementary school interpersonal negotiation skills may still get learned.

K trying desperately to get this guy to sing and dance.  Determined, she began to problem solve and look for the potential problems.  Something that is definitely familiar is the abundant learning and developing the human brain does right before our eyes all day every day.  

And.....we have a driver.   E sent me this photo today - for the blog (she is parked).  It makes my heart happy that she was counting down the days to this as much as I was.  There is a lot about the teen years that comes with gradually increasing separation that is healthy and necessary.  Still hard on a mama's heart, just the same.  It makes all the things that we do share all the more special.  This kiddo has been through some big hard stuff this year and while that hasn't been fun - it has brought back some wonder to the familiarity of her strength.  

The think tank.....  These two boys share the same gift of wicked intelligence encased in a friendly, fun loving, sometimes goofy exterior.   Their brains find solutions that no one else has even considered.  They are the ones who can see situations from totally different perspectives with ease.  They are both compassionate, generous, and empathetic individuals who would give you the shirt right off their back.  These two humans are incredibly familiar to me but it doesn't take me long to find my wonder in them.  

Whatever hard 2020 has dealt you, I pray that it is changing the familiar back to wonder.  That it may open your eyes to the beauty that you have long since overlooked.   And may the familiar return to you soon so that you may feel its predictability and security.   I know you will appreciate it all the more.  I know I will.