There are thousands of articles and blogs about the pandemic. A thousand ideas of how to navigate it and how to survive. This isn’t one of them. This is a gentle reminder that our plans are best held with open hands and that waiting is often a part of all good things. 

About a week before the nation shut down due to Covid-19, our family traveled to Colorado to explore the possibilities of relocating. Dallas summers had left a bitter taste in our mouths and the accompanying summer storms and unending tornado season left us rattled. After a large tree fell on our home in 2019, any and every storm after caused anxiety and worry while we huddled in hallways and prayed for it to pass. We were ready for someplace new. We wanted different. We wanted summer and winter. We wanted cooler air and calmer traffic. And so we decided to explore the possibilities of moving.

But then the world came to a screeching halt.

We rushed home from Colorado, cautiously washing our hands and buying up what toilet paper we could after hearing from friends that Dallas was sold out. We went into survival mode rather than let’s move mode and our plans got put on pause. For weeks we didn’t even think about Colorado nor the opportunity it presented. We simply let go and practiced being a family–all working, living, and playing in our home together with one another. We made peace with what was once the minimum; being healthy and being together. And for months we allowed this to be enough.

The idea didn’t go away, however, and we once more re-engaged in the conversation of moving. I must admit, I had let the dream die. It seemed too good to be true and obviously a sign to not go if a literal pandemic started while we were in the process of planning. But my family didn’t let it go. We talked and kept checking out our options, looking into what was possible and doable.

And there was fruitfulness produced in the waiting.

While we waited, the world changed. In addition to the realities of staying home, moving all our work to online, and limiting social engagements, a new civil rights movement emerged and our hearts were awakened to new conversations. As a family we recognized our previous plans had failed to take into account the opportunities and the diversity of our situation. In the waiting, we changed directions and changed cities we were looking at. In the waiting, we found a better time to put our current house on the market and got offers the weekend we listed it. In the waiting, we were put in the position to help better transition my client load to the reality of continued Telehealth. In the waiting, we missed a few houses we thought we wanted only to be provided with a house that checked all the boxes.

As we reflect on the plan of moving in a pandemic, we see it as one in which we find ourselves severely blessed by waiting. Without the pause of Covid-19, we would have moved forward hastily in things we liked, only to miss out on things much more important that we are coming to love. Perhaps we would have had a brand new home ready for us to move into, but in the wrong area and without the neighbors we’ve already come to enjoy here. Perhaps we’d have found a solid church, but not the diverse biblical church that reflects our family best here. 

It’s still hard to uproot after ten years of living in Dallas. Leaving community that we hadn’t seen regularly for over six month seemed like a weight that we will still have not fully felt. And so even in the going, we find ourselves waiting. Waiting for feelings to catch up with reality and for reality to feel real. Waiting for new relationship to form and coffee with new friends to be more than just a hope. Waiting for friends, classmates, community. This too we hold with open hands. 

As vaccinations become available, mask mandates reduce, and the world begins to connect once more, might you reflect on the ways you’ve waited and your hands have been opened. Might you allow for the both/and of life to wash over you as you recount the frustrations and fears while also the gifts and joys open hands and waiting has brought you. And might we see each other face to face, smiling together again soon.

Written by Lindsay Williams, MA, LPC

I’d love to connect and hear how you are doing!