At Home with Family

by Al McWalter Lim

Are you bored yet? Don’t you just ant to get back to work? To see the world once more and to feel the breeze of the ocean? And taste good food not cooked by your wife or husband? I am not saying the sisters and some brothers don’t cook good food but 60 days? 

I know you love your kids too but 24 hours, 60 days? Your vocabulary will shrink drastically. Another 30 days and I will start to talk like Asher... Uh Oh... 

The Corona virus robbed us a lot this year; robbed us of an early start in business, robbed us of a great summer trip, robbed us of the opportunity to visit our loved ones and friends. It robbed us a portion of our freedom. It robbed us of some choices.  

But if there is one thing that this entire crisis has bestowed upon us…that would be TIME. Brothers and sisters, we are in a constant chase in our lives - For that opportunity…For that billing…For that payment…For that email…For that deadline. We move at the dictate of urgency. Rarely can you have the time to just sit and ask yourself, “is this what I want to do? Am I doing it right? Am I in the right place? Am I loving correctly, am I loving enough?” 

The Corona virus will be remembered in history for a lot of things but I urge you brothers and sisters to see this as the only time you can wake up without an alarm every day. And no one will judge you for it. This is the only time you can finally do the hobbies you have always wanted to do like gardening, sewing, car washing and things you didn't have time to do; obviously, because they were VERY boring. This is the only time you can snuggle with your kid at bed, as long as you want, everyday. With no school or work schedule at the back of your head. This is the only time you can just be still and see the world, not the world outside. Your world, your family, yourself, without any urgency, without any pressure, without any objective and just see it as it is - in its own beauty emanating from within itself. There, in themselves you will find God in their trueness.  All these for 60 days…

Funny how only a worldwide pandemic, nothing else, can force the world to be still. For the Earth to rest. For us to stay at home. For us, to listen. For us, to pray. 

Home is the heart of everything we do after all. 

"Be still and know that I am here" --it is these words that keep reverberating in my head. I know God is here in these trying times. I had my own soul searching this ECQ as well. Like many things in life, balance is always the key. There is a time to run. There is a time to sit. There is a time to fight. And in eventuality, there is our time. Do not be in a hurry for this time, this ECQ, to be over. This is God's time. Much like there is beauty and depth in death. There is beauty and brilliance in boredom. You just have to open your heart. 

God calls us to listen - to hear not just our thoughts and our hearts but also of those around us... To listen to what is not uttered. To listen to what is not apparent. To listen to what God is telling us. Cut through the noise. Listen to God's call, to God's plan. God is the meaning of everything we do after all. Do note, brother and sisters that some will not or cannot see this crisis the way we do. We had it easy. We live in private residences where it is comfortable and social distancing is easy. Social distancing, to some, may be a luxury we take for granted. While we see this as an opportunity or God's call for us to be still, some, in their most dire needs, have difficulty feeling God, trying to make sense of this madness.  

Let us open our hearts to them and reach out and make a difference in their lives. Share what we have. Pray for them. Make our time with God bear fruit. God bless us all. 

“Life is a series of a thousand miracles - let us continually try to notice them! We are taught that grace is when we get the good things we do not deserve, that mercy is when we are spared from the bad things we deserve, and blessing is when God is generous with both. Thus, may we concentrate on counting our blessings so that we have little time to count on anything else. Happiness can consist of choosing to be thankful of everything we have and talking about our blessings more than our burdens”

** first published in Ang Panimalay 2Q 2020