Recapturing Joy

It’s been a while since I wrote. We’re 6 weeks in to our summer vacation, with 6 weeks to go before school starts up again. I didn’t realize it was some kind of halfway point until I put pen to paper today and felt a check in my spirit. Something had shifted internally for me and I was surprised to see it reflected in the external.

Let’s face it, it’s been a tough year so far. Almost a tough couple of years, and for some there has been no reprieve. As I write this, my family in South Africa are in their third lockdown battling the Delta variant of the coronavirus. My heart feels torn as I walk around fully vaccinated and mask-free, both loving and hating my privilege, and wondering how long this freedom will last.

No transition out of something hard is entirely a transition in to the next thing if we haven’t acknowledged where we’ve been and let ourselves grieve.

Without even consciously deciding to, I took the month of June to retreat. To rest. To recover from the first half of 2021. Because no transition out of something hard is entirely a transition in to the next thing if we haven’t acknowledged where we’ve been and let ourselves grieve.

My grief has looked different this month. It’s been quiet and slow and accepting. Accepting that I can’t do as much as I’d like to, that the needs of my family trump all others’ - even my own, that control is an illusion, and that in surrender we’re most likely to see the first glimpses of renewal.

An opportunity to heal and be renewed.

And that’s what this halfway-through-summer transition feels like: an opportunity to heal and be renewed. It just so happens that we planned a road trip starting this weekend and the timing couldn’t have coincided better with the hopes I have for my family. Undistracted time to check in with each other’s hearts, intentional time to sow new narratives into hard places, and uninterrupted time in nature to be restored.

So as the miles get swallowed up beneath me, my prayer is to mirror that internally by leaving behind and looking forward. I’m grateful for this season: the hard lessons learned, the adventure that awaits, and the opportunity to recapture joy.

Happy Independence Day!