2020 - The Year of "Pause"

For the last few years, I have picked a word of the year.  A word that I choose to meditate on, to pray over, and to grow in.

In 2016 (or maybe 2017...), that word was trust.

In 2018, it was rest.

2019 was the year of perspective.

And for 2020, yep...I chose pause.

Pause.

There were so many thoughts behind that choice, but let me share the top two with you.

1 - I wanted to take time to breathe.  To think.  To give myself a beat.

And boy oh boy did I get a beat.  The whole world did.

After the conference/retreat that I went to in the summer of 2019, which was called Breathe, I had a renewed understanding of how much rest and refreshment I really needed to be okay.  Pause just felt right.

2 - I was tired.

I know, I know, if I'm tired then rest might need to be revisited.  But my exhaustion was going beyond that which sleep would cure.  If I couldn't truly rejuvenate, restart, realign myself beyond just sleep, I was worried that I was going to lose my mind.

Sooo...I had all sorts of plans.

Plans for a Spring Festival vacation with a friend to explore somewhere new and see old friends and just pause to drink it all in and enjoy it.

Plans for a summer in North America to see family and friends and explore a bit.

Plans for a semester in a new role, preparing for a sabbatical and helping new school leaders adjust.

Plans for a Christmas in France with friends coming along.

Plans to ring in 2021 with the start of a sabbatical and a whole new world on the horizon.

And let me tell you, January was great...

...and then the world changed.

So, what did I learn about pausing?

I learned that you can't always plan your pauses (like I tried to).  Sometimes the Father delivers them to you.  Maybe it's in the form of stay at home orders, or Home Based Learning, or quarantines.  

Maybe when a global pause starts, He allows you to spend 3 weeks at home with your parents, working in the middle of the night but being oh so well cared for by two of the most important people in your life, with long walks by quiet lakes and being up before the sunrise with delightful cups of coffee at all hours. 

Maybe in the pause of not knowing quite when to return, He allows you to see two family that you adore on your way back "home", not realizing that this will be the last time you see them with borders closing around the next corner.  You might also get to see your brother during this journey home...someone you love oh so dearly but don't see nearly enough. Meals shared and again the sunrises with cups of coffee will be a balm for the soul that you didn't know you needed.  

Maybe He gives you the pause of quarantine - 14 days of not walking out your front door.  Time to work and bake and cook and be.  Time when you get so tired of screens that you're comfortable starting at the ceiling and thinking for the first time in a long time.  Just being.  What a blessing.

Maybe sometimes He forces you to pause so that you can get to know yourself a bit better.  To make a list of wants and hopes and dreams.  To rediscover passions and ponder the life-changing moments that got you to this moment.  Maybe, just maybe, sometimes He forces you to pause so that you can get comfortable with yourself again. 

And maybe He forces the world to pause to remind you (and others, I'm sure), that nothing is certain.  That every moment is precious.  That you've got to tell the people that you care.  Because each moment could be it.

I'm sorry if my word of the year caused issues for everyone else, but I am so thankful that Jesus and I took a long walk together, thinking on pause.

As we look forward to 2021, knowing it won't be perfect but eager for what's around the corner, my goal is to anticipate. I look forward to the unpacking of this word that is sure to come.

Plans Interrupted

Today felt like the right day to get Christmas up in my apartment.  It was my reward after a day of sorting and cleaning and getting rid of accumulated stuff/junk.  (The lady who cleans my building was quite excited to see me getting off the elevator with so many things I didn't want/need.)

We all know that 2020 has been a year of the unexpected, of sorrow, of change.  It's interesting when it hits me...when I remember just how different my plans and the reality of this year ended up being.

I was reminded of just how much has changed this afternoon when I opened up my box of Christmas decorations this afternoon.  When I packed it in January, I was packing it in preparation for a big move.  I carefully labelled the box with of the treasures that I wouldn't want to forget about or lose: my tree skirt that my mom hand quilted of Provençal fabrics, my Chengdu Christmas Starbucks mug, all of the ornaments that I've accumulated over the years. I wasn't supposed to open that box leading up to Christmas of 2020...I was supposed to be packing all of my things, heading on sabbatical, and preparing for whatever next had in store.

But here I am, in Chengdu, unpacking that box in the weeks before I was supposed to be tying a neat little bow on 8 and a half years in this city of mine. 

Instead of finishing a semester in a temporary role between roles, I'm in the middle of a year in the job I had stepped away from.  

Instead of preparing for a move, I've painted and upgraded and perked up this apartment of mine.  

Instead of a sabbatical, I'm in the midst of a season where leaving China for any reason at all means not being able to return while the world goes through a global pandemic and our borders remain essentially closed.

Instead of plans, I'm paused.  And that's okay...

As I sit in my living room, a Christmas-y candle lit and my twinkle lights and tree the only light in the room, I can't help but reflect on the many layers of grief and joy and unknowns that this year has held.

I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know He who holds my tomorrows.  I can't wait to look back on this season and see what bigger story was being written.

2020 Blessings - Part 1

Written July 25th...but forgot to hit Publish.  Oops :)


What a season 2020 has been.  Thankfully, I only sporadically blog anyway, so no one can blame 2020 or Covid-19 for my silence.  But I did feel the need to write today and process with you, dear friends, where I am at.

I know that this year has been hard for all of us, but I've been really trying to seek out the blessings despite the craziness going on in the world around me.  Can I share a few of those blessings that I've been especially thankful for with you?  I can?  Aw thanks! I'm going to write a bit of a series on the things that have been a blessing to me during this season of insanity and unknowns. We'll see how far into this series I get :)

1st Blessing - Mobility

I know that this is an unusual one in this season of borders being closed and quarantines, but let me explain (or at least summarize):

I first received news of the virus when I was in South Korea with a good friend on our Chinese New Year holiday.  It was just a day or two before we were traveling out of Seoul and into a city in Eastern China where some dear friends lived.  Masks started being more normal (welcome to Asia...we've been through big diseases before and masks are the immediate go to for prevention) and we started checking updates several times a day to see if we should be worried.  We bought a few masks and continued with our original plans.  Once we arrived in our next destination, we battened down the hatches, donned masks every time we went out, and settled in for a week of card playing and movie watching and just being.  Cities in China during the New Year are quiet, for sure, but this was a different kind of quiet.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed intentional time with friends and started to wonder what the rest of the school year would hold.

Our trip back to Chengdu was uneventful, but the thermometers were out at the airports and there was an extra layer of paperwork each step of the way.  Worry crept in, but again, it was early on in this whole situation.  We didn't know what we didn't know and luckily we were able to return home uneventfully.

Vacation ended and we began the journey of what our system called Home Based Learning.  I started working from home and prepared for the long-haul (2 or 3 weeks at most, right??).  Unfortunately, numbers continued to rise within China and the world was watching. I wasn't planning on leaving China at all, even as this novel coronavirus (remember when it was just called that??) continued to gain traction, but when my parents said it was time for me to get out for a bit and come to them, I didn't hesitate.  I don't see my parents very often.  Maybe once a year.  That's become very normal for our family, but when there is an opportunity to spend more than just a week or two working out of their apartment and doing life with them, I couldn't say no. 

What a blessing it was to be loved on and cared for by my amazing mom and dad.  To take long walks with my dad almost daily, to watch cooking shows with my mom and willingly be the taste-tester for her creations.  To explore new areas and do new things.  This was long before France had any cases and based on where I had been it was fairly clear that I hadn't brought anything with me.  This season was a gift.

But I knew I needed to get back home.  Europe is not a convenient time zone region to be in when your staff and students are in the US and Asia. 2 a.m. staff meetings and before the crack of dawn check-ins were wearing on me and I knew I needed to get back to at least Southeast Asia before things got more precarious, as they appeared to be doing.  My brother was in Malaysia at the time, working form his AirBNB online, and some dear friends from Chengdu were also there waiting out this storm.  I bought a one-way ticket, knowing that quarantine was a possibility when I returned to Chengdu and that if I was going to spend 14 days in my apartment alone I would have to have my people cup filled up first.

When I checked in in Marseille, they said you have to have an exit ticket from Malaysia (for visa purposes) before you can fly into the country.  Okay...$15 ticket to Singapore (where other dear friends were waiting out this virus) it is.

The week or so that I spent in Malaysia was so life-giving.  3 days with my brother, who I hadn't seen since October and likely wouldn't see for another year or two depending on both of our schedules, was a gift that I didn't expect to receive.  Time with the family there that I adore and whose kids I am the principal for (imagine having your principal stay with you during Home Based Learning!  Yipes!) was exactly what I needed...and I think what they needed to.

And then Singapore, with a family I've recently grown close to and have so appreciated on so many different levels.  I got to be the entertainer (aka distractor) for the kids as their parents figured out next steps.

And then I came home to Chengdu.  And served 14 days in quarantine.  And got back to this absolutely non-normal season of life in a year we won't soon forget.  The borders essentially closed to foreigners on March 28th and we're still working out what that looks like for our community...that was the day before my quarantine ended.  Just 13 days after I returned.

And both of the families that I visited on my way home were not able to return to Chengdu. 

So how is this all a blessing?

I am blessed to have been able to help those families pack up  their apartments and love on them through that from afar.  To help them close out their Chengdu life.  They are families that were my Chengdu families and I will miss them.  I know that some would see traveling to them in the midst of all of this as a poor choice...but I stand by it and am so thankful that I got some more laughter and tears and hugs in with them before and as they made the hard decisions not to return.

I am blessed to have had quality time with my family that is so rare and so so precious.  I haven't spent more than a week or two with my parents since probably 2007.  What a gift to be able to just be and enjoy and breathe together....even while working random middle of the night hours and figuring out what Home Based Learning was going to look like.

I am blessed to be in China right now, where domestic travel is possible with minimal fear and safety screenings to keep the country with very low numbers of this virus.

There are blessings hiding around the corners of this pandemic.  What are some of the blessings that you have experienced?