It had been two weeks since I sat in a normal church service. And that Sunday I ended up with wet pants, which, for the record, isn’t normal anyway.

I was holding a restless 15-month-old who has outgrown his ability to snuggle through worship and sleep through sermons. So you can see where I’m going.

Nope, little Kavanagh was a big boy now, and wanted to crawl in the aisle, hang over the chairs in front of us, flirt with the people behind us, and purloin all the pens and New Guest forms he could get ahold of.

Friends, he could not be contained. And when I tried to nurse him to sleep during worship that day, he suddenly detached himself so violently that I had to make the split-second decision to either a) expose myself to the entire west side of the congregation, or b) cover myself in time, overturning the cup of water I was holding.

It was a cold, impromptu baptism for both of us.

I brushed off as much as I could and hightailed it to the nursing moms’ room, where I had spent many services over the last ten years. That tiny little room, recently upgraded into a beautiful, soft-lit haven, was a refuge when we couldn’t be contained in the huge sanctuary and needed the comfort and privacy of smaller walls to hold us.

The service streamed through the wall-mounted screen and my attention went back and forth from it to Kavanagh, occupying himself with the toys, or – even better, according to him – the contents of my purse.

I rescued the things I didn’t want him to have, like my sunglasses, the charging cord, and a bar of chocolate. I left him the eight pens (that many?), one fork (sigh), and also the mints, which he couldn’t open. But no matter, he found one that had probably rolled around loose for several months and popped it in his mouth. I let him have it, and started eating the chocolate.

That was two weeks earlier. None of us imagined what things would be like shortly after, when the world went on lockdown.

I felt a little guilty because I knew this was a huge transition for many families, but it was pretty normal life for us. You know that meme that said, “When you find out your normal daily lifestyle is called a quarantine” and the puppet character looks awkwardly away? That’s us.

We already work from home. We already homeschool. Most of our ministry is from home or through social media. And after being self-employed writers for almost two years at that point, we were already used to not having predictable income.

So when Kav stabbed me in the eye Monday night with not just one, but two pens (because in a house of writers, pens are everywhere), I suddenly had a small dose of what many of you were feeling: Hemmed in, confined, unable to do my normal stuff. At a loss. I had to spend the day with it patched, resting, not able to read or write enough to get any work done.

Quarantine day 4? 5? Whatever. Pirate day. In which we...
A) dress like a pirate
B) talk like a pirate
C) learn how terrible pirates actually were and why we DON’T want to emulate them
D) wear a patch for the fun of it because your toddler stabbed you in the eye the night before with not one, but two pens.
I got D but don’t recommend it.
Both pens were capped, praise God, but I have some scratches and one is right across the center. SO MUCH PAIN. Feeling much better today though and hopefully we’ll be back on track tomorrow. But no storytime from me today, friends.
I mean, me hearties. Argh.
xo

I had no depth perception, but eventually I got the hang of eating without making a mess all over myself. When I scrolled social media, it took me a few tries to accurately hit the “like” button. First world problems, for real.

The next day I was mostly back to normal (eyes heal super fast, praise God) and I had more to do at home than I know what to do with…which was fine, because I’m the introvertiest introvert I know. No plans? Everything’s cancelled? You mean, for the good of our community and the health of our loved ones we have to stay in our house full of books and do the work we love to do?

Well. Introvert’s paradise. Some of us were made for such a time as this.

Because it’s not only a virus that is germinating.

This is a fertile time for so many good things, and God is birthing movements and boldness and unrealized giftings in His people at an accelerated rate. The more we cooperate with that germination, the more we flip the other on its head, as God did with Joseph’s capture and imprisonment, using it for the saving of many people.

And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.

– Genesis 45:7

In this season God is calling His people to outgrow their ability to passively doze through worship and sleep through sermons.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

– Genesis 50:20

We were an entire world of people living in an imprisonment of sorts, a whole kingdom of people alive who had the same opportunity to hear God in how He wants us to overturn these circumstances, to take what the enemy means for harm and use it for good, doing whatever it is that we each are best at for the good of those around us.

Some of us are bakers, and we bake.

Some of us are builders, and we build.

Some of us are teachers, and we teach.

I am a reader, a writer, and an intercessor, and I did those things, pivoting in ways to reach out spiritually and emotionally when we couldn’t reach out physically. And let’s face it, I’ve never been great at reaching out physically anyway.

But nothing we did then or do now stays in a building.

God is offering this as a time to step up in bolder ways, using these callings for His kingdom at a level that I would normally brush aside as too much. But this is all too much.

We’ve lived isolated for a long time, and this new situation only makes physically obvious what has been true for a generation. The lockdowns are just an honest picture of how we’ve lived for years – head down, looking at our phones and laptops, distracted and closed off more than ever, missing the world around us.

The time to overturn that is here.

I heard a lot of people complain about how terrible people were with the selfishness of hoarding, the panic-raising of the media, and the drama-seeking of the immature. And I saw some of that. But mostly in the beginning of the lockdowns, I saw the opposite.

I saw people freely give of their time and resources to help educate and feed other people’s children. I saw businesses declare grace for unpaid bills. I saw business owners continue to pay their employees in spite of their doors being closed.

I saw an entire community of creatives rise up to reach out with their giftings, bringing warmth and connection in the face of isolation – singing, acting, reading, reciting poetry, giving free lessons, sharing what they know with others. Building the kingdom.

And even after we saw that it was a sham, that the numbers of sick and dying were inflated with unreliable tests and a media who had other agendas than the truth in mind, we still saw those things. Even in the face of Communist mandates that attempt to criminalize singing in church, or attending classes without an experimental injection (even as a remote student, because it was never about science), we see people overturning these situations for the Kingdom.

They are not confined to the walls around them. They are cooperating with the movement of a Spirit who crashes against the walls, uncontainable.

We’ve waved adios to normal so much over the last two years that it feels like nothing else will surprise us. But if the church will keep its eyes open, praying, listening, leaning in hard to God’s calling for each of us in this time, we won’t be surprised anymore.

We’ll be the ones who overturn this, because the church was never meant to be a building. It was always meant to be unleashed.