We’ve lost our knowing

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I am not a scientist, a doctor or an epidemiologist. I am not a government official or a school administrator.  I have but a sliver of knowledge on how a virus actually works, what the medical field looks like or what is really going on behind the scenes of this worldwide pandemic we are currently facing.  I am simply a Mom who used to have a good head on her shoulders and used to have confidence to make decisions regarding myself and my family.  Used to be. 

Just a simple decision recently on whether or not I should meet a friend for coffee turned into the following thought process: Is it safe?  Am I being reckless?  Is all this isolation for not if I go?  Are they being careful enough? Should I bring my own coffee? What’s the right thing to do? 

I ask my husband, I ask some friends, I go back and forth back and forth back and forth. Over freaking coffee.  Sound familiar?   

Should I send the girls to pre-school this year? Is it safe?  Is it responsible?  Should I keep them home?  Will that be good for them?  Will that be good for ME? (NO). I only work part time, but should I stop working all together so we can better handle all this?  I’ve lost too much this year, I cannot lose anymore. 

What should I do? What should I do?  What should I do?  Please someone who knows something JUST TELL ME what to do.  

There is a verse in the bible that usually brings me peace, but if I am being honest it lately has brought me annoyance. 

Matthew 6:34 says:  “So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own.“

Oh sure, that sounds easy for somebody who isn’t trying to plan for a million different scenarios for her family and life right now. But Alas, it is true.  Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed by decisions, it is usually because I am thinking of too many things at once.  Break it down, I tell myself, one step, one decision at a time. 

In my experience, a practical roadblock of doing the next thing in love is we are carrying too many things in the first place. What if we gave ourselves permission to hold just one thing at a time? – Emily P. Freeman

Here is what I also believe: the answers we are all looking for are not with the doctors or the scientists and are certainly not in our Facebook Mom groups. But the answers are there.  Deep down.  No really, they are. But you need to freaking listen. You are a mama bear gosh darn it and you have intuition that you are likely not listening to because you are comparing it to others and listening to too much chatter. 

The best thing we can do right now in this very chaotic moment in time is silence the chatter.  Turn off the news.  Turn off social media for a few days (or I don’t know maybe forever would be good too).  Take a few days and listen to your mom gut, your intuition, your knowing.  Pray about it and get quiet.  

“What I’m finding to be most helpful more than any list, question, or sage advice is simply to get quiet in a room with Jesus on the regular, not for the sake of an answer but for the sake of love. I cannot promise your decision will be made with ease, but I can say that you’ll remember love is the important thing. And when you have a big decision to make, you need all the love and support you can possibly get.”

― Emily P. Freeman, The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice for Making Life Decisions

You don’t have to be a spiritual or religious person to have an inner knowing. We all have it, but it’s been lost. Don’t let my God and Bible talk deter you if that is not your belief.  You have an intuition. Listen to it. Let it have a spot at the discussion table.  Your answers might be different than your neighbors, your friends, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong.  It means they are yours.  Trust them. I’m trying to trust mine.