Proverbs 21:1

“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord,
Like the rivers of water;
He turns it wherever He wishes.”

This verse has always confounded me.  I can understand the words as they are constructed in a sentence.  But if you take a look at a map or think of a substantial river you have ever traveled down, and imagine that God’s by will and by God’s hand, He could turns it wherever He wills.  The power it would take to make a river be redirected from left to right or to flow between the mountains when before it flowed at the foot of the mountains.  It is hard to wrap my mind around that possibility.

And if you have ever come against a strong person or an unmovable situation, and felt utterly hopeless to affect either one, you might remember seeing the same challenge.  It can be hard to wrap your mind around the possibility that with the power of Lord’s hand, He can turn it all around at His command.

Most of my experiences have been good/bad or black/white or something that takes a long time to transition.  But in the last month, the world around each of us has changed.  It changed suddenly and drastically.  I am not going to suggest that God caused any of this.  I can only discuss what is happening in my life and how our current circumstance is affecting me.

I do know that for the last few years (at least!) I have said that I wanted a smaller world and slower pace.  I have voiced my desire to be in a position to focus on taking better care of our home, to be away from home less and to utilize other rooms in our home besides the office I feel chained to.  I have committed over and over to reduce my stress, walk outside, take a break and not push myself to be ultra-productive every waking minute.

I have been trying to “reduce my stress” for one thousand years and news flash:  has. not. happened.  I am super good at saying “YES” but not so much saying “NO”.  Besides, to who and to what do you say “NO” to anyway?  I struggle to let things go and not just the things that I believe in or think should happen.  I struggle with not stepping up when something needs to be done, said, gotten or whatever, so to let them just go…..undone….ACK!  What’s one more hour, one more task, one more call, or one more chore?

Because my husband and I already worked from home, our job-life did not change.  Because our daughter was already homeschooled, our school-life did not change.  The first change I noticed was the quiet.  The world was a little quieter.  Then a lot more quiet.  I was outside, sitting in a chair and closed my eyes and I could hear the evidence of a light breeze blowing over the leaves on the ground.  It was glorious.

After the first week of putting up groceries enough for a hurricane and setting up for quarantine life, we had a free night.  And then another.  And then another.  When worked concluded, I walked through back yard garden with husband and putzed around but when we came inside the house, it was only 6:30 p.m.  It was weird.  A free weekend followed and there was nothing scheduled.  It was weird.  It was glorious.

I told my mother recently that 3 or so week later, I finally feel a little stressed and a little less anxious.  I fantasize that with 3 or so months, I could be relaxed!  If you told me that God woke up one day and said, “I give up, that girl is never going to reduce her stress and learn to do less.  Shut down the world.  Just shut it down.”, I would believe you.  And I accept.

I accept this gift of a cleared schedule.  I accept the quiet.  I accept the opportunity to access where I put my efforts and where I spend my energy.  I accept the found time in form of additional minutes to rest because that gives me extra minutes to do that chore later.  I accept the extra moments I get to spend with God.  I accept that God may use this period to reveal His next assignment for me.

My heart is in the Lord’s hand.  And if He can turn the heart of a king, what can he do with mine?