Weird things I am missing … and what I am learning

On Wednesday, the Governor of Georgia stood in the bright Atlanta sunshine surrounded by health and legal officials along with a very energetic sign language interpreter and ended our 2019-2020 school year. The words were barely out his mouth before my 5th grader collapsed in my lap in tears. “No, no, no. He can’t end school. We have to go back. I am finally a 5th grader. And my pencil box is still at school,” he sobbed onto my shoulder. And I just cried with him. I will never get used to life being like this.

Now, I get it, and I don’t blame the Governor. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and this is what has to be done. But even my high schoolers hunched their shoulders and sank down into their seats mumbling about how awful it all is. It seems unreal. No more school? And my 5th grader won’t stop lamenting about his pencil box. Odd isn’t it how when the normal is ripped out from under you, it’s the strangest things you find yourself missing. “I colored with those markers every day,” he chokes out, “And I let my friends borrow them too.” At the mention of his friends, he collapses again. Yeah, it’s not really the markers he’s missing. It’s what they represent. But he’s ten; so I refrain from making a lesson out of his sadness.

What about you, though? What do you find yourself missing? I don’t ask this to make you sad. It’s just that when I answer this question for myself the strangest things that come to mind; things I took for granted or never gave a second thought to pop right into my head. And like a 5th grader missing his pencil box, I find myself wondering if I will ever be able to get them back. So, here’s my list of the weird things I miss:

I miss walking to the bus stop in the dark. I miss the chairs we sit in at staff meetings, the ones that rock too far back or go up and down at the wrong time. I miss crazy “you’ll never believe what happened at school today” stories, and whistles and squeaky shoes and yelling “box out!” at my boys on the basketball court. I miss racing home to catch my elementary schooler as he gets off the bus. I miss trying not to be late.

I miss unlocking the big front doors to the church with the weird key I can never get to work correctly. I miss high fives and hugs and real eye contact during a conversation. I miss laughing so hard with someone that you have to grab an arm to steady yourself and being lost in the noise of a crowd gathered around me. I miss messing up the words and getting the giggles in the middle of choir practice, reading to classrooms full of my kid’s friends and being called Mrs. Wesley’s Mom. I miss having lots of sweaty boys in my house. I miss high school/ college girls who always give me hugs and coffee dates with friends and running errands like it was no big deal. I miss shaking hands with strangers and patting a friend on back just to say hi.

And as these things tumble out of my head, I realize how ridiculous some of them sound. We are blessed and healthy and protected here in our house. And I take none of that for granted. I am so grateful. Nonetheless, the lament is real; the grief over these things turns up at the strangest of times. And as I hold my weeping ten-year-old, it is this Old Testament verse that stays in my head. “And then you will call upon me and come and pray to me. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart … I will bring you back from the places I have carried you into exile, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:12-14).

Good ole Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, he is often called. His words have been my companion for the entirety of this Lenten season. Way back before the world closed, I began reading his text. And as the weirdness of this time has increased, I find myself holding tightly to the words he spoke over the Israelite people destined for exile. I wonder about those Israelites. Lament over loss of place was something they knew well. Jeremiah tells them that God is going to banish them from their homeland. They don’t give much thought to the goodness of God as they live in his land. But when Jeremiah’s prophecy becomes real life? Well, everything changes.

We are all lamenting the loss of something these days. Maybe you have a weird list like mine or maybe yours is full of way more difficult things. Regardless, the grief is real and the loss of place is disorienting. And the question becomes this: what do we do with it?

“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” that’s what the Israelite people ask as they stand homesick on the banks of a faraway river missing what they thought they could not lose.

And, me too. Oh Lord, how do we do this? How do we love your people and speak your truth and spread your love when we can’t even touch our neighbor? How do we sing your songs in this place when everything feels hard and I am longing for home?

“And you will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.” Jeremiah’s words again. Seek. Me. I feel the Lord inviting me to lean in a bit. Like my sobbing boy who knows who will hold him while he cries — even if it is over a pencil box — God lets me sit with him and tell him my weird list of things. He doesn’t judge me for missing chairs and keys and noise. Because he knows that’s not really what I am missing at all.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love … I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out and dance with the joyful.” The weeping prophet promising a redemption that only a faithful God can bring.

Here’s what I am learning in these days, friends. And I am slow to get it; so God just keeps reminding me. The Lord is with us here in this foreign land, and he will be with us when we return. That’s how we keep on singing. We remember that we are never asked to do it alone.

“And lo, I am with you always even to the ends of the earth.”