The past year has been nothing like I could have ever imagined. When I had thought about my baby’s first year of life, I was filled with excitement and anticipation. I had all these plans and ideas in my head of how that time may look like. Then the reality hit. Our son was born two months premature at the beginning of April, in the very thick of the pandemic. Three months later, my husband Andrew moved to Limerick for work. And there I found myself in what you might call a wilderness. Constantly restless, constantly waiting for something. Waiting for Andrew to be home for the weekend, for restrictions to be lifted, for being able to see my friends, for the vaccine to arrive, for COVID-19 to be over. Thinking about how difficult it is for myself, wallowing in self-pity. Looking back at this year, I really get a sense that most of the time, my thoughts looked like this: “Once this one thing happens (insert any of the above), so many issues will be solved and life will be better/easier”. Does that sound familiar?
We’re all in the “in-between”
Our society is in such a unique place at the moment. Vast majority of people share the same experience of the pandemic. Never before were we able to sympathise with people around the globe on this level. I think that a lot of us have fallen into the trap of waiting for the pandemic to be over. Don’t we just want to put the whole thing behind us, pretend like it never happened? I wonder if the Israelites felt the same when they found themselves in the desert for 40 years. We long to return back to ‘normality’ — but was our life pre-COVID the life we always wanted? Maybe the time of pandemic can help us look forward, not backwards. Maybe God can teach us something through this wilderness and lead us through it to a better place. That’s certainly something I think He has been teaching me.
David Beldman talks about the wilderness experience in his article. He says: ‘The wilderness itself is a symbolic place—unable to sustain life, it is a profoundly challenging place for the multitude of Israelites. But it is also a place of formation, a place to encounter God and depend on him’. He also describes it as a liminal space – an ‘in-between place, a place of formation, ultimately a place of becoming’. We all experience liminality at different times in our life, e.g. college, engagement, unemployment, pregnancy etc. Some are more welcomed than others. However, in most cases, there is usually very little we can do to speed it up. And that’s the challenge, because the culture we live in generally focuses on the “next best thing”. Right now, that’s life beyond COVID. For me, it’s also been waiting for Andrew’s time off this year.
Are you ready for what you are waiting for?
The big blessing of Andrew’s work in Limerick is his annual leave. Every five weeks of work are followed by two or three weeks off. I’ve been living from one time off to another. Just keep going, survive the 5 weeks; I was overjoyed when it felt like it’s going by quick. Then, when the time off arrived, the pressure and expectations were intense! We’ll get quality time with each other, Andrew will bond with Theo, we’ll get a lot of errands done, we’ll both get great rest and individual time for ourselves; I’ll get good sleep. Let me tell you, most of the time we were left disappointed and frustrated. And it made me wonder, why? Why am I being so impatient with Andrew when I was so looking forward to having him home? Why is the time just slipping through our fingers— why, afterwards, are we left with a feeling that it was actually wasted? It led me to consider what I do in my liminal, in-between space. The truth is that I’m just wishing it away, staying in my self-pity, focused on all the difficult things I’ve been through. And when the awaited time arrives, I’m simply not ready for it. David Beldman asks an important question:
‘How do we navigate this wilderness, this liminal space, in such a way that it is a fruitful place of becoming, a place of productive formation?‘
In other words, how can I spend my time and direct my thoughts so I’m not left waiting to be out of the current situation, missing things going on around me and seeing opportunities pass me by?
First of all, it means realising that God has us right where he wants us. We are in the wilderness; there is no doubt about it. We all thought the pandemic was going to be over after a couple of weeks. But here we are, a year later. Maybe you even enjoyed the beginning of the pandemic and the slowing down that came with it. But the longer we’re in it, the more chance there is for burn out, impatience and even deformation. The longer we are in this liminal space, the more the Land Beyond COVID is growing into an idol in our heads and hearts. We put more and more expectations on it. If we’re not ready, the weight of those expectations can come crushing down on us. We need to adjust our interpretation of our situation – where we are now is where God is going to do the work in us.
Learning to lament
For me personally, the big thing has been trying to go against my natural tendency to wallow in self-pity and turn into myself and my suffering. That’s where the distinction between complaint and lament is so helpful. There is surely a place for lament: we see plenty examples of it in the Bible, especially the Psalms. Complaint comes from disbelief and is inwardly focused. Lament comes from deep trust in God; it turns our eyes to Him. David Beldman puts it nicely: ‘Lament by no means denies our suffering but forces us to decenter ourselves and recenter on our Lord and Deliverer. It provides a reorientation.’ There is no denying that this past year has been one of the hardest in my life, with the trauma of Theo’s birth, pandemic and Andrew being away. I pray that I can use the time in my liminal space to work through the emotions and trauma, to reorientate my heart.
The Israelites don’t really provide a great example of lamenting and navigating wilderness, but Jesus does. After all, he spent 40 days in the wilderness, facing spiritual attacks, hunger and loneliness. Leaning on God, through listening and prayer, He came out victorious.
May we come out victorious out of our wilderness, formed and shaped by God. May we be focused not just on surviving, but letting God do His work in us. I know that if all I do this year is working through my emotions and trauma, I will be better for it than before the pandemic.
Are you going to be better for it once you’re out of the wilderness?
by Ola Ngaditono