As an extrovert, I’m sort of an “out there” person. I get energy from being with other people—not just chit-chatting, but really getting to know and connect with them. So COVID-time has been quite an adjustment for me. I’m not a weaver, quilter, woodworker, gardener, painter, etc. My talents don’t lie in any of the beauty-making pursuits that can be done alone, but mainly in connecting deeply with other people. (Many introverts have the gift of connecting deeply, but generally with a smaller number of people. I want a village!)
Even so, I began to find in this past year a slight but noticeable increase in some qualities I’d been longing for—patience and acceptance. Naturally, these didn’t begin to grow right away. Impatience and nonacceptance manifested as restlessness, frustration, and even some depression. But I finally began to gain more “trust in the slow work of God,” which Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said was the thing to do “above all.” And trusting in that “slow work” requires patience and acceptance.
As we emerge from COVID winter, can my fragile flower of patience and acceptance survive? Can your new bloom—whatever it is—survive? I think it’s up to us. God will do God’s part, certainly. But with our greater sense of freedom, will we remain faithful to what we’ve learned? Will we be able to keep on blooming where we’ve been planted in this past year? I pray we will.
