Months of Isolation: Six, with a few exceptions like when we had evacuated due to Hurricane Laura, and when we went a visited a city that had a church that was potentially interested in bringing us to get to know us to see if we were a possibility to fill a lead pastor position.
What have we lost?
Our home church. It's not that we're not welcome to keep "attending." It would just be weird for us if we did. Churches are weird like that. When you're on staff, you're different than if you're just a layperson or regular member. I've continued to attend Women's Bible Studies off and on, which I'm grateful for, but that's about it.
Our jobs. Chris's was not by choice. It was because the church simply could not afford to keep him on staff due to COVID related financial issues. This is not an isolated incident. Millions of Americans are in the same boat. Mine was by choice. I couldn't subscribe to what the district was asking me to do, didn't believe it was safe, couldn't say it wasn't safe, and resigned. Again, not alone. Thousands of teachers are doing it. The Today Show got a hold of my story thanks to my loud mouth Canadian twin sister and her large Twitter following and interviewed me and several other teachers about what lead us to resign, which you can read here.
Our schools. My loss was a sense of community I felt with my teachers. They are facing an impossible task of trying to teach while trying to keep themselves and kids safe. Some teachers had horrific numbers of children they're trying to educate with no help or relief in site. And I'm not there with them. And I hate that I'm not there. And I fear they hate me, too, because I abandoned them. My kids aren't able to see their friends, get the best kind of teaching (face to face...yes, it's the best for my kids). I'm not apologetic about it, because I know it's the right thing to do for our family with the pandemic still happening, but it still stinks. I loved our schools. All of them.
Our home. No, we're not being evicted. But when you flood twice, and hurricane season is not over, you lose your connection to your home. We still haven't put things up on the walls. We know that we'll probably be moving as soon as Chris gets a job as a lead pastor, and the South Texas District we're a part of doesn't have any openings.
Our faith in leadership. We feel let down by those who are meant to protect us. It feels like politics have taken over a global pandemic, the treatment of those on the margins, and certainly those sending large groups of people back into dangerous situations like schools in COVID hot spots. A lot of people appear to be doing just the basic minimum, so without protections being put in by the government (mask mandates, numbers of persons allowed in spaces, etc), simple social responsibility just doesn't happen, which leads to our loss of...
Humanity. Empathy for others seems to be at an all time low. For all those who are against teaching Darwinism in school, survival of the fittest in a global pandemic seems to be a really good idea to them. And I'm one that probably wouldn't survive. It's hard to feel loved from people who are okay with you dying for the sake of the economy.
One thing we haven't lost: Our faith in God, his faithfulness, his timing, and our citizenship in heaven. None of those things can be taken away by politics, a pandemic, people, or living in one place or another. We have lost much, but still have Him. And that it ENOUGH to be thankful for.
