Grace In the Time of Pandemic
As a parent and a teacher—college classes, private music lessons, homeschooling—this pandemic has brought me to the end of myself many times.
The end of my patience, the end of my endurance, the end of my tolerance for twitchy tweens, and the new routine of a husband working from home, the end of my brainpower and the ability to manage all of my tasks. The end of my ability to help when I see my students struggling, losing family members to COVID, nearing homelessness because they or their family have lost work, doing homework while quarantined in their parents’ basement, battling loneliness. I can’t sit in a room with them, hug them, or hand them a tissue for their tears.
It’s hard to feel like a more grace-filled person when you’ve reached the end.
When you feel the grief of your community and the weeping around the world. When you see carelessness for neighbors’ lives. When you see relationships fracturing after a contentious political season. When you’ve lost track of a friend who you now realize is lonely and depressed. When you’ve cussed enough in front of your kids that they’re threatening a swear jar for you. Or you’ve yelled at your husband for clogging up the internet, forgetting that your lovely, poised voice teacher is still on Zoom and can hear every word you’re bleating out. It doesn’t feel like grace.
God’s grace when we reach our limits
But I think it’s at the end of our selves that God’s grace is most apparent. A couple of passages come to mind. The first is Isaiah 40:11 “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” (NIV)
To those of you who have young, God says, I see you, parents of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers trying to get your work done and trying to care well for your children, when it feels like every single tool you use for working and parenting has changed and you are exhausted. I see you, parents, who feel distanced from your children or can’t be with them right now. I see you, parents, who are looking at your tweens or teens wondering how you can keep them connected with community, help them with their schoolwork, help them feel safe and loved. As a friend used to say to me, “Grace is for the mama, too.” He says I see you who want children and don’t have them. I see you who are in the role of child, who have lost parents or are distanced from them because of the pandemic. I see you kids who are struggling to use tools to stay connected with your friends and wondering why you have limitations or wondering why your family’s limitations are different from another’s.
He sees you, He sees us. He puts the lonely into families.
Grace as a teacher and a parent
Teaching—my own kids, piano students, college students—has never just been a job for me, it’s a calling. And grace in teaching is something I’ve thought about for years. But it’s rarely been as pressing as it has in a pandemic. When COVID hit our area, all turned to chaos.
Students were moving, struggling, caring for loved ones, losing loved ones, disappearing. I’ve rarely felt so helpless and lost as a teacher.
What I found was that the content I was teaching was secondary to the community connections that we needed to make.
I restructured the class and tried to reach out to every student who was struggling.
Over Zoom this past semester, I saw my college students’ faces and I could see that they were weary and burdened. So, I took a class period to talk about self-care and tools to take care of their own health, including counseling resources. I told them to take a lower grade in the class if it meant they could stay healthier and more connected. I told them that their grade was not the thing I was most concerned about as a teacher or even the content, the most important thing to me was them. The most important thing for me as a teacher this year was that my students felt loved. And they responded in beautiful ways. Out of that sense of safety, care, and community, they did incredible work and extended back to me kindness and patience.
Embracing grace and rest in this season
Another passage comes to mind, one that often comes up this time of year, especially for those of us who listen to Handel’s Messiah. Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (NIV)
What does it mean to embrace grace and rest during a pandemic? It means believing Jesus when he says, I will give you rest. Accepting our own limitations—the end of our selves is much closer than we realize, we in ourselves have less power than we realize. Holding clear boundaries while extending much grace to others. Apologizing for our failures and realizing that what people around us need is to feel the love of God and our love reflecting His love to them. And listening to the still, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit who guides us to pick up what is our burden and to lay down what is not. Listening for simple tasks like sending a text to a friend or a photo or a joke, or having a friend outside for tea-time, or hugging your kid for five more seconds so they without a doubt know they’re loved. Or even putting on your own oxygen mask so you can care well for others. It’s not always a big, grand thing that we’re asked to do; it’s okay to sit in the small things for a while.
And as I’ve told my students, there are tools available if you need them. Be a part of community. Reach out. We are here.
