Oh what a long day its been! That’s the general consensus about this quarantine that we are now several weeks into. No doubt its been an exhausting process all together, but are YOU personally ready for the tides to turn?

In the natural, our tides are governed by the push and pull factors of the moon. It’s a scientific lesson worthy of deep exploration, but to put it simply, gravitational pull causes the waters to bulge out on the sides closest to and furthest from the moon. This occurrence causes what we know as the tide coming in (High tide) and the tide going out (Low tide). If you were by the beach you could observe this happen about twice per day.

As I perceive things, we are definitely in a low tide situation right now. You see, when the tide goes out, all that’s on the shore is exposed. If you were at the beach early morning at low tide, you would see all the shells, coral heads, tide pools, sandbars, and anything else that is right underneath the surface, but under high tide would be invisible.

I can’t help but compare our current state of isolation to this. When we have nothing but time on our hands, and our fast-paced way of life comes to a halt (as it has during this pandemic) all that remains is what has been just below the surface the whole time and the infrastructure of our way of living. For many of us, this isn’t something we are prepared to see. The demands of our everyday life keep us running at such a high frequency and we fill up our schedules so tight that it becomes easy and justified to ignore those things in our life – or even people- that need attention. But once the tide is out, as it has been for some time now, what do you do with those things that are now DEMANDING to be acknowledged?

Time on our hands has a way of causing us to become introspective. This is probably the reason why we choose to make our lives as noisy as possible. Noise drowns out the voices. The voices that remind us that other things need our attention. The voices of accountability. The voices that tell us something is broken. The voices that speak of a deficit in an area of our life that needs to be dealt with. The voices that reveal the faulty areas.

Are you so busy keeping watch to see when this moment of silence will be over that you are missing the opportunity to confront the inadequacy in your life? Perhaps we should be focusing on dealing with those things now, so that when the tide turns and the demands of everyday life once again overwhelm us (and they will) we are better all-around individuals operating from a more stable, grounded place. Now is the time to do so.

While its low tide here, its high tide somewhere else in the world. That’s just the nature of tides. Though I don’t know when this will all be over, I’m certain of one thing and that’s that the tides WILL turn. Normalcy will come back in one quick wave and it will swallow up our time, as well as our intention, as it always has. It will turn fast and before we know it we will be living that rat race life again.

Will you allow the tide to turn and this time of isolation to go down as just a time of being cooped up in the house where you counted the days for it to be over? Or will you maximize each moment and carefully contemplate everything that’s at your shore. Many of which have the potential of being an area of strength instead of weakness, and a beautiful piece just waiting for you to clean it up and display it as part of your collection of prized possessions, talents, and accomplishments.

I’m not sure about you, but I can promise you that this time in quarantine will not manage me, but instead I will manage it.

Praying you look directly at those things that have been demanding your attention and that you conquer them all.