Manic Monday by Heather Ryburn

The words Manic Monday never rang more true for me than they did this week.

To the sound of my children giggling, squealing with absolute delight while playing in the bath, I lost it! I ran out of the house. I felt overwhelmed. It was simply one decibel, one syllable more than I could handle.

Isolation... distance... these are not terms that I would use to describe my COVID-19 experience. And if they are accurate of yours; my heart and prayers go out to you at this lonely time. However for me; inundated... swamped... surrounded... hemmed in, these are terms I would use to describe my experience. "Self-isolation" sounds like a vague dream to me right about now.

You see, I live with a loving and generous relational extravert for a husband. A curious yet sensitive six-year-old, an observant yet absentminded four-year-old, and a Shakespearean two-year-old who is dangerously close to dropping her day time nap. We are now all
working, schooling and doing life from home. 

And we have an amazing home. Close to the beach and lake which I am abundantly thankful for. But now, there is no school, no preschool, no grandparents, no swimming or dance
lessons, no weekend sport, no playgroup, no surf club, no playdates, no playgrounds, no day trips, no excursions, no zoo, no cafes and no libraries to fill our days. 

Instead, there is a seemingly constant onslaught of WhatsApp's, Messengers, FaceTimes, Zooms, Google Meets, social media, Google classroom, YouTube, Seesaw, streaming, blogposts, articles, text messages, emails and calls from family, friends, friends of friends, school, preschool, church, brands, organisations and clubs. I am receiving correspondence and communication from what feels like every person, platform, or company I have ever signed up for on their response, obligation, changes, apologies, and rallying calls in relation to the current crisis!

Manic Monday! Like many of you, thanks to a perfect storm of our times and technology, I am receiving more communication than ever before. Yet, because of this perfect storm of our times and technology, I have less time than ever to respond or process any of it. So I ran.

As I said, we are amazingly blessed to live opposite a glorious stretch of beach. It is often a place of sanctuary and sanity. On Monday night when I fled, it is here that I ran. When I reached it, it was dark. Gloomy, and clouded over. Staring out to this seemingly bleak sea I finally made out the light of an ill-fated cruise ship. Glancing across to another speck of Light I searched for the doomed cruise ship it was emanating from. Then I realised there was no ship. The sliver of Light I could see glistening on the horizon was from a higher source. Looking up to the dark gloom I realised that behind the clouds was in fact a full, illustrious moon. 

In that moment I felt God speak. I was focusing on the outward. The circumstances. The clouds. But behind it all, or rather within it all, was the moon. The Light. It was always there. I merely had to adjust my perspective. Sure enough, gloriously in that moment, the clouds parted and the sliver of Light that had been on the horizon covered the whole ocean from
headland to headland. The brilliance of the full moon and its all-encompassing Light was revealed.