The Gift of Less

​Dear Friend,

This letter dispatches from an unexpected scene. My husband tested positive for COVID recently, and our lives entered a spin cycle as a result. Today is our last day in this quarantine. We are all fine. My greatest challenge has been discouragement. I wonder if discouragement is the greater threat to our world these days.
 
My compassion deepened in the last ten days for people. The isolation, the single parenting, the unsolicited fear responses, the uncertainties, the cancellations, and the mounds of laundry and disinfecting are not a pleasant bunch of herbs for life. My hat is tipped to all of you for your own courageous journeys in the last year. Your chin up is no small feat! Meanwhile, there is less to be afraid of than we anticipated, a lot less.
 
The silver lining in this time for me is the remembrance that the less choices I have, the more likely I am to choose God. Limited options press us into our best option, dependence on the Father. The less we have, the more we lean on Him. In the downsizing, the quiet, the loneliness, the sadness, and the losses there is an invitation to drink from the Fountain of Life. It never runs dry.
 
Grab a Pen: List the ways you feel limited right now. Next to that list, list the ways that these very things make a way for you to move into greater dependence on the Father.
 
Have a great week, friend, and if yours is as unexpected as mine – chin up – we’re going to get through this! 
 
Love, Katie.