The boys have been locked in the house for 9 days now and we are oddly handling it well. The dangers that lurk out in our community are terrifying enough that we don’t want to be anywhere else but locked safely in our home. As of today there are no tested cases of coronavirus in our one stop light small town, but we do have two in the city that we frequent 30 minutes from here. And the numbers statewide continue to grow.

Jake and I have each left 2-3 times, him to go to work twice this week and me to tie up some loose ends at the office so I could work from home. We also helped with a food bank based at our church but took extra precautions. Other than those brief adventures we have had no reason to leave and are grateful for that.

We still have plenty of food to get us through another 3 weeks if needed. Levi has been trying some of the meals I have been prepping and ate a whole scrambled egg one morning! That is huge!

So in the meantime we are trying to find routines in the day to make it feel more normal. We have split up the boys at night so we are each able to get a decent amount of sleep which has been the biggest positive in this situation! We made a schedule that we are pretty loosely following that gives each of us a time for devotions, a time for chores, and time for some family games.

The boys have been rotating between the same places each day. We find time for Levi to go outside for a walk with one of us, sometimes just getting the mail with momma. And other times helping daddy with the yard work.

We worked this week to get Malachi’s new bed swing hung in his “tree house”.

The boys have been reading books, watching movies, and listening to music out in the tree house for hours each day. We literally spend hours out there…Malachi absolutely loves it.

We also spend time each day in the therapy room, playing with toys, jumping on the trampoline, and swinging on the indoor swing.

We also make a round each day to the front porch to sit on the glider together.

Malachi absolutely loves movies so we have been watching a new (to him) one every other day. Our internet is very sparse out here so we aren’t able to stream anything on Netflix so we have broken out the old school DVDs and ordered him the new Frozen II movie.

Overall it has been refreshing having nowhere to be. We still have to fight the worry that the virus will somehow get to one of our loved ones, but we are praying against it touching our two medically complex boys.

Being locked in this house has reminded me of how incredibly blessed we are to have such a perfect place to raise Malachi. One of my biggest priorities is giving Malachi a life full of joy, and being here has allowed us to create a world that was made for him. So often we are in places where we have to problem solve and work to find ways to make it work for him. But to have a home that was built specifically around his needs is such a blessing and I am sure he feels that love and security.

When big things like the global pandemic hit, I have to be honest and tell you that my mind starts to process what it could mean for our family. It has been another reality check for me about the fleeting nature of this life, especially for our sweet Malachi. While I don’t feel like this will be the thing that takes him into the arms of Jesus, we have been talking a lot about heaven. Maybe those talks are more for my momma heart than his, but when we talk about what and who is waiting on us Malachi’s smile reminds me not to fear.

The Bible is full or words that comfort us in times like these. There is one particular scripture this week that has come to mind and it comes from Psalm 139. But when I read it this week my mind did something different…it read it through the eyes of Malachi. And for some reason that brought my heart a needed peace.

 

I really like the thought of “Before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you know it completely.” What a comforting thing for our sweet Malachi, who tries so very hard to form words that we can understand. The Lord hears every single one.

But the verse that keeps replaying in my mind is verse 16:

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

When God simply THOUGHT about creating us, he knew EVEN THEN how many days He would place us on this earth. No virus, no sickness, no accident, no diagnosis, no surprise can change the timeline that God has written for each of us. So while what is going on in the world today is alarming to me as a mother, I find comfort in knowing that God’s timeline will always be the outcome. The date that Malachi runs into the arms of Jesus has already been decided by my heavenly Father.

When we start to think about our time on earth as a chapter in the story God has for us, it doesn’t seem so scary after all.

Please pray for our world. While praying that this virus doesn’t take more lives is a wonderful prayer, let us pray together that those that don’t know Christ are brought to Him this week.

Much love,

Leah