Page 18 - The Standard Volume 4

Mothering
IN THE ERA OF COVID-19
Keys to moving forward after a global pandemic
Sara Jenson
There are certain events in our lifetime we will vividly remember. Not only the event, but the exact place we were, who delivered the news, and how we felt when it came. When the Twin Towers were attacked on 9-11, I was a sophomore in college. I’ll never forget when my roommates screamed and called me from my desk where I was studying, to watching the television. If you were alive during that time over the age of ten, you probably remember exactly where you were and how the news affected you.
In a completely different decade, I was in the hospital after giving birth to our fourth child in early March of 2020. Even as I say the words ‘March of 2020,’ I am certain you know exactly where you were during that fateful month. I was completely unaware of the events that were about to take place but I’ll never forget when my husband told me about COVID-19 and the drastic way it was affecting our family and our world. Days later, all of our lives changed. Society hit a “pause” button on many of the things we were accustomed to doing. In spite of all that, our lives went on, albeit differently. Our children did distance learning while we worked from home or were out of work; our babies learned to crawl and take their first steps; we went out to eat less; we watched Church from home for a season; some of us waved to our grandparents from the windows of the nursing home; some of us lost people we loved; many of us by the grace of God survived the virus that plagued our land. We all have our stories and battle wounds from the last year.
As for me, my story will always be that I was a mother in the era of COVID-19. I am a part of a silent but fierce army of mama bears who did everything we could possibly do to make sure our children were sheltered, safe, and secure during the unprecedented times we experienced. We pressed on in strength although we were exhausted, scared, uncertain, and (truth be told) in survival mode. We adjusted. We pivoted. We trudged our way through. Yes, we wore more hats (and masks) than we could count as we navigated the uncertain terrain of the pandemic.
Sometimes it felt like it would never end. And yet, as the Bible tells us, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 1:1, KJV). We are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and many of us are asking, “Now what?” After so many months of staying
18 THE STANDARD | June 2022