My favorite jeans have a hole in the knee.
I always thought it looked cool until one day, I stuck my foot inside, accidentally caught my heel on the edge of the rip, and ended up tearing through the entire leg.
My pants were ruined!
And you’ve done this, too, right? There’s a loose thread on a pair of socks. You pull it just a bit so the string isn’t just hanging there, and before you know it, you’ve created one giant hole. I didn’t grow up on a prairie, so I don’t know how to darn a hole.
But I do know how to say “DARN!”
My oldest son is a senior.
And Darn! It feels like so many of his plans have been ruined.
He had a really fun year planned.
A trip to Iceland with his grandfather.
A graduation party featuring a taco truck and axe throwing.
A summer working as a camp counselor at one of his favorite places in the world.
All canceled.
On the surface, these things seemed like minor snags in the big picture, but when you add them all up, my son is left with a giant void in what promised to be the summer of a lifetime.
If his summer was a sock, it’s ruined.
I always say pain is temporary, and so I know we will survive the disappointment. But I want to do more than survive. And if I want to do more than survive, then that means I’m going to figure out something new to do with the torn pair of jeans and the holey sock.
If my life was a sock, that would be easy. I could make a sock puppet or a dust mitt.
If my life was a pair of jeans, I could make a purse.
So why am I having so much trouble with THIS?
Isn’t quarantine the same thing?
I wish…(SIGH)
My fear is that I won’t be able to think of anything cool to do.
But this is my promise.
I’m not going to throw away what we’ve lost. I’m going to figure out how to use it, how to turn it into something useful and good. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but I’ll keep you posted.
This is what I do know: Experience is never wasted. God can use it all.
