Track and Trace

Over the past month or two, we realised that our holiday to Wales (booked 2 years ago), might actually go ahead.🙈 Due to covid, and all the restrictions, we hadn’t really been giving it much thought, but as restrictions eased, we thought we'd better start making some plans.

Chatter, about going on holiday, began around the house. Preparations were started. The kids began to get excited, and counted down the weeks until we went. Curious questions, regarding Wales, started being asked and how long a journey it would be, as little minds obviously played it all over in their head.

However as covid cases began to rise within our area, a nagging feeling in the back of my head began to ring. What are the chances we would end up in isolation and not make our holiday?? How do I break that news to the children?

Sure enough, just before the last week of school, I received that alarming text message, to say that one of my children had been a close contact to a positive case of covid, and would need to self isolate. By the time I received the text message they only had 4 days left of the 10 day isolation period, so we weren’t too worried about it affecting our holiday, however I couldn't shake that nagging feeling. The older kids academy closed early for the last week of school, because of rising covid cases, so they were safe at home. Or so I thought.

Half way through the last week of school, one of my sons received a message from his friend to say that he had just tested positive for covid. They had been out on a walk together two nights previously, which meant he was now facing ten days isolation, which would end a few days before we were due to go on holiday!!

I was more than sure we were going to all catch it and our holiday would have to be cancelled. My heart sank as I started processing what this would mean for us all. Much to my horror I then realised that Caleb's long awaited driving test was in a few days time, and if any of us developed any symptoms or had a positive test result then that would have to be cancelled too. I braced myself for his reaction as I broke the news to him. 😬 Disappointed was an understatement!!

For the next 10 days we lived as though we might be going on holiday, and we might not. The kids tried their best not to be too disappointed as everything was all up in the air again!

Thankfully, we were all well, with no symptoms and no positive test results. We made it to our holiday house without any more text messages from track and trace!!

At church one day, during this time, Calum mentioned in prayer something that had been on my mind. As we faced so much potential disappointment, I had been thinking about the real disappointment that the disciples faced when Jesus, their master, was crucified. All their hopes and dreams had been pinned on him and then dashed to pieces as he hung there on that tree. Calum prayed about the crowds lining the streets, as Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, shouting ‘Hosanna to the King’!! Then a few days later they were stunned in disbelief as he was led out of Jerusalem carrying his cross to Calvary. What disappointment? What a loss for them? I can’t imagine the shock and confusion that must have brought them.

Jesus was the one that they had expected to lead them to victory here on earth. To save them from the Roman authority that they were subject to.

The disciples loved Jesus, and never wanted to be parted from him. They had seen him perform miracles, raise Lazarus from the dead, give sight to the blind. Yet here he was hanging on a cross at the mercy of the roman soldiers.

I love the reassurance this verse in Isaiah brings;

“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts’, says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.’ Isaiah 55:8

God’s plans are not our plans, the way that we think something should happen is not always the way that God plans it to happen, regardless of the disappointment that we feel.

Jesus did not come to defeat the Romans and lead the Jews to freedom. He came to offer up his life as a sacrifice, to provide everyone with a way back to God.

This was far too great a plan for the people in that day to comprehend. Our minds are too small to understand God's ways.

I know the disappointment of cancelled plans is nothing in comparison to so many of the disappointments we face at different times in our lives. It is certainly nothing like what the disciples went through, watching all their hopes and dreams dashed. But I am trying to live by the truth in this verse, that when things don't go the way I want or expect, then I am trying to accept God has something else, something better, even if I can't see that yet.