I tend to be a planner. I like lists. I like being prepared. I like knowing what to expect. I work best with goals and plans and my resulting to-do list. (Can I get a show of hands?)
Seasons of pain, though, strip away my plans, my sense of security, my vision of what life will look like next week, next month, next year. I’ve seen it in depression, when plans and the simplest tasks become a burden under its overwhelming weight. I’ve seen it during mysterious seasons of illness, when I was forced to slow down, to ask for help, to adjust my expectations of what I could physically do. We saw this in the midst of infertility, when we lost our ability to plan, to envision our future, to hold onto a time line.
Grief, fear, depression, illness—these cannot be planned away. They cannot be sped through via a list or well-laid preparations. They slow us down. They lay waste to our plans—and our ability to craft new ones. Pain has a way of shattering the facade of our control, our ability to predict the future, of our sense of power. In such moments, life can feel terribly overwhelming.
How are we to move through these seasons? How are we to move through this season, when the world as we knew it seems to crumble?
Some of us are facing sickness. Some of us are fearful for loved ones. Some of us are grieving, are anxious, are depressed, are angry. Some of us are numb. We’re isolated, cut off physically from communities, from loved ones, from our normal routines. It can feel overwhelming to the point of paralysis. How are we to navigate this?
When we face seasons of pain, in which our lives and hearts are cracked open and laid bare, we lose our ability to plan ahead. How can we, when we need all the energy and strength available to survive each day, each hour, each moment? All we can do is steadily live through the pain, to keep moving forward breath by breath. All we can do is the next right thing.
The reality is, this is all we ever can do. Even the best of our plans and the most glorious of our daydreams require us to make a tiny litany of choices to see them take on flesh and blood. Pain in all its forms only makes this more apparent: all I can ever do in any given moment is the next right thing.
So in this global moment of chaos, of grief, of fear, of suffering—what is the next right thing for you to do? What is the next right thing to live faithfully where you are in this moment? What is the next right thing to move through this season? What is the next right thing to choose life?
Though there will be similar themes, what this looks like will take on different forms for each of us. Over the last week, for me it has meant taking a walk, reading a novel, and eating ice cream. It has meant calling a friend and keeping my distance from people I’d much rather embrace. It has been cooking through long recipes and pulling pre-made meals from the freezer. It has meant staying informed and also knowing when I need to pull away from my news feed and the latest reports. It has meant slowing down to keep pace with a toddler’s fascination with things I have come to see as mundane. It has been watching my favorite cooking show, praying more, and letting myself have the space to have a good cry.
The next right thing is not always glamorous or easy. It doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it’s doing dishes or folding laundry or sanitizing those door handles. Sometimes it’s changing dirty diapers or tending to scraped knees. It may be finishing that project you’ve been putting off or renewing your resolve (once again) to stay at home.
The next right thing may also not be something you do at all. It may be taking time to rest. It may be stillness. It may be giving yourself space to grieve. It may be giving yourself space for delight. It doesn’t have to be monumental. It may not be something you can check off a list. But it may still be the next right thing. So do it.
As we walk through this season together, it will be easy to think about what we can’t do, what we can’t control. It will be easy to think weeks ahead to what may (or may not) happen. When your mind starts down these trails, when you find yourself uncertain, paralyzed, overwhelmed, fearful—Pause. Breathe. Look at where you are in this moment, consider what the next tiny step is towards faithfulness, towards life—and do the next right thing.