The school holidays is when I usually catch up with friends to a significant extent. Having finally made it to the end of such an exhausting term, I was, of course, looking forward to that.

When you’re getting towards the final weeks of the term, you’re holding out knowing that something good is around the corner: a lovely break, some social time, a chance to get out and about and enjoy all that Sydney has on offer.

Newsflash: there is no break.

And I miss my friends…

And now, mid-lockdown (well, maybe) you start to wonder how soon we’ll be out of it, and whether we’ll be back to online learning (teaching in my case) before we’ve really had a chance to sit down and turn around… in our 1.5m squared space.

At this point in time, I’m ever so glad I just happened to design an entirely digital unit of work for my Year 9s that started towards the end of last term and carries through until the middle of the next one.

Thank-you Jesus.

My year 12s I’m not so sure about though.

Their final school-based assessment starting in Week 3 is making me even more nervous than I was already. My little A4 laminated page that I blu-tacked to the board in the last week of term did help to instil some fear in them though. “School days until Trial HSC ” it read, above a box where I could conveniently change the number each day with a whiteboard marker.

At this point in time, this Protestant is really hoping the Catholics will push back their Trial HSC period because we’re all bound to stick with the dates they set for those papers.

Change unlikely.

Evidently, this post is going nowhere (because neither am I…) and I guess that’s just the way things are sometimes.

You can go absolutely nowhere for seasons on end.

But that doesn’t mean that God’s not sovereign over it all and that there isn’t a plan.

The Bible says “He has made everything beautiful in its time.“

I appear to be reflecting on time again and maybe that’s, well, timely.

When you have little else but time to pass, then it’s crucial to know that there is one who is in control of it and all that happens within it. There is someone who knows what ‘its time’ is for everything.

And he will bring that time to pass at the right point for its conclusion.

However, not only will there be a conclusion, there will also be beauty.

How long will the lockdown last? I don’t know. Neither does any politician or health advisor at this point in time.

But God knows.

When you’re in an uncertain season it make sense then to keep in touch with the one who knows all things, including the beginning from the end.

It makes sense to talk to the one who overrules everything that happens on this earth, including time itself.

Yours in 1.5 square metres,

Alison