Are you wondering what happened? You stepped into 2020 so sure of yourself. Life was a little wobbly, but you weren’t. I mean you never thought one of your greatest fears could come true this year. Not that a pandemic would stop the whole world, but that you would have to homeschool your kids.

I know. What’s wrong with a little bird in your house? A sparrow flying around as you try to work from home during quarantine. You always work from home, but not with a houseful of boys bouncing around. You told your youngest to get outside, “It’s P.E.,” you said. “Go get some exercise.” And he returned with a bird.

A sparrow he proceeded to release in the house like the criminals being released in your state because it’s too dangerous to keep prisoners locked up where they could catch the Coronavirus.

Of course, it was an accident the bird got loose in the house. You understand why criminals must be released when you are in lockdown. But really you don’t. And you spend an hour trying to catch the bird. No worries about your work deadline. You’ll make it. You always do. On your last work deadline, a rattlesnake bit your finger and you had to type with one hand, but you got the job done.

I mean, really? How hard is it to work from home and homeschool at the same time? You catch the bird and the next day your son releases another bird in your living room while you’re trying to work. Just like the news releases story after story that scares you to death.

“Why do you even read the news?” Your husband asks you. “You need to read your Bible. All that news is messing with your head.”

What’s really messing with your head are birds flying around your head as you try to hit your work deadline. On the third day and the third bird, you tell your son, “Catch the bird by yourself. I’ve got to finish this damned book.”

Yes, you said, “Damn.” One of your other sons, a seventeen-year-old, looks you in the eye in the kitchen an hour later after the bird is caught. “Mom are you alright? You’re cussing now.”

“Sure, I’m fine,” you tell him. “How is school going?” Your teenager is doing online for homeschooling and he says, “Fine. It’s going fine.”

At least your older kids are learning something online. You read with your youngest son most days and he’s learning his times tables because you should have done that in third grade, but you feel like you’re failing him as a homeschool mom. Which you already knew you’d be terrible at anyway.

This is why homeschooling has always terrified you. You imagine your kid as a dropout, jabbing needles in his veins because you didn’t teach him history. I mean isn’t it important that we all learn history?

You are reading all these news stories about millions of people dying a hundred years ago in the Spanish flu pandemic and this has been so helpful while you are in quarantine.

Your own grandpa lost his mom and all of his older siblings to the Spanish flu, they all perished, and your grandpa almost died of this flu too. So you know it’s true. You know it can happen. The news must constantly remind you that millions might die of this new virus. Like they did a hundred years ago so you must stay home and stay safe and teach your kids history.

Alone in your car, you relax for five minutes. Going to the grocery store isn’t stressful at all. You can’t breathe in your mask and you fog up your glasses wearing your mask while shopping but you’re doing just fine. A few more squirts of hand sanitizer and you’re home free. You use a whole bottle on one shopping trip because they tell you that you don’t need to wear gloves. But you need gloves if you serve food. Or work in the store. Or work anywhere outside of your home, but regular people do not need to wear gloves. Regular people didn’t need masks. But now they do.

Maybe you should rub some hand sanitizer on your mask because you touched your mask while shopping and germs are everywhere and now there’s a germ on your mask that can kill you. Or worst yet, you take these virus germs home to your family and it kills someone you love. That’s being a great mom.

But every day you say you’re doing fine. You’re wide awake at three a.m. wondering if you’re fine but during the day you believe you’re fine. And you think your teenagers are fine with their online schooling until their grades appear.

You are shocked. How can your A and B student have all F’s? “You said you were doing fine?!” You accuse your teen in the kitchen. “You’re not doing fine! You’re fluking all your classes. You’re gonna be a high school dropout. You’ll have needles in your arms in no time.” You take a deep breath. And blink your eyes hard. Your fears are like tears building inside you, but you aren’t going to cry. Your kids don’t need to see you’re afraid for their future.

But your teenager isn’t dumb. He says, “You say you’re doing fine and you’re not doing fine.”

“Well, you will have to live with the consequences of not doing your homework. You won’t play football and you might have to redo this year,” you tell him.

“What?! I’m not redoing this year! And I will play football. I’ll get my grades up. It’s easy. This isn’t a big deal, Mom.”

You walk away thinking this isn’t a big deal. Redoing 2020 wouldn’t be bad at all. So, you suck as a homeschooling mom. You already knew that. You tell yourself your little bird-catcher will become a park ranger or another Bear Grylls. If you’re ever lost in the wilderness your kid will keep you alive. He may not know how to write a sentence, but he can catch wild birds. That’s pretty amazing.

It’s also amazing that you’ve gone seven days without washing your hair. You know it’s been seven days because it’s time for church online in your living room again. You’ve learned why women pioneers braided their hair. Unwashed hair is so much better braided. Nobody sees you. Unless they see you at the store with your mask and fogged up reading glasses. But you can’t see them so it’s okay.

At least you haven’t experienced a butt breakout. Yes, you read about that little nightmare in the news too. Apparently, if you sit around in your pajamas all day every day for maybe a month or so you can get acne on your a$$. I know. I said a$$. I’m losing my filters in quarantine.

My family is living on wild game and it’s changing me. But hey, I’m ready for the murder hornets. Maybe we can eat those too. I read they are crunchy. So when the food shortage comes we won’t have to worry. We can snack on murder hornets instead of Doritos.

Is this quarantine rearranging you like it’s rearranging me? Hopefully, your butt isn’t breaking out yet. I mean it might be breaking out of your jeans. You could be having trouble sliding into your favorite pants these days.

Okay, you no longer slide into your pants at all. You pound yourself into your pants. You know that thing you did in high school where you jumped around to get into your jeans because all your friends wore tight jeans and you did too. You even had a friend who kept a pair of plyers in her purse to zip up her jeans.

You’ve never gone that far, and even more so now, it’s all about comfort because someone once told you beauty is pain and you decided right then that you no longer needed to be beautiful. You weren’t into pain anymore.

So, this quarantine is really comfortable for you. At least physically comfortable. You can wear what you want all day every day. The same two pairs of jeans, you rotate so they get washed. Okay, they aren’t the same two pairs of jeans that walked you into quarantine, but they are only one size bigger, so that’s not bad after two months being locked down with your refrigerator and everyone making homemade bread.

Your kids are bigger too, but they’re growing boys so that’s fine. Food sure helps your family feel better. Or maybe you drink to feel better. It’s like Friday night every night. You don’t even know what day of the week it is anymore. I mean what month is it even?

You know the year is 2020. You were going to have 2020 vision remember? Well, that was a big joke. You have no idea what the truth is right now. You’ve seen the Plandemic video on Facebook along with 8 million other viewers. I mean you can’t unsee that, right? You can’t make this stuff up.

Actually, you can make stuff up. Writers do it all the time. But behind even the craziest stories, there is often some hidden truths. You may not know the truth, but you know your government is being heavy-handed. You know because your county went rogue and opened early in California. Now your hair-dresser is worried about being arrested. I mean there’s plenty of room in the jails because they’ve released the rapists and child molesters. That helps you sleep at night.

Maybe you think criminals should stay in jail and people should go back to work. Kids need to return to school. You’re not being a selfish person. You’re just trying to survive. Because this quarantine is all about you. They say it’s for others and flattening the curve, and all that, but the Right are still right and the Left are still left. And maybe you’re confused like me.

The Right’s like dad and the Left’s like mom and your parents are in the middle of a bitter custody battle hating each other. Divorcing each other. Yanking the American people back and forth because this virus has made everyone lose their minds.

“You’re coming with me!” “No, you’re coming with me!” “You’re wearing a mask!” “You’re not wearing a mask!” “If you wear a mask, you’re a Commie!” “Without a mask, you will die!”

Is anyone else unsure about wearing a mask?

Is anyone else unsure about this pandemic?

If only two percent of the population will die from Covid-19 (and yes, I know this could be me or someone I love and I think two percent may be high), is it worth breaking our food chains for? Because it’s going to get a whole lot worse if we run out of food. Maybe homeschooling isn’t that important after all. Maybe we should all be hoping our kids learn how to catch wild birds instead of learning to read.

Maybe we are in a pandemic of humanity.

Moms worry about these things at three o’clock in the morning because our kids are growing up in this country and this is an election year. How crazy is 2020 going to get?

So how in the hell did we end up talking about an election year after talking about the virus, murder hornets, and butt acne? I know I said hell. Tell my teenagers I said hell because hell is a real place.

This is what I want to tell you, Dear Quarantine Mom: you need Jesus. I need Jesus. Our country desperately needs Jesus.

The Bible says they will know we are Christians by our love. Our families will know us by our love. Our neighbors will know us by our love. Our country will know us by our love.

Or they will know us by our lack of love. Hate will win. And we can’t let hate win.

So, on this Mother’s Day 2020, I wish you all kinds of wild crazy quarantine love. A love bigger than hate. Bigger than Covid-19. Bigger than murder hornets. And butt acne. Bigger than the Right or the Left. Bigger than this quarantine lockdown. Bigger than your hairdresser going to jail.

The Bible says perfect love casts out fear. How does perfect love happen? You simply open the door of your heart when you hear Him knocking and let Jesus in. It’s become very apparent to me I need more of Jesus in 2020. Maybe you do too. Happy Mother’s Day friends.