Getting back to normal after COVID has helped me be more grateful for so many seemingly little things I’d taken for granted. Today I had another experience which helped me take note of more of the normalcies I had not taken time to appreciate prior to March of 2020.

Becky and I were greeters at church tonight for one of my first times in a very long while. What made it all the more special were several of the changes our church recently made. We had paper worship aids again. If you’ve been vaccinated masks are no longer required (I’m also grateful we’re not an anti-vaxxer church 😉). You can seat yourself rather than have an usher put you in a certain spot. Put those things together and everything felt amazingly normal again!

Seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces was amazing! Over the past year I’d gotten so used to recognizing people from their eyes and up, seeing the full smile made me smile bigger. Seeing the look of joy when they were able to grab a paper worship aid was priceless. More small talk than normal was very common as we all seemed to be relishing the opportunity to communicate “normally” again.

Never in a million years would I have guessed a simple sheet of paper at church would bring me this much joy. Yes, COVID sucked (& still sucks), but as with any challenging time I can find more reasons to be grateful afterwards. Funny how adversity can quickly remind me to appreciate all around me a little more than I had before it.

Thanks!!!