I spent most of quarantine strictly isolated with my puppy in our little studio home. I learned to love long walks and solitude, something I’ve never been able to claim.

But after six weeks alone (woah), I packed the suitcase I’d bought for Europe two months ago and joined a friend and her sister’s family for a change of scenery in their unoccupied Santa Fe vacation home. We watched sunrise most mornings and worked at a long table during the day. We made mojitos and margaritas and good things for dinner. On the weekends we hiked and watched church on the porch swing. It was ridiculously idyllic in the middle of chaos.

The week before I left, I read Psalm 23 most days. I’d spent six weeks living in one room. I’d lost money and a trip to Europe as ultimately trivial consequences to a serious virus. I felt sad with my couples as they made impossible decisions about their wedding days, and, like everyone else, I wondered when it would all end. I was relieved to remember “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”

Through all the changed plans, aloneness, and grief this season has unexpectedly brought, these past two weeks have been sweeter as they came after recognition that in aloneness and uncertainty, I trust my God to give sunrise and enough for the day (and some days He gives way more).