EXTRA: Coping with Isolation | 30

Colleen and Nikki discuss their lives during the enforced isolation during the current pandemic and what they do to remain grounded in reality. Podcast was published March 30, 2020. Transcription by Gwen Billington.

 

Colleen:  Welcome to Former Adventist podcast.  I’m Colleen Tinker.

Nikki:  And I’m Nikki Stevenson.

Colleen:  And here we are again, Nikki, remote from each other, but this time we got smart, and we set up a Zoom chat so we could see each other while we talk.

Nikki:  Oh, this is much better.

Colleen:  Yes, it is!  [Laughter.]  I was trying to imagine your responses when we did that last one remotely, and I know that we’ve had a podcast between that one and this one.  That was on the Abrahamic covenant.  But because we’re still in quarantine, with an uncertain date of ending, we’re going to do a supplemental podcast, just to talk about how we’re coping with living in quarantine.  So, Nikki, how’s it been going for you?

Nikki:  [Laughter.]  Well, I think week one I was pretty up for the challenge and feeling good, and I was doing well, thinking about God’s sovereignty and His care for me, and that was all really important.  This week has been tougher, and I have had to remind myself of all of those truths, even when they didn’t always seem to penetrate and comfort me.  Does that make sense?

Colleen:  It totally makes sense.  I so understand that.

Nikki:  Yeah, just some harder days this week.  It’s hard.  It’s hard to see the statistics climbing.  It’s hard to see what’s happening in Italy.  It’s hard to see New York –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and to hear the stories of the loss of life and to think about the orphan children, and it can just get sooverwhelming.  Yeah, it’s been a little bit harder.

Colleen:  It’s been hard for us too.  Although I have to say, we’ve been working at home together since Richard was fired from Loma Linda in 2006, so we have worked through a lot of the grief and irritation and depression that comes from suddenly being isolated.

Nikki:  Oh, yeah.

Colleen:  And we did work through that.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Because when I quit teaching in 2004 to do Life Assurance full-time, Richard was still employed at Loma Linda, and I came home to an empty house after having been around 200+ people a day teaching freshman English in a high school.  Even though I loved the work I was doing, I went through a lot of adjustment and a lot of grieving and a lot of depression during that time.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  And then when Richard was fired, I sort of had to support him while he went through the same thing.  I remember there was a period of time of about three days within the first couple of weeks after his firing where I finally said, “You know, you really need a shower.”  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  He didn’t even understand how depressed he was, but I could see, and I recognized it from my having left teaching to come home and work.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Any manifestations of depression or franticness in your home, and how have you coped?

Nikki:  Like you, I’m used to being here.  I’m a stay-at-home mom.  I had to get used to this a while back.  For me, I think that what has been the most upsetting in terms of my routine has been having everybody home.  Like you just described, watching Carel have to adjust with working from home –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and having the kids here.  You know, when the kids were doing online schooling, it was almost easier because we had routine.  We’re currently in spring break, and so –

Colleen:  Oh, of course!  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  Yeah, so there’s really no routine, but you know what’s interesting?  I’ve found that part of what’s holding me together through the – I don’t know.  It’s one thing to just be home because you choose to be home.  It’s another thing when you’re told you need to stay home.  And it’s been the things I learned when I was struggling with depression a few years back that have really helped me maintain a sense of control and like I can do this.  And they’re really simple things, and it’s almost embarrassing to share them because they’re things that you should just know, but I remember when I was home, really, really struggling with even wanting to get out of bed some mornings.  I was on Facebook, and I watched this talk that a military general was giving at a high school graduation, and he told the kids that every single day – to be successful in life, they need to every single day wake up and make their bed.  They need to make sure that they clean their kitchen every day and that they do one load of laundry every day.  And I thought, well, that’s really simple; I can do that.  And so I started just getting up in the morning, making my bed, making sure my dishes were done, doing laundry, and it starts you on this pace of productivity that really kind of propels you through the day.  And it helped pull me out of the sense of emptiness, like “What do I do?  How do I fill my time?”  It was just easier for me to start setting up healthier patterns while being at home, and so now, during this quarantine, my house has never been cleaner!  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  I mean – and of course, that’s all very practical, mundane stuff.  Being in the Word is a huge part of the emotional stability.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.  Yes.

Nikki:  But yeah, like you told Richard, you need to take a shower.  Like, getting up, showering, getting dressed –

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  – doing my hair, my makeup, even if I’m not leaving the house, I don’t know.  It helps.

Colleen:  Yes.  It does.  I discovered that when I quit teaching and came home to work.  I remember feeling pretty sorry for myself because at the time I came home, we had a personal catastrophe.  Richard had an old ’78 Toyota long bed pickup that was his pride and joy.  My father had given it to him after my father had retired and was not really driving anymore.  And every time Richard would go to a gas station, all the men would gather round and go, “Oooh, is that a ’78 long bed?” you know, something only the Y chromosome would even understand.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  But it was his pride and joy, and shortly after I came home to work alone, in the empty house, our truck was parked in front of the house, and a neighbor of ours up the street and down a corner was driving away with a Ski-Doo trailer on the back, and the Ski-Doo trailer came loose, and I stood in the yard and watched in horror –

Nikki:  [Gasps.]

Colleen:  – as that trailer came and plowed into the back of that ’78 pickup and totaled it.

Nikki:  Oh!

Colleen:  And that was actually quite a loss for Richard, but it was a loss for me too in a sense because I didn’t even have an optional car.  I was home alone with no car.  I had to do a lot of working through the feeling of isolation and abandonment.  I had to tell myself what I knew to be true about Richard, that he would never not take care of me, and if I ever needed to go somewhere, he would be there –[Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  – which was all true.  It was very hard, and I remember realizing that one of the things that kept me going was a schedule.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I had to, like you said, get up, take a shower, do my hair, do my makeup, then I could feel like I was ready to go to work at home.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Have lunch at a particular time, take a certain amount of time for it, go back to work.  So that was amazingly helpful to me to get me stabilized.  And the other thing that I discovered was it was really important for me to get outside.  Now, I know there’s all kinds of confusion about what this “shelter at home” actually means.  It’s permissible to go out and walk if you’re not in a big group –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – and there’s something about the sunshine.  It makes vitamin D in you, it gives you a lift to your whole emotional panel gets better with sunshine –

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  – and fresh air.  So I don’t mean to sound like an Adventist health talk because that’s not what I mean.  I just mean you need to get out of the house once in a while and walk, move yourself in the fresh air.

Nikki:  There’s something else that you guys did and that my family did in the last week.

Colleen:  Isn’t that funny?

Nikki:  Do you want to tell them?

Colleen:  Without planning it together, yes.

Nikki:  No planning.  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  Well, I’ll start with what I heard.  I was working in my office, working on the blogs for this week’s mail, and I heard an NBC report online.  It was on Wednesday of last week that I heard this story, and they were telling everybody that during this quarantine pet adoptions and pet fostering have skyrocketed.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  And I looked up, and they said there are pounds or shelters in New York City and in Los Angeles that are empty now because people have been adopting pets, and there’s been a 70% increase in pet fostering since the quarantine was laid down.  And I remember the commentator saying, “Because these animals will not stay 6 feet away from you.”  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  I got up and ran out to the living room and said, “You will not believe this, Richard,” because we had already scheduled to pick up a smooth collie –

Nikki:  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  – that he had found online.  We’d been looking for a dog for three years, since our dear Rocky, the sheltie, had died, and we hadn’t found one, but he found this amazing collie that had been used for showing, but he didn’t like to hold his ears up, so he was kind of a failure in the show ring.  And they were offering him as a pet because he could not be used for showing, so we picked him up yesterday, and he’s now getting used to us.  His name is Artie, and he is a sable smooth collie, and he is very pretty.

Nikki:  He’s beautiful.

Colleen:  What did you do?

Nikki:  I think it might have been the week before that.  I have been on a Petfinder list for three years, like you, since our cat, Diesel –

Colleen:  How funny!

Nikki:  We had a half Maine coon cat who passed away three years ago, and we just haven’t been able to replace him, and we knew we didn’t want anything other than at least a half Maine coon –

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  – because it’s just such a great breed, and they’re hard to find, especially through pet adoption.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  People usually breed and sell them.  We had a notification come up on my phone that they had half Maine coon kittens at our local shelter.  That’s unheard of.  That hasn’t happened once in three years.

Colleen:  Wow.

Nikki:  And so I made an appointment to go, because they’re only seeing people by appointment, one family at a time –

Colleen:  Because of the quarantine.

Nikki:  Yep, yep.  They’re very careful, very cautious.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  And we made an appointment to go the very next day, and it turned out that there was a litter of them, and so I went in with my kids, and we saw there were three brothers.

Colleen:  Awww.

Nikki:  They were half Maine coon, so one of the brothers didn’t look or really even act very Maine coon-like.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  But there were two that were so similar and adorable, and my kids couldn’t choose between them –

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  – so I sat there in total shame and said, “Fine.  We’ll get them both.”  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  So we brought home a couple of Maine coon brothers.  Yeah, and I remember texting you and saying, “I don’t want to tell you where I am right now.”  [Laughter.]

Colleen:  [Laughter.]  I know I felt the same way when I admitted we were getting a dog.

Nikki:  [Laughter.]  Well, I felt validated when I heard you were getting a dog.  So I did have to take one of them to the vet, just because he’s having a hard time settling in here, and while I was there, there was a woman – there again, only one person in the waiting room at a time, and there was a woman as I was checking out who had a brand new ragdoll kitten.

Colleen:  Oh.

Nikki:  And I just laughed and said, “Everybody’s getting these pets during quarantine,” and the vet was laughing.  They said, “Yeah, we’re seeing a lot of that.”  I hadn’t heard this news story until you shared it –

Colleen:  Uh-huh.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  – just this morning, but it’s been really wonderful to have them here.

Colleen:  And it’s wonderful to have a dog again.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  I love seeing Richard with a dog.  He’s missed a dog so much.  Well, I have to admit, I have too.  But it’s just fun.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  Is there anything else that you would want to offer?  I think we will probably do this again next week, just kind of report on our time in quarantine and how we’re coping.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  Anything else that you’d like to offer?

Nikki:  I don’t know if it’s very unique.  I think probably a lot of us are seeing some of the inspirational stories online, quarantine singing that’s going on –

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  – and just today we had a parade of cars go by.  They were teachers who had signs, and they were encouraging their students and telling them how much they missed them, and I think what has helped get me through this week has been a lot of worship music, reminding myself what’s true about God, a lot of earnest prayer, for our country, for our world, focusing on the stories of hope that are coming out of the world.  Even among unbelievers, when I see that rallying together to care for each other, I see God’s common grace is still here –

Colleen:  Yes.

Nikki:  – and I thank Him for it, and so that’s really been encouraging and helpful when I see the headlines.

Colleen:  For me, similar things.  That same parade of cars with teachers –

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  – came by our house this morning too.  It made me cry.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  Two of the cars had signs out recognizing the students of the elementary school that serves our particular community.  It was just an unbelievably sweet gesture.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  For me, it has been remembering what Scripture says.  Sometimes I actually am not sure what to think or believe, who’s telling the truth, am I reacting to truth and reality or am I reacting to fear or am I reacting to something somebody taught me way in the past?  I’m not always sure of my own head, and it is a reassuring thing to me to remember Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:30 that “By His doing I am in Christ Jesus, who has become to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,” and that’s really helpful to me to remember that.  Just on a practical level, besides the scheduling and doing my makeup and actually cooking meals for Richard and me – and I actually have had it in my head that I am helping us keep our immune systems up because let’s face it, we’re in that range, age range, of high risk.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And Richard particularly, with his tendencies to pneumonia, so I’m thinking, you know, if I feed my husband plenty of protein, animal protein included, I’m helping build his immune system and keep him healthy.

Nikki:  Yeah.  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  The pet is really a surprising, wonderful thing.  But the other thing that has been a real surprise to me has been the use of technology to stay in touch.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  And we have done our FAF meetings with this Zoom virtual meeting, and it’s not the same, but there’s something wonderful about seeing everybody’s faces on the screen together and being able to talk in real time.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  Very helpful.  So if you have a group of people you can do that with, it’s better than being isolated in completion for however long this goes.

Nikki:  That reminds me of a conversation that I had with another former Adventist – we had on Zoom with another former Adventist that I’d just like to mention.  One of the things that was said, that there was this increase in anxiety now because –

Colleen:  Uh-huh.

Nikki:  – some of the things that he had always heard growing up were going to happen appear to be happening –

Colleen:  Oh, yes.

Nikki:  – the fear of the one-world government, the fear of martial – I mean, I know we talked about this a couple weeks ago in our podcast, but the anxiety that some of this stuff does appear to be coming to pass, some of the stuff we were told would happen, and then there’s, “Wait a minute, what if they were right?”  What I just want to encourage people with is even if all of these things come to pass, and even if a Sunday law comes to pass, that does not make any of that false teaching about God or any of those false prophecies true.

Colleen:  That’s exactly right.

Nikki:  I remember telling my family, “Even if a Sunday law passes, I will never come back.”

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  Because I know what’s real, Scripture tells me what’s real, what’s true about God and what His plan is.  And you know what?  Satan knew his plans back when Ellen White was doing her thing.  He knew his own plans.  He knew what he was going to do, so it doesn’t concern me if any of that stuff comes about, and I just want to encourage people, when those thoughts come up and when we see this stuff unfolding, it doesn’t mean that they really had the truth.

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  It’s not an indication of truth.  Scripture is our foundation, Scripture tells us what’s real, and we really – when those thoughts come up, we really have to go back to that.

Colleen:  And it’s helpful to me to remember that the armor of God, which is listed in Ephesians 6, in that list of the armor of God is the helmet of salvation.

Nikki:  Yes.

Colleen:  I take great comfort in that because it’s my head that always gets me in trouble, catastrophizing, worrying, doubting, trying to imagine what the future holds, and that helmet of salvation protects us from our own – it protects our heads from Satan’s attacks and from our own.  Knowing I am truly God’s daughter, born again, His Spirit has sealed me, I have the mind of Christ.  He has become to me wisdom from God.  He alone and His Word alone is true.  I don’t have to worry “what if.”  Even if, like you said, some of those things appear to be happening, that message of Adventism is not true, and we can turn to Scripture, and we can read it, copy it, memorize it, pray, thank God that He’s in charge and that He’s made us His because whatever happens, we do not have to despair, and we do not have to live in terminal anxiety.

Nikki:  Maybe that could be the great homework assignment for the week.  If you find yourself struggling in that way, go find every passage of Scripture that talks about our salvation being a sure thing.  Go back and listen to the podcast –

Colleen:  Exactly.

Nikki:  – on the security of the believer.

Colleen:  Absolutely.

Nikki:  And just put that in your head, because that’s the helmet, and the weapon is the sword of truth, which is the Word of God.

Colleen:  And I just suggest putting all this in a notebook.  If you do that, which Nikki suggested and I highly recommend it, put all these things you look up in a notebook, and put dates there.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  Because the day is going to come when you can look back and you can remember this time, which is unique in our lifetimes, all of us alive, none of us have had this kind of thing, and you can look back and you can remember how God reassured you with His own Word and with the truth of Jesus during this time.  Thank you for joining us.  We will talk to you again a little later this week as we go through the Mosaic covenant, and thanks for joining us, and we hope that you’re eating well, staying safe, and remembering who you are in Christ during this time.

Nikki:  Take care of yourselves, guys.