I guess it’s day five. Like everyone else, I don’t know what I’m counting up—or down to.

But it’s been five days since I last spoke to someone I loved without a computer screen between us.

“Is it hard living alone?” she asks.

“It’s okay so far.” I say. “I’m keeping busy.” And it’s true.

Everything is cancelled, but I’m keeping busy.

I don’t tell her that what’s harder is facing aloneness.

For days, I’m glued to my phone, refreshing the twitter news feed for updates on the latest statistics. I book back-to-back virtual coffee dates and binge watch Downton Abbey.

I don’t tell her that what’s harder is facing a life without distraction.

Months ago, they ask me what my biggest fear is and I tell them it’s living a life devoid of adventure.

What’s harder is facing a blank calendar.

I think about writing a novel because ambition is less terrifying than boredom.

Because what’s harder is not having something to show for myself.

And after five days of isolation, I wonder how much of my life is spent ensuring some tangible excuse for why I’m here.

If I can’t produce reasons for my existence, I busy myself in distractions from it.

But she texts me with verses and prayers that she is praying—and I know she is because when she says she’ll pray, she really does. Even though she cannot always see the results.

And when I turn off the internet on a Saturday afternoon and face my fear of boredom, I don’t worry about the results.

Because my Maker doesn’t ask me for the reasons I was made. He doesn’t ask me to bear my own fruit. He asks me to abide.

I face the empty space in the day as my chance.

To abide in love, joy and peace.

“Can you pray that I use this time to lean into Jesus, to know the sweetness of His presence?” I ask the girl who prays.

Because aloneness is easier to face when you recognize you’re not.

And boredom is easier to welcome when you pass the time in the arms of Peace.

And existing as God-breathed creation is reason enough to exist.

It’s on a Saturday when I stop counting down the days because sometimes the things that matter most can’t be counted.

And sometimes the things of value can’t be quantified.

And sometimes the fruit from a season of waiting cannot be measured.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4