COVID – Jesus is for the Wounded

Where do you go when what was good is now bad and what was bad is now commonplace,

When the meaning of words is twisted or the prose is outlawed altogether?

Where do you go when your spirit is disquieted, there is no where that feels safe,

When you cannot trust your body to get you there even if you knew where that was?

Where do you go when fear-mongering is the top headline every day

When there is no place for discussion much less public or private debate?

Where do you go to share your pictures and news and questions and art

When social media has become the Big Brother of an ever bigger government?

Where do you go when your losses outnumber your wins and

You just don’t know when or if either one can come back in any form?

Where do you go where the customary habits of hygiene and socialization

Are so altered by an unforeseen enemy they can’t even objectively identify?

Where do you go for human touch, to connect with loved ones

When there is no room for them even when dying in a hospital bed?

Where do you go for wisdom, for light in the darkness, for hope of a better day

When all you can see is madness, anxiety, fear, doubt, and dumbing down?

Gentle Reader, you go to Jesus Christ

His throne of grace is mightier than

Any trial or tragedy or evil we may face.

Go now. Our very eternity is at stake.

Signs of spring abound juxtaposing the promise of new life with the reality of death in this season of both green and black, this season of life altered by a rogue virus. How can we possibly take it all in?

The goodness that we can find in our shared humanity isn’t far off as neighbors serenade the streets with music. We put teddy bears in the front windows of our homes for the kids passing by at a safe distance or join masses of cars flashing emergency lights to support the healthcare workers laboring inside our local medical centers at night. Each gesture brings a smile, some warmth for a brief moment in time.

Conversely it seems that the fear of a silent killer has intensified the divisiveness, the viciousness in social and public media to levels not seen since caveman days. Our society has gone beyond simple disagreement to sarcasm and its true definition: to “tear flesh.” Hatred, really. It doesn’t matter to the masses that we are all in this together, that we are all at war against the same enemy. The process of dealing with COVID-19 will reveal the good and bad in each of us at some point. The stress is crushing in the weakness of our humanity. If you looked more closely I believe you could say that below the surface, we are all hurting from the loss of life as we once knew it.

I’ll never forget the 2 women joking about the newly coined term of “social distancing” in front of the organic produce section of our local grocery store as we waited our turns to step up and select a vegetable or two. That was only a month ago. Yesterday no one was joking in their combination of bare hands or gloves and masks, grasping a sanitized shopping cart, and standing 6 feet apart on the blue stickers marking the floor at the checkout line. The air was tense as I observed the cashier wearing only one latex-free glove, the gal bagging our wearing a re-usable cloth mask and no gloves, then me taking off one of my sweaty gloves to sign the screen of the credit card reader (before sanitizing that hand with a little bottle of same in our truck). This is nuts!

I submit to you that overall the COVID-19 Pandemic is not bringing out the best in people yet. I am glad and grateful to see the goodness here and there. I do believe that most of us in our hearts are somewhere between survival mode and beast mode. We are struggling in our own strength to establish some sort of normal routine while living in the chaos. That is simply not possible yet. How can we do so when in the back of our minds we are wondering if we or our loved ones will be the star of that leaked YouTube video of the patient dying alone in an ICU bed or worse, packed in a black bag in the refrigerated truck parked outside the freight entrance of the hospital? Yes, this is way beyond nuts!

Experts tell us that the world here in the United States will get worse before it gets better. But probably in each of our own private spaces and places, there will be some nice things that will happen. Some loving and meaningful moments will be in the mix. But we must ask ourselves if that is enough? Is it enough to just survive the pandemic of year 2020 with a few GIFs and memes from Facebook in our minds? Or conversely do we throw up our hands, succumb to addiction (including stuffing ourselves with food) and say if we die, we die? I mean really, how does one cope when the world is going increasingly mad?

You go deeper Gentle Reader. You go deeper than asking how or why or when or where or who or what. You go deeper than the comfort of your own bed (if your are blessed to have one) and kitchen full of food (if you are blessed to have one). You ask yourself what life will be like 2 months from now when your housemates can’t stand each other anymore or your employer had to close its business after all, when the government goes bankrupt or the earth groans with the tragedy that actually didn’t take us all out. You ask yourself about the value of your own life and the ones you love and further, the very meaning of life itself.

I pray that it is sooner than later Gentle Reader, that you will go beyond the darkness of days to go deeper still. For it is then that we both will know without any doubt that we were never alone in all of this mess. There is a purpose and a plan. We will find a peace that transcends the mess of this world. This is not of ourselves such that no man may boast. We simply are not strong enough. All along the way the God of the universe is watching, waiting, listening, grieving, loving, and ready to see us through no matter what happens. It is for His design and glory that we live. Say what? How can I say this? I found the answers, the truth in His Word. I found that the Lord ordained supreme testing within a horrific illness I endured and battled over the past 8 years. And through it all, there was meaning and purpose. I was never alone. He was always there with me whether I felt His presence or not. And always there was peace beyond the strife. I escaped death more times than the 9 lives of Morris the cat; COVID-19 doesn’t change a thing whether I live or die. My eternal life that transcends the strife of this world began a long time ago.

The world simply will not, no never satisfy the groaning, the longing of our hearts. That place is for Jesus Christ alone. Want to explore this topic further? Go right now to the book of John. Find a Bible. And dwell amongst the pillars of the King who loves you so! Do it now before it is too late. JJ