Pandemic Lessons

Now that my vaccination card has both doses recorded, and guidelines suggest it is safer to resume more and more “normal” living, I am enjoying getting re-acquainted with the feelings of freedom once (unknowingly) taken for granted. I believe I’ll be mindful of and treasuring these freedoms for the rest of my days.

Things like:

Visiting and hugging our kids and parents with no hesitation.

Welcoming people into our home.

Dining inside a restaurant without wonderings of “Should we really be doing this?”

Traveling and exploring new places.

Carpooling. (Who’d have thought?)

Even as I am grateful for this now-treasured awareness of freedom, I am thankful for lessons learned:

God is AMAZING. (This is something I already knew, but it bears repeating and warrants the top spot on the list.) Only God could keep us going by being the one constant, and the One, Constant, when everything about everything changed. While I do not believe God caused the pandemic, I do believe He worked through it for our good (Romans 8:28), even as there have been devastating effects and so much grief. God’s sovereignty and power are way outside of my understanding, so while on one hand these statements make sense to me, they mystify on the other hand. I can’t explain it. All I can do is give glory to God.

Humans are RESILIENT. We can do really hard things. We are powerful and persistent, like a river – when there is something huge in our way, we make new paths and keep going. We find and innovate new ways of getting things accomplished.

Love holds us TOGETHER even when we’re apart. Love wasn’t threatened, thwarted or diminished during the pandemic. Let’s not stop reaching out and checking on one another.

We are made for “In-Person” COMMUNITY. We don’t put our hope in the celebrations, gatherings, shared meals, parties, coffee shop hangs and we got by without them for a season to protect one another, but they are some of the best BLESSINGS and we don’t need to be ashamed of how much JOY they bring us.

GRACE is like water – we all need it to survive. We need to receive it for our own missteps, and we need to offer it in abundance. Let’s be about making accommodations for other’s feelings and anxieties. If you’re wired like me, maybe you also wondered all year “What is the ‘right’ way to do things – when there is no ‘right’ way to do things?” Often, the right thing is simply to lavish grace.

Something I’m wondering about…which is more honoring of the huge losses and the scientists, front line workers, teachers, pastors and other leaders who helped us get through and get back: to “feel normal” or to feel “strange about feeling normal?” Hmmmm. I don’t know about that.

But here’s my prayer: May we be new and improved versions of ourselves. May we take these lessons and new sensibilities into the rest of our days. One day in the future, when we are laughing out loud and momentarily forget the tragedies we’ve faced this year, I believe we’ll reflect later that evening, or maybe the next day, about why it felt so amazing. We’ll be reminded of our gratitude for all that remains, even as we miss and yearn for and will never forget what and whom we’ve lost.

I won’t even try not to be a broken record. I fully intend to tell my future grandchildren as often as they will listen, “Before you were born, there was a time when we stayed at home for months and months. It was very difficult, but we made it and here is what I learned…”

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off
and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Colossians 3:15