COVID-19: Where is God in All of This?

I think we are all feeling like we are living in a world that is not our own.  My husband, Earl, and I were saying yesterday that we feel like we are in a poorly written movie.  This doesn’t even feel like my life. I honestly never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime.  As a matter of fact, 2 weeks ago, Earl started telling me that we should perhaps start buying just a little extra when we go grocery shopping.  You know, just a few extra cans of beans and vegetables. I told him that I didn’t think that was necessary and that everything was going to be fine.  Boy, was I wrong. He called this one way before I saw it coming.

During times like this, it’s easy to become consumed with fear. “ What will the outcome of all of this be?  Will anyone in my family catch COVID-19? Will I lose any of my friends or loved ones to this monster? What if I can’t get food for my family?  What if I can’t find the cleaning supplies that I need to keep my family safe? What if…” Our minds could continuously run and run and run. It’s fear of the unknown that can grab hold of you during this time.  While we have NO IDEA what the next hour, day, or week will hold, our Creator knows the ending. Psalm 119:16b says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Think about that.  He knew what every one of your days would be like before you were even conceived. He saw this virus coming when he created the world. I don’t know about you, but that brings me much comfort. He knows exactly what these days ahead will entail.

And that’s why we must trust Him.  We can tell Him our fears. We can tell Him how unsettled we feel.  In Psalm 62:5, 6 & 8, David says, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”  We can rest in Him. We don’t have to be fearful because our hope is in Him. I love when David tells us to pour out our hearts to him. God desires to have a relationship with us and wants to hear our fears and concerns.  

Some of you may have wondered why God would allow something like this to happen.  To that I say we may never know. I mentioned in my LAST POST that I went through a year of fear 20 years ago.  For the first several years of my life, I was a worrier.  In 1998, I begged God to make me closer to him because I was tired of my lack of trust.  It was the very next year that the fear began to set in and for a solid year I was consumed by fear and torment.  I couldn’t eat. I weighed a mere 106 pounds at the height of that period in my life. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t be alone because my thoughts would not stop.  My husband worked 3 twelve hour days a week and worked the evening shift (7p-7a). He was the supervisor of the shift, so that meant he was really gone from 6 pm – 8 am. He would then come home and sleep all day leaving me alone in a quiet house.  It was the loneliest time of my life. I had a brand new baby whom I was trying to take care of in the midst of this darkness. Earl would walk out the door in the evening and I would fall apart even more so than I had been during the day. I could not stand to be alone with my thoughts during the dark, quiet times of the night.  I’d call my mom or my grandmother and they would come and stay the night with me. There were many nights that I wouldn’t sleep for even a few minutes, so my mom would lay and read Psalms to me for hours on end.  

I slowly began to see that depression, fear, and anxiety were thorns in my flesh.  In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul mentions that he has a thorn in his flesh that he asked the Lord to remove 3 times.  But, this is what God said to him in verses 9-10. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Paul then continued in that same verse, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  I now consider depression and anxiety one of my most prized possessions because it keeps me dependent on Christ. If I don’t stay in His Word and keep myself tethered, chained, tied, and bound to His feet, I am an absolute mess.  My cry of, “Lord make me closer to you” in 1998 was answered in the most difficult, but beautiful way.  

So, to answer the question that I started 2 paragraphs ago with, “Why would God allow something like this to happen?”  I come to the same conclusion. I don’t know. BUT, I do know that while we are weak and scared right now, He is not. He is strong and will continuously give us strength through this time if we allow Him to.  In the book “Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God,” Francis Chan says this, “Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending.  What a stunted, insignificant god that would be!  If my mind were the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can. God is so much bigger, so far beyond our time-encased, air/food/sleep-dependent lives.”  I don’t know why things are unfolding the way they are, but I know that my complete and total trust must be on my Lord.

No matter what the outcome of all of this is, I will declare until I breathe my last breath that God is good.  And I don’t say that naively or flippantly. I watched my dad waste away to nothing as cancer consumed his earthly body.  I lived through the news of a high school boyfriend committing suicide. I heard my mother’s hyperventilating cries as she called to tell me that she had discovered that my 2nd dad had died in his sleep when she came home from work that evening.  I have watched my mother-in-law take her last breath as glioblastoma took over her body. I was witness to my grandmother’s mind being taken over by Alzheimer’s disease. But, I will continue to say, “GOD IS GOOD.” I don’t say those things for morbidity’s sake or for sympathy.  I say them to give credibility to what I am saying. I’m not a person who has never experienced pain and is blindly saying God is good. I am proof that even through the mess of life, He takes every single circumstance and uses them for His purpose. I have multiple stories of each of these circumstances that I’ve mentioned that prove God is good, even in the pain and uncertainty. 

I have no clue how all of this will turn out.  I’m sure most of us have people in our lives that are more susceptible to COVID-19.  My mom and stepdad, as well as my husband’s dad and stepmom, are in their 70’s. While they are all in good health, all 4 of them have had health scares in the last few years.  My grandfather is 91 years old. We all know that the elderly are severely impacted by this. BUT, I can’t let my mind go there. My mind will rest on God and His promises.  

You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.  ~ Psalm 26:3

Don’t Wait to set your mind on Him.  Ask Him to give you an eternal perspective.  Trust that even in the midst of the chaos we are living in, He sees it all and longs for us to cling to Him.  As you are going about your day, whether you are at work or socially distancing yourself and your children as they are out of school, check on your neighbors.  Now is the time to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Watch for elderly people in the grocery store and give up a few of your cans of beans or Clorox wipes for them.  Just as Jesus came to earth to serve, so we are called to do the same. Reach out to others. Love them as you love yourself. And whatever you do, DON’T WAIT!

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