Word&Way Voices

COVID-19 has created an avalanche of death, disease, suffering, and uncertainty. One helpful coping device is to find the positives in the midst of all the tragedy. I sat down recently and listed some takeaways. See if you can relate.

In this season of uncertainty, let us take a moment to reflect on what sort of habits are shaped by the world and how we might release them in exchange for better, transformational habits.

A friend sent me a card in the mail. Tucked inside her note was a folded coloring sheet. She had already colored half of it and asked me to color the other half, then return to her. I was instantly smitten with the idea.

More than 25 of my many years were spent in school. In those years I read, accumulated, and appreciated many books. I came to regard those books as friends. We became so familiar I could recognize them on the shelf while sitting at my desk several feet away.

I must acknowledge that this year has not turned out the way that I had hoped or prayed. And unfortunately, we do not have any idea when life will begin to look like we thought it would. The only thing we can be certain of for the near future is … uncertainty.

I am afraid.  This is not a confession pastors are supposed to make. 

Slogging through the COVID-19 pandemic is a daily exercise in perseverance and improvisation. So it probably wouldn’t surprise you that a few days ago I found myself crying as I drove alone in my Camry. No, the tears were not about the latest coronavirus report -- it was Luciano Pavarotti.

Dallas Willard once said, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” In addition to the crucial questions about health and safety, it might be even more important to ask these spiritual questions as well.

I love to try new things. Sometimes, however, after I say yes, fear creeps in and I start to feel like maybe I’m in over my head. This is exactly what happened when I learned to kayak.

God has created a world where we have the privilege of interacting with diverse people with diverse experiences and experiencing diverse circumstances. These relationships with people who are different from us and experiences that we would never anticipate are not always bad things.