I’m the queen of busy. You would believe me if you saw my color-coded Google calendar that keeps me on task with my schedule and my family’s schedules. There’s meetings before, during and after work, phone conferences, church services and ministry meetings. There’s also meetings my husband has, his schedule at the tavern we own, along with his fraternity obligations. We have three children who participate in activities like Squash and dance and baseball, and they depend on me to transport them to and from these events. All of this doesn’t include homework time for the kids, classwork time for me, and me making time to complete the work I bring home that I didn’t get to while at the office. In other words, there’s always something to do.
And then COVID-19 entered our lives and forced me to stop everything. Stop the hustle and bustle. Stop the errand running. Stop the “I’ll drop you off at your activity and pick you up afterwards.” Stop the, “can you pick up the kids today?” Stop going back and forth to work. Stop being so busy that I was operating on “keep it going so I don’t fall apart”. Stop being so busy that I had no time for God.
The kids will have been out of school eight days by the time I post this, and I will have been working from home for seven of those days. In that time, I have stopped being focused on the not-so-important things that consumed me just a week ago. Now, I’m thinking about my neighbors, wondering if the seniors at my church have enough food and non-perishable items to make it through a long-term quarantine, wondering if I am able to teach my children how to handle a pandemic without panicking.
It occurred to me earlier this week that we are still in the season of Lent, that sacred time where we shift our focus from the flesh to the spirit. How very fitting. During these unprecedented times, we have the opportunity to choose between fear and faith, panic and peace, believing in God or the enemy whose goal is to make us fall into fear.
We are in the middle of a “be still and know that I am God” season (Psalm 46:10). Everything around us, for the most part, has stopped. We cannot travel. We cannot visit with friends. We cannot fellowship at church. But what we can do is trust God and then be the church by checking in on our neighbors, helping a senior citizen, call and FaceTime our loved ones, offer encouragement to others, shine God’s light in the darkness.
The second verse of the classic hymn “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less” states, “When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace; in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the vail”. It is during these uncertain times that we must plant our feet on the Solid Rock that is our Lord and Savior. We may not know what will happen next, but we do know that God is in total control. This is where we put our faith and trust, where we must train ourselves to focus.
When things get dark, and you feel yourself becoming anxious or afraid, remember this: “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.”
God is with us. We are not alone.
