It’s so easy to read the stories from behind the screens. Detached, surreal, unknown. My kids keep asking if we know anyone who has “the virus”. They want to know when it gets personal as if closing churches, parks and libraries isn’t personal enough. They want to know when someone they love gets sick. It’s scary and unknown, but they are healthy and young I tell them. But they know. They know that doesn’t always mean anything. It doesn’t mean they are safe.
They’ve been in the place of desperation, each one of them. Fighting for their own lives or fighting to understand death. They know the truth of this broken world, the hard, the pain, the suffering it brings.
And if it weren’t for caring people around us, praying for us, praying for them, where would we all be now?
If the thousands of people praying for our sick boy had only idlely sat by, watching the story unfold from the screen of their computer, where would we be now? Where would they be now? Over and over again, I hear stories of lives being changed because we walked in faith into that hospital room, because we walked in hope out of it and because our journey of life and loss has been real, vulnerable. We’ve shared our suffering. We’ve invited you into our grief. Not for the pity or the sympathy, but to share the burdens. To let you in so that you, too, can go before the Father, ask and seek, draw close to Him. And share in the sorrow, the memories and the victories. The comfort of knowing we don’t walk alone in this grief journey. The comraderie of a community, the Church, coming alongside us in our walk. Helping to keep our heads above water when we cannot. Going before the Lord when we cannot. Making us meals, pointing us to truth, listening to us cry and ask questions. Doing life together, even when it’s hard.
The Lord made us for community, even us introverts. He made us to need each other, long for companionship, even if we only have a few really close friends. All of it matters. You’ve been the hands and feet of Jesus to our family, from a simple message of remembering to the meals for months and Thao’s photo still hanging on your refrigerator. Thank you for walking with us.
What if they had passed on by? What if he didn’t stop for the boy, the dead-child walking, as he’s been described? His life was spared because of a kind stranger. Someone took the time to take a sickly orphaned child, a child frowned upon in his community, taunted and left for dead. No one wanted him. The lies. We wanted him. We just had to find him. They wanted him, his tender-hearted, kind foster family. He wanted him, the sweet man everyone called “Papa Louis”. My son was not forgotten. Left alone, starving and sickly, but wanted. Chosen. Dearly loved. What if the kind man was too busy that day? Would someone else have come along? Thanks to the tender hearts, going against culture and society, and showing the Father’s love to my son.
God gifted her with a strong-will. Enought to survive illness and abandonment. She fought hard that one, to survive, to protect herself. If she let her guard down, it might hurt. If she let people in, they might leave…again. What if they had given up when it got hard? What if her fits had caused her foster family to say enough? It’s too much, too hard, my own children might get hurt? What if they grow to love her and then she leaves? What if she never lets us in? But what if she does? and she did. What if the confusion and grief and fear in her heart was turned to joy and song and love? What if they had given up on her? Loss after loss would build the walls so thick. Thank you, Lord, for being their steadfast love and providing a consistent earthly love for her to know.
What if we are called to do more than sit and watch? In this season of isolation, what if we can still lift each other up, point each other to Christ, love each other well?
This could be a season of loneliness, or it could be a season of togetherness, bonding and love. To persevere through the hard, to overcome the darkness. To not let despair overwhelm our souls, but to turn to truth. To turn to each other. To lift each other up in prayer.
How can we be the Church in this hard season? What can we do, practically, to still be together in social distancing? What do you need from us today?
Let’s not be the ones to look the other way or sit idlely by, watching as the world turns to panic and hoarding. Let’s be the Church. Be the neighbor. Be the friend. Let’s be the ones to point others to truth. To fight the darkness with light. Let’s be love because we are so loved. Live generously because we trust in things above not in things here on earth. Let’s rise above the fear. Let’s quarantine, stay safe, wash our hands, and distance ourselves out of love, not fear.
Be kind. Tender-hearted. Brave and bold. Because we are Beloved children of the Most High God.
