I’m not sure what causes this, but I feel like every time I have a ton of stuff to do, I find myself blogging instead. I have a million pages of therapy homework. I have a Bible study to be done by Monday- I’m the one leading it. I need to finish writing my support letter and collecting the contact information needed to mail them out. I’m not even going to mention all of the other little things I’m supposed to be working on, yet I find myself sitting here writing a blog… Someone make it make sense.
I’ve been thinking about Covid a lot lately. When I say a lot lately, I mean like two or three times everyday for the last week or so. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been a mass break out or resurgence of some new strain. If there has been one, I think I’d prefer not to know at this moment.
So why has it been on my mind? Two weeks ago I was at training. We were all sharing our testimonies and how the Lord has worked in our lives. I had practiced mine 3-4 times the week before. It went perfectly. As I’m sitting in the room with people I haven’t even known for 24 hours, a common thing, besides God, seemed to surface in several testimonies. When it’s my time to go, everything is going well. Just like I had practiced. Then I get to this sentence “In 2020, the Sunday I found out I was fully funded is when Covid started closing borders for countries and I found out I wouldn’t be able to make it overseas as planned.” I barely made it to the word Sunday before tears started to well in my eyes. I am flabbergasted. The next paragraph I assumed I would struggle getting through because it indirectly referenced my brother’s death, but this sentence? I was thinking what the heck is wrong with me?!
The welling of the tears in my eyes quickly became one of those ugly crying scenes. I HATE crying in front of people. Especially people I don’t really know. If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may remember that I used to think crying was a sign of weakness (see here for my thoughts on it There’s Crying in Life and Baseball). So why did the sentence starting with “In 2020” cause the deluge of tears?
I don’t want to say I’ve been hyper-fixating on the question of what caused the tears, but I’ve been hyper-fixating. The other day, I finally figured it out, and then had to sort through the next bombardment of thoughts associated with the answer. Covid- 19 initially just halted my plans to move overseas. Then the next year, it did it again, but this time the Delta Variant killed my older brother. His death sent me into one of the darkest periods I’ve experienced thus far. To say I had depression and anxiety, is such an understatement of what was really going on inside of me. Almost 4 years later, and I’m finally seeing a legitimate breakthrough in that area. The tears were because while Covid had taken so much from me, I wasn’t the only person it had done that to. I was overwhelmed with the sadness associated with Covid, but also with the faithfulness and goodness of the Lord.
The aftermath of this revelation? I am currently raising support to move back overseas for the long haul. The last time I was raising a large quantity of money, Covid entered and for lack of a better phrase, I felt like it ruined so many things in my life. I quit my job to move overseas only for borders to close. It was looking like I would be able to go fall of 2021, and then my brother died from the same virus and my world essentially imploded. I think, at some level, part of me is TERRIFIED that this portion of the history of my life is about to repeat itself.
In my head, the scenario in the future is this. I get fully funded to go back overseas to tell the lost about the King of Kings and Lord and Lords and then some pandemic or war shuts the world down again. To take it a step further, because that’s how my brain works, about the time the pandemic or whatever stops shutting the world down, another family member will die. The idea of going through something like that again, while imaginable as I’ve just proven with the above sentences, is hard to swallow. None of this has happened and potentially could not happen, but my mind has already started thinking that far ahead.
Taking thoughts captive is something I have to work on daily. Driving to work yesterday and thinking about the above paragraphs, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Lord’s faithfulness. After I quit my awesome job teaching math to go tell people about the Lord, I can see how He faithfully provided job after job for me while waiting to leave. Even now, my office job has ended (yay for temporary work), and He provided a job of painting someone’s entire house. It’s a big house, and I’m the only one painting. So it’s going to be a job for a while. There won’t be a gap between paychecks. I’m also convinced that painting houses is the perfect job for me, but that is a story for another time.
As I was taking thoughts captive and casting my fear and anxieties to the Lord, He just kept reminding me of more and more truths. I was reminded of His sovereignty. I was reminded that everything that happens He allows. I was also reminded that in all things, He is ALWAYS at work. He is Jehovah Jireh- the Lord who provides. He is El Roi- the God who sees. He is the alpha and omega, beginning and end. He is perfect and holy. What He says He is going to do, He will do.
So while who actually knows if my made of scenario will happen, I can take confidence in who God is. I can recall His past faithfulness to get through whatever season of life I find myself. I’m going to keep raising support to move knowing God holds the future and whatever may or may not happen, He is still in control. Who knows, if my plans get stalled again, maybe He will show me some other hidden talent like painting houses!
Grief. Going. Healing. 
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