A week ago, there were 163 deaths in the U.S. Today there are more than 5,000. America’s medical experts are predicting 100,000-200,000 casualties over the next two weeks…I can’t even wrap my mind around that.
While the medical battle against the Virus continues to intensify in our hospitals, it feels as though the mental battle in home quarantine may be just beginning. This awkward place of being home, yet feeling neither here nor there, everywhere and nowhere, is unsettling. Change is exhausting. Isolation is dehumanizing. I am quickly running out of personal resources, staying power to keep sheltering in place. I can’t keep the house clean. I can’t keep my kids occupied. I’m out of meal ideas. My mindset is off center. Although I love seeing the faces and hearing the voices of my friends and family on screen, I can already sense that sooner than later, Zoom just isn’t going to cut it.
And now, as of today’s news announcement, my kids are out for summer (well, practically!).
I am coming to the end of myself. My heart knows this is a good thing, but my body is resisting it. I’m uncomfortable. I’m not sleeping well. I’m anxious about how long this crisis will last. And I know I’m not alone. So many of us are looking for faith. Looking for strength. Looking for vision.
When there is little faith, little strength, and little vision, my gut tells me there is still Jesus.
But Jesus seems such a mediocre offer in the middle of a growing global pandemic (the second- and third-world countries haven’t even been hit hard yet…and how will they be able to handle it???). The adequate answers right now sound like VACCINATIONS, MONEY, MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, STRONG LEADERSHIP, SERVANTS.
Not Jesus.
Jesus, the answer to this crisis? MY answer to this crisis? Impossible.
Exactly. It is impossible to believe that Jesus is enough for us right now. He seems too inadequate to be true. So for those of us who even suspect that Jesus *could* be the answer to a problem too big to wrap our heads around, we are experiencing a miracle—the miracle of faith.
Faith is a miracle because it cannot be self-produced; it can only be given to us from God.
Our faith will not save the world, but Jesus will. He already did–on that first Easter, when He took every sin, sickness, personal and global tragedy onto Himself–on the cross.
Faith is the eye through which we see Jesus, the ear through which we hear Jesus, the hand by which we hold Jesus.
By placing our faith in Jesus, He wins the battle in our minds during times of crises.
This Little Life 