How are you doing?

I have personally experienced a mid-Covid breakdown this week and have talked to several others who would say amen…the struggle is real. 

Maybe it’s the increased heat and humidity. 

Maybe it’s just too many months since the shock factor when we were told we had 24 hours to circle the wagons, stock up on supplies…good luck if you wanted toilet paper…and life as we knew it came to a screeching halt. 

Maybe it’s that the good feeling of “we are all in this together” has been blown to smithereens as the gloves have come off and we are more polarized than ever in these “united” states. 

Maybe it’s that the places where we used to go when we were feeling the way we are feeling are no longer the places that bring us comfort but just add to the strangeness. 

And maybe it’s that all of this has brought out the startling truth that, speaking for myself here, the comforts and “blessings” of this life I now refer to as normal, were far too important to me. 

Maybe the things that I considered significant inconveniences were actually just tiny blips on the radar screen of life on planet earth. 

All I know is on Sunday we went to big church.

In our masks.

Appropriately social distanced.

I sat down in the pew and looked around me and the tears started. As a side note, crying in a mask is about as comfortable as sneezing in one is. But I couldn’t stop the water fall. 

I didn’t even miss singing because I usually don’t sing in church. I have a range of about 5 notes so I kind of speak the words and let my spirit ride on the music and please don’t tell me about how God doesn’t care and He loves my voice. He hears my voice a lot and He hears me sing by myself, but I was raised by a man who could play the piano by ear and while I can’t carry a tune, I am highly able to appreciate good music and cringe at bad music and when I know I am not hitting the notes correctly and someone who is gifted to do so is, I just let them do their thing while I worship in my spirit.

So I just listened and hummed and spoke the words and I was almost free of the tears until we hit the part in the song that says…when darkness hides His lovely face …and it was too close to home. 

All of a sudden I could picture God wearing a mask that covers His face. 

And I thought how like Him to go through the same stuff we are going through.  

Darkness covering His lovely face. 

The tears fell because in the midst of all of this season, at times I have felt the disconnect from community to blur into a sense of disconnect from God. 

And what does the song declare further? 

When I can’t see His face…I will rest…REST…on His unchanging grace.*

In the midst of daily changes in facts reported, allegations made, theories bandied about – His grace has not changed. 

No matter what roller coaster my emotions may ride or the lives around me that I love that are being rocked back and forth by decisions that affect all of us and yet we have absolutely zero control over…He is the anchor that remains unmoved. 

I pray you are holding up if this has gone on too long for you. Short of a miracle, we have a ways to go.

If you find yourself having a meltdown every now and again, remember that you are held. Tight and firm and safe in the unchanging love of God. Maybe google the song below and sing along with the lyrics. Let them fill you with the Hope of Christ again <3

Grace. Amazing grace has not been canceled and remains unchanged, as powerful as ever. 

* My Hope is Built on Nothing Less by Bob Kauflin