Category: Faith

Yesterday Michigan’s stay-at-home order was extended to the middle of May, just as all around the country people find themselves facing longer periods of isolation than expected–and sometimes increased anxiety about health and safety as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in its spread. Personally I have found myself often discouraged in this time, though I also recognize that I have had the blessing so far of health and safety, a gift I do not take for granted. Despite this, I often find myself wondering–when will this end? How will this end?

Not long after my phone buzzed with the government alert to “STAY HOME STAY SAFE”, I was in our kitchen washing a dish at the sink. The weather this week has been pretty typical for a Michigan April–we’ve had everything from gorgeous sunshine to snow. That day had turned out rather pleasant. There were birds chirping and when I had gone outside to grab the mail I could smell the new life blooming on the trees. Back inside, washing that dish, I looked out the window. In our garden  below the window, something caught me eye: a blue jay, picking at a stick in the mulch.

It was a very simple sight and the bird flew away quickly, but for some reason the sight of it overwhelmed me and I kept thinking about it for the rest of the day. The image of that bird had brought vividly to my mind the promise of Matthew 6:26-27–

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

All of Matthew 6 is rich and full of promises, but these verses, and those that follow, have always resonated with me. Growing up I was always someone who struggled with worrying. I won’t say anxiety, per se, but I definitely found myself concerned about the future to the point of it overwhelming, paralyzing me. There have been moments every now and then over the past few months where I have found myself falling back into those old patterns, spiraling in my head into feelings of anxiousness that grow ever-tighter until I feel trapped in them. I have had to very consciously choose joy and contentment throughout this period of unknown, as one of my greatest weaknesses is faithfulness in the unknown, when there is not a plan.

But then I remember this verse, and I see the promise of God in Matthew 6. And yesterday I saw that bird. Now, I won’t necessarily say that the bird was a sign from God–but sometimes signs are contingent on how we interpret them, and in that bird I saw a message, a reminder, a signpost of hope.

That blue jay isn’t aware of the COVID-19 panic. He (or she? I don’t know how to tell a bird’s gender) was not anxious about viruses or even about building his (or her) nest or finding his (or her) next meal. I’d venture to say that birds probably don’t have the capacity to experience anxiety. They exist in a world where their needs will be met, as far as they need to be.

But then again…so do we. We just have the added gift (and burden, sometimes) of having some agency in our lives, where we have been given the role of doing what we can to provide for ourselves. But sometimes we run up against something against which we have no power. A global pandemic, if you will. It is in those moments that we will be prompted to anxiety and fear more than ever before.

And even so, God’s promises still stand.

Something like a pandemic makes us brutally aware of our own inabilities, but in times like this God has not changed. He promised to provide for us and His promises are unbreakable. Jesus said that we have no more reason to worry than the birds of the air, and I’m going to trust Him on that.

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” Such is the promise that comes to us in Psalm 139:7, my favorite psalm, and one full of the richness of the LORD’s love; a psalm that reminds us that before all, through all, and beyond all is God, great, mighty, loving, and beyond our comprehension. The psalm goes on:

“Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.”

(Psalm 139:7-12, ESV)

This psalm came to mind this morning. Something I needed to hear. The past few weeks for many have been a time of confusion and even fear. I have so far been blessed with shelter and safety, untouched directly or even tangentially by the spread of such an unexpected virus, though I know this could change any day, and I know that others have had another narrative. Many in these past months have had to confront the ultimate far sooner than they imagined, and I think that even those of us who have not been touched directly by the spread of the virus have been given pause. Panic is certainly not a Christian virtue, but empathy is, and all life is precious so all death is tragic. Statistics may be thrown about regarding the supposed severity of this event compared to others but for now I will set those aside to say that grief in the face of something like this is nothing to be ashamed of. Jesus wept when Lazarus died, though He knew He would raise His friend in only a few moments. Jesus wept because all death is wrong, and death should not be.

Before I continue, I will say that I am by no means a medical authority (nothing close, at all–I’m an English major). So I will say nothing about the mechanics of this virus. Nothing I would have to say would be of value, or add anything to the many conversations out there. I am not even going to speak so much about the virus, but rather a bit about my own testimony, and what I have learned from that about fear, trust, and the goodness of God. These thoughts come not from a place of objective authority, but from simply one person who has had a very good life, but a life like all lives filled with bumps of uncertainty and times of great fear.

Years ago, I had a small picture of what it means to face the fear of the unknown. At the age of fourteen, I underwent life-altering spinal reconstructive surgery. Though, to God’s glory, all things went smoothly with the surgery, there was a chance I would come out of the surgery paralyzed or blind or with a number of other complications. There were no complications, for which I will always be thankful. Even so, in that time, I learned what it meant to feel pain. I hope that nothing in my life will ever be as painful as what I lived through that week and the months that followed. And yet I will always be thankful for that week, for that surgery. I had spent years leading up to that surgery angry at God. Why had He not healed me? Why had He not taken from me the spinal deformity that had caused me so much pain and confusion for most of my life? Why was I now experiencing what I could only describe as agony, both physical and emotional as my spine knit itself back together under the hands of doctors. I realized how broken I was and how there was nothing I could do about it.

However–

“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.”

(Psalm 139: 13-16, ESV)

I realized I had been given a gift. Not a burden, but a gift. How many people are so blessed that their bodies are and always will be an inescapable reminder of God’s grace? I will always walk around with the physical scars that remind me of a deep truth: I was born broken and through nothing of my own strength could I make myself whole. And though I prayed for healing, I had to learn to trust that God would answer my prayers, but He would do them in His time and in His way. That way was painful and it involved suffering but it was through this pain that I was reminded that I have no strength of my own, but the LORD is always with me. I came out of the other end of that surgery physically whole in a way I never had been before, but blessed with a deeper gift: I now saw in myself a physical reminder of the humbling power, everlasting grace, and aching beauty of sanctification.

Was I afraid going into the surgery? Absolutely. But did I have to trust the LORD? Yes. Something I have needed to remember countless times in my life: we are creatures who have been given the gift and the burden of feeling things, sometimes so deeply. We are beings of emotion, of passion and pain, love and of fear. I think it is wrong to deny an emotion, even one like fear, because to do so is to deny the solution and the consolation for that fear: that is, God, and the promise of His Son. We must let ourselves acknowledge and feel through our fear so that we do not dwell on it, and so that we remember we must trust God.

So if you now feel fear, remember that in all things God has been, is, and will be with you. There is nowhere you can go to flee from His presence. And there is nothing greater than God. God is greater than fear, than panic, than uncertainty and confusion and pain.

Lastly, I wanted to share the lyrics of the powerful prayer and hymn It Is Well With My Soul, which became a part of my devotions this morning. This hymn was originally composed by Horatio Spafford in 1873. Written not in a time of good fortune, but in a time after he had lost his business, livelihood, and all of his children in a series of horrible catastrophes. I did not know that for a long time, and after learning this, I came to see the hymn for the aching prayer that it is, the words of surrender and of trust even in the midst of great pain, fear, and uncertainty. There are many versions of the hymn out there after 150 years, and I have included one here:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul!”
It is well with my soul!
It is well, it is well with my soul!

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought—
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to His Cross, and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live;
If dark hours about me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

 

My prayer now in my own life is for the peace of Christ to be whispered in my soul. I will praise Him in all things, and I will pray as always, for His goodness and healing in a spiritually and physically broken world. Nothing surprises the LORD, and in and through all things He will be will work His plan.