When I was a little girl, I was terrified of the dark. I was always certain there was someone or something under my bed. Or in my closet. Or behind my door. I slept with a lamp on for years. And while I eventually graduated from the lamp to a small nightlight, it wasn’t because my fear had subsided, just that I was old enough for sleepovers and didn’t want to look like a baby. I would check under my bed, behind my door, and in my closet every single night before I turned off my overhead light and turned on my nightlight. I had to take action in order to scare the fear away. I had to do it every single night.
The Bible says to, “Fear not,” or “Do not fear” well over 350 times. If I believe that everything the Bible says is true, and as a matter of fact I do, then I have to believe that God really doesn’t want me to live in fear. But that doesn’t mean I won’t ever face fear. If I am to take this world, sinful as it is, then I am most definitely going to face all sorts of things I don’t like, things I don’t understand, and things that scare me.
COVID-19
I don’t like it. I don’t understand it. It scares me.
So I have to figure out a way not to get stuck in that fear. I have to take action to scare the fear away. Fear is a feeling, it’s a real feeling but feelings sometimes lie to me. Like when I felt like I was in love in 7th grade and got my heart broken when the feeling wasn’t mutual. Turns out, I wasn’t in love. That feeling was a lie.
So how do I not get stuck in a feeling? First, I have to look at the facts and figure out what I’m feeling. Lately, I have been feeling fear. And the fear is of a very real thing; a virus that is spreading worldwide. So to begin to scare the fear away, I have to do everything the authorities are telling me to do. I am social-distancing. I have limited my contact to my family. I’m only meeting up with friends via texting, Facetiming, and video conferencing. I am drinking lots of water and getting plenty of sleep. I’m essentially checking behind the door, in the closet, and under my bed.
But fear still finds its way and it still creeps in and whispers in my ear, “You’re never going to be able to educate your kids at home,” or “the government is never going to be able to control or fix this,” or, and this is the one that comes to me the most often, “what if this is all a way for the government to control the population?”
Don’t stop reading just because I unveiled my crazy. I am fully aware I have watched too much Netflix.
But here is the most important part…The thing I have to keep telling myself, the action I have to take, is to remind myself that God is bigger than COVID-19. In fact, he’s bigger than anything I could ever fear. Every time I look out my window or walk through my yard and see a bird, I am reminded that those little birds worry for nothing. I mean sure, they flit and flutter and gather like crazy to make a nest and to find food for their babies; but ultimately, God provides everything they need. And if God takes such good care of the Robins and Cardinals in my back yard, how much more effort will He put into caring for me?
Now, I hear you, sometimes birds freeze to death. Sometimes a big wind comes and knocks down their nest, or another animal comes and steals the baby birds for dinner. It’s true. These things do happen. But it doesn’t mean that God loved those birds any less. It only means that this world is full of things that suck.
God allows a lot of things to happen that I don’t understand. But it doesn’t mean he’s not watching or that he stopped loving me. I don’t have a clean or slick reason for why he allows things like cancer, heart attacks, suicide, or COVID-19. What I do know is that in all the scary places I’ve been, in all the times I’ve ever been afraid, in all the dark rooms I’ve ever sat in, His light has been my salvation.
I have never come through a dark time of my life when I looked back and couldn’t see God’s guidance, provision, protection, and love. And I have been through some really dark times. But looking back, when the memories feel heavy and burdensome and I know that I couldn’t find any hope at the time, I can always, in hindsight, see a flicker of light. I might not have been able to see the flicker back then, but sure enough, it was always there.
And so even though life feels scary right now and I don’t know when it will feel right again, I don’t have to wonder about who will be lighting the path ahead of me -of us. God has already seen the future, He has already been there. He knows how this all ends and He will be there for us then just like He is here for us now.