It’s Okay

Friday, March 13. That’s the day that COVID-19 and self-isolation became real for me. Before then, obviously I had known about the damage it had been doing around the globe… but it wasn’t here. Until it was.

Suddenly, the schedule was changed. Everything cancelled. Plans I had built for myself, turned upside down. All it took was a night or two for my calendar to be cleared. At first, I was hopeful it would just be a couple weeks, that stuff wouldn’t go down the way it did.

Soon, a couple weeks turned into 55 days as of right now. I’ll be honest, a lot’s changed for me personally. It feels like more than anything, what COVID-19 robbed from me was my normal. The way things used to be; comfortable. At least, that’s what it felt like to begin with.

But it’s not all bad.

Not being able to go to church and youth group physically caused me to be more intentional in my relationship with Christ. Being home constantly can be a little crazy, but we’ve grown together too during this time. Friends and I have grown together, and God’s been using this gift of time to mold me more. Truth is, others have it worse than me. Yet even in this, never have I seen the world come together as it has in so many beautiful ways over the past couple months.

A friend and I were talking recently about the world, and something crossed my mind. Maybe it’s crossed yours, too.

Revival.

We believe in a God that can throw mountains into the sea, engineer DNA on his lunch break, and reverse death itself. Yet as much as we say, “God will turn this all around for good,” do we believe it?

I think God may just be using this time to work in our hearts as a world like never before. He’s sowing the seeds for revival. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: “Are we willing to water them?”

At first during all of this… I was pretty disheartened. But somewhere, that changed. God gave this sort of peace. Like, maybe, just maybe, this is where we’re meant to be right now. Right here. Maybe this is an opportunity for God to move in us right where we are, not because we can’t go out, but because we have trust that God is sovereign. He reigns over viruses and disease. Instead of losing heart, let’s trust that God has us right where he wants us.

Sometimes we get too comfortable with the way things are.

When things go on, business as usual, are we intentional about things? Sometimes we need to be reminded that this world is only temporary. This is not our home. And is it possible that in our normal day-to-day, we’ve been wasting time?

And maybe the coronavirus taking away a little piece of our time and schedule will be exactly what we needed to remind us of our priorities–where we’re at and where we want to be.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve had this strange feeling. Even though things aren’t ideal, somehow… I’m at peace. This isn’t all that bad. Sure, things could be better. But they could be worse, too. God’s got this. We don’t. And for some reason I can’t quite explain, I’m okay with the way things are.

This is a difficult time, to be sure. We’re all in different places, with different emotions, different circumstances, different hurts.

But it’s okay.

Hope is on the horizon. And revival is coming.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;”

Lamentations‬ ‭3:22-25‬ ‭NIV‬‬