I was born at the hospital where the first case of Coronavirus was diagnosed in the U.S.A
I delivered my son and daughter there decades ago. My parents still live six houses away. I was both raised and owned a house, for a collective thirty plus years, steps away from that Providence Hospital.
Today, I wanted to put a “happy spin” on these words, knowing in my last post, I penned some strong emotions about kids who are in a “social experiment”, trapped in abusive homes because of Coronavirus.
I originally wanted to share about the millions clapping for front-line workers, Brizillians singing, trapped in their apartments, “Because He lives, I can Face Tomorrow” and the touching video honoring every person who serves on the front lines.
But when I woke randomly at 3:23 a.m. God reminded me, about the reality of those suffering around the world because of Coronavirus.
It’s easy to put a “happy” spin on things, because that’s what people want to hear. But out of respect for the dying, I want to walk delicately between the reality of suffering and the promise of real hope.
While, I sit in my oversized house, complain because I can’t shop and there is tape, marking six feet where we stand between people at Target. I look around at my surplus and grieve for those suffering in Africa, Chi*a, and Communist countries we rarely hear about.
It seem cruel to make our homes in some virtual (only what we want to hear) paradise, while Coronavirus spreads like the plagues of Egypt, quietly through the world.
Hungry people can’t get food. Medical supplies are sparce. People who go into the hospital for one thing, are coming down with this virus, leaving them more at risk than when they entered.
I heard from a missionary in Texas. She said she knows zero cases of those infected by Coronavirus.
Yet….
In Washington, the epicenter of America’s outbreak, many are sick, people are still dying.
A lady from our church just lost her mom from Coronavirus.
Someone else I love is quarantined, struggling in the hospital, yet he sits alone without his wife. A family my daughter went to high school will was infected. They live less than a few miles from us.
Sickness is not far off. It is close and personal. It’s not somewhere distant on the nightly news, it fills our feeds, lives a few doors down, and floods our hospitals, while friends who are nurses tirelessly help them.
And yet, there are local heroes. Heroes, like my friend who sat down at her table with her two sons. Her husband is a police officer. Piles of home-made masks fill the table before them.
Kids my daughter’s age, instead of complaining, are being vehicles God uses to help save lives.
Medical staff risk their very lives to selflessly treat patients, working ill equiped, despite their own protection.
And patients sit quiet and alone, no visitors, no family or spouse to hold their hands as they gasp for breathe and fight for their lives unseen in hospitals around here….
Missionaries carrying the virus, remind me, none of us are exempt…
And yet, God knows our end from the beginning.
He knows when we were to be born and the day we will die. And even hell and his fury cannot terrorize the perfect will of God.
And so, I lean my faith on Him. I open Scripture and find another man isolated. He was the youngest of Jesus followers, yet became the oldest living survivor of a Gospel that wouldn’t die.
Accounts tell us John, Jesus’ disciple, was boiled alive in hot oil, in hopes to kill him. Yet, even facing his death, John kept preaching the gospel.
John never died and reports tell us, everyone around him was saved after witnessing such a miracle.
And I wonder…what miracle does God have waiting for you and me, amongst the heat of this epidemic, trying to destroy our hope and dreams?
What life or call or purpose does God have waiting while the enemy’s schemes are to mame, silence and destroy us?
Will we focus on the boiling world around us? Or will we keep on preaching the name of Jesus, the glory of God, the revelation of His purpose…even in the face of death?
Rumor has it, after being boiled in oil and still not dying. John was given poison. Yet, even poison couldn’t paralize a man who saw love completely transform his life.
And I wonder, if Jesus chose to spare John’s life, not because he was the oldest, wisest, most educated or got all his theology right….
But because John grasp the transforming power of the Love of God and out of that Love, death had no
sting.
Love is truly stronger than the grave.
John’s love, pointed to the Victory and not only was he saved, but generations to come would hear a testimony of the of a man boiled in oil. Yet wouldn’t die….
Jesus gets glory when we let nothing or no one silence us from testifying of Him.
After not dying from being boiled in oil and taking poison, John was then sent to an island; some say to work, others say as punishment….but likely, the main purpose was so John wouldn’t preach the gospel.
Yet, even in isolation, John could not stay silent.
John had a vision in a cave, and penned the book of Revelations telling us all of the end to come.
What was meant to mute John, was really just the launching point that thrust John into one of His greatest callings and purposes….
After two years, John left the island and preached the gospel until he was eighty. Oh to be in the presence of a man who confounded death and walked miraculously despite the worlds threats to destroy him.
Faith rises from John’s testimony of fixing his eyes on Jesus and spreading the gospel despite persecution.
Coronavirus keeps spreading. People are paralized with fear. We may even feel isolated and like our plans, our hopes, and our desire to share Jesus has been hindered…
Yet, what if this event isn’t a roadblock, but a launching point? What if what the enemy wants to use to harm us….God is turning, in a mighty way, for good?
I want raise my hand, grow in love, stand and shout boldly from the epicenter’s rooftops…
“I am available. Here I am, Lord. Use me!”
