#covid19 | itsawonderfilledlife

Posts Tagged ‘#covid19’

Above the Clouds

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #abovetheclouds, #covid19, #fear, #pandemic, #theinvisiblecloud, #turnyoureyesuponjesus on June 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This season of our lives, this Covid pandemic, in so many ways is surreal. Many of us continue our work, school, lives as always, just at home. Yet, there is this invisible cloud called change and I wonder if it might be affecting us all, more than we are aware.

Our lives have changed, been altered by this pandemic that has touched every corner of the Earth.

Our work, school, places of worship and social lives have changed. How we shop, spend our time do recreation and entertainment has changed. Now, as summer is just around the corner, how we vacation has changed.

Graduations, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and so many other special events have changed.

Though things are ever so gradually opening up, officials are quick to remind us that we are not going back to what we knew to be ‘normal’ but we are moving towards a new normal …

and, well … we can’ see or envision what that looks like, because it is still enfolding. With this, even our ability to dream or foresee what the future looks like has changed.

There are those who are eager to leap into what is opening up, those that are more cautious, or even more fearful. Fear has been on the rise over these months … and it will destroy even more than Covid 19.

Change is hard. Change without knowledge of what is to come … that can be destructive.

My thoughts go back to this invisible cloud called change and I wonder if it might be affecting us all, more than we are aware.

“Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it there.” – Barbara Walters

I wonder if Barbara Walters knew something of that place above and beyond the clouds. I wonder if she understood that what was, what is beyond our troubles, is a place and a person to put our hope in, when the heaviness of life weighs us down.

Look up!

Turn your eyes toward Jesus,
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace

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Gentle Leadership

Posted in women, WONDER, tagged #covid19, #drbonniehenry, #femaleleaders, #gentleleadership, #noshame, #peaceinthetimeofcovic, #thefacts on May 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »

When the impact of a pandemic began to touch our lives, in British Columbia, when restrictions began to be put into place, when we all became home bound the message began …

be calm, be kind, be safe

That has been the consistent message from the PHO (Public Health Officer), Dr. Bonnie Henry, in her (almost) daily press conferences, where she updates the province on the the spread and treatment of Covid 19. But the numbers aren’t all that she has communicated.

She has also shared, what comes across as most genuine sorrow for the loved ones of those who have died.

When an outbreak in the community has occurred (at a seniors care home, a prison, a packaging plant, etc.) she presents that information with clarity, sensitivity and a lack of panic. When PPE (personal protective equipment) was needed, she would share what was being done. When reporters seemed to ask questions to initiate scandal, she, gently, confidently pointed out what was known, rather that what was suspected.

Each day there has been a message of the facts …

… reminds me of a song from the Anne of Green Gables musical, in which Anne is telling of what she imagines her upbringing might have been, in a most fanciful way. The women around her, Mrs Spencer, Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs Blewett, sing out their response of “the facts, the facts, the facts … the plain, simple, homely, unembroidered facts” to her.

Which brings me to the other part of Dr. Bonnie’s press conferences that (personally) blesses my east coaster heart. She grew up in Prince Edward Island and each day I hear her island of origin in her breathy speech, the way she sometimes says about (aboat), the elongation of her vowels.

Mostly, though, what I hear is the style of leadership that we rarely get treated to and which exudes through her every word. She is a quiet, confident, shamelessly unshaming, facts-first, sensitive, human leader. She has created confidence in the people of this province, at a time when fear, speculation and panic could have taken over.

When I have heard the health authorities of other provinces and countries speak, I have realized what a gem of a leader we have here. She has not encouraged us to keep an eye on our neighbors for wrongdoing, but for care, kindness. She has not focused on the minority who break the rules, but reminded us that we do not always know the whole story, that the majority of people are following the rules. She has reminded us that it is we who bend the curve, not the heavy hand of rules and laws.

She has empowered us in this fight against Covid 19.

When our lives begin to slowly open to our ‘new’ normal, I pray a cure, a vaccine is found. But I also pray that Dr. Bonnie’s style of leadership becomes a new norm as well.

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1

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Love One Another

Posted in WONDER, tagged #anxiety, #covid19, #mentalhealthstruggles, #mentalhealthweek, #mentalillness, #silentpain on May 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

In this season of Covid 19, it is not difficult to find ways to love one another, for the need to be loved, to experience love, to feel love are great?

The easiest way to show love is to self isolate, reduce interactions with others, keep our distance. Those who are volunteering at places which meet the needs of the elderly, the homeless, the disadvantaged. There are those who are donating money or goods to various causes.

“This is my commandment,
that you love one another
as I have loved you.”
John 15:12

During this pandemic and our isolation from society, I have wondered about those, not dealing with Covid 19, but those dealing with an internal, virus-like condition. This condition attacks the mind. This condition can alter the individual’s ability to work, or parent, or study. It can alter their personality, habits, view of the world around them. It can create actions and reactions that are filled with misinterpretation, anger, sadness, doubt, lack of trust, hopelessness, even rage.

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.” ― C.S. Lewis

Mental health issues are the invisible struggles of many in our society. Though the fallout of mental health struggles can be easily seen on the sketchier streets of most cities, where substance abuse is one of the symptoms, if we look more close to home, we might discover it’s presence as well.

Symptoms of struggling with mental health can be found in the struggles to look for or maintain a job … or addiction to work. Anger, passivity, apathy. Struggles with relationships resulting in isolation from loved ones or divorce. Sadness, depression or perfectionism. Struggles with their own behaviours, or the behaviours of others. Loneliness, isolation or a constantly filled calendar. Struggles with anxiety, causing an inability to act, withdrawing into themselves and planting a hedge of self protection all around … resulting in near-impossibility of penetration from the help of others.

Those struggling with their mental health need advocates. People who will step in and be their voice … even when they resist, reject and refuse such help. They need people who will dig their feet in the soil beside them, with teflon-like armour (for they may receive opposition to help … adamant denial of a problem … that may injure, deeply). They need people who are willing to go the distance, even if it means (temporarily) losing peace, in order to reach out for help from professionals

… and help from professional must be achieved for health to be restored. Who would not race to contact medical advise if a loved one presented symptoms of Covid 19? Mental health issues can be as dangerous, untreated.

Today is the last day of mental health week, in the province of British Columbia … lets love those around us who are struggling with anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or one of the many other mental health realities that affect our friends, co-workers, family … possibly even within ourselves. It can be a potentially life-endangering struggle …

help them get help, love them … pray for them.

“I find myself frequently depressed – perhaps more so than any other person here. And I find no better cure for that depression than to trust in the Lord with all my heart, and seek to realize afresh the power of the peace-speaking blood of Jesus, and His infinite love in dying upon the cross to put away all my transgressions.” Charles Spurgeon

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The Trifecta Effect

Posted in FAMILY, WONDER, tagged #covid19, #faithhopelove, #mentalhealthweek, #motherhoodinatimeofcovid, #mothersday, #thetrifectaeffect on May 10, 2020| 1 Comment »

So, here in Canada, May 6-13 is Mental Health Week, Sunday, May 10 is Mother’s Day and, to top it all off, this weekend marks eight weeks of self isolation due to Covid 19.

A trifecta is three events that make for a perfect result … I am not so sure that this weekend is so perfect. As a matter of fact, I have been noticing moms lately, pondering how this self isolation might be affecting the mental health of moms, at the various stages of the mom life.

I have been thinking of the moms of littles. They are frequently out for a walk, pushing littles in strollers, carrying them on their backs or at their fronts, holding tiny hands. Their days begin as the sun is lightening the horizon and though their littles might go to bed in the early evening, their nights are frequently interrupted with feedings, changes, soothing and rocking. What a time this is for those moms, with days so full of activity and questions and physical care … with no relief from grandparents, aunties or babysitters. Some have the benefit of a partner with whom they can share the load, but then there are also those who are trying to balance caring for their children while still working, in the same house.

Then there are the moms of school aged kids, who are trying to manage the full house of social distancing, potentially working from home and now, being the tutor that they never signed up for (at least, not knowingly) … all while trying to keep up with the social pressures to learn how to make sour dough bread and Dalgona (whipped coffee). These moms have patience that are being tested and tried every waking hour (their kids outlasting them at days end). The only hope for these mommas, for a break, is to set their alarm for an early hour, before their kids awaken, so that they can pull their tattered brain cells back together, for another day of endless cooking, technology-managing, homework-overseeing, sibling-peace-keeping.

At the far end of the spectrum are the grandmas and great grands, sitting alone in their homes, their care facilities, the hospital. They might be feeling a very real sense of fear for their lives. A fear of their own, their kids and society as a whole as they are perhaps the most at risk of this disease being a threat to their very life. They were lonely before Covid forced us to keep our distance from them. Their days are filled with quiet, little social or physical interaction, time. They long for a visit, a call, a touch.

Then there is the empty nest stage mothering (the one I am currently 2/3 of the way into). Our kids are mostly independent, living their own lives. Our days are largely our own, or occupied by work in some form. We might long to visit our own mothers and grandmothers, to encourage them, help to pass the time, give them a hug. We might ache to help our own kids as they manage life at home with their newborns, their busy children, their socially-starved teens. Maybe we just long for the freedom and safety to embrace our kids again.

For all of these stages of mothering, this is tough time to mother. It is exacerbated when anxiety, depression or other mental health challenges are part of everyday life (for the mom, a child, or spouse/father). Mental health struggles have no boundaries due to gender, age or stage of life. Mental health issues are much like a virus during a pandemic … there is no one immune to it’s touch.

The combination of a special day, social isolation and mental struggles can be just too much for some moms, who are weary, lonely and/or dealing with their own, or their loved one’s mental health struggles.

Maybe what we need this Mother’s Day is understanding that mothering is hard right now. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t joys and delights, that the chests of mom’s aren’t swollen with love for their children, just that, for many moms, it is hard right now.

So, let’s love on our mom’s this day.

Maybe the real trifecta is faith, hope and love. A verse more commonly pulled out at weddings than Mother’s Day. But right now, those are what all mothers, all of us need more of.

May we all look to mothers, to ourselves with those three words. May we all look to God as we struggle through this time, as mothers and as children of them.

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No Going Back

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged #backtonormal, #covid19, #lookingback, #lookingforward, #nogoingback, #thenewnormal on April 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“I can’t wait for things to go back to normal”

That has to be the most commonly expressed and felt sentiment of our day. We long for our ‘normal’ life, filled with the activities and habits and people that give breath to our life. We long for predictability and the possibility of planning for events and travel.

Our Covid 19 life of social distancing is so far from ‘normal’ and we just want it to return, in all it’s human-intersecting splendor. Even the introverts among us are longing for normal, to be with people (choice people, the ones who fill our cups).

Recently, while scrolling through Instagram, someone posted the following excerpt from a book, published in early February of this year. Beth Moore had written this book prior to 2020, prior to Covid 19, yet, this excerpt could have been written today (for today):

What are you asking for, desiring most? What do you miss from your before Covid 19 restriction life? What and who are you longing for?

Perhaps, you just want to hug your socially distanced children, parents, friends. Maybe you too long to sing with other followers of Christ in church. Perhaps you are missing your work community, or work. Maybe you just long to sit in a restaurant and share a nice dinner with someone. Maybe you miss your hair stylist, a manicurist. Or your athletic club, group or team.

The things we miss are often the normal, everyday people and events … the things that have become life-giving to us.

I keep hearing health and government officials speak of a return to our new normal, that life will not return to the normal that we knew before Covid 19, but, instead, a new normal will emerge.

I wonder what that new normal will look like …

But, here’s the thing, I don’t think that the new normal will be different from the old normal in that the people who we hold dear will be back in reach (literally). We will still participate in activities that keep us healthy, active and entertained. We will still worship our God, who goes ahead of us, with us and behind us.

“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19

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Alleluia is Still our Song During Covid 19

Posted in Easter, life, Walking with God, tagged #alleluiaisoursong, #alleluiaisstilloursongduringcovid19, #countyourblessings, #covid19, #gratitude, #lifeinthetimeofcoronavirus, #thankfulness, #weareaneasterpeople on April 19, 2020| 1 Comment »

This week’s random thoughts was at the top of a friends post on Facebook.

As I read the list of ten … let’s call them the week’s learnings during this time of self isolation in the shadows of Covid19, I heard a song from childhood …

count your blessings

Now, at the end of that week, feeling rather depleted from a week that had a fair number of downs that seem to overshadow the the ups, I am revisiting my friend’s post.

As I look back over the week, this post and two other memories pop out for me.

There is a family that I follow on Instagram. Their beautiful daughter (and their whole family) have been fighting cancer for almost fifteen years (she is about twenty now) … through one diagnosis and three relapses. After over a month of self isolation, they are naming something each day that they are each thankful for.

A sweet teen, who carpooled with me to school (and whose heart and soul I adore), dropped off a belated birthday gift. Part of it was “The One-Minute Gratitude Journal” with spaces to write what I am grateful for each day.

Hum …
Coincidence?
I think NOT!

Saint Augustine (of the late 300s-early 400s) said,

“we are an Easter people
and
alleluia is our song.”

What he was saying is that as people (all people) who have been given the gift of Easter, the gift of the sacrifice of Christ, our song, or message (maybe even to ourselves) need always be praise to the Lord.

To offer thanks is to recognize from where our blessings come. To offer gratitude is to see what we have … even when we are in a place of many have-nots, of depletion, of lack.

And so, I wrote my list, of this week’s random thoughts … thanks. And, you know what, I have much to be thankful for … much for which to sing praises to my Lord … alleluia!

I encourage you to try this too … I’d love to hear from you … what are your random thoughts and thanks this week?

Zoom visit with a dear friend
Daily after work walks with our son
A delivery of a belated birthday gift from the sweetest teenager I know
Able to help my mom accomplish a level of technology
A charcuterie board that looked and tasted wonderfully
Discovering a great new TV series to enjoy with hubby
Conferences with students who have the most amazing work ethics
Sunny days
A bunny hopping leisurely ahead of me while walking on a trail
A church small group who is like oxygen

Count Your Blessings
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Who couldn’t use a little
Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney
singing Irving Belin’s
Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep?

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Individual vs. Community

Posted in community, life, WONDER, tagged #coronavirus, #covid19, #individualvscommunity, #loveoneanother, #loveyourneighbor, #pandemic, #sacrificeforthegreatergood, #takecareofeachother on March 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Me or we?

Sometimes our questions come down to that one question …

Me or we?

When we believe that our actions do not have any impact on those around us … when we think that our desires come before anyone else … when we hold to the perspective that we are in control of our own destinies we are living in the me world.

When we consider how our actions impact those around us … when others are considered in the seeking of having our desires met … when we recognize that our destinies are in the hands of a greater power … and we care for the needs of others who we share community with, we are living in a bigger world … the real world.

We are now living in a time when we need to abandon the me for the we.

Now is the time to clean out the stuff in our homes that we truly do not need and prepare it for donation to those who have need. To reach out to help our neighbors who might not be able to get out to get essentials. To read good books, to try new recipes, to take a walk in our neighborhoods, to play games. To use technology, for calls and FaceTime gatherings. To get to know the people who live under our own roofs.

Switching out our thinking from me to we.

It is now the time to listen to what health experts are saying, suggesting, imploring. It is now the time to look at the needs of those around us, of how our pursuit of me could put others in possible danger.

I recently read an article from the Boston Globe, written by Mattia Ferraresi, who is a writer for the Italian newspaper Il Foglio. (The subtitle of the article is, “Many of us were too selfish to follow suggestions to change our behavior. Now we’re in lockdown and people are needlessly dying.”)

Ms. Ferraresi said, of the affects of the lockdown in Italy :

“Strangely, it’s also a moment in which our usual individualistic, self-centered outlook is waning a bit. In the end, each of us is giving up our individual freedom in order to protect everybody, especially the sick and the elderly. When everybody’s health is at stake, true freedom is to follow instructions.”

May we learn from what other nations had to learn the hard way. May we acknowledge that this world does not revolve around me but that we share this world, are co-dependent on each other for both joy and for survival of life.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor (WE) as yourself (ME).’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:36-40

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When Fear Wears You Down

Posted in life, Walking with God, WONDER, tagged #bestrongandcourageous, #coronavirus, #covid19, #letuslove, #mypeaceileave, #onlivinginanatomicage, #sensiblethings, #whenfearwearsyourdown, Fears on March 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »

People hoarding toilet paper and sanitizer, limits on travel, cancelling of sporting and entertainment events, stock markets plunging and social media informing the populace on COVID-19 …

” … be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic … for the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
– Deuteronomy 31:6

We have observed students, parents and travellers roll their eyes, ignore professional advice or grow in fear each day.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” -John 14:27

I, myself, have the Wolrd Health Organization and the John Hopkins COVID-19 Global Map (in real time) in open tabs on my laptop, so that I can keep up to date on the facts of this global pandemic.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

Yet, with all of the cancellations and changes, with all of the craziness, with all of this doom and gloom … there is a realization that we are not in control. With that realization comes the acceptance that our hope, humanly speaking, is not within our own humanity.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
– Psalm 46:1

In 1948, after the horrors of the end of WW2, people realized that, though the war was over, a new age had dawned … the Atomic Age … and people were perhaps even more fearful than during the war years.

It was then that C.S. Lewis wrote an essay titled, On Living in an Atomic Age (which was published with other essays in a book called Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays.

It would seem than many have been dusting this essay off lately … still wise words for tough times. I have gone ahead and replaced “atomic bomb” with “coronavirus” (noted by italics).

In one way, we think a great deal too much of the coronavirus. “How are we to live in an coronavirus age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the coronavirus was spreading: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by coronavirus, let that virus when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about the coronavirus. It may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but it need not dominate our minds.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
– Philippians 4:6-7

May we not allow fear to guide us.

May we be found spending this time doing sensible things … things like making good meals, washing our hands, offering others assistance, taking walks to breath in the fresh air, reading good books, cleaning out our closets, making long distance calls, stretching our bodies, praying, loving others in practical and spiritual ways … posting encouragement on social media.

Let us love.

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.”
– Proverbs 12:25

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