ON 3/27/2020:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:25-27 NIV
“Why do I feel discouraged, why do the shadows come and why does my heart feel lonely and long for heaven and home. When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.”
This song has been in my head and on my heart for days now. We are now on two weeks since this thing really started shutting down our part of the world. I remember when we were getting to the end of our spring break week and I started hearing about schools closing and then announcements came out that ours would be closing too. Then came restaurants and the whole world seemed to be shutting down. I thought it was all crazy. And it is. I tend to like to know what’s coming next. I’m not a big fan of change. Yet here we are. We are working from home or staggering hours, social distancing, sheltering in place. I wish someone would/could tell me, this will last ___ long and everything will be back to normal. But at the same time should things ever go back to “normal”? I’m not so sure you can come out of something like this the same or even if you should. So for now I keep singing this song and reminding myself that worry will do me no good. He’s got this. And I’m also asking the Lord how does He want me to be different when this is over. I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I do know that the one who watches the sparrow, sees me and He sees you too.
TODAY:
Ohh I think if anyone would have told me last year we would still be worrying about this this year I could not have handled it. I guess sometimes we are better off not knowing some things.
I still struggle with being a worrier even a year later. I haven’t been that way all my life. I used to be very good at laying a lot of things down at His feet and not picking them up again. Or maybe I am just remembering it that way. Maybe I really did worry in real time. I think looking back has a way sometimes of us, or at least me, not remembering how bad things felt at the time. I see posts on social media and I hear talk about how we have just lost a year of our life. And yes, it has been a different year for sure but I don’t really feel like it has been lost. My family has had some good things happen in this year and some bad things. We are welcoming a new sweet grand baby in a few weeks. My sons are both in good places in life for the moment. I still have a good job with good people to work with. We still love our life and our community and have made new friends. I survived Covid and my family did not get it from me!
I can say that today I don’t feel sad or discouraged like maybe I did a year ago when I wrote the original post. I do still love that song and I do still cling to the one who watches over me and I praise Him and thank Him for seeing me through the past year and for not letting me know it would be a year! I still want Covid to go away! I wonder what the future holds for our family. But I do trust the one who saw us through the past year to see us through the next one because I know he watches me!
Restore 