When you can do little else, be delighted with creation.
In this article, I write about my bout with COVID-19, and how I learned to stop a moment amid the chaos and just enjoy creation.
Have you noticed it’s not easy to create or accomplish much with chaos as a steady diet? Small things get in the way of creativity. Then 2020 happened. Those small things turned into even bigger things. The entire year of 2020 seemed like a year of Mondays. You know the Mondays: the ones the memes are made of.
The kind of Monday where you spill your coffee on your white shirt, your car needs gas and you’re already running late, and when you finally return home after a long day, you notice you left the garage door open: Um, sell the house already. You’ll never enter ever again. Unless, of course, you have an entire marine squad with those really big guns to scope out the place.
New Year. Better Life, Right?
As 2020 ended, I had great expectations for 2021. This year was going to be different. I’d travel again and check places off my bucket list. Not so quick, Paula.
An article I had written called “Hello, New Day” was published in the January-February Reflections magazine. The theme of the issue was “A New Day. Dream Big.” I encouraged readers to “remember not the things of old”—of course, that’s what you talk about at the beginning of a new year, right? I ended the article with asking readers to open their hands to receive God’s favor, noticing new mercies and reminding them to live fully in God’s presence. Embrace tomorrow’s dreams—they are going to be really good, I promise—today.
It looks great on paper.
Two weeks after I had the published article in hand, I tested positive for COVID-19. As people were reading my go-change-the-world-and-be-happy article, the virus was wreaking havoc in my body.
For me this virus was not a minor cold, it included raging fevers for ten days. As I was gaining strength, pneumonia set in. Weeks went by and pharmaceutical meds weren’t helping. My parents came to help. My son flew in. When I talked to my other son and his wife, I wondered if it would be the last time I’d hear their voice and they mine. I gave my sister the passwords to my phone and computer. I left a how-to email for my boss for one of my projects. A whiff of death. Anxiety was at an all-time high.
But that was my own burden I was carrying, not His; His is much lighter. I didn’t have to be so downcast and live with such turmoil. Two months into the illness, I had to fall back into the arms of Jesus and remind Him in prayer, “The burden You give me is light.” (See Matthew 11:30.) I had to put this prayer on repeat.
Maybe you’ve also had an entire year of Mondays. Maybe you’ve lost a loved one. Or you have a chronic illness plaguing your body. I’m sorry, really. My wish for you is to be whole and well and strong again.
God Wants You to Enjoy Creation
In difficult times, I like to think about what God wants for me: He wants me to see green pastures and calm waters, a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light. He wants me to be delighted with creation (He was!): the sunrise and sunset, the eagle resting upon the tallest tree, the butterfly fluttering across my path, the bird that comes daily and taps on my glass, an infant taking in his mother’s face, and hearing—really hearing—Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.”
Friends, the beautiful moments of life are vying for our attention. Even song sparrows, according to writer Ben Mirin, “alter the frequency of their song to become audible amid city noise.” Sometimes you just have to sing a little louder. In my case, I hum. Humming helps to loosen stubborn gunk in the lungs. (But you probably didn’t want to know that.)
As I write this, I await an appointment with the pulmonologist. The pneumonia has not left my body, but the anxiety has.
It’s Tuesday Eve. My year of Mondays is coming to an end, and I’m armed with hope. And because I hope in the Lord this Easter weekend, my strength is renewed. (Isaiah 40:31).