On Coronavirus and REALLY Just Wishing Things Were Better

I feel hesitant to write about the pandemic currently sweeping the nation because I am totally out of my depth here. The amount of things I don’t know about what’s going on far exceeds the amount of things I do know, and I don’t feel even the least bit qualified to make definitive statements on how we should respond to this crisis-- both on a national scale and on a personal, emotional level. Massive closures and cancellations. State-issued stay-at-home orders. Record unemployment. Tens of thousands of deaths (and counting). And all from a novel deadly virus from a country with a communist government who lied about it for weeks, allowing it to spread into every corner of the world. It all feels like a dystopian tv series I’d binge-watch while crocheting and thinking to myself, Well thank God this would never actually happen. 

 My family tries to calm me down, telling me we’ll get to the other side of this and be okay. There have been plagues and other comparable (and worse) adversities throughout history-- this isn’t something completely unprecedented. And compared to others I’m in a much better place: young, no health risk factors, and our income fortunately is not currently being affected, so I really ought not to complain. And afterall, God is still in control. Of course, these things are all true, but I just feel they are totally missing my point. Are they not seeing what I am seeing? Are they not listening to the same news? While I’m glad they are able to keep calmer than I am, I am also frankly baffled

I distract myself with chores, cooking, and going on walks throughout the day so it is not as though I am constantly wallowing in despair. Still, there are these moments where suddenly I remember everything that’s happening and I just feel myself sinking in unbearable sadness and fear. Strangely, this phenomenon is very familiar to me: going about my day mindlessly and then suddenly remembering everything is actually quite horrible. This has been going on for the last three and a half years with my whole stupid headache situation. I’ll feel content, and then remember: “You have very frequent and intense migraines that prevent you from living the life you want. Even when it’s not so bad-- like right now, you STILL have a constant headache you can’t seem to get rid of. What a nightmare!” I don’t know how I “forget” a reality I live every day, but I do. And then when I remember again, I feel much despair that my life is so dominated by physical pain. 

While I’m somewhat used to chronic pain being a constant burden in my life, I’ve always had the normalcy of everyone and everything else to lean on. Even on my worst migraine days, at least people were still going to work and driving and grocery shopping. They were keeping the rest of the world going so that tomorrow I could hopefully join them. Now it feels like the worst, intimate parts of being in pain: the suffering, the isolation, and the fear have been blown up into this massive collective consciousness and shared experience (what a strange thing-- to feel isolation together). In some ways, it’s comforting to know that others feel what I feel, but in other ways, this makes things feel much bigger and therefore, much scarier. We are all in the same boat, but that boat happens to be the Titanic and we are currently crashing into the iceberg.

 Pre-Coronavirus, I said the world looked different to me because of my physical pain. Nothing would ever be as carefree as it was before the pain and that makes me so sad. Now, the world looks different because it truly is different. The streets are empty. Mass can only be witnessed via Youtube. Picking up groceries almost feels like a hostage negotiation: Don’t come out of your car or make any contact with the attendant-- just pop the trunk and we’ll give you your food. You would think I’d like to take a break from my apartment even for a mundane chore of picking up groceries, but I don’t. For one, I am scared I’ll pick up the disease despite my copious use of hand sanitizer, and secondly, I don’t like seeing the world this way because every part of it looks a little bit darker. I wish I could revert to what I do when my pain gets bad. I’ll hibernate in my home and suffer for a period of time, but then when I come back out, things will be good and normal again. I guess I was growing content with this unspoken compromise I made with the universe-- that I was willing to accept physical personal suffering so long as the rest of my surroundings remained okay.

It’s so very painful to have something good go bad and to experience the fear that it will never be good again. I experience that with my physical pain, and I think that now we are all experiencing it in a new way in the midst of this pandemic. While it’s relatively safe to assume that next year we will have a vaccine and that schools and restaurants will open again eventually, it’s hard to know the final extent of the disease’s damage or where we-- both as individuals and as a nation-- will stand in the aftermath. All the months ahead of us seem too obscure to look forward to as we sit in our homes that feel more like prisons, just trying to take it one day at a time. We assume normalcy has to resume at some point, but we have no idea when or if it will ever be like it once was. 

 It does strike me as odd that I’m making the assumption our world was “good” before this pandemic. I think we’d all agree the world was much better without new deadly virus than with it, but it sounds naive to say things were ever “good.” It’s not like we were all healthy: there was still influenza and heart disease and cancer and a million other serious physical ailments plaguing people. There was still war and terrorism and abortion. Hurricanes and a whole range of other natural disasters. Suicide and Euthanasia. Drugs. Rape. Child abuse. The list goes on, of course. The world was never good and we were never good. Sometimes I feel that we, as a world, deserve Coronavirus and even worse, and then my despair reaches a whole new level. 

 Nothing has ever shook me as badly or made me pray more fervently than Coronavirus. I think we just grow so content in our own personal sins and desensitized to the sins of the world that we don’t see the need to pray. A lot of us still somehow have this idea that humans are basically good as we just flagrantly disregard our deep and repeated flaws. My prayers for the past month or so have basically been, “God, I am so so so sorry for my own sins and for sins of our world. We don’t deserve your grace or mercy. We don’t deserve to be healed from Coronavirus. But please please please do it anyways! Please heal our world even though we don’t deserve it!” And although I feel my words are very childish and not eloquent in the slightest, it’s one of the most genuine prayers I’ve ever prayed because I feel like I really get it.  For at least a few seconds before my pride inevitably rises again, I am completely humbled and “put in my place.” I really understand why we are bad and foolish sinners and why needed a savior 2000 years ago and why we continue to need Him now. The magnitude of our sinfulness and of things like Coronavirus are far too big for me or anyone to possibly get under control. These moments, where I feel myself sinking in despair and I beg for God’s mercy like I never did before-- these moments are when I understand who I am and much more importantly, who God is.

This unbelievably long Lent, I’ve been contemplating all these thoughts expressed above along with other thoughts regarding Coronavirus and what lesson God is possibly trying to teach us through it all. It feels so profound, like it has to say something fascinating about the human condition. Yet truly all of my own thoughts and feelings could really be boiled down to: I really really really hate pain and suffering. I want God to take it all way and make things good,” and that none of this is even a remotely unique or interesting concept. Oh, how I wish I was holy and wise enough to have an abundance of peace and joy throughout this pandemic. I wish I could be always still enough to hear God speaking to me instead of being so filled with my own anxious thoughts (Seriously, it’s a wonder how he gets through at all with such noise in my brain). I know intellectually that Jesus’ resurrection and promise of eternal life should be enough for me to weather any storm patiently and with full trust that God is allowing this pandemic to somehow bring about a greater good. I’ve often wished I could feel the same things regarding my personal physical pain. But the truth is, I just still really hate suffering more than anything and want it all to go away so badly. That’s it-- the message crying from the depths of my soul.

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 Perhaps this is a profound thing, though, to hate suffering and long for goodness. Perhaps it points to something that in most humans, despite our depravity, that is good. It is good to want goodness, and even though that sounds obvious, it is actually quite significant. Stephen, my husband, is a software programmer and has the nerdiest (though an interesting) way of viewing God. He says God is the master programmer and he has programmed humans to like what He likes and hates what He hates. Although we suffer from concupiscence (tendency to sin) since the fall of Adam and Eve, there is still this powerful and innate sense of desiring the good. While of course it makes sense to desire good things for oneself, most of us desire good things for all of humanity too. For those of you who are sad and scared over this pandemic, I’m willing to bet you aren’t just feeling sad and scared for your own life. I’m willing to bet that even if it was somehow guaranteed that you would physically and financially be entirely untouched by this plague, you’d still feel sorrow for your friends, family, and strangers throughout the entire world. When we want goodness, what we ultimately want (whether we realize it or not) is God and to be in Heaven. And we want others to know God and to be in Heaven too.

Feeling fear, panic, and sorrow in the midst of a pandemic isn’t a personal failing. It doesn’t mean you don’t love God enough or don’t have enough faith. It means you’re a human that God designed in His image and likeness to love goodness and hate suffering. It means you long to be in Heaven and it’s so hard to not be there. I said at the beginning of this I was hesitant to write on this topic because I am wholly unqualified to determine“right way” to respond to this global crisis, especially when I feel so confused myself. Here is one thing I can say with confidence: although our reactions will likely vary depending on our personalities and individual circumstances, if this crisis prompts you to cling to God in any way shape or form, then that is always the right way to respond.  If this tragedy can turn more of us to come running back to our father like the prodigal son, then this suffering is not in vain. I think the safest and smartest thing to do is treat this crisis as a wake up call. God is constantly seeking our hearts anyways, and so what is He asking you specifically to do as a result of this crisis and all of your grief surrounding it? In the midst of such chaotic and confusing conditions, allow your reaction to be simple. Let yourself be sad and scared because things truly are sad and scary. Then, ask God what it is He wants you to do about it.