COVID-19: One day we will tell this story

One day we will tell this story. “Now” will be behind us. We will try to find words and metaphors to describe what it was like. There will be a day when it’s past, and we’ll sit in a coffee shop or lunch room or at a women’s study group, and we’ll tell our story in this bigger story. But, today is the day we decide what version we will tell. Every single telling will be different. What story do you want to be yours?

No one knew how long this would take. We’re still not sure what the future holds. COVID-19 reminds us we actually never KNEW what the future holds, though we often live like we do. At first, most of us just let the newness happen. We tried to be flexible, even resilient! We adapted and even secretly felt excited while hunting for toilet paper and getting recipes for hand sanitizer. Lots of us did things new to lots of us like sewing masks and baking sourdough. But really, we didn’t know.

Somewhere in there, we realized we didn’t want to be swept away by the current of circumstance, so we stopped and thought.

• There are a lot of things we can’t control. What are they?
• There are a lot of things we can control. What are they?

And that’s where our stories took a billion different turns. Really, they turned before that depending on characteristics like economic status, geography, housing, employment, health history, relationships, food security, wages, passport, and so much more. COVID-19 may not exclude based on differences, but it exposes our differences. How do we respond to what we can’t control with what we can control?

I thought about taking a class online or learning a language, practicing calligraphy or starting a podcast (only for .5 seconds), getting a mask pattern or getting flat abs (again, .5 seconds). In the end, I felt successful if I took a shower and drank water instead of coffee. Somewhere in there, I decided I need to get out of my yoga pants (again, .5 seconds) and put on mascara because … I’m not sure why.

That was on the first day.

And then every day after, I made choices about how I would use this unexpected, unfamiliar, even unwelcome season.

• Would I open my Bible?
• Would I think?
• Would I trust?
• Would I waste?
• Would I help?
• Would I complain?
• Would I let it all pass as if I am just a character in the Coronafiles?

Every person in this global story (that’s all of us) writes their own part in the story.

But this is not unexpected. Before I was a breathing person, my story was known. The life of every person who avoided, contracted, fought, overcame, or fell victim to Coronavirus was known to the One who made them.

It was the choice of a weak human like me who chose to reject God’s perfect ways that brought sickness and death into the world. It probably took Adam and Eve .5 seconds for that decision, and now here we are, telling their story woven with ours. Sin is still doing damage thousands of years later.

There’s a lot we don’t know about “now.” Read the research on Facebook (TOTALLY kidding here!) and you’re even less sure of what you know (not kidding). But I know this about the One who made us and our stories: “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:16)

Before all this, God saw us and knew us and our stories. He had written down the epic of what we will make of the life He’s given us. It would be tragic if this doesn’t make a difference in us. Now is the time to stop, think and ask ourselves 10 good questions like these about how we’re doing living through Coronavirus:

Questions to ask in the middle of Coronavirus

1. How am I sounding now as I narrate my story in this story?
2. Do I know the God who saw my story from the beginning?
3. How could I use this season, ever how long it is, for good?
4. What am I doing that I want to keep doing?
5. What am I doing that I want to stop doing?
6. What is in my life that’s in the way of what I want for my story?
7. Do I know what God’s plans are for my life?
8. What if God wants to use all this for good in my story?
9. How will it sound when I look back and tell this story?
10. So what will I do in the next .5 second?

If we don’t like the way our story is on track to be told, that’s something we can change. It’s not over. We may not be able to change global disease or government directives, but we can change what we believe and how we behave.

We’re writing our story today, and one day we will tell this story.

5 ideas to take hold of this story

Have time on your hands? (Just kidding …) Try one of these ideas:

1. Ask a trusted friend to give you 5 words for how they hear you living through this.
2. Journal much? Write a short “article” reporting about how you lived through COVID-19.
3. Draw a picture of what your “reality” looks like. Draw a comparison of how you want it to look.
4. Write 2 lists of 5 things: what’s good in your current “normal” & what’s not so good.
5. Turn off your social media for a day so you can “see & hear” your life without distraction.