Questions, Six Months In

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a global pandemic. We’re six months into this thing, friends. Half a year has gone by as we have wrestled with trying to understand, explain, and make our way through day by uncertain day.

Are we stronger for having come this far? Kinder to those we come into acceptably distanced contact with?

Have we learned to live, if not comfortably, at least with wisely, in the “I don’t know”?

Do we feel supported and loved in our community? Are we plugging into different communities?

Are we doing the best we can to love well? Failing. Then trying again?

Are we granting grace to those whose opinions and perceptions are not the same as ours? Are we listening? Learning?

Are we longing to return to the status quo? Or have we learned that different, while certainly uncomfortable, can lead to fresh, new things?

Are we encountering truth?

Letting go in order to move forward?

Contributing more than consuming?

Holding on to our faith or finding it?

Do we just want things to go back to the way they were before March 11, 2020 or are we willing to consider that a shaking of this magnitude might lead to dust settling in ways that reveal something we need?

I know. It’s been terrible, it remains terrible, and the virus is only part of the terrible—but it’s also been beautiful. Look around.

I have far more questions than answers but I’m learning to lock eyes with the divine and lean in deep and hard. To let some things go. To be okay with not knowing it all (like I ever did). To measure my progress not in terms of things accomplished or accumulated but in the depth of my faith and the magnitude of grace I extend. In the manner I love.

How’r you doing six months in? Got questions? Maybe a few answers?

Let’s lock (virtual or physical) arms and walk forward together.