One night, exhausted from work, I found myself scanning through the Prime selections for a new television series to begin. I decided to give “Home Fires” a try. The show begins at the cusp of WWII and tells the tale of women and their relationships with one another during a frightening time. Many of their sons and husbands are about to be sent off to war. One of them has an abusive husband, another much younger woman has a budding romance. Although each of them come from a different background, they all have two things in common. First, they understand that life is about to become more frightening than it ever has been in their lifetime. Second, they are all looking for how they can build community so that they can endure the hardships to come.
As I watched, I felt a deep longing. It’s been so long since I’ve been with my sisters in Christ working on a common cause together. The foreshadowing in the episode ensured that there would be much grieving and sorrow in the future, but they had one another to face difficult times. This is what is so evil about pandemics. They isolate us from one another. We can face just about anything when we can lean on one another…but this? This has us holed up in our homes. And all at once I realized: I miss hugs. I miss handshakes. I miss cooking with a group of women. I miss being in the same room and discussing a book. I have become far too accustomed to living without touch. Far too used to going to church online. Feeling far too responsible for everybody and everything. It’s exhausting.
Just the other day, while I was praying, I feel the Lord gave me an image. It was an image of a bunch of runners at the start line. They had on jersey’s with numbers on them and they were in their “ready” position. All of their muscles were tense and poised to hear the gun announce the beginning of the race. As I prayed, I found myself asking God to ready His Church, to make us anticipatory, hungry and longing to lurch forward the moment we get the “go ahead”. Ready to do more good than we ever have before. Ready to love one another with great abandon. Ready to appreciate all of the little things we took for granted. Things like worshipping next to one another without worrying that you are infecting the person next to you, shaking hands at the door of the church, fellowshipping at one another’s homes.
My empty house…😭
Rather than arguing about everything there is to argue about, (and there is a lot to argue about) maybe if we just allow these difficult times to prepare us to live more fully, enjoy one another more deeply and most importantly, to get more done for God’s Kingdom than we ever have before, this pandemic might just be the dark before our finest and brightest hour! Let’s be full of anticipation and excitement, muscles tensed and poised, ready to take off in a moment’s notice to run the race God has set before us. On your marks. Get set. Go!
