Crawling Out of Quarantine

Last year, Covid-19 forced us indoors and stripped away the rhythm and predictability of our day-to-day lives. People lost jobs or were forced to take on more work than they could manage. Many faced housing instability and food insecurity. We spent unhealthy amounts of time on video calls. Parents became exhausted trying to strike a balance between constructing productive educational and play schedules for our children…eventually feeling defeated as we acquiesced to requests for more screen time.

Coronavirus imposed many changes and challenges on my family and it has been important for me to acknowledge to God and others that I am struggling. I feel unmotivated, stressed, wearied by social gatherings, and I rarely sleep through the night. My anxiety creates facial tension, jaw clinching, and head aches. And, far too often, I finish my time in prayer feeling unrefreshed and frustrated.

It has also been important for me to acknowledge that, as a white man, I’ve been insulated from much of the pain that has impacted many people from my church family, neighborhood and country.

While the pandemic was unfolding, people of color endured compounding traumas. Black people had to process the quick succession of the Ahmaud Arbery (February 23, 2020), Breonna Taylor (March 13, 2020) and George Floyd (May 25, 2020) murders, all while continuing to hold their historical trauma narrative. In our country’s 16 largest cities, Asian hate crimes increased by 164% and government efforts to build a more effective wall along the Mexico border signaled to our Latino citizens that they are unwanted. It has felt like the country is falling apart as the fault lines of racism in our society have become more exposed.

And now, as we all crawl out of quarantine, those attending racially diverse churches will need to do what the Church in the West has never done well. We will need to love one another. We will be facing a steep learning curve so we will fatigue easily and likely discover that the process will be slow and difficult.

The Bible has been most helpful to me in this season because I have needed to be reminded that God bestows his best blessings on those who faithfully wait on him while enduring difficulty (2 Corinthians 4:16-18; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 5:10, et al).

In the Old Testament, God had Abram and Sarai wait a lifetime before giving them a son (Genesis 21:1-2) . God promised to give liberation and land to Israel. He then turned a journey that should have taken a few weeks into a circuitous forty year walk before he allowed them to taste their milk and honey. Generation after generation, Israel suffered under the weight of their own unfaithfulness, but God eventually sent his Son to turn a chapter in their historical narrative. Our slow-coming Savior arrived after God’s people labored centuries, often as slaves and exiles, to walk from town to town at a pace that often pained his followers. Jesus stopped to talk with a lady, while a fearful father waited. He let Jairus’ discover that his daughter was dead before he was ready to restore her life (Mark 5:21-43). Jesus did not hurry when he was told of Lazarus’ failing health. Instead he arrived later than expected to weep with Martha and Mary before resurrecting their brother (John 11:1-44).

And, most remarkably, the Son of God did not exclude himself from the Father’s maturing methods (Hebrews 5:8). The suffering Servant’s life ended in betrayal and unimaginable torment (Matthew 26:47-50; 27:27-50), but, once again, resurrection was around the corner.

So now, as we lean in to love one another at in person gatherings, it may not be easy. We will be holding different degrees and types of pain and these differences will often be invisible. There will be moments of awkwardness as we try to navigate each other’s emotional realities. There will be times we say nothing and times we say the wrong thing and our growing pains will come at each other’s expense.

And God will bless his people as he always has…slowly but surely.