The Day That...

This crazy pandemic time it has been marked by “The day that”

March 13: the day that I first cried about Coronavirus and its effects . It was the day that I realized if my (in the top risk catagory) parents got sick and died I wouldn’t ever see them alive or even get to go to an official funeral.

March 18: The day that we started self-quarantine in Brazil.

There was the day that I almost had a panic attack. The day that I was so relieved for the quarantine because of how burnt out I had been in normal life. The day that I felt horribly guilty for feeling relieved about a pandemic. The day that I worried so much about my friends in poverty that I actually started praying for them. The day that people started asking me if we were going to evacuate. The day that people I knew evacuated. The day that I got so upset about politics. The day that I went grocery shopping and everything felt surreal. The day that I felt sick and started making a list of what I needed to do if I got Coronavirus. The day that felt almost perfect with family memories and digitally connecting with people we love and rest and peace. The day that couldn’t get anything right and was never meant to be lived. The day that we got the news that the schools would be closed even longer. The day that our whole summer got cancelled. The day that someone I know and love is fighting for their life against Coronavirus.

And the day that I don’t want to think or talk about: when a loved one dies. Isn’t that the day we are all holding our breath against?

God is wonderfully (and horribly annoyingly) not surprised. He is still about His same buisness: redemption. Making everything new through salvation, sanctification, and glorification. He is all-present and still letting us fall stupidly on our faces because well, free will, darn it.

We all will continue to have “the days that.”

There will be things we can control, and things that we cannot. The good and the bad- mostly seconds away from each other.

My breathe in, breathe out prayer is also “The day that:” “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in It.”

I can’t get away from that wonderful (and horribly annoyingly simple) verse. I can’t get away from my need to be thankful and how that is a central role in God’s will for my life among all the confusion and crazy.

Please remind me of this the next time I forget.