I came home from my recent trip to Texas and Indiana and wasn’t feeling great. I felt like I was coming down with a cold, and Cyndy suggested that I take one of the home COVID tests we have before I returned to work, and I did.
It was positive.
That was May 10th and it is now May 23rd, less than two weeks later. The CDC recommendation is that after a positive test, that one isolate for 5 days. I did, which took me through Saturday, May 14th. I was back in church on the 15th and have worked every day since, but taking it carefully, resting when I needed to and napping when I could. I have to admit that when I tested positive I immediately dropped back into that sense of fear and dread that I remember from the early days of the pandemic, when a positive test result seemingly meant hospitalization and possible death!
But as I went through my days of isolation, I discovered that (for me) COVID was really not as bad as most colds I have had. I didn’t lose my taste or smell, and I never got a fever. Mostly I was congested, had a headache and felt fatigued. Now, I’m a person with health conditions that normally peg me as high risk for COVID. So, fear is a natural response to a positive test. But I’m also vaccinated (and boosted), and I take vitamins and supplements to strengthen my immune system. And despite my high risk condition, I’m usually quite healthy and rarely get sick. Nevertheless, I had some fear.
I thank God that my COVID experience wasn’t all that bad. I know that it isn’t so for everyone, and that COVID still poses a serious threat to some people and to our world. But I’m also aware that fear, in and of itself, is in some ways even more powerful than COVID!
These past two years have been difficult and strange. The lock downs, masks, isolation, and such have taken untold tolls on our world. I’m not sure we will ever fully appreciate the damage our reaction to COVID has done. Yes, over a million Americans have died (of or with COVID) and that is deeply troubling. But how many kids have committed suicide as a direct result of isolation and masking? How many are suffering from mental health issues because of the pandemic or our reaction to it? I don’t think we will ever truly know the full extent of damage done. I just know that I am done living in fear!
COVID may yet “get” me, but then so might cancer, or some other disease, or a bus might hit me, or some random shooter might decide to end my life. We live in a dangerous world! And, indeed, all of us will die one day of one thing or another. But if we live in fear we are letting the enemy win.
Scripture says: “Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love drives out fear.” (1 John 4:18a NCV) I can live without fear because I know the Author of Life, and no matter what happens to me, He has the final word. Whether I live or die, I’m ok because His love envelopes me!
Now, I know that while I am ok no matter what happens to me, my loved ones will have a different perspective. Losing a loved one is hard, no matter how much faith one has. But can we take it one step at a time? Can we say, first of all, that we will live without fear for ourselves, and trust one another to likewise live without fear? That alone will greatly reduce the epidemic of fear that our world is suffering in these days.
After that, we can work on our fear of losing our loved ones.
In love, without fear,
