Weekly Word from the Wisdom Walk - Winning and Losing

Surely this COVID crisis ranks as one of the worse in our time.  With death and sickness upon us, we are concerned with containing the immediate threat while remaining acutely conscious of the psychological fallout ahead. In the midst of the losses, however, let us not lose sight of our gains. 

I am in no way saying God did this to us. But in his sovereignty, he is redeeming this outworking of evil and from the tragedy, he is creating beautiful things.

In this 21st century, we glory in doing everything at once without being fully present for anything. But a short few weeks ago, routines came to a screeching halt. 

We quickly learned the world still turns if we are not each moving at the speed of light.

We have relearned the importance of spending time with family, rough places, and all. There is nowhere to run so we learn coping strategies and peaceful resolution instead of avoidance.

For many, creative ideas are once again in full bloom. Without external voices to coach our every move, we find ourselves embarking on our overdue voyage of self-discovery.  

We all take pride in being independent and we proclaim like the toddler, "I can do it, I can do it." Wonderful — until we forget we are but finite people. Our current calamity has reminded us we have a heavenly Father and many are running for help, without restraint, into his arms. And while the losses in pain, suffering, and death cannot be accurately tabulated on this side of eternity, we have gained much. 

There is indeed a renaissance, an awakening, as we are relearning the basics of life, returning to our values, and becoming stronger as a people. We are rediscovering the joy of being our brothers’ (each other’s) keeper, and caring for others as we do ourselves. There is a global effort toward healing; a mission to reverse the work of the few who hide behind science and mindlessly destroy innocent lives.

The challenge will be to internalize these lessons we have learned and bank our gains so we will never again be emotionally bankrupt and socially disconnected. It should not take another disaster to cause us to live like the people we were created to be.

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