Corona

The irony of this coronavirus situation--like everything else about this situation--is surreal. 

The whole world is shutting down, school kids are playing in the park during the day, people are forced to stay home from work.... and our life goes on pretty much exactly as normal. 

Unlike my friends, my lesson plans were already in place for my kids.  I have a fully supplied school room. 


Jason already has a perfectly well-appointed home office. 

And we aren't particularly social creatures around here, as humans go, so the number of engagements we've had to cancel is... minimal.

We've stayed home from church before, for sickness and for snowstorms.  And we've generally done some sort of makeup "church" from home.  This week was more thorough, with video messages from the pastors, including a full-length sermon and announcements (that consisted of a list of cancellations) and words of encouragement, and audio clips of hymns.

{Previously when doing "Miller church," we've held it in the living room, which, by no means elegant, is at least possibly fit for human habitation.  Since this week we were watching a 45-minute sermon, we opted to hold "church" in the playroom, where the TV is.  The playroom is *not* as fit for human habitation (or at least civilized adult habitation).  I was ashamed to debase our worship by doing it in a place that in my mind is on level with a barnyard, until Jason reminded me that it wouldn't be the first barn our Lord has entered.  Praise Jesus.}

To be frank, The Babylon Bee pretty much summed up my feelings over the weekend: 


Nation's Nerds Wake Up In Utopia Where Everyone Stays Inside, Sports Are Canceled, Social Interaction Forbidden



But I am not immune (har har, groan) to anxiously wondering what life will be like a week, two weeks, a month, three months from now.  What if there are food shortages?  What if the First World becomes like the Third World?  What if I turn into Jack Nicholson in The Shining?  What if life as we knew it is over? 

So I'm here "enjoying my living room," swinging from joy that nothing can take Jesus away from me, to anxiety over whether we'll have to use creative alternatives to toilet paper, and back again. 

I guess in a global pandemic, as in all other times, I'm allowed to have all the feelings.  This is alternately (embarrassingly) pleasant, disquieting, frightening, uniting, isolating, uplifting, amusing, sobering, and uncertain.  It is definitely unscripted.  We are surely not the ones writing this story.

But my emotional bouncy ball keeps coming back to relief that I can trust the One who is writing it.