{"id":86929,"date":"2020-03-11T13:02:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T17:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.discover-grace.flywheelsites.com\/?p=86929"},"modified":"2023-09-19T16:35:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T20:35:35","slug":"christianity-and-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/christianity-and-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity and COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I miss when \u201ccorona\u201d was just a beer. Or an old-fashioned crown. Or the glowing circle of light around the sun. Not a word synonymous with pandemic, quarantines, and a shortage of hand sanitizer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">True confession: despite rolling my eyes at the sensationalism surrounding the coronavirus, on our last date night I made my husband stop at Publix and stockpile cold medicine, cough drops, toilet paper, and chicken soup. \u201cI would just feel better if we had it on hand,\u201d I explained sheepishly. Then I hid in the parking lot while he checked out because I was so embarrassed to be those people. The fear mongers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But I am afraid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019m not afraid of dying. But I\u2019m afraid of suffering \u2014 of being trapped in a germy house with five other sick people who need me. I\u2019m afraid of schools and churches being forced to close their doors, hijacking my sense of security, routine, and community. Most of all, I\u2019m afraid of fear; of what it does to otherwise rational people, like myself, who now own no less than 56 rolls of toilet paper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fear has a way of becoming self-fulfilling. It doesn\u2019t matter how great the risk may or may not be; if it\u2019s perceived as great, the wheel is set in motion. Stores are ransacked. Businesses freeze. Stocks drop. The economy tanks. Which, of course, leads to more fear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I know a thing or two about fear. At one point in my life it was so debilitating, I memorized 2 Timothy 1:7 and whispered it into the dark every night for years: \u201cGod has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.\u201d The more afraid I felt, the more times I said It \u2014 over and over, until I believed it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A few nights ago the staff of Grace Church gathered for a special time of worship, and Pastor Mike said something I\u2019ll never forget. He was talking about how we like to say \u201cgood is ahead,\u201d and he said, \u201cIt matters the most when we believe it the least.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Think about that for a second.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The time to live like \u201cgood is ahead\u201d is when we fear that it\u2019s not. Everyone\u2019s optimistic in the face of vacations and year-end bonuses. But to live like good is ahead when pandemic is brewing? That\u2019s radical.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s trust.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I and my 56 rolls of toilet paper are slowly making peace with the coronavirus by recognizing the one beautiful thing about it\u2026it\u2019s an opportunity for Christians to put feet to our faith. To live the lyrics we sing. To meet Jesus in our mess.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Am I still washing my hands? Regularly. Do I stop my children from licking ketchup off the table at Huey Magoos? I certainly try. God has given me a sound mind, and far be it from me to waste it. But worry? What ifs? Excessive googling? No. I want to feed faith and starve fear, for \u201cwhich of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?\u201d (Matthew 6:27).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grace Church, in the months to come, let\u2019s fight the good fight of faith (I Timothy 6:12). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s encourage one another all the more, fixing our eyes farther into the future than any momentary affliction. Let\u2019s believe that not for a minute will we be forsaken. Then one day, when COVID-19 is a thing of the past and the next scary threat skims the horizon, we can testify to a watching world that \u201cwhen anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy\u201d (Psalm 94:19).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Praise Jesus, good is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">always<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I miss when \u201ccorona\u201d was just a beer. Or an old-fashioned crown. Or the glowing circle of light around the sun. Not a word synonymous with pandemic, quarantines, and a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":106406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-86929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staff-favorites","8":"category-uncategorized"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Christianity and COVID-19 - Grace Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Grace Church, in the months to come, let\u2019s fight the good fight of faith.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/christianity-and-covid-19\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Christianity and COVID-19 - 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