It's enough to really get you down and worrying if we'll ever not worry about germs again. It's like an ongoing episode of Monk where EVERYONE is playing the main character!
Wearing a mask has been weird, I am so used to smiling at people I pass in the store or where ever but this whole cover-up-your-face thing makes that impossible. Even if you do find something to laugh about it's hard to hear behind the mask.
We are holding one collective breath to be able to breathe unencumbered that we may all pass out soon. It's already affecting drivers who aren't driving very safely, people trying to stay physically fit and passing out in the gyms and really affects the way we behave towards each other. We are encouraged to treat each other like leper victims. But we cannot let that happen!
We need social interaction, we need communities and people around us to keep us all less selfish, more civilized and healthy emotionally, spiritually and mentally. We are kind of forgetting that it's not just physically we need to be healthy.
Then of course you have many people ignoring the distancing rules and masks and some of them are paying the price of that too. We cannot ignore there is a health risk going on right now.
So how do we take care of ourselves and others and still be happy and laugh?
Try to take things in stride. History proves that humans have survived plagues, wars, strife and other terrible things and still got married, had dances, enjoyed their communities and families.
We are used to the 'cold and flu' season motto of cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough, wash your hands frequently and if you are sick stay home. I would think the same idea goes with this too. We cannot live apart forever, we need our families, friends and communities. At the same time we can practice safe habits of washing our hands, don't got out if you have symptoms of a flu.
Think positively! We can do this! Don't watch the news constantly, only engage in positive social media posts and get outside and walk, look at nature and exercise! This helps encourage positive vibes in body's immune system. Staying indoors constantly is not healthy and will only make you more susceptible to other allergens.
Make plans, get creative, learn a new hobby, read books, draw, go swimming, cook or bake or learn to cook or bake! Start a journal! Write down funny jokes or things that have happened to you. Think positive!
Most of all, trust in God. He is with us through all of this as He has always been with us throughout our history. Nature may create obstacles for us to deal with, but God is always walking beside us. Really the very best example is the Footprints poem, where Jesus says "It was then I carried you!" We are not alone, ever. But you have to trust. You have to take the first step and keep walking. Trust and feel Jesus right beside you and you'll walk better and further and keep going.
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
There is also a portion of a meditation by Charles Spurgeon that reminds us we are not alone in times such as this:
Were you ever in a new trouble, one which was so strange that you felt that a similar trial had never happened to you and, moreover, you dreamt that such a temptation had never assailed anybody else? I should not wonder if that was the thought of your troubled heart.
And did you ever walk out upon that lonely desert island upon which you were wrecked and say, “I am alone—alone—ALONE—nobody was ever here before me”?
And did you suddenly pull up short as you noticed, in the sand, the footprints of a man?
I remember right well passing through that experience—and when I looked, lo, it was not merely the footprints of a man that I saw, but I thought I knew whose feet had left those imprints. They were the marks of One who had been crucified, for there was the print of the nails. So I thought to myself, “If He has been here, it is no longer a desert island. As His blessed feet once trod this wilderness-way, it blossoms now like the rose and it becomes to my troubled spirit as a very garden of the Lord!”
— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Education of the Sons of God” (Metropolitan Tabernacle: June 10, 1880).
Let not your heart be troubled. God is with us. And He will show us how to laugh once again.
