COVID: A Season of Longing

As I think about this past year and all the changes it has brought us, I keep hearing the word, 'longing' for some reason. This, for me, has been a season of longing.  When I look at this swelling emotion in my heart more closely, I feel it moves in three directions.

 

First, I've found my heart reaching out, more than ever, to Jesus. I've had more time this year to spend meditating on His character and His love for me. My mornings are often unscheduled. I can sit with the Bible as long as I like, without watching the clock. That freedom has opened my heart to receive the gift of His presence in a new way. 

 

I long, more than ever, to be close to Him, to please Him in the way I live my life, to give back to Him a little of the love He has poured out on me.  Even as the world writhes in pain in this year of the pandemic, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the many ways God has shown me His love.  He has cared for me thoroughly, even in the details--details as insignificant as the number of hairs on my head. 

 

One example is the new home I settled into in September, so full of little blessings I didn't even ask for. As I moved in, everything I needed for my comfort and happiness seemed to fit in a place that was created for it ahead of time.  And this downstairs suite is specially suited for the frailer body I'm growing into--no stairs to climb, smaller spaces that are easier to move around in, little nooks here and there where the things I need can be stored, close at hand. 

 

A fireplace, and the new soaker tub that will be installed next week! 

 

I feel pampered by God's love. 

 

Second, as I've spent more time luxuriating in God's love for me, I've developed an even greater longing that other people might experience His love for them. Many mornings I find myself in tears as I think of friends and loved ones who are struggling in so many ways, many of them oblivious to how deeply and earnestly God reaches out to them--unaware of His great desire to bless them extravagantly with His love.  

 

I struggle to find ways to share His love with them--ways that will communicate to each of their hearts--ways that will avoid the sense that I am 'foisting' my faith on them--ways that will honour their God-given freedom to choose whether or not to receive the love He offers them.

 

I feel like one of the lepers in the story of the Aramean siege of Jerusalem. Starving to death after long months of depleting food supplies in the city, they decide to surrender and head out to the surrounding army, only to find that the enemy has fled, leaving behind all their provisions. 

After gorging on the food they find and squirreling away other treasures for themselves, they realize how selfish they are for not sharing the happy news with the people in the City, and run back to announce to the guards at the gate the abundance of spoils available to everyone.

I feel like that--like one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. But I worry that my exuberant declarations of how wonderful God is, and my urgings that my friends consider the abundance of wealth He wants to share with them, will come across as condescending, or proselytizing. 

 

So I pray for them, and cry for them, and hope they get a glimpse in my life of the blessings God wants to give every heart.  I don't want to enjoy those blessings alone!

 

And third, as I watch this poor, broken world suffer the pain of pandemics, slavery and oppression, the violent destruction of wars and uprisings, and just the everyday feelings of lost-ness that come when our moorings are destroyed, I find myself longing, more than ever, for the day when Christ finally comes back the second time, this time to bring His kind and righteous Kingdom's rule fully to this earth!  A time when all swords will be beaten into plowshares, when the lion will lie down with the lamb, and when children will play safely around the holes of serpents. 

 

This is the Kingdom rule that the angels proclaimed at the birth of Christ 2000 years ago. It's the rule that Jesus offers to bring into the hearts of each person who welcomes Him in this present age.  And it's the rule that He will one day bring to the whole earth, when "the old order of things has passed away," when all evil has been cast out and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

 

So COVID has done this to me.  I don't know whether this longing is a blessing or a curse.  Maybe it's a little of both.  There is distress in the longing, but there is also hope. 

 

The longing is painful. My heart feels like a dry, empty desert waiting for the spring rains. But the hope--the surety that the spring rains will come--fills me with a quiet peace and joy.  I am content, knowing that this, too, shall pass, and that one day every tear will be wiped from our eyes forever.