Stressful times call for wise measures. I know that’s not how the saying goes, but it’s more relative to how I’m feeling so just go with me for a minute. Let’s not even waste any time… coronavirus, ish is real (in my best Cardi B remix voice). But the COVID-19 news didn’t become real real to me until yesterday.
Since this global “shutdown” I’ve encountered just about every emotion. First, the gyms shut down and I was like aww nahhhh! I had just picked up momentum and was in the gym five days a week trying to get springtime fine by my May birthday. But I quickly relaxed because… home workouts (Kanye shrug).
Then, I experienced frustration because I felt like the only person in the world who still had to go to work, excluding those with important jobs you know like doctors and firefighters, etc. Apparently when you offer housing (regardless of how expensive in this L.A. market), you are considered an “essential worker.” Or at least that’s the excuse my company came up with. But soon following that frustration came gratitude because I have friends laid off or in jeopardy of being let go from their jobs. I’m learning that many businesses survive paycheck to paycheck just like people because, well, they’re ran by people.
I’ve been partaking in the chuckles from all of the quarantine memes and even hopped on the Tik Tok bandwagon. Meanwhile, I’ve also understood the severity of a shutdown for children whose only meals come from the school system so I found ways to give in my local community. There’s also the abused that are confined with their agressors that I’ve been lifting up in prayer. Then, yesterday when one of my close family members was rushed to ICU, I felt the sting more close to my heart.
It’s a scary thing when you see a loved one’s life flash before your eyes and while this isn’t my first experience with a family health scare, our world’s circumstances made it that much more devastating. Although their illness had nothing to do with the coronavirus, I found myself becoming nervous about touching even a piece of paper. I was annoyed by people coming into my office, sitting near and leaning over my desk to show me something. Working in a high traffic area and dealing with people, I found myself letting fear seap in although God assured me that my thinking would change my situation. I had to fight extra hard to shift those thoughts.
Everyone’s fight looks different but for me it was fasting (which includes abstaining from food for a period of time in addition to saturating your day with godliness like worship music and scripture), prayer and even leaning on my prayer warriors which I hate to say is a last resort for me. I seldomly like to share things that actually scare me because I don’t want to give life to the fear. But in moments when I am too weak to pray, I know that God has placed reliable sources in my life that can go to the throne on my behalf. I’m grateful for that.
I was in a pit yesterday, shed my tears, got on my knees and decided to regurgitate the attack of fear that I had effortlessly accepted from the enemy. Come on devil, that’s your oldest trick in the book. I see your game, I wasn’t born yesterday. So with consistent prayer and a Grandma as tough as nails, I manned up. I exchanged my tears for songs of praise and went into work today with a new attitude.
God keeps reminding me that praise interrupts the plot of the enemy. He attacks with expectation that we will surrender. But when you opt to praise our Almighty God instead, he flees off in confusion. We’ve gotten positive reports from the doctors and I’m trusting that this situation in addition to the rona will give people a testimony they would not have had without the struggle.
I anticipate many moons from now when we’re driving flying cars and AirDropping full course meals onto our dinner tables (insert Jetsons theme song), we will tell our great grandkids of a time when we were forced to sit and talk to one another. We read books, we invested in ourselves, we designed budgets because you never, never know.
We created silly dances on an app and watched live workouts to get our cardio in. But most importantly, I hope we can say that we learned to love a little bit harder. We checked on our family and our friends. We took toilet paper to our neighbor because the stores were wiped out (no pun intended). And everything that God had been impressing on our spirits for the last few weeks, months, or years we did it! We ain’t have nothing else to do.
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