Ten Things I Learned (or relearned) During Coronavirus

-Bend so you don’t break. Particularly when it comes to personal (and sometimes rigid) preferences.

-Work is still work. Whether it is unloading the dishwasher, or plugging away at the paid job you complain about and yet are grateful to have in these times. Enjoy what you can about it, do what you must when the job must be done, even if it’s not all that enjoyable.

-Things look better when you are not hungry, angry, lonely or tired. So eat. Manage your emotions. Seek companionship (with God first, others second). Get your sleep. Things will look better in the morning, and even if they don’t, at least you won’t be as tired.

-Gratitude is good. For the anxious, the worried, the sad, the depressed, the disappointed, the over-enthusiastic. Keep it real. Even just one thing. Rome was not built in a day.

-Contradiction is sometimes just reality. For example, you can miss getting together with those you love, and at the same time miss not getting away (at least for a few moments of alone time each day) from the people you love. You can lament not being able to go to the gym and then again be glad that you do not have to to come up with an excuse not to go to the gym.

-Fact, fiction, fable. What is true in life is true in a pandemic. Some people have an agenda. Some people want you to think that some people have an agenda. Some people actually do not have an agenda.

-Life goes on, but it may go on differently. The question is not, “Do we like the change?”, but “Is it a change we must inevitably accept?” The serenity prayer is timeless, yet perhaps more meaningful in times like these.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

-The Serenity Prayer- written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, 1951

-Our moods are affected by circumstance and perspective. Sometimes you can alter both, sometimes, without an outside influence, you can change neither. If you get stuck, see the Serenity prayer above.

-God changes things. Mostly His desire is to bring about change in the thing He cares most about, us. Yet God Himself never changes.

-I actually cannot handle more than I think I can. Sometimes I cannot even handle what I think I should be able to. My confidence in crisis is this; there is no limit to what God can, no limit to the sufficiency He is for me, and for those I love the most. :)