As we move into week 5 of Lent and week 3 (?) of the ‘Rona, I want to ask: how are you all doing? How are you coping and what are you doing to cope with the staying at home, the isolation (especially if you’re single and living alone?) Send me a comment- I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve been coping in several ways: taking walks (I’ve walked about 6 miles already this week!) I haven’t been to the woods because it’s been pretty muddy but I might go later today. I’ve been listening to the Avett Brothers pretty much on repeat all day (and the classical music station here, WGUC) Music brings me much joy and combining it with my daily walk or painting session is my zen.

I’ve been painting. Right now I’m working on a series for my bathroom. Here’s the first one I’ve finished. Not a great photo, but you get the idea…

I’m lucky that I have someone to shelter in place with. I’m lucky that I have access to technology that lets me connect with people, from colleagues that I chat with every week to my kids who are in Charleston, SC and Knoxville, TN to my siblings and parents in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Even though I am blessed in those ways, and more, I will be very happy when I am able to see everyone in person again.

Many of us might be asking, why is this happening? These kinds of times are often when we question God, question God’s existence even. Why would a good God, a God who loves us, a God who is “in charge” let this kind of thing happen to us? Some of us might want to call it a punishment for some way we’re living or that we’ve turned from God.

I tend to be of the “sometimes stuff just happens” camp. In this scenario God isn’t an angry God, but a loving God who is with us in our suffering. We see this in the way Jesus suffered in his life and death. The good news is that Jesus Christ came through death to live again– in a transformed body, no doubt– but he did return to life. That’s the essence of our faith, right? That God is with us in our suffering, God can sympathize with our suffering because God suffered through the person of Jesus, even endured torture and death, and came through it.

Yes, the Reformed Theological Tradition says that we are all sinners. The Reformed Theological Tradition also says that God loves us and offers grace to us regardless of what we’ve done. So we can let go of the idea that this is some kind of punishment and embrace the idea that God is right there with us, suffering with people who have the virus, suffering with those who have lost loved ones, with people who are out of work and whose lives have been changed forever by this time of uncertainty and isolation.

God also offers us ways of coping– prayer, social media (God created the minds that created social media!) nature, which is still open for us to be in as long as we maintain our distance from others. We are being changed by this, in ways we can’t even imagine right now, and that isn’t a bad thing. That’s another thing God brings us, the ability to change and adapt and move into new ways of being. We don’t like it, we seem to be hardwired to our routines and we like things the way they’ve always been but if we listen to God’s call to us, if we watch for the new things that God is doing, we can be comforted by that. Knowing that God has a way for us and is walking alongside us is and will be what saves us– from coronavirus, from sin whatever we need to be saved from.