I teach and write for the women’s ministry at Riverbend Church in Austin, Texas. Ordinarily I write a small piece for the newsletter every six weeks, but in this uncertain time of Coronavirus I’ve been asked to write weekly. I have decided to share that here with you. Please find below my writing for this week’s newsletter, from Monday March 23.
Ten days ago the first whispers of “social distancing” reached my family. With three kids just released for spring break, I imagined an extended vacation of pajamas, cartoons and board games. My husband did our grocery shopping, and we laughed when he returned with pop tarts and potato chips instead of rice or beans. We had no sense of what we were truly facing.
It took only 24 hours for any humor to give way to worry. As grocery shelves emptied, hoarding lines formed, and medical supplies ran low, it felt as though the curtain had been pulled back to reveal a fragile society and an unstable future. I felt a great weight settle heavily on my heart for the health care workers, the unemployed and the small businesses, for the elderly and the sick, for the grocery store employees and truck drivers, for the immunocompromised—all those inevitably more affected by this new reality.
In ordinary times, I am blessed to find relief in fellowship with you. Our community at Riverbend is warm and inviting, and your smiles and hugs always make me feel better. But what about when worry hits in this time of isolation and quarantine, and I can’t run to my church to unburden?
King David seemed to wonder the same thing—and to find his answer—when he wrote this psalm of encouragement:
“I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you — the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forever.” Psalm 121.
I took my kids for a walk yesterday and my 7-year-old daughter explained “social distancing” to my 3-year-old son this way: “We have to stay six feet apart from all other people. Which is how tall Daddy is. So, we have to stay one Daddy away.”
Never before have I heard “Daddy” used as a unit of measurement, but how fitting. We are always one Daddy, one Heavenly Father away. We are one Daddy away from hope, from provision, from healing, from peace, and from each other. We are connected in spirit to one another and to Him, our good, good Father.
Romans 8:15-18 says:
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be gloried with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
I’m praying for each one of us that we remember to look to our Father for our help and our belonging. Until next week, I’m only one Daddy away.