Year 5, March 16th, 2020: Fear. Anxiety. Depression. Anger.

We are living in the twilight zone. We are living in a mini depression era like state. Shelves are empty. We have been told that all dining in restaurants is forbidden. All schools are now online schooling. And this is for the next 8 weeks or more. Drive thrus and take out orders for food are still ok. Groups of more than 10 people are not ok. This is mandated by the Indiana state government, from recommendations from the CDC. We are flattening the bell curve they say. Then why does it feel like prison? There is a darkness I cannot shake. A heaviness in the spiritual realm. Of course Satan is creating panic in my head and culturally. But there's something about being really close to a police state that has me on the brink of a meltdown again. I've never experienced something like this. Our parents never experienced something like this. We have to look to our grandparents for help on how to get through this. Why now? Why this year? It looked so promising. Trips and graduation and events. It's an economic disaster. We are going to feel the affects of it for a long time. Maybe or maybe not personally. Benaiah's hours will probably be cut. I'd love it if he would give his hours to the full time older folk that are trying to make a living for their family. We can take care of him financially.

Ugh, this is not ok. It's not ok when people don't understand you. It's ok to be sad, angry, fearful, anxious, and depressed. It's ok to grieve the losses you will incur, whether it's the joy in an event or loss of health, or something else. What's not ok is to stay there. I truly believe that God wired us to feel emotions, and to feel them without guilt. God told us to "take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." I believe it's not sinful to have a wrong thought, but it's what you do with that thought, that feeling, that makes it sinful. I believe that God created people like me that do think about all the details and panic so that a plan can be put in place. Sometimes, our bodies have misfiring wires and unbalanced hormones, so our emotions cross over to a permanent state of anxiety and fear. That is when we have to process through those emotions, take them captive, and see them in light of what the Bible says. That's when we can hold onto hope and give God our fear. But it's a process and sometimes it takes a minute and sometimes it takes days. You are not wrong for doing it either way. If you look at many of the Psalms, David starts out with statements like "woe is me, my enemies are crushing me, where are you, God?" But by the end of those Psalms, David is praising God for who He is and what He has done. We don't know how long it took David to write a Psalm or change his perspective. Either way, it didn't change God's view of him and that he was a man after God's own heart. I've held onto these thoughts and beliefs for several years now. I'm not sinful for not going from bemoaning a situation to praising God in the same breathe. I'm comfortable with the time it takes me to really feel my feelings and process through them without having the guilt. I know that I will come out of it feeling better and on average, I'm good less than 48 hours later.

That being said, because things have changed so rapidly, I can't keep up. I can't grieve and adjust that fast. I'm struggling and so are some of my friends. And that's ok. We are intelligent, rational people. But we feel things deeply, just as God created us to do. For most of my life, I suppressed my thoughts and feelings thinking they were evil and that I should be joyful all the time or I'm a bad witness for Jesus. I was a Pollyanna. It's taken years to be able to name and express some of the feelings I have. Once you name them, you can deal with them. Stuffing them down and plastering a smile on your face does not do anyone any good. You need to feel your feelings.

And once you've done that, you learn to cope. You forgive yourself for yesterday's mistakes and you start the next day afresh. But it isn't easy. Guilt. Shame. Why can't you change? Why can't you get past this anxiety? Do we go here? Do we do this? To meet or not to meet? When will it go from voluntary to mandatory? What about those who aren't following the rules?  Can you be mad at them? Yes, no, maybe? But about those around you? What are you doing for them? What coping strategies can you implement to take away the confusion? Well, I don't know. There's no time for research. Come on, reach deep down. Think! Ask for help. I did. I got a few ideas to share.

1) Let them fight. It's ok. Keep reading. Keep decluttering. Let them sort themselves out.
2) The car can be your safe zone, even in the rain. Make it your office if you need to. (if your kids are old enough to take care of each other, mine are 14, 11, and 5)
3) Grace, take a break. Spring break.
4) Let someone else make the decisions.
5) Stay off of social media.
6) But pay attention to stories that helps to humble you and puts your life into perspective.
7) The God stuff, which should be first, be are all sinners, so it's here.
8) Enlist help, aka spouse, maybe grandparents still if they aren't in the vulnerable category.

These are weird times. We say that about almost anything, but really, these are the weirdest times I've been in. The closest to the history books I've been. Getting a taste of what people really suffer through. No more #firstworldproblems. This is for real, but it seems surreal. We are fighting against something invisible. Flattening a curve that it's on a flat piece of paper.

To quote the Flash TV show (disclaimer, remember God is right there with us, we aren't doing life on our own. That would be humanism.): We are not limited by our emotions, they give us our strength (give us strength to seek God will do the work for us and give us strength). We can use them to overcome anything (because God gave us power, emotions and strength).  Metahumans have limits, not people (because we have God's power in us). What can we, with God, do tomorrow that we didn't do today? What baby step can we take tomorrow knowing what we learned from today? What can we do next time we have meltdown? Then do it. And pat yourself on the back when you do. Baby steps. That's all God requires. Keep trying. Not striving. But shuffling along in the right direction on the right path. One little decision at a time. And then curl up in a ball and weep because these are hard times. Weird times. Because it's not just you or me that are going through it, but everyone at exactly the same time. I haven't been to any stores in a week. I've only seen pictures of empty shelves. Perhaps it will go from surreal to real when I finally venture out for groceries. Is this really happening to us? And it's not just my boy who lost his senior year fun. 1,000's of kids are forever changed.

Pray, pray, pray. Reach out if you can, but don't feel guilty if you can't. Take care of you and yours first. We'll recover, however slowly. Be the church for whoever can't. We are forever changed.

The End