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In the Wilderness

 


After a busy week dealing with renovations and also volunteering several blocks of time to collect for The Salvation Army, I started feeling unwell last weekend.  Taking a COVID test I discovered that for the first time since COVID-19 became a pandemic, I had caught the virus. I had successfully navigated all the lock downs, levels and restrictions over the last four years without a problem and when things get back to normal I succumb. Oh well, maybe my body is telling me something!

I am up to date with all my vaccinations as I fully believe in protecting others as well as myself and this is one way I can do this. I’m so glad I did, as although I feel grotty with symptoms of a heavy head cold and a cough, I am not too unwell.

In New Zealand isolation is now recommended for five days but at day seven I am still positive. Many people no longer bother to isolate as all COVID mandates were dropped this year, but again I believe it is my role to love others and one way I can do this is to stay away from them so I don’t pass on the virus.

I also want to take the opportunity to rest as my energy levels are low and this gives me the opportunity to do so. So actually, there are some blessings to having COVID.

Having a chat to a friend on the phone who has had serious and debilitating health issues for some years now and hearing how she would love to just have a normal life, I am definitely counting those blessings.

We are all sick in one way or another! That’s why we need God. Churches are not full of ‘perfect’ people, they are full of people who recognise they are broken and sick and that God is the only answer.

It brings so much peace to just let God be sovereign in my life. He loves me so passionately and He knows everything about me; nothing I do takes Him by surprise, nothing that happens takes Him by surprise. How wonderful to just rest in Him knowing that I can trust Him completely.

I wrote the following spoken word four years ago in the midst of the first COVID outbreak and lockdown:

 

Isolation

But not desolation.

You hem me in before and behind.

You provide -

Click and collect lest I forget

Manna from Heaven.

But I want fast foods and coffee

The Warehouse shopping spree

Chocolates (from Silky Oaks).

I am content in plenty

Yet if the pantry looks empty

I rebel - not happy with my lot.

But You Lord, Your compassion fails not.

 

I can find peace in simplicity and domesticity

During virus toxicity

If I trust … in … You.

 

Reflection.

A new direction.

Masked and gloved,

Yet covered in unrelenting

love

In the viral wilderness.

Numbers exploding

Economy imploding.

But You are there in the depths

Even in the darkness.

I can fear less because your love is

Bottomless.

 

I swim in rivers of love

I bathe in your presence.

Pain

My gain.

 

So put on my PPE

Line up, two meters apart

It’s surgery to the heart.

And look …

You are doing a new thing.

Gave me a new song to sing.

 

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