lessons from quarantine

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28 

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope." -Romans 5:3-4

These past few months have been unlike anything else most people have experienced in their lifetime. As devastating and scary as this time has been, God will use it to bring good, just like He promises. One way I think He has already done this is by teaching us lessons and reminding us of what is truly important in this world. 

one ///// how important community is

    I would consider myself an extroverted introvert. I love being with people, but also love and need my alone time in order to recharge after being with people for a while. At the beginning of quarantine, I thought staying home and only seeing my parents wouldn't be that hard for me because I can usually go a while being by myself without getting bored, and I like just staying home and doing nothing sometimes. But there's a big difference between wanting to stay home by yourself and do nothing every once in a while, and being forced to stay home by yourself and do nothing all day everyday. As we kept spending more and more time at home, I kept getting more and more bored and really wanted to be able to be with people and do something fun. It's bad when going to the grocery store is the most exciting thing you do in a week haha. I think spending so much time at home and away from people showed us introverts how much we really do need people. We really enjoy our alone time, so we tend to think we could survive on our own if we had to, but quarantine showed us that even we can get lonely and bored of just being with ourselves. We need to be able to talk and just be with other people in order to stay sane. 

two ///// how to slow down 

    When I'm at school running from class to class to practice and trying to figure out when I'm going to eat dinner in between all the homework I need to finish that night, I tend to get so caught up in what's next. When I'm in Chemistry, I'm thinking about whether or not I got my homework done for Genetics. When I'm at golf practice, I'm thinking about the World History paper I need to finish for tomorrow (that I have yet to even start). I get so caught up in the future, that I forget to slow down and appreciate what I'm doing in the moment. I stop paying attention to what my professor is saying about bacteria cells, or to what I just did that made the ball go completely right of where I was aimed. Throughout the past couple months, since all I had to worry about was school work, I really tried to focus on what was in front of me instead of just going through the motions so I could cross it off my to-do list and move onto the next thing. It helped me to be less stressed about what I needed to get done, and also to be more present in whatever I was doing, not only with my homework, but also while I was doing my Bible reading or spending time with family. 

three ///// the Church isn't just a building 

    Church isn't just for an hour a week on Sunday mornings. It should be your life everyday. The Church isn't the building, it's the people in it. Even though we weren't physically able to go to church on Sunday mornings, we were still able to serve and love those around us in many ways. I hope that when this is all over and we are able to go back to church, we don't forget to be the Church to those around us in our everyday lives. We should love and serve everyone, even when there isn't a pandemic and everything in our lives seem normal. 

four ///// what is important in life

    During this time, so many things were taken away from us- jobs, money, church, sports, stores, friends and family, restaurants. Things we thought we couldn't live without, we survived without. The time away from jobs taught us that spending time with family was more important that our careers. Not making as much money taught us to be thankful for the money we do have because some people don't even have that, or even a small fraction of it. Having things taken away from us makes us more thankful for what we do have rather than constantly wishing we had more. Going from being able to see our friends and family whenever we wanted to, to only being able to talk to them on the phone taught us to never take anyone in our lives for granted. 

five ///// how to focus solely on God and really trust in Him

    Without all the distractions we had before quarantine, we were able to really spend time with God. We didn't have ten things to do in one day or five places to be, so we were able to take our time in our time with Him, and hopefully realize how beneficial it is to slow down and be present in that time. The virus taught us that we can't trust in human ability alone because even the smartest minds struggle to comprehend and find ways to help with things as big as this. We just have to trust that He will help us get through this and bring some good from it in one way or another. I think one of the main ways He is doing that is by showing us how temporary our earthly possessions are and that He is the only constant during every season we go through in life. Everything we own can be taken away from us in a split second, but He will always be there to lean back on. He will never be taken away from us.  

Sadly, it had to take a pandemic to remind us of these things. We have so much and tend to forget what truly matters on this earth because we are too caught up in our temporary possessions. I pray that once things go back to normal, we continue to live out these things, never forget what it was like living during this time, and to remember that so many people in this world would love to have the "struggles" we went through during this quarantine because they are nothing compared to what they go through everyday. 

With love,