Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Psalm 114:19

Difficult seasons have a way of bringing to light just how uniquely God made each of us.  We experience the losses differently, and we cope with them differently.   All of us are probably grieving common losses of normalcy and predictability, but individual circumstances and responses can be so different. Are you extroverted, confined at home and grieving all the people you can’t see or hug?  Or perhaps more introverted, grieving a loss of solitude while quarantined with your entire family 24/7?   Losses are different, challenges are different, and the ways we cope are different as well.  

There are parents trying to figure out how to work remotely from home for the first time, while homeschooling when they didn’t choose that, teenagers are missing their friends, college students are doing school online and perhaps feeling their wings have been clipped.  Some of us live alone or fought loneliness even before this new and extreme isolation.  All of us are trying to cope with our own challenges in our own ways. 

Coping differences have the potential to drive us crazy, especially under the same roof!  (“You ate the last bag of chips!  Your jokes aren’t funny, how can you be so flippant about this?  How can I get any work done with you playing your electric guitar? Why are you obsessing over your spread sheets?  Why are you shopping online when our income is plummeting?”)   As we are all trying to respond to each other with grace and compassion, it may help to think of these different approaches to coping as part of the unique and wonderful way God made our loved ones.

However, it may be the other side of that coin that is more challenging.  We may view the ways other people are responding to this surreal season as more constructive or even more Christlike than the way we are.  Maybe the helpers in the congregation are being creative about reaching out to assist others, extroverts are calling to check on everyone else, while the more introverted among use might be using the solitude for long times of prayer for individuals and the world.  Some are catching up on household projects, some are cleaning diligently and spraying Lysol everywhere, or making new budgets to manage loss of income.  Is anyone hearing or seeing what others are doing and judging yourself harshly for not doing it their way?

You also are fearfully and wonderfully made!  Our God was intentional in creating you uniquely.  He knows you better than anyone else - better than you know yourself - and He adores you - right here and now in the midst of the COVID crisis.  Let’s intentionally invite the loving, compassionate and comforting presence of our Creator God, and seek His guidance for how we can best navigate these times in our own unique way.

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you,

In His love He will no longer rebuke you,

But will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17