It's Already Been a Long Road, But Love Will Be Longer

No one really wanted to say it out loud, but at some point, we all realized coronavirus was not going to be a quick, two-week, "let's bake cookies and play games and stay in our pajamas all day, and it will be a fun story to tell our grandchildren" deal.

Even when new cases peak and start coming down the other side and even when stay-home orders are lifted and even when businesses reopen and even when events start being scheduled with some degree of certainty they'll actually happen, we are clearly running a marathon, not a sprint here.

There will be miles of recovery stretched out ahead of us: economic and emotional and relational and mental and physical.

Maybe one of the trickiest pieces of this puzzle is that we as a society are not used to waiting for things. Ours is an instant, right-now culture. I’m guilty as charged, yelling at my computer screen while it takes my ancient desktop possibly five seconds to open a Word document.

We didn’t know how to do this in the first place, and we surely don’t know how to do it long-term. All that’s hard right now is made harder by the fact that we don’t know for certain when it’s going to get easier.

I don’t imagine I’m alone in thinking I can usually psych myself up for a challenge if I know where the finish line is. That we aren’t even sure the finish line has been chalked for this race is wearying. 

But we have, each of us, been set in our places of influence and service for such a time as this. This can be one of our finest hours. The people closest to us need to know we are not going to check out on them. They need to know they can count on us...not to be perfect, not to never break down, not to have all the answers, but to keep fighting the good fight of love with and for them.

And so, to my people, I make this pledge and pray with all my heart I keep it more than I break it.

I promise to keep giving you my best, even though some days, that best will be just a point or two better than zero.

I promise to remember that when you are frustrated and sometimes take those frustrations out on me (within reason...none of us is each other's punching bag, after all), it's because you know you can trust me to know they are not really directed at me.

I promise to keep looking for ways to soften the edges of this hard season.

I promise to not think you've gotten used to this new way of doing life just because we've been doing it this way for a while.

I promise to acknowledge that grief is part of this package, and that you can be very, very grateful you haven't gotten sick from the virus and still be very, very sad about what it has taken from you.

I promise to keep looking for creative ways to help you through this.

I promise to let you have time to yourself and not act as though you are rejecting your family.

I promise to not to try to talk you out of or rush you through your feelings just because they're uncomfortable for me.

I promise to hold firm about some routines and habits that need to stay in place for the good of your physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional health.

I promise to let go of some things that don't matter in the long run.

I promise to help you look forward.

I promise to keep storming heaven every day for you and for the world you and I will eventually go back into.

And I promise that even if we're limping or crawling by that point, when the finish line finally comes into view, we'll cross it together.