What if I, or someone I love, gets the COVID-19 virus?

COVID-19 has changed all of our lives.

Around the globe, each of us has changed our lifestyles based on quarantine measures imposed on us by local or national government decisions, and guidelines offered by organizations like the CDC in America, or the World Health Organization.

We have each decided how to respond.

Some are taking a more relaxed approach than what is being imposed, some doing exactly what is expected, and others are adhering even more stringently.

In other words, each person is responding differently.

Our response is all we can control, which is all we have ever controlled. Last week my pastor, Crawford Loritts, gave a sermon about anxiety, structured around Matthew 6:25-34. Some famous portions include:

• Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
• And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life span of life?
• But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

So, what happens if I get COVID-19?

One quote I wrote down was: We are immortal and invincible until God’s purpose for our life is accomplished — Loritts, 3/22/2020.

I have often thought this, but never had the courage to voice it. In other words, God already knows how each of us is going to pass from this life to the next. Until then, nothing will kill us. We are safe. And if our time is near, nothing will delay it. This thought certainly brings me comfort when the airplane hits turbulence, or I am driving in a deluge at night.

God knows the number of our days.

You have decided the length of our lives. You know how many months we will live, and we are not given a minute longer.  (Job 14:5)

God also knows the purpose for which we were created.

I have always loved, Acts 13:36: Now when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep….

I have prayed this verse for myself, that I would serve God’s purpose in this generation and then fall asleep. I think my pastor would say, however, that whether I pray the prayer or not, I won’t fall asleep until then anyway.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10

A second quote I wrote down was: You can either have a mental and emotional breakdown, or live the Bible you’ve been quoting — Loritts, 3/20/2020.

This principle is my heartbeat. I spend my life encouraging and helping people to respond to life in a way that displays God’s nature to a watching world, which is the subtitle of Oaks Ministries. Each of us has an opportunity to respond with faith in the Bible we believe in and the God we speak about.

I am at great risk of sounding too matter-of-fact.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have two adult children still working in the healthcare industry. If either get sick with this pandemic virus, I will have trouble breathing upon hearing the news. I will then collapse to my knees before God while sobbing; care for them as best I can, sparing no expense; and risk my own health to be by their side.

Emotions are real. Pain is real.

But in the end, by God’s grace, I hope be found clinging to the truth of God’s sovereignty with faith He gives me in my moment I need it, like He has done for the Evans family. The Evans family has suffered a string of deaths in the past 18 months. Being in the public eye, we have all been watching, and the family has been beautiful in the face of tragedy.

The latest death was Lois Evans, wife of Tony Evans. Cancer took her December 30, 2019 and her funeral service was January 6 of this year. Her son, Jonathan, delivered a eulogy HERE that is mind-blowing in its truth. The sentence that continues to reverberate through my mind is, “She will live, or she will live.”

Here is the context(regarding his prayers that his mom be healed):

“There was always only two answers to your prayers—either she was going to be healed or she was going to be healed.

Either she was going to live or she was going to live. Either she was going to be with family or she was going to be with family.

Either she was going to be well taken care of or she was going to be well taken care of. Victory belongs to Me because of what I’ve already done for you.

The two answers to your prayer are yes and yes. Because victory belongs to Jesus.”

Then He said to me, “You need to understand that I am God and I am sovereign. And My game plan is bigger than any one player on the field.

If I, or someone I love, gets COVID-19, I pray to respond in a way that glorifies God.

If I, or someone I love, dies from COVID-19, the tears will flow, but this would always have been the year death was going to occur, the good purposes for which I was created would have been accomplished, and I will still be living.

Picture Explanation: Living a quarantined life is providing new opportunities: My husband gifted our daughter’s hospital floor with an Olive Garden lunch this week. Our dog walking has increased. And our church is online, so I spoke to a camera last week instead of a live audience. 

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