Looking out my window facing the neighborhood street I’ve seen more people walking outside in these three weeks of “stay home, stay safe” than I have in three years. But inside, my view hasn’t changed much, nor has my daily routine. The monotony of each day can wear on a person. I confess there have been a few days I’ve laid in bed after 7:30 a.m. wondering: what would be the point of getting up?
It’s an eerie feeling to know all the plans we made are gone, and we can’t make plans for the foreseeable future because so much is up in the air.
Each new month I fill in a calendar for my kids so they know what’s coming up for them. It outlines assignments, field trips, music lessons, events, holidays and various appointments. This keeps the “what are we doing today?” questions at bay as well as anxiety. As I stared blankly at a clean calendar, I had nothing to fill in. Every scheduled item had been canceled with no rescheduled date. Outside of April Fool’s Day and a birthday I wrote a big question mark. Two days later, we got more news; no school for the rest of the academic year. The emptiness of the calendar reflected the emptiness that started filling my heart.
All My Plans Are Gone
My plans, which I’d spent hours and months accruing dissipated in moments with no foreseeable return. It was now fully evident to me there would be no more planning ahead and I had no clue how to view the future. Life had hit a standstill and all I could do was consider the here and now.
At the bottom of my emptiness, what I really felt was the loss of control over my life and circumstances; I was no longer the one making the shots for me or my family. When we can’t construct an alternate plan of our own making, our mind floods with fear, anxiety, grief, worry, and despair. These emotions whirl around our psyche throughout the day making it difficult to realistically process what is happening and how to cope. This loss can lead to taking to whatever means to regain a semblance of control; hence hoarding, anger, disregarding social distancing for personal rights, etc. But it doesn’t have to go that route.
When Plan A Fails
Our Plan A for life usually comes out of our own making, only relying on God when times get tough, and well that’s usually Plan B, sometimes. The changes in our lives due to COVID-19 have been more than we expected, but they don’t have to take us asunder. What we’ve lost doesn’t have to drown us, it may in fact be the lifesaver we need allowing us to exchange our prefabricated Plan A for God’s rescue plan: Plan B.
Losing our Plan A has many of us facing the realities of mortality, survival, and what’s important in life. With job loss, retirement funds dwindled, children at home full-time, fears about how to pay rent or feed families, and thousands fighting against the virus, it is no wonder why plan A wasn’t working–we cannot secure our lives by worldly means. Security can only be found in a plan orchestrated by God himself: Plan B
We may be struggling to embrace our newfound restrictions on our personal freedoms, but in losing control we can then entrust our future to God’s redeeming plans and let him lead us through this season.
Plan B was never meant to be a last-ditch effort to survive, it’s always been God’s first priority–for our lives to be solely dependent on him in all circumstances of life, it was always meant to be our Plan A. Realigning our plans with his, opens the door for us to know and live with hope in the midst of trial, loss, and confusion. It is this hope that will enable us to live day-by-day without worrying about tomorrow and remind us that we are never alone. Hope reminds us we may not be able to plan for the future, but we can rest assured that life exists beyond our current feelings of despair.
How to Adjust to Plan B
Lament
Christians for centuries have had reason to mourn. We are not immune to loss and God knows that. N.T. Wright wrote a great article for Time addressing a biblical form of coping with loss—lamenting, a form of grieving that doesn’t resolve the pain, but encourages us to embrace it and allow God to use our sorrow for good. In the article, Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It’s Not Supposed To, Wright shares, “Rationalists (including Christian rationalists) want explanations; Romantics (including Christian romantics) want to be given a sigh of relief. But perhaps what we need more than either is to recover the biblical tradition of lament.” Lamenting is a plausible response to the emptiness we may be experiencing. It doesn’t give us answers, nor does it help us regain a sense of control, but it gives us space to hold what’s been lost, to see it for it’s truest worth and learn to hold the things of this world loosely in light of eternal matters so that our hope may be restored.
Trust
I was reminded while reading Proverbs that, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)
We are not guaranteed the plans or investments we make on this earth. We are called to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth (Matthew 6) because God knows that what we cling to here will one day fade and only what we entrust to him will last. The pain of our loss is only as bitter as we allow it to be. This experience with COVID-19 has awakened me to take notice of where I have been storing my hope. I cannot expect money, health, or job security to be my help, but I can trust God’s deliverance in all circumstances. I can choose to be angry over losing what I thought was mine, or I can see God purging me of lesser loves and readjusting where I should put my trust.
Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom.
2 Corinthians 1:7-9 (The Message)
Wait
Life may feel like it’s on hold, but life is not measured by our accomplishments in a 24-hour day. Waiting is very much part of living, and no time in waiting is wasted. Joseph, who spent years in prison, could have wallowed in pity, but God used that season of waiting to give him favor and success. The Israelites wandered the desert, and despite their moaning, God provided nourishment daily with manna and quail; they never lacked food. David, exiled and hunted, faced death at every corner, yet trusted that God would rescue him and give him the future promised to him as a boy. These were all moments these people could have felt their life on hold, waiting for something better, but it was in these dark times that God cultivated character, relationship, and trust with more to come.
Waiting may seem like life has gotten off track, but in God’s plans there is no “off track.” Waiting is an invitation to get back on the right track. As we approach Holy Week, a journey toward the cross, we are reminded of creation groaning in wait for a savior-redeemer, the disciples despairing at the death of Jesus, and the elation they experienced at his resurrection. God’s plans embrace suffering, loss, waiting, and mourning as the only hope for future glory.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
Psalm 33: 11 & 20
the purposes of his heart through all generations…. We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
Our lives never get put on hold. God is still completing his purposes even though the work of our hands seems to be idle.
Live in the Present
We may not be able to plan for tomorrow, next week or next month, but we have every freedom to live this day to its fullest for the glory of God. Though we’ve started living more isolated lives, I’ve been amazed at how rich our community has become. I have not felt the unity of God’s Church so strongly as I have in the last few weeks with others joining in prayer, online bible studies, phone calls, rainbows on windows and messages on sidewalks, and six-feet distanced conversations with neighbors I’ve never met. What a gift of community we’ve been missing because of our well-planned and scheduled lives.
Life will never be the same after COVID-19, there will be no going back to “normal.” Life is not meant to be stagnant anyway. We are pilgrims on a journey, we are designed to change and grow as God leads. As you approach Easter Sunday, remember the cross offers two paths–our plans or God’s, and only God’s plans promise, hope, life, and love, but it also embraces hardship, suffering, loss, and pain. The Great Paradox of life in Christ.
I want to leave you with a passage from Romans. Paul reminds us that we are not bound by circumstances; life is promised to have sorrow and suffering. However, life with Christ is worth living and sharing, it is a life worth waking up to each morning.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good […]So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? […]Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.
Psalm 31:24
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Thanks Beth, just read with my morning coffee and today already seems brighter.
That’s so sweet. I hope it made you feel like we were together for just a moment. I will say, some of our last conversation inspired me.
Thank you, Elizabeth! This is so helpful and as always beautifully written. Yes to Plan B! Seems I have quite a stack of other plans stuffed in my pockets that are being emptyied out. Learning to wait and rejoice that the Master of time understands our struggles and loves us with an everlasting live.
Thank you Barbara, I am so glad this story encouraged you. I think we will continue to find our plans are being reshaped. I read this morning in a devotional that as people laid down garments and palms before Jesus at the royal procession it is a foreshadow of us laying down our hearts before him, throwing our wills in absolute surrender and asking Jesus to govern everything we think and say and do.