Lost and Found in a Pandemic

In this pandemic season of intense loss there is good to be found in the most unexpected of sources.

Losses

This last year we lost human touch, human interactions and human lives.

Common sense and common decency went AWOL, lost in a COVID fog of conspiracies.

Going to work no longer meant going to work.

Kids lost a year of doing kid things with other kids.

A few people lost their minds on social media. OK, a profuse amount of people.

Some lost a job, or a family business, and their hopes for the future.

Some lost their way in a blur of anxiety and panic.

Others lost a parent, or parents and grandparents.

Personal

At the beginning of COVID, the dying were faceless numbers. The longer the pandemic persists the more it is personal. Friends have been intubated in ICU. Younger people are dying. Complete strangers in the form of exhausted frontline workers saved those who survived.

Some survivors are struggling with long-term effects. Many physiotherapists are booking over 60% of their time slots to COVID therapy. Therapists specializing in respiratory care are at 100%.

Lost in the pandemic shadow are the thousands of young Canadians who overdosed, alone, on opioids.

Some Christians and churches lost the respect of their community by defying gathering guidelines, in the name of Jesus.

Perplexing

Perspective was lost.

We see scattered dots of information on a page and the ways we connect them can show a distorted picture of reality. Some see every provincial, national, and global politician as a part of a nefarious, evil reset plotted by a shadowy elite. Comparisons are made to Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the work of the Beast from the Book of Revelation.

Don Braid wrote in the Calgary Herald on May 7^th, “Politicians hate this as much as the rest of us do. They can’t wait to lift every single restriction, reboot the economy and bring themselves back to popularity. Canadian governments at any level don’t have enforcement tools, laws or civil services built for social control. That’s precisely why they’re so bad at it.”

We’re tangled up in a maze of rules that are totally alien to the modern Canadian experience.

And there it is.

Profound

The pandemic humbled us. There was no pandemic playbook.

Our playing fields were leveled. International leaders and kindergarten teachers had to make adaption after adaption after adaption.

Some people are not OK with not having all the answers at all times. They fear that uncertainty makes them appear weak. So they made up answers.

They refused the humility of adaptive leadership whose language is:

 “I don’t know.”

“Learn as we go.”

“Let go.”

“Keep going.”

It takes courage to humble yourself and be willing to admit you do not have all the answers.

Opportunity Found

The losses of this pandemic present us with an opportunity to put our EGO (edging God out) aside.

The world is becoming more and more unpredictable. Demonstrating genuine humility can provide the power to persist and thrive amid uncertainty—and set the example for others to do the same.

Please leave a comment about what you have lost or what you have found in this pandemic at the bottom.

Hope grows here.  You’ll find stories that inspire, build faith, and offer lasting purpose.

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