A 5:00am wakeup time—becoming more common in the past few years—had me picking wallpaper images for my phone. This shot captures SO MUCH JOY for me. You know I’m serious because I wrote that in caps. Livia and I… mmm… invited ourselves along on my parents’ 50th anniversary trip to Sanibel Island last October and the location was absolutely dreamy. The water was just cool enough and the views were incredible. I found myself feeling more centered and at peace than I had been in a long time. My dad is walking in the background there, I’m admiring the world around me, and Liv, always the first to the sensory table in preschool, is shelling. Of course. We still bear loads of shells from the Gulf, months later, in frozen Nebraska.
I love my home. And I love to get away, especially to the ocean, and then I love to come home again.
A few weeks ago I got sick with Influenza A. Apparently I haven’t had the real flu since middle school. How’s that for staying healthy? I get the flu shot every year as recommended for diabetics and I’ve been able to avoid great illness… until 2021… which saw my return to a classroom size larger than one. Let’s just say that I witnessed a LOT of snotty noses at school. I’d often ask a 2nd grader if they’d like to go blow their nose and the answer was usually, “Nah.” I’d sit pretty close to 1st graders as they practiced reading and, despite my mask, I knew whatever was virally floating around their own homes was also floating around my office. Towards the end of the semester I got lax with masking. And then… hello, flu.
I have a wonderful team of people around me urging me to rest and push fluids while sick. So grateful for them. But I had forgotten what it’s like to be sick when you have diabetes.
KETONES.
Damn those ketones. I’m no scientist, but I do know that illness can stress a body with Type 1 diabetes, which then produces ketones. You ended up with too many ketones in your blood and you can go into ketoacidosis—your blood is literally too acidic.
So to review: when a person with diabetes gets sick they can’t simply sleep and wake up and drowsily drink Gatorade until they pass out again. That’d be too easy. There’s a lot of monitoring that needs to happen to avoid diabetic keto acidosis (DKA).
I feel like Influenza A was a timely reminder for me that I cannot mess around with not masking right now. Much of our population can get sick and tough it out at home. Meanwhile I’ve got that little thing called ketones that can swoop in and kill me if not handled immediately.
Our hospitals are full. They’re so full that people who need quick care may not receive it. On a good day when I visit a hospital it will involve entrusting my care—my very specific and detailed diabetes regimen—to a team of doctors and nurses who know far less about my situation than I do. Let’s just say that I do everything possible to avoid visiting hospitals.
At this point in the pandemic, with omicron knocking down people left and right, I have to stay vigilant.
(You can see how easy it is to be anxious! Working hard on that, too.)
God filled in the hole a teeny bit today, with a request that didn’t come from me. I felt like I had been holding my breath for two years now and today was a slight exhale.
Sometimes love looks like friends who feel like family, a warm fireplace, an orange cat, and the willingness to physically and emotionally be laid bare in front of one another.
How many people are ever ready for a pandemic? Very few, I’d guess. We’re now looking at Year 3 of living with the coronavirus and psychologically it’s really… really something.
I’m still trying to figure out my own reactions to events in the past few weeks. All I can surmise so far is that I had expectations for the holiday season and then I was very surprised by some big changes, namely the mask mandate for my city. I care far less about the mandate for the city (thanks to pickup grocery orders) than I do about the ramifications it has on my weekly plans with church where we **sing**. Let’s just say that I was planning on attending our Christmas Eve candlelight service, and then the mask requirement was dropped completely—by the city and by my church—and bam, I could not in good conscience attend a service where people right next to me would be singing maskless.
I was hurt.
Do I like to admit my hurt in public?
No, I do not.
For the sake of reflection I’m going to include a few of my social media posts here. My first post was from a mind-boggled state, my second was written with great frustration, and the third came after several days of consideration.
From December 26:
Longtime church goers and church leaders,
Are you okay with immunocompromised individuals simply not attending your churches in person any longer?
Would your church consider hosting a “masks-required” service so that people at risk could more safely engage in communal worship?
Real questions asked by a real human. Not up for a fight. If you know me then you know that I won’t tolerate disrespect in the comments here. I’m truly interested in your thoughts.
From December 27:
When I see high school choir kids—singing AND dancing—100% masked and then see Christians in church choirs **not** masked at all during a pandemic… well, my head explodes. Just straight up explodes.
The high schoolers are making the rest of y’all look bad.
For shame.
From December 28:
Important.
You and I may wildly and vehemently disagree, on a number of topics, and yet we can and should still love one another.
I hold to the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I believe this means that the Church should hold wide open her doors to allow everyone to hear that good news. We need that life-giving good news on a daily basis.
In the past week I have felt like some of you are wearing your nicely working autoimmune systems like armor. You aren’t aware how delightful it is that your body works well, but you’re able to go where you want to go freely and you don’t have to consider others’ welfare very often. I’m so glad your body works. But I will not remain silent about how exclusive the Church becomes when you close your doors to the infirm, to the weak, to the elderly, to the disabled. If I can speak with a bullhorn I will call out the ugliness of such a thing.
I have seen the Church do beautiful things in my lifetime. Beautiful, creative, life-giving, wonderful things.
I tasted my first bit of Covid communion from a car in a parking lot on Father’s Day. A creative pastor (or pastors more likely) decided to hold services outdoors for a season or two and it allowed me to safely take the bread and the cup again. Praise God.
I have seen deacons scroll through church directories to hand out turkeys and cranberries and gift cards to families that needed a boost at Thanksgiving time.
I’ve witnessed elders and their wives coming to tiny apartments to shepherd lonely couples, making an impact for a lifetime. And I’ve seen the same caring individuals pack up and move the umpteenth seminary couple even though it meant personal loss and sadness.
I’ve witnessed parish nurses entering homes and praying over elderly patients stuck in their four walls for far too long.
I’ve read about nurses in hospitals continually being the last faces to cry with, pray over, and witness Covid patients’ final breaths.
I’ve known of churches who sent “We Miss You” postcards to a family who only came through their doors once simply because they know that this viral pandemic has created a pandemic of loneliness.
I’ve seen church members, week after week, giving rides to license-less folks who live in group homes. They’re hungry for community and those simple acts enable them to hear the gospel over and over.
And now I’ve heard of churches still requiring masks so that a few, with chinks in their armor, may still walk safely into their pews.
I’ve heard of spaces where scientists’ opinions are valued and people care about the quality of the air.
I’ve heard story after story of CHRISTIANS WHO CARED. They’ve followed in Jesus’ very footsteps, denying their own comfort for the sake of another. This happens so often and I consider it an enormous privilege to witness and rejoice in it.
I sometimes speak strongly for the truth, and in this moment I can see how easy it is to leave those like me, with autoimmune disorders, behind. We have a lot to lose if we’ve loved belonging to the body of Christ. We miss communion. We miss congregational singing. We miss hearing your kids in the pews behind us and seeing your family walk up the aisle for the Lord’s Supper. We don’t want to stay home because we need you, church family. We love you. Please creatively love us back.
[Locals and PCA people, please note that I don’t speak as a representative for my particular church, Redeemer PCA. I resigned from the diaconate last May. My opinions are my own and no one else’s.]
Jeremy and I aren’t really resolution people. And we’re also not really New Year’s Eve party-ers. I was reflecting on that second truth as I got warm and cozy and drowsy under our down comforter around 10:00pm last night.
I felt strangely guilty, like I couldn’t really rest because I was going to bed before the New Year was officially rung in. It was odd. I’ve worked tremendously hard to push off others’ expectations of life—when those expectations are not my own—and yet this one lingered. I do love celebrations and I love communal events, so maybe that’s why I felt the urge to participate at midnight. And truthfully, I semi-participated from my slumbering state. Lincolnites love any reason to set off fireworks, so as the clock hit midnight some very excited people in my neighborhood made sure we all knew what time it was. All I could do was roll over, shrug off the scary memories of my dog running off in fear a few years ago when those fireworks went off, remind myself we were all safe and sound indoors, and try to fall asleep once more. I did. The end.
Or rather, the beginning.
Today begins a new year. We resolve to serve God more wholeheartedly in 2022, to be better spouses and parents, to deeply examine our choices and behaviors to glory God more clearly. Aside from that, we have desires of course. We both want to eat healthier options, we both want to move our bodies more, we both want to be more diligent employees and more faithful friends. We are resolved, without specifically setting resolutions.
So today the snow flies and the temperatures outdoors are dangerously low. We stay inside, warmed, contented, and while we wonder what the next 12 months hold, we’re not grandiose in our plans nor overly concerned with what’s next. I suppose we’ll just carry on, one step after another, learning to love better and enjoy this world. God holds us tight, today and always.
