The Middle Ages faced health crises, too. Bubonic Plague doctors wore masks with bird-like beaks to protect them from diseases that they began to understand were airborne. The beak was packed with sweet-smelling flowers, herbs, and spices. I would not care to see my two doctor sons dressed like that.
Writing to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin said, “Our new Constitution is now established and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
Death has always been around. Taxes, nearly as long. But Franklin didn’t originate the phrase. It appeared in a Daniel Defoe story in 1726.
But this year, with COVID19 , taxes are not certain. They’ve been moved to mid-July to help a stressed population. Even property taxes are postponed.
A month ago, March 14th, I left my friends and wintering home in NE Mississippi to drive north to rejoin family in Minnesota. With this pandemic, my doctor sons wanted me closer. Our world has changed so much in a month’s time.
My current posts are not the ones I’d planned. I had written a fun one about Southern cooking and eating that I’ll share eventually but can’t let more weeks pass without comments on how COVID-19 events are rearranging our world. The lists of lives lost are disturbing. and vital statistics and economic charts show major changes to life as we know it. It’s almost like a pre-coronavirus and after histories. Yet, despite the unimaginable tragedies and reshaping, I’m glimpsing positive changes, too. Color me weird, but some aspects of these uncertain times leave me excited at seeing so many stories with God’s clear fingerprints all over them. People “stranded” one to two thousand miles from where they planned to be but it turning out exactly right in terms of long-term family relationships.
Renewed family times and values with the dust blown off remind me of when Hezekiah cleaned the temple and led his people in total rededication. I’m extremely sorry for the heartache people are experiencing but see a mid-flight correction returning us to the crucial basics in many areas of life. I’m believing that many people are discovering (or rediscovering) that God alone is a secure anchor, and that when nations and our world reach the other side of this crisis, we will find life better than when we entered the crucible. It’s also like the Hebrew children emerging from the fiery furnace with their ropes burned off while in the presence of the fourth man in the fire, yet suffering no other harm. May we all feel His presence, find surprising answers, and see that multiplied millions of times in our world.
Friends are claiming Bible verses like Psalm 91, Isaiah 43:1-3, especially those saying, “it came to pass…” When this ends, I’m praying we’ll end up with something better and more valuable than we had before.
What have been your best gains so far? Mine includes successful communication with someone I greatly wanted to connect with that hadn’t worked until now—I’m very thankful!
How are you coping? What are your best steps forward? God bless you and yours!
I loved this Delores! I’m praying that we come out the other side of this one nation under God. Miss you!
I miss you all back. I’m eager for life to reach a better new normal for all of us and have a chance to come back down.
Heartily agree! Hoping we all emerge from this having grown in wondrous ways. Love to you, dear Lady.
Thank you. Love heartily returned. I really am hoping to come see you all there before too long–I had really thought it would be before now, but things sped up for me (and the rest of the world) this spring.