When the seriousness of the Covid-19 virus became more apparent and everything began to shut down, I was having a conversation with my daughter about the reality of life we were experiencing and just how scary the situation was and what something like this could really mean for life as we know it.
Her only other such dangerous and frightening experience of life was the event of 9/11. At the time she was in high school, and although recognizing the seriousness of it, couldn’t understand the lasting effect such an event would have on her life and her future. But now, she is at a more mature, responsible position in life, married, with job responsibilities and most important, children. She has a more full recognition of what such a threat was and what it could mean, and she was seriously concerned, frightened.
On the day of September 11, 2001, I was at work when the news began to break of what occurred and of course, everyone had stopped working and was talking about it. I had returned to my office when one coworker came in and asked me what I thought about it all and we sat and talked about what happened then and about many other things, including God and where he was in all of it. She had said she was a Christian but didn’t feel she had been as active as she should have been.
I spoke with my daughter about the Covid-19 pandemic as I spoke with that coworker that day in September so long ago. It’s a scary time for everyone, but a time when we as Christians can bring the world something it is in dire need of – reassurance and strength for whatever we have to deal with.
So for all of us Christians, at Genesis, in Cary, throughout our country and the rest of the world, I offer the empowerment proposed in this scripture found in Ephesians 3:14-21, that we may all be prepared to be there for anyone in need during this and future difficulties.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Mary Ann Windon