“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”
1 Peter 1:3
I dropped avocado down my shirt today. My blue shirt now as a big green stain on it. I was trying to make guacamole for dinner tonight. The avocado that I had bought from the store was too hard and it just wasn’t going to work. I forgot to buy an jalapeño and the chicken seasoning wasn’t right. Let me tell you, I was unnecessarily frustrated. I said to myself “I just want one thing to go right”. If I am being honest, I have been really frustrated for the past month or so. I’ve been upset about the way that my senior year ended, the fact that I am unable to spend time with friends, upset my braces appointments keep getting pushed back farther and farther, upset that I can’t go and visit my grandma who is in the nursing home confused about why we can’t visit, and the list seems to go on sometimes.
The loudest noise in the Dukes household is my dad’s ringtone. That thing is so daggum loud that I am sure it wakes the neighbors. One thing about his phone is that his ringer is NEVER off. When his phone rings after ten o’clock at night, I can almost be certain that someone has passed away and that he is about to have to leave the house. It is just part of the job and something that has just been normal for my whole life. Lately, his phone has rang a little bit more. It is really sobering when I have heard it ring in the past week or so because I know that someone has lost their life most likely due to the Corona virus. I think that a lot of times it can be really easy to remove ourselves from situations that we see on TV and have compassion from a far but then turn off the TV and go straight back to what we were doing or thinking about. I have been really guilty of that with this whole thing. I’ve often times just wished that I could turn the virus off and go back to the way things were and get on with what I want to do. I think that is it right there though, it’s all about me. It is all about what I want to do.
I have begun to try and stop and think about the fact that this virus is not about me. It is real and people are actually dying from it. Quarantine is not about the fact that I can’t go and do what I once could, or that I am stuck in my house, or that I can’t do my regular Easter thing. It is easy for me to look at these numbers or think about the amount of times that the phone has rang and feel like there is just a lot of death everywhere. BUT Jesus. This week, the week that is filled with mourning the death of a lot of loved ones, is also the week where we should have our minds fixated on Jesus and what HIS death did for all of us. The fact that through HIS death we have forgiveness, freedom, and that death no longer has a sting. That for once and for all He was our atonement.
While it is so easy right now to be so focused on the chaos around us, I pray that we would all remember the death that freed us all. The love that was poured out on us so freely that we never did anything to deserve. I encourage you to look for Christ during this time, to look and see where He is moving. A lot of us have more free time than we usually do right now, and I think that it is important that we don’t get distracted and loose focus. A few things that I have constantly been reminded of these past few weeks have been:
- God is not surprised by this.
- We never miss out on what was meant for us.
- Small sacrifices and patience, often bring about good things.
I am trying to remain thankful, patient, and fixated on what and who really matters. I think that in life, sometimes we need that loud ringing to remind us of what really matters. What is stealing your attention right now?
E M I L Y 