Practicing Grace

I think the country was shocked when slowly our lives started to change. Slowly we stayed glued to the TV as we watched the pandemic of Covid-19 take over our lives. We watched as governs shut down schools. The president shutting down gatherings of more then 10 people. We listened to stories of family members dying alone and scared. We looked at picture after picture of our medical and health professionals risking their lives, faces, and families to help those in need. As our freedoms started slowly getting stripped away our brains was making connections as quickly as it could to make sense of all of this.
I think unless you are part of the medical field or government that idea or the concept of a pandemic is probably not very developed. Our minds can do amazing things, but we are all a product of how we were raised or taught. Regardless of what other say. How we view the world will always be different then the person sitting next to you. Even if you have similar stories we all PROCESS information differently.
While I am happy that we have social media during this time. I will say that social media is drastically adding to the concept of how we feel about the pandemic as well as how we respond and what we do. I know during this time we are all handling the best we can, but I would encourage you to put down social media every now and then. We have families and people who are suffering. We have people in this country that may not be able to eat tonight. And yet we applaud celebrities for donating a grain of their money while they ask us to buy from them during this time and donate our own money. People are without jobs and yet celebrities are still doing ads and trying to solicit to you. I do not want to take away from the fact that people are donating money. I am glad we are all rallying together to help one another. But the sad fact remains the more we look to our celebrities for inspiration the more we are pulling further and further away from how we were designed to live. I don't want to get into the debate "if they should donate more", or "well its their money"... the fact that we have this debate tells me the sad nature of our country. I think they should donate more even if it is their money. The millionaires and billionaires in our country will never live long enough to enjoy all of their riches. All this to say shop local. Call your local restaurant. They aren't millionaires. They are just trying to feed their families.
We are living in an extraordinary time. And during this time I would encourage you to just be. We are all doing the best we can. Again most of us have no idea what a pandemic was before all this and now we are living it without any idea of what to do. As a Christian I am reminded of the love and glory of our savior. Whether you believe or not, the ideals that were spread from Christ are designed to bring forth all that is within us. But during this time be reminded to take time. Take time for yourself. Don't feel like you have to be better, or read more, or study more, or learn a new hobby, or draw closer to Christ. I will remind you again. We are all going through something that we have very little knowledge about.
Practice grace. Practice grace toward each other. Call and text your loved ones. Stop reading the news so much. Stop expecting things to get better. Stop hoping that we can open sooner. Just be. This is the season we are in. Enjoy it. We have all been force to know ourselves. Get to know yourself. Journal. Or not. We are being forced to cook at home more. We are being forced to learn how to live with each other without constantly being distracted. We are living in an extraordinary time. And the most wonderful thing that will come of this is hopefully from this experiences our concepts of compassion, patience, serving others, love, hope, belief... will be compounded and we rise up as better people. I hope that when all this is over... I can see the extraordinary glory of my savior... As I know he is with us all.