Azaleas were blooming when we spent a spring weekend with my sister’s family and were introduced to Roberta Flack’s haunting song, “The first time ever I saw your face.”

It was my infant son’s first Easter and I was entranced by him and motherhood. That song takes me back to the scent of lilies, the brilliant sun, and his small hand brushing my cheek.

Fast forward to 2020 and COVID-19. I’m hoping I can break this habit of touching my face to decrease the risk of contracting the virus. It’s an instinctive, unconscious behavior, built into us from womb. To break it will take repeated slapping my hands when I’m tempted to rub my eyes or touch my lips, as I did just this moment without thinking.

The enormity of a world-wide pandemic makes me feel as small and insignificant as a mouse, but that’s not God’s truth about me, or you. Talking with Jesus is my go-to response to life, as natural as breathing. When I’m not feeling well or even like talking, prayer simply means being held in God’s strong grip.

Our church held a teaching weekend on prayer last month. One of our guests prayed I would be bubble-wrapped in the Lord’s protection. I smiled, knowing that phrase appears a couple times in my book that is now on my publisher’s desk. It was as if God led him to chose those words to comfort me.

Yet, prayer isn’t a magic formula. It’s more about knowing God, and being known, which stretches far beyond the boundaries of any disease. The same day this fellow prayed for my bubble-wrap to hold, I dislocated my new hip joint, setting my recovery from surgery back a month. Now more than ever, the Spirit calls me to slow down and live deliberately in the presence of the unknown.

When God led Moses and the Israelites into the wilderness, they felt a similar dread to what many feel, today. As they circled the desert mountains for 40 years, God instructed Moses to pass along this blessing to the people, through their priests:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 NIV)

I pray the Lord’s face shines through this pandemic, that peace replaces panic, that neighborliness is stronger than hoarding, that we sense God is keeping us and therefore nothing can harm us in an everlasting way.

In the presence of the greatest threat to humanity since the development of nuclear weapons, we can chose where to go in our heads. Joshua, who followed Moses as the Israelite’s leader, told the people to chose who they wanted to be their god, but he and his house would serve the Lord.

If we’re looking, there’s evidence everywhere of God’s hand at work. I look at pictures of the glowing face of my amazing great-nephew born last summer and proclaim that my hope, too, is in the Creator of heaven, of earth and of every child. Lord, protect the little ones.

Despite everything, Easter will still come this year. Meanwhile, my church is holding a 6 pm service in the municipal parking lot at Church and Eighth streets tomorrow, singing our alleluias from our cars with our pastor preaching from an outside balcony. I can’t wait to wave to friends and join in worship without concern of passing germs.

There is no fear in love. Looking at the long view, the day will come when at last, we shall behold the Father’s glory, face to face. I want to saturate every molecule of my being in his truth until that moment.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB)

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery, Indiana Gazette