I was back at the grocery store, the fourth time in the last few days. Yet another “item” I had forgotten to buy, one more “thing” that might be required in this unexpected season. And I couldn’t help but feel strained.
It’s obvious that my time management and grocery making skills need a bit more work. And there was a restlessness, like I was being pulled into the sea, I could feel the wind moving my limbs steadily towards the shores littered with panic and anxiety.
I had a list of ‘what if’s. Of all the things that could go wrong and how that one pack of cereal or a crate of eggs could be the difference between life and death. Or so my mind tells me.
So, I was there again. Back at the same grocery store, back racing through the aisles trying to figure out what may have been lost or forgotten in the less than comprehensive list.
Moments like this show how easy it is to get lost, to follow the tide, to swim along with everyone else.
I saw the shoppers around me filling their baskets with extra portions of everything. Why take two rolls of tissue when you can have sixteen? Yes, I saw a lady take a whole set of toilet rolls and quite a number of kitchen rolls. Perhaps, it was her usual shopping but it probably wasn’t.
Many of us were fueled by one thing: panic.
Our imaginations had painted such ridiculous outcomes that buying more was our little way of exhibiting some control during these unprecedented times.
I needed to hold on to something. Even if it happened to be another hand sanitizer.
In the flurry of activity, it’s easy to forget that there’s nothing new under the sun. That generations before ours had gone through their trying times(which may have also been unprecedented).
For the true test for the living is found in the battle field. In the war front where you either sink or swim. Please pardon my asymmetrical analogies. My mind is still trying to process the past few days.
How relative calm has turned into simmering chaos.
You can feel the pent up emotions, people who are already on the ledge and just need one more word, one more terrible news to push them off. And this makes peace the most expensive commodity right now.
To stay sane. To stay quiet. To stay faith-full when everything else is going to the dogs. And some are so far off the edge that there’s no hope of normalcy.
Now, I’m waiting on the longest queue I’ve ever been in. Who knew the store could fit these many people.
Though I am frustrated and tired, I am also thankful. I am thankful for so many obvious blessings. That my family has enough, at this time, to buy groceries. That we are all in relatively good health. Two things that have become critical this season.
There are those who don’t have, those who continually live paycheck to paycheck(and that’s when there’s a job), those who are literally hanging on to the very little they have, hopeless as to what tomorrow holds.
They need our help and prayers for the tide is no respecter of people.
It does not look to individual situations before it carries us out. It does not ask if we have people relying on us, people we must return to but takes us far out to a place of deeper despair and fear.
And so, we must swim.
We must swim against the rising tide of panic and fear. Against the trembling fecundity of our anxious hearts. For things are never clear in this place.
Still on the line, I look around at the shoppers with me. Most lost in the pile of things around them. Their eyes unfocused, running through the shop, again and again, watching to see what they may have forgotten, while also standing guard on their shopping baskets as if they are expecting someone to pilfer the items they were able to find. And soon enough, my eyes are roaming too. Trying to figure out what I too may have missed.
What I really needed wasn’t another item but to gaze squarely at the One who has my heart.
For by looking to others, without caution, I had allowed their anxiety and fears seep through and amplify mine. I could see through their eyes the need to get it right. The need to stay safe.
A need we all must have this season.
But looking at them wasn’t the answer. It was only a distraction, a dangerous one.
So, I have made another decision. To lean into this unexpected season. To look to God as the author and finisher of my faith.
Like David, to encourage and strengthen myself in the Lord rather than look to my fellow men, especially as they do not hold the answers I need or the strength and peace I crave. See 1 Samuel 30:1-8.
And that’s my prayer for you. Don’t look to man. Not to me or any one else out there. Look to just One, the One who holds your life in his hands. The One who is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.
The One who says this:
I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.”
Psalms 91:14-16(NLT)
That’s the One I choose to look to this season and I hope you do too.
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