Love, Loss and Hope

I’ve been reading this book titled Loved as I Am: An Invitation to Conversion, Healing, and Freedom by Sr. Miriam James Heidland. This is probably the fourth time, maybe even the fifth time, that I’ve read this book or excerpts from it. I first came across it in 2014 after a retreat. Up until that time, all the books I read dealt with apologetics and upholding the letter of the law. After the retreat all I wanted to read and hear about was how much God loved me. I couldn’t get enough of that new revelation and Sr. Miriam’s book was the perfect remedy. And just so you know – she was no Goody Two-Shoes. She was an athlete and a party girl. She went through a lot to come to this understanding of how precious she is to God. Anyway, that’s not the point of this blog post. This post is supposed to be about Zoom!

So, I’ve been reading this book and in the second chapter Sr. Miriam writes about how much God loves humanity, so much so that he took on a body himself. That body worked, sweat, healed, loved and laughed. Amazing that God would do that!

And as I read that chapter, I thought about my weekly Zoom call with my bible study group. I think it’s safe to say we all look forward to it, to hearing each other’s voices, to exchanging ideas and affirming each other. But what is really hard to do on Zoom is to laugh. Not because we are a dour, sour bunch. Far from it! But when we laugh, we clog the audio. Nobody can hear anything.  So, to help prevent that I’ve been trying to laugh silently. That makes me profoundly sad because the whole point of laughing is the sound of it! It’s contagious! It makes you happy! It releases stress. And anyone that knows me pretty much equates me with laughter.

This terrible virus has stripped me of my job, my church, visiting my family and friends, and now my laughter. I’ll tell you honestly, just writing that has made two big fat tears run down my cheeks. I know other people have it way worse than I do. I could share stories about my family and the mental toll it’s taken. I seriously believe this virus is robbing people of the years they have on this earth from the stress of isolation. We are trying so hard to keep our bodies alive, which is right and good, but our minds and souls are dying instead.

I was having prayer time at church this past week. I asked Jesus if he would send me a word, a thought, something. I strained to hear him because I was so agitated. Finally, I heard the word hope. As in, don’t lose it. I do see some light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine but a quote from Winston Churchill in 1942 reminds me, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” And that's got to be better than where we were 10 months ago!