What I Learned From Having COVID

My family is on their 10th day of COVID. Phil just tested negative. I'm on day 7 and—praise God!—my breathing has become less labored. I must write down some of the things I've been learning.

I looked back in my journal to the day before I tested positive, and I found this Psalm from the Message that I'd copied down:

Examine me, God, from head to foot,

order your battery of tests.

Make sure I'm fit

Inside and out

So I never lose 

sight of your love,

But keep in step with you

never missing a beat. (Ps. 26:2-3)

"Never missing a beat" . . .  hmm . . . makes me think of heart beats, never missing a heart beat of God's. Or breath from God, which is even more apropos.

Our over-the-counter tests.
Gosh, these things are expensive.

First: there is nothing quite so humbling as admitting to a group of people that I'm not doing well and need prayer, that I am not as strong as I thought I was, and can't handle the most basic of tasks—making meals & taking care of my kids. It is even more humbling when that group of people responds with prayers and dropping off meals and sending songs and gifts and flowers and breathing apparatus and medicine and snacks. Humility seems like a two-fold exercise: to admit we need help and then to take it.

Second: two days into testing positive I woke up feeling like I couldn't breath. We made an ER run where nothing particularly helpful happened aside from calming down and breathing a bit easier. Each sleep after that, I prayed desperately for no re-runs. That was when God reminded me of the days of having newborn babies. I remember laying down praying that the baby would sleep, and I would be angry when that didn't happen. God taught me to sleep with open hands. I would lay down thanking him for that immediate moment of rest and accept whatever happened next as from the Lord—baby waking or sweet hours of sleep. My sleeping hours began with that prayer again, "Lord, thank you for this breath right now. I take my hands off the rest of the night's breathing. That is yours, not mine."

Flowers sent as gifts

Third: during moments of labored breathing, I found solace in looking up and remembering that Heaven and being together with Christ was at the end of all this. How wonderful! How comforting! It was rather like keeping my eyes focused on the horizon when car sick. The labored breaths lost some of their sting. Hm. . . I suppose that's what Paul meant when he said, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

Fourth: I also found comfort remembering how every little detail is impregnated—for lack of a better word—with God's making it happen. It's like a story. If this world is the story that God is writing, there's no detail God didn't write down with his own hand. He has considered and understood how every detail would effect the whole world, and he has decided which one would be the most glorious! Even every one of my labored breaths. I realize this concept doesn't sit well with some people, so I've written a more complete explanation of what I mean here: Lemmings, Cliffs, and Gravity.

As the pressure on my chest has lessened and I feel myself on the upswing, I took up the Psalms again and read this today:

"God makes his people strong.

God gives his people peace.

I give you all the credit, God—

you got me out of that mess . . . 

God, my God, I yelled for help

and you put me together.

God, you pulled me out of the grave,

gave me another chance at life

when I was down-and-out." Ps.29:11-30:3

Benny and me on day 6. Sunshine is good medicine.

More on COVID: An Erupting Volcano, Why Quarantine? More Than A Virus, My Hope is Found on Nothing Less, Breathing, Questions Prompted by COVID, To Vaccinate of Not, How COVID and Sin are Similar