I remember when we first started hearing about covid19 and thinking, "it will never make it's way to this side of the world." Not long after cases started rising and it eventually starting making it's way to North America. At the time I was living on the Big Island of Hawaii and not a single case was there, the target's were still fully stocked, nobody was in a panic, gatherings were still ongoing it was like a pandemic wasn't flooding the earth.
Eventually the Prime Minister of Canada encouraged Canadians to come home but I was really trying to stick it out and see how long I could last before having to leave what I considered peace and enter into madness. I lasted about a week till my dad strongly, strongly advised me to come home.
Being in quarantine was fine but I kept thinking, how surreal is this, there is a virus that swept the earth, people are very ill and even losing their life to this virus and everywhere is out of stock out of everything, people are in public with masks or stuck between the 4 walls of their homes.
At first everyone was baking banana bread, building puzzles, making tiktoks and watching Tiger King (very, very strange documentary). I was sitting around disappointed that I won't be able to travel for awhile or go out with my friends or have a 'fun-filled' summer. Looking back on that now, I'm realizing that's privilege.
The longer this covid19 has lasted the more I'm starting to look at it as a blessing, I'm finally on the path of paying off my debt, I'm not nearly as busy as I used to be which is giving me time to process the last year, it's giving people time to slow down and truly think about what actually matters in life rather than going out and partying everyday and living in the day to day distraction of life.
God is speaking to me about how we all needed this break. Everyday there was something more important on the to-do list, which in reality, isn't important at all. Church services are being watched world-wide more than ever before because people are looking for that little sense of hope, conversations are happening in our homes and racism is FINALLY being recognized as something that needs to stop.
My heart has been extremely heavy during these past 2 weeks, as a white privileged female, how do I respond? The fact that it took a white man to kneel on a black man's neck which led to his life being taken for us to start talking is sickening to me. My heart hurts for the black community and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that a huge percentage of us white people didn't recognize our privilege till now. As white people, this is a time where we can educate ourselves, speak loudly about it, sign petitions and truly love on our black community and support them in anyway possible. We need to change.
I think covid19 was a blessing because it's giving us the time to slow down and see and hear about what TRULY matters. It's giving us the time to hear from our Heavenly Father on what we need to change in our hearts to bring Heaven down to earth. It's giving people time to spend with their families and really reflect on life. People are finally exploring their passions and creating dreams.
Slow down, take in everyday and see what Jesus speaks to you.