I have been waiting to weigh in on this but praying in the meantime. I pray that we can all survive the isolation. Isn’t it ironic that before this all started, there were times we would crave the chance to just shut out all the noise, to find a quiet spot and yes, isolate ourselves. Now we are asked to do exactly that and we realize how disconcerting that can be. Deb and I are honoring the request and have isolated ourselves from family and friends, from our church family and from the everyday strangers that might have become our friends. It has its pluses and minuses. The quiet has given us the chance to reflect and reconnect, to realize how dependent we are on each other, to realize what it was we found in each other as we fell in love so long ago. But the isolation has reminded us how much we depend on others as well. It has put us in a position to worry about so many things that we can’t control. It has left us craving company and the socialization that comes with the company.

We are taking this thing one day at a time. We are being as patient as any human can be and we remind each other that in time this will pass. We use all this isolation time to pray. We pray for all the people I have already mentioned, but also for the businesses struggling to hang on, to save their customers and their employees, to still exist when this is all over. We pray for the care givers, the doctors and nurses and all the related medical personnel, and all the others who put their lives on the line and take the risks we are told to avoid. We pray for our church and all the churches out there whose members crave the message and the community of their faith families disrupted by this pandemic. And, yes, we pray for leaders. We pray that they be leaders who listen to both the science and the needs of the people they have chosen to lead. That they exercise both empathy and wisdom in equal amounts.

This will prove to be a critical time in our existence. When this pandemic passes, we will emerge as a stronger civilization, more empathetic than when we entered, more aware of our surroundings, more involved in our society. All of those statements will be true, as long as we learn from what we experienced, if we are willing to change many of our habits and beliefs based on the lessons of the crisis we survived. Life will return to normal, albeit a new normal, but it will return. Let’s promise to be part of the improvement.

For now, keep socially distancing but not distant, stay safe and keep others safe by your actions and above all else, stay connected. Use the ability to stay connected that our technology affords us and use those connections to stay patient. We will survive, with wisdom we may even thrive.