When COVID Hit Close to Home
“God if you want to show me that you care about the small things right now, help me find the shovel!”
Have you ever uttered a prayer that had only a little faith but a lot of desperation wondering if God sees, hears and cares? This was that kind of prayer. And yes, it was for shovel… sort of.
While my sister Ang was getting some much needed fresh air, 5-year-old Arie had informed her mom that her small snow shovel was still missing even after her big brother had helped with a lengthy search the day before. The recent dump of snow had buried everything left out in the yard, making the search very unfruitful.
Ang pushed through her weariness, marked out a perimeter and started the search with the girls.
It was the Tuesday before Christmas, and normally a missing shovel would be no big deal, but it wasn’t a normal Tuesday.
It was the Tuesday after the Sunday she was blindsided by a phone call delivering the news that her husband Jordan had tested positive for COVID-19. It marked 11 days since he had stopped on his way home to fight a fire in their small town (which they originally thought was the culprit of his symptoms), and 12 days of feeling too weak and exhausted to do anything but sleep, showing no signs of improvement.
It was the Tuesday after the night she had been unable to sleep the night before plagued with exhaustion from taking care of everyone and overwhelmed by all the what-ifs running through her mind. Troves of tears escaped her eyes as she uttered desperate cries to God pleading for mercy. She could barely stomach the thought of isolating from some or all of her kids at Christmas if any of their tests came back positive.
And to top it off, it was the Tuesday after the Saturday we received news of our Grandma’s peaceful yet fairly sudden passing.
It was a Tuesday where life felt particularly weighty.
When life feels weighty it’s easy to feel invisible and wonder does God see me? Does he care?
After they dug through several feet of snow, she decided it was time to deliver the news to Arie. She would have to wait until the spring when the snow melted. After all, it was just a shovel.
Weary, overwhelmed, tired and anxious, with faith barely the size of a mustard seed she had offered up her prayer: “God if you want to show me that you care about the small things right now, help me find the shovel!”
She felt silly even asking. There was no sign of the shovel. What were the chances it would turn up now? The snow had been trudged through, it was all turned up and she was done. It didn’t matter.
She took a step toward Arie to tell her she was done searching when Bella shouted, “Mom look!”
Ang looked up, unsure of what she was talking about.
Bella pointed behind her. “The shovel!”
Ang turned around only to see that staring back at her was the handle of the missing shovel standing straight up in the snow a few inches from her face.
She blinked at the tangible proof that God did see her, did hear her prayers and did care. With it, came an overwhelming sense of peace that no matter what happened, she was going to be okay.
Of course, there was still waiting that needed to happen. Test results still had to come in. Jordan still needed to turn a corner. But peace can change everything.
Peace has a way of shouldering the weight of waiting.
The following day, 4 results came back negative and the next, the remaining 2. Jordan turned a corner and a friend dropped off 7 sets of PPE so he could make an appearance on Christmas morning.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT)
Pause the worry and simply pray. Tell God what you need. Actually tell him what shovel you need to find. Thank him for what He’s already done. There, in quiet trust, you will find peace.