Have anyone besides me have been feeling like you have been living in an alternative reality? You've been asking yourself for months what is going on. Has the world gone mad? You find yourself sitting and waiting for change to come. While you are waiting, time passes slowly like the ticking of a clock. It ticks methodically slowly, but in the background, you can hear the sound of its alarm sounding off in the distance. And as you listen to it, you hope you can go back to life's normal rhythm. Have you had trouble expressing how you feel? When you take the time to access your feelings, are the only emotions you can identify are panic, fear, shock, numbness, and disbelief? It is like being in a nightmare where it is never-ending, and in some places, it is repeating itself over and over again.
What is awkward about this dream is that no matter how hard you try to wake yourself up from its horrors, you cannot. Try as you may to wakeup, you find that you are unsuccessful at awakening from the horrors of your present situation. What's worse than the fears of a nightmare dream are the horrors of living in a pandemic's reality. For the past five months, it has been a nightmare to many.
Like your dream, you hope that someone will come from another room and shake you or slap you to wake you up from the nightmare. But no such person comes to the reality of your present situation to awaken you. You cry out, but because you are in a dream, your speech sounds muffled to the hearer. Nevertheless, though it is a dream, you still struggle to get up out of your sleep, because though you are conscious in your mind, your body lies paralyzed by the grips of deep sleep and no amount of yelling or shaking will arouse you from it until it has finished its complete cycle. And if you manage to get jilted from the dream by some outside force, it will leave you disorientated and unable to adapt to your present reality responsibly. So what is the answer? How do you keep holding on until my change come?
We must move through the cycles and allow it to come to an end, just like going through different sleep phases of sleep. At some point, as time goes on, you will begin to realize this is not a dream, but it is reality. It is your new normal. Sleep is good for the body and mind, and the body needs sleep to function properly and heal itself.
Likewise, in our present reality, as time moves forward from weeks to months, we have no alternative but to accept that this is no dream or nightmare. But it is the reality of our present time while living during a world pandemic. When this cycle is complete, because I am an optimist, I believe we shall come out a better people. Why, because I have anchored my hope in Christ the Solid Rock.
Some of the most challenging times in life can be when waiting for change to come. God is Sovereign over all things, and He is in control. In the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible, God delivers His people through every trial, every tribulation, every invasion and captivity, every plague and pestilence successfully. God shall deliver us and bring salvation to us as well. I have no doubt He will continue to guide us and give us wisdom on how to go. The Lord has purposed and will accomplish a good work in us. God's will shall be done in man as He wills. And we shall become more like Christ as we yield to His will. Being rooted and grounded in God's Word gives us confidence that our waiting and the things we suffer are not in vain. God has a purpose for us all, and it's directly anchored to the coming of the kingdom of Heaven and the second return of Jesus Christ. Be encouraged; you are not alone, and your feelings are real. However, don't let your emotions dictate your faith. Take time to get a little closer to the Lord Jesus and familiarize yourself with Him in new ways. What is in your control, control it. But put your confidence and hope in the Lord. Selah.
Meditate on these Holy Scriptures:
Hebrews 10:35- 38: Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.
James 1:3-4: Knowingthis, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
This post reminds me of Colossians 3:1-4. We should strive to focus on the things above instead of the temporal earthly things. While earthly matters are important, they are not our all-in-all. Only Jesus Christ is and our hope is in Him. I pray whoever reads your post is encouraged and either seeks salvation for the first time or deepens their relationship with our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Be blessed, Mother Rountree!