A couple of different people sent me this, recently:

And then this showed up in facebook feed:

I know it’s difficult to be unable to gather together. Until the moment when we truly began to grasp how devastating COVID-19 could be, if left unchecked, love always meant showing up. Worship always meant gathering together. Church always meant God’s people in the same physical space.

But the virus changed all of that. Now love means staying apart. Worship means being on your own, or at most, gathering with the people in your household around a screen. Church hasn’t been in the same physical space for a number of weeks.

I think this is a big part of why we are struggling. The things we could always count on in the past, can’t be counted on right now. And it takes a lot for our psyches and our souls to process that. Our souls just don’t pivot that fast.

But as the weeks pass, one of the things I’m finding increasingly meaningful is the way that even though every thing is different now, people are still gathering around and being comforted and upheld by God’s word. People are praying for each other. People are listening to more than one sermon on Sunday. We are hungry, our souls are hungry.

Times of crisis and uncertainty have this way of revealing what truly matters. I spoke about that in Sunday’s sermon. And for people of faith, what matters is knowing that God is still with us.

The two memes I shared above are absolutely right. We are able to ‘church at home’: to worship, to pray, to read God’s word, and to continue our journey of faith, even when we cannot be with our church family the way we once were.

So be encouraged, friends.

And as I was trying to figure out how to end this post, I was reminded of an Andrew Peterson song (big surprise, right?) so I thought I’d share that with you. This is “All Shall Be Well” from his album, The Far Country:

Until tomorrow, dear friends! Worship at home, today. Know that God is with you, always. Trust that one day – when it is safe to do so – we will see each other again.