I am posting this because of my dear friend Sarah Bloom post. (Love you so much Sarah)
I am so so tired of all of the politics of all of the judgment of whether or not someone is vaccinated, of all of the unkindness on every single platform surrounding this or any other topic from huge matters to really minor matters.
I rarely rarely rarely voice my opinion on anything on social media because no one will ever win on this platform.
But if our story can help to shine kindness and Christ and love… I pray that this is what this post would do….
Half of my family is vaccinated and half are not. It does not matter which of us are or aren’t. Imagine our surprise in the last 14 days
that most of my family vaccinated or not got the virus and have been very very sick.
No one knows who had it first, who passed it to us, why some of us got it and some didn’t. Again some who were vaccinated got it, some who were not didn’t and does any of that matter?!! Some have asked us those questions and wanted to debate whether or not vaccines work, to know who this originated with - at that point we were simply trying to survive! (And to be sure, some had the purest of hearts and were simply asking out of love for us.)
What matters is how our family rallied a
round each other, how they checked in with each other making sure that the sickest of us… from our amazing wonderful man who leads our family so well who has laid in bed for literally 10 days and being so sick, to the littlest one in our home (under two years) and hearing his heartbreaking cough for several nights, to our family who lives an hour away dealing with a child who had 102.7 temperature for days and could hardly grasp his breath… ( and us only being able to FaceTime - heartbreaking) And then him getting better and his parents ending up getting it from him even though they are vaccinated and having to take care of
a sick baby with no one to help (although they had their church, friends and family members rallying around them too) praise God!
What matters is sweet dear friends and family and our church finding out about what has been going on in our family and praying their hearts out for us and checking in on us, bringing us meals, cutting our grass making grocery runs for us.
What matters is the safety of my loved ones, that we walk through challenges with grace and always growing in our faith and pointing others to Jesus.
This all happened just days before our an
nual beach trip that we all plan for and look forward to every single year. One minute we were planning, eagerly talking and anticipating a glorious fun filled trip to the beach. Bags were packed, groceries bought, grandbabies so excited… adults eagerly awaiting our departure date. Then within 24 hours we found out two of our family members were Covid positive and then from there one by one we were tested … some negative, some positive. Some with negative results were sick with a nasty summer cold. We went from excitement and anticipation to disappointment and trying to simply hang on. We went from looking at our packed bags with excitement to having them break our hearts every time we passed by them but were too sick (or too busy helping the sick ones) to unpack. We went from praying that God wou
ld give us a safe trip to praying the most vulnerable in our family (oldest to youngest to pregnant) would be okay. And how do you explain to cousins who are 5 years old and under, who absolutely adore each other, that the beach trip we had been talking since we had been together last year was not happening ?
Every year not all of us can make it and so on the rare years that we all get to be together it is a particularly looked forward to trip and this was one of those years. We also knew before we even went on this trip that this was probably the last one that we would be all together for for at least another year or two so it was particularly bitter to swallow not to mention that it’s just been a hard year or two for some of us in particular and we just simply needed to get away.
What matters is that we believe in Jesus Christ
and love him with all of our hearts. And that we trust him in the very disappointing times in our lives just as much as we trust him when he is blessing us abundantly… Because we are abundantly blessed even in this! We give all of our life, health and plans to Him!! Because He holds all things together! Colossians 1:17 and because we can make our plans but it is His purposes that prevail in our lives Proverbs 19:21
What matters is that we love Jesus and we have a family based on that firm foundation.
What matters is that our world needs a good dose of Jesus and kindness and love for each other just pure simple kindness.
We all need to show grace to each other. If we
are believers that’s what God mandates grace and love! And even if someone is not a believer just be kind. Just be kind.
Thank you Sarah for your post which was kind and sweet and thought provoking
Footnote: Praise God that everyone in our family seems to be on the upswing. Slowly but surely, everyone is definitely better than 10 days ago.