Where I'm finding hope

Back when the pandemic began, in March of 2020, we had no idea how long it would continue. I saw it as a challenge and was confident I could handle it. I mustered up all my creativity, I learned to adapt, and I dug down deep to draw upon my faith and inner strength to push through it. I came to realize that I could only do this for so long, and I had to concede that I wasn’t able to continue carrying the crushing weight of the pandemic for as long as it persisted.

In my hopeful moments, I thought—After we get through this rough patch, we’ll turn the corner. Next year at this time, our lives will be back to normal. Once we get the vaccine, things will change. By Easter, we’ll all be back in church again. There was always a thread of hope that I clung to. Each time one of those threads disintegrated, I searched desperately for a new one.

Lately, I’ve stopped looking for the next thread. I’m tired of being disappointed. I’m beyond tired, actually. All my resources have been spent. I just want to hibernate like a bear and wait for the spring to come. Instead, I’m clawing my way through each day, hoping to reach the other side of this endless winter. And I don’t know if I have it within me to do it.  

I can’t stop wondering about the impact the pandemic is having on our psyches and its long-term effects. I grieve over the fact that the lives of our children and youth are being shaped by this. So much of what I cherished about my pre-adult years is being taken from them: dances, sleep-overs, class trips, band, plays, cramming into a booth at Frisch's with all my friends after a basketball game. I know the pandemic will shape the rest of their lives. I think what grieves me the most is that, for our kids, this has become the way the world is. Maybe that makes it easier for them. But for me, I can’t get past the fact that this isn’t the way the world is supposed to be.

I have been thinking a lot about people who lived through similar life-altering times in history. My mother was a child of The Depression. It changed everything about her. How could it not? It went on for 10 years. Ten years! She also lived through the WW2 years. That time the US was living on rations in a state of stark despair and uncertainty went on for four years. How did they do it? Were they also living from day to day, clinging to any thread of hope they could find? Did they also reach a point of exhaustion where they didn’t think they had it in them to continue clawing through one more day of endless winter?

All I know is that they did it. And their survival formed them into “The Greatest Generation.” I can’t tell you how inspired I am by this. Although I never thought my generation would be challenged by anything as dramatic as The Depression or WW2, I don’t know why I always assumed we would be insulated from such a time. The story of civilization is one struggle after another. In some parts of the world, it had been one endless struggle long before the COVID-19 pandemic began. And when I look ahead, I fear that our greatest struggle is yet to come as the wide-reaching effects of climate change continue to escalate.

Knowing that people before us have survived enormous life-altering struggles inspires me. Instead of clinging to threads of hope that disintegrate, one after another, I’d rather hold onto the lives of those who have gone before me. That’s a source of strength and faith that will never fail me.  

In church-speak, we call this the communion of saints. They remind me that the world didn’t begin the day I was born, and it will not end the day I die. I come from a long line of people who have made their way through life, each with their own struggles to overcome along the way. Many have come before me, and many will come after me. I’m just a part of the great procession of the communion of saints.

I’m keenly aware of their presence right now. Sometimes I could swear I hear them talking to me. It’s a quiet murmur like a breeze passing by my ear. When I listen carefully, I hear them saying, “It’s your turn, Nancy. We did this; you can do it, too.”