Infinite God of Time,
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” We have claimed those wise words in more finite days. Times when we were able to look back at the eras and epochs of human life. We asserted them at the transitions of our lives, funerals and graduations, baptisms and weddings.
Eternal God of past, present, and future: We are in a stuck season, a frozen moment when the days crawl and the weeks seem like months. We understand in very small measure when the Psalmist said, “a thousand years are like a day.” We escape into a digital world, a place to flee the news and our neighbor. We connect virtually and safely to learn, worship, and make a living. But we were not created to live alone, without the challenging though comforting connection to one another, a connection that cannot thrive at a social distance.
Lord, forgive us for what we have taken for granted in seasons past. The times we could have gone to church but wouldn’t; the times we could have affirmed with a hug or handshake but didn’t. Forgive us for the times we took for granted full grocery shelves and a simple visit to someone in the hospital.
We are thankful for the simplicity of this time, a time when we have discovered yet again, what is true and what is real. We have recognized what we can do without and what is indispensable. We have learned again that little things matter. A microscopic being, a billion times smaller than us. can kill and wreck the world. A phone call, a letter, or chalk on the sidewalk mean more than we can say.
Comfort us in these endless days of loneliness and unpredictability. May we find abundance of life in this season of uncertainty. God, in your mercy, grant us a new day, a new season, free of this plague. Amen.