I’ve hit mental walls multiple times during this pandemic. Maybe you have too. The pandemic has required numerous and ever changing adaptations from us, which is exhausting. There has been so much loss, uncertainty, and conflict.

So when Delta started to surge and hospitals again began struggling with capacity… my heart just sank. I felt my spirit careening into yet another wall, as the seemingly never-ending-ness of it all loomed up before me.

Someday this will be over. As countless plagues and disasters before, it will at some point appear in our collective rear view mirror and become part of human history rather than human present. What’s hard is that there is no clear end in sight. How do you press on when the finish line is elusive and undetermined?

As I was struggling with these thoughts, it occurred to me: I need a theologian who experiences disability or chronic illness to help me with this. They have walked with God through this kind of uncertainty and pain. They will know how to find the way. Fortunately, I know such a woman, though it’s been close to a decade since I read her last.

A few computer clicks and days later my copy of Marva Dawn’s Being Well When We’re Ill arrived on the doorstep. Friends, it is such a balm. If you are struggling to keep going, I cannot recommend it highly enough. One of the themes that runs through her book is the twin concept of losses and finds. It’s the idea that within physical ailments there are multiple losses to be processed and grieved. And also we can discover finds: divine gifts in the midst of suffering that enable very real wellness even while illness persists. 

Theological truths have, in my experience, an uncanny ability to puzzle-piece snuggly together with truth discovered outside of the Bible. So it is no surprise to me that her theological writing dovetails perfectly with current therapeutic approaches to grief work.

In that vein, here are some questions I’m giving myself space to process related to this pandemic we all still find ourselves in:

What have I lost since this pandemic started? What do I miss? What have I been forced to let go of?

What are the finds this pandemic has brought me? What changes have been pleasant discoveries? What will I want to keep, even when this is all over?