Covid-19: "The Lord is close to the broken-hearted, and saves those who are crushed in Spirit..."

It strikes me that we're going to have to do a lot of "speaking to our souls" during this time. It's hard not to let the feeling of sadness and despair set in at times and dominate what, in many ways, is a precious gift to us: of time, of lifted pressure, of slowing, of family time and of reconnection via technology with many friends and family.

The last two days - the first two of our new 'homeschooling' life - have been pretty marvellous. With all the tabs in my head's browser shut down, I've been able to be more present than I have for years with my children. Going for a walk and taking time to admire the blossoming spring flowers each morning has been so peaceful and relaxed. Not rushing around to co-ordinate family life around church meetings, work or social engagements is completely liberating.

More on all that another time.

Today's been a really hard day. As many of you know, I own a small business, one that I've built up myself from scratch over the last 4.5 years and that's gone from a hobby to a quickly growing enterprise that now has another employee and has grown by over 500% turnover in the last 3 years. I had lots of weddings booked in for this year and many other celebration cakes, not to mention the in person classes I regularly run.

And now pretty much all of that is gone - just wiped out. The wedding postponements have been coming in left and right and today I had a postponement for September this year. My heart goes out to all these couples and other businesses that are so affected by all this. And today it suddenly caught up with me how devastating this is for my business.

There's been so much adrenaline in this process so far, with the daily press conference bringing a more serious announcement each time 5pm strikes, me scrambling to adjust to work practices and now becoming a full-time homeschooling mum for the first time ever. At first, I knew my March weddings would get cancelled, then April, and probably May. But to realise that actually I could lose 6 months + of revenue from this and not be able to do the job I love for that amount of time - it really hit me.

I am just one drop in the ocean of people affected financially by the Coronavirus. We're all grieving and unsure, so it feels harder to be able to talk about it and get the support you would otherwise because everyone's in the same boat - or far worse - and everyone's emotionally exhausted. What employed people may not understand is that it's not just the finance (although that represents a significant change for us). It's the fact that something you've created entirely with your own brain and hands, your love and determination and creativity and disappointment and persistence, is taking a few really hard knocks. I've been so used to growing Three Little Birds Bakery, innovating, making things more efficient, improving quality, for so long. I've been in the most amazing atmosphere of growth and now it's gone. And that does hurt.

I am the opposite of a "fixer". While I think helpful suggestions can be suitable at times, most of the time I think when someone's in a pit, we just need to get in there with them, acknowledge how rubbish it is and tell them you're there for them. And it's ok to take the time to grieve something and acknowledge to ourselves that it's sad and it's part of living in a really, really broken world. If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that our world is pretty broken right now.

But, then we need to speak to our souls.

While in my fug this afternoon, I pretty mindlessly opened a little book I've been reading bit by bit - None Like Him: 10 Ways God is Different from Us - by Jen Wilkin. The section I was up to read like this:

"Consider how great the comfort in being personally connected to a God who changes not. From the Old Testament to the New, he is the same. None of his attributes can increase or decrease because each is unchangingly infinite. His knowledge cannot increase or decrease. His His faithfulness cannot increase or decrease.... He simply is these things to the utmost - forever."

That is what I needed to hear. What perspective. Everything is changing right now. Everything is uncertain. But God stays the same. And our eternal salvation stays the same. When the psalmist says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted" he also says "and saves those who are crushed in spirit". He doesn't save us from all the woes of this world, he solves a far bigger and more serious problem for us: sin.

One verse that has always stayed with me during the whole time I've built the business is this, from James. Chapter 4 v. 13 reads,

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 

I've always tried to be conscious that any success is God-given and transient, and not to put my trust in any sales I get, or become proud. Turns out it's a lot easier to do that when everything is going great than when it all comes crashing down around you! But what was true then - that God is good - is true now and those "solid foundations" of God's will are still what I stand my life upon.

It doesn't mean that my feelings have gone away. But I know there's a reason for the troubles we're going through. I know that everything that's difficult right now is a means of stretching me and teaching me a lesson I need to learn. I won't learn it overnight, just like you can't develop strong muscles overnight - it's painful. Things have to break to be made stronger. But if we keep focusing on the right things we'll learn and grow more mature instead of growing bitter. I'm still in an atmosphere of growth! An emotional and spiritual one that can't be measured by numbers, but is of eternal worth.

There's going to be a lot of getting into the pit with each other in the next few months. But we can make sure there's a lot of speaking to our, and each other's, souls, too.