Well, another day, another dollar – well, not for millions of people now out of work because of the government shutdown of our private businesses due to this virus. They tell us it’s for our own good or maybe it’s for the greater good?  Either way, not a lot of good is forthcoming from it.  Increases in poverty, hunger, illness, homelessness, domestic abuse, suicide, depression, alcohol consumption, lack of access to medical care and to education and to safe places with schools, libraries, churches and shelters closed, have resulted from the rising numbers of people who no longer have jobs to go to.

For all of us, well most of us, our circumstances have been in a free fall of everchanging edicts and information which bombard us all day long.  This brings me to today’s confession – I do not like roller coasters, never have.  In fact, I am terrified of them.  I get motion sick in a car, so it is understandable that the motion of even the most tame roller coaster would be something I would not ever want to subject myself to.  I mean, riding roller coasters is considered an amusement, (must be why we find them in amusement parks) something people do for fun.

Riding roller coasters is an optional activity, which would explain why I never choose to ride them.  But now I find myself on a daily roller coaster ride and I can’t get off.  (I don’t remember agreeing to get on, for that matter)  But nevertheless, here I am, along for the ride and I imagine most of you are on this roller coaster with me.

It is the COVID-19 roller coaster and it will leave you hanging on for dear life.  Now I know that not too many posts back I said I was in a dark tunnel.  So which is it? Am I in the COVID-19 tunnel?  or am I riding the COVID-19 roller coaster?  Let me tell you, dear readers, it is both simultaneously!

How can this be?  The roller coaster is in the tunnel!  Yes, it’s true.  Under normal circumstances I think they call this the Space Mountain ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  People actually wait in long lines and pay money to ride a roller coaster in the dark.  But these are not normal circumstances.  And I did not sign up for this!  I know you didn’t either.  None of us did.

We are on a wild ride and we can’t get off.  Not yet, anyway.  It’s a roller coaster of emotions and of circumstances.  Up and down, up and down, with no level ground in between.  Fear plunges me downward faster than I can catch a breath, then from that lowest point, hope beckons me upward, only to vanish as I reach out for her, plunging me swiftly down again into despair faster than before.

Each time the “finish line” is moved farther from me, another twist in this roller coaster ride throws me for “a loop.”  And there have been a lot of loops already. Schools were going to reopen May 1st, then they weren’t.  Instead of restrictions being lifted, restrictions have continued to be added and increased.   I thought everything that could be closed was closed.  But at my state’s daily briefings, often new closures are announced, such as parks, playgrounds and golf courses.

The Corona numbers change hourly and there are so many of them.  As they increase, fear increases along with them.  Circumstances around me are changing hourly as well, with state briefings and white house briefings and other news briefings in between as the roller coaster ride continues.  Even if I don’t watch the briefings, the changes in current restrictions announced there, still apply to me – where I am allowed to go and not allowed to go, etc.  (I can shut my eyes and hold my ears on the roller coaster, but I am still on the roller coaster)

Who will rescue me from this roller coaster ride?  Psalm 40:1-2 gave me the answer,

“I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, (off of the roller coaster) out of the mud and mire;  He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

Oh, to stand firm and still!  “Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”   (Psalm 143:10)

rescued from the roller coaster by my Heavenly Father, I will rejoice and say –

“My feet stand on level ground; in the great assembly I will praise the Lord.”  (Psalm 26:12)

sincerely,     Grace Day