Don't You See It?

By Pastor Suzanne Clemenz
Scripture:  Isaiah 43:1-19

While – thank goodness – we haven’t as a local community, or as a nation, hit rock bottom like God’s people in Judah had in Isaiah 43, (no enemy has invaded our land, destroyed our church, and banished us to a foreign place), my sense is that our current circumstances are precarious for a majority of us, and even dangerous and risky for some of us. COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on so many aspects of our lives. For a good number of us our livelihood is uncertain – reduced hours at work, lost wages, and I get frequent prayer requests from folks for whom the future of our their jobs is uncertain. The stress for many of us is real. Those of us who are essential workers are burning the candle at both ends and handling the mental and emotional strain of being on the front lines and witnessing the suffering that the virus is causing. Most of us are worried about what might happen if we or our loved ones become sick. There’s the anxiety of not knowing whether or not we might be an asymptomatic carrier ourselves at any moment, so we are having to sustain a state of vigilance of mask wearing, social distancing, and with the numbers rising at an alarming rate over the past week, we see no end in sight to this hyper-vigilant state we’re in. We find ourselves in a place of uncertainty and vulnerability that many of us have never experienced before.

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