The year 2020 started out with hope liberally splattered in every area of life. Our church family grew with baptisms, and the church council was talking about having two service to accommodate all the people coming regularly, some of whom were even coming weekly. We were so thankful for the Holy Spirit’s movement in our little village and neighboring towns.
Then, in March, the Coronavirus-19 became a real public menace. Our governor put restrictions on public gatherings and encouraged everyone to wear a mask. We shut down our services for a few weeks, and then started a radio broadcast as well as Facebook Live, in order to have services outdoors in our parking lot and to assist those restricted at home.
A few months later, there was such an outcry against the government by the church establishments, based on the Constitutional rights of churches, that our church council chose to open public gatherings again for anyone who wanted to attend.
Our numbers cut in half, but we still had Facebook live for those who chose to stay at home. We had few actual cases of Covid-19 in our county at this time. However, this quickly changed as one month marched up to the next. We prayed continually for one another, and God moved miraculously in several health issues in our church family.
The Covid-19 cases in our surrounding counties increased gradually, and even some of our church members picked up the virus at doctor offices, family traveling from other states, restaurants, work, and grocery store isles. After prayer, our council chose to keep our services as they were.
Thankfully, God answered prayer for our members who contracted the virus. It was short-lived in all but a few cases, and no one died of the illness. When winter came, we still followed these same procedures, although more and more county residents succumbed to the disease. Even schools changed their methods for teaching children.
Our church staff encouraged us to keep a positive, trusting attitude in our prayers, fellowship and outreach ministries. People filled notebooks with the positive blessings they received each day, as well as noted on social media about the people in their life to whom they owed a debt of gratitude. The New Year marched in with anticipation of what we would face next.
Prayer:
Father God, this switch in focus kept many of us from joining the myriad of complainers who had nothing but negative to say about the year of 2020. Even many of those who lost loved ones during this dreadful pandemic, were grateful to You for those who actually lived through it and recovered quickly – giving You credit where credit was due.
How people could think that a certain year was the culprit and a harbinger of doom, and that a New Year would ring in a whole new scenario of events, I cannot imagine. In all things, great and small, good and evil, new government officials and old, etc. we trust in You with our whole heart, realizing that You hold the issues of our life and death in Your hands for Your purpose.
Thought for the Day:
For many of us, to live is for Christ, but to die is for personal gain; we look forward to getting our ticket home to heaven, and to realizing that our work in this earthly realm is done; however, if we continue to live in this world, we will seek God’s purpose for us each and every day, and to continue to grow God’s Kingdom as His Spirit leads us.
- Philippians 1:21; Mark 4:26
