When Your Whole World Changes - COVID-19 Special EditionSample

Moving Forward

I’m feeling like I can move forward. I’m beginning to feel that these difficult circumstances will end soon. I want to celebrate and focus on my future. But then I feel guilty and feel that I’m betraying the people who have died.

Life has recognizable seasons, cycles, and rhythms.

 It doesn’t stop for very long. When the chaos of this pandemic has passed, this poem from the Bible will remind us that there will be a time for mourning, healing, remembering, and eventually a time to step toward the future.

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

If feelings of guilt or betrayal are keeping you from moving forward, create a memorial. It may help you to step into the future. God instituted the practice of creating memorials for ancient Israel. He commanded the Israelites to build a memorial of stones as a way for them to remember how he helped them cross the Jordan River into the land that God had promised them.

What would be a meaningful way for you to commemorate this difficult time in your life?  How can you celebrate the memory of people you’re missing in life?