Real Life Disciples: COVID-19, beards and a new normal

You have to be grateful for humor, especially during a time like this. One online joke I’ve seen going around is the “COVID 19,” which is a reference to the amount of weight gained during the period of quarantine. Evidently, I’m not alone in putting on a few unwanted pounds directly connected to the nightly baking experiments my children keep coming up with. It feels like we are in a perpetual Christmas break that never ends. No more cookies kids – I can’t afford 19 extra pounds!
 
I also know I’m not alone in sporting a new beard. I’m seeing them everywhere. Several weeks away from the office led to letting up on shaving. What started as “I’m not shaving until I can receive the Eucharist again,” has turned into a nice comment from my wife, “I kind of like a beard on you.”
 
Over time, though, the new beard has become more symbolic for me. Every time I look in a mirror, I am reminding myself that on the other side of all this I want to be better. Not just a return to my old normal or, even less desirable, be worse off. Instead, I want to be stronger, in a better place, and better off for having gone through this challenging time – a new normal.
 
Through years of youth and young adult ministry and counseling, I have learned about what experts call the development and resolution of a crisis. This happens when someone has a series of stressful events that leaves them somewhat off balance and struggling to cope. At some point, coping methods fail and they can spiral into a full crisis, everything from grasping for other ways to cope to losing hope altogether and even struggling with suicidal thoughts.
 
What I find most interesting, though, with the whole theory of a crisis is what happens on the other side. There are typically four possible outcomes discussed: 1) suicide or death for those who succumb to despair; 2) a “mal-adaptive” resolution for those who get through the crisis, but end up diminished in some way or worse off than they were before; 3) a “restoration” resolution for those who get through the crisis and return to their “old normal” or former coping methods; and 4) an “adaptive” resolution for those who get through the crisis and emerge better off for having gone through it. That’s what I’m talking about when I say a new normal!
 
I saw a great blog post recently entitled “Let’s Not Let This Pandemic Go to Waste!” It was picking up a very similar theme to what I’m talking about. No one started the new year planning on a global pandemic, no one was planning for a six-week shut down and all the financial realities that follow. This just happened, completely out of our control. The question for us now is how are we going to react? Or better, how are we going to adapt? Let’s not let this health crisis go to waste!
 
There’s something about hardship, difficulty and trial that is all part of the spiritual journey. The ability to embrace it when it happens is what helps us grow and sharpen and refine our character and virtue. Saint Paul says, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we always are being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh” (II Cor. 4:8-11).
 
And, in Romans, he says, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 37-39).
 
These are indeed tough times, but that can be good for us. I want to encourage you – be strong in the face of this pandemic! Be filled with hope! And, be intentional about what you hope to look like on the other side. Don’t settle for “restoration” or worse a “mal-adaptive” outcome.
 
Take advantage of this time for training – more prayer, more study, more planning, more digging into relationships, even if that means using things like Zoom. How is God wanting to use this time to help you grow closer to him? How is he wanting you to become a stronger disciple? Say “yes” to all he is inviting you to. Let’s emerge stronger!