Like most Sundays, I listed to a sermon from a church in Chicago, followed by going to Sunday School in Alabama. The sermon was the start of a series about having a resilient faith while the Sunday School class was about Job and his faith in the face of adversary.

It’s been over a year since COVID-19 started, and I don’t think it’s an accident that the two main churches I regularly interact with have started studies on the same idea: perseverance amidst life’s challenges. Considering how many people started this year with the hope that it would be miraculously better than last year, I think this is a timely response.

It certainly is for me.

These next few weeks are going to be a long haul, both emotionally and physically, in the midst of what has been a very long haul of feeling separated from God. Not that I’ve ceased believing in God, nor that he has ceased loving me, but the loss of the future I wanted and thought God wanted for me has made me feel abandoned. In a swamp. Isolated. Stuck.

Yet, it’s odd. Even though I’m feeling lost, I have no doubt that the other side will be better. That the thoughts and the introspection that always occur in the murky chaos will prove useful and constructive in the future.

With all the other confusion I’ve been wrestling with, its is very interesting to realize what beliefs remain solid and unshaken.