Judgment from God...covid-19

As a general rule I try real hard to avoid all talk of politics and even some super controversial topics like abortion and homosexuality. Why. Good question. Politics because I don't like them. I tend to lean on the belief that they cause more harm than good. Abortion because...well, I don't know why. And homosexuality because I truly just don't want to get into it. It's an abomination in God's eyes and Scripture says it is God giving sinful people over to their sins. What more needs saying.

Today, I'm going to break my tendency to leave these sort of topics alone. I'm going to write about what I normally won't touch. For the simple reason that I think we need more people talking about these things. We need more voices. Louder voices. We need common sense voices. Questioning voices. Explaining voices. We need personal experience voices.

In short we need more people sharing real life experiences because we are being led deliberately down a 'think only this way' path that can lead nowhere good.

America, and the rest of the world, are currently being gripped by what is proclaimed to be the worst virus in the last century. We are encouraged to stay away from each other for our own safety. We are told to stay at home for our safety. We are told to not even see our own extended families for fear of someone spreading this virus because in as much as 50% of the population it is invisible, showing no symptoms.

What better way to get people afraid than that.

You could easily, because this virus spreads much more easily than others do, and unknowingly spread this thing to all your loved ones and every stranger you meet. Does it get any scarier than that. And so we must, for the sake of those we love, stay home. We are encouraged to use phones and the internet to stay in touch with others. We are encouraged to go out only for groceries but even that should be done as little as possible. And when at the grocery store...don't talk to people. Get in and get what you need so you can get out as soon as possible.

Last week I went to Walmart to discover the entrances and exits have been changed. They were blocked by shopping carts. Instead of being able to walk right into the store you had to go around a long barricade to get in or out. Wow! That's...unusual. Almost frightening. Something must be going on. Everything else was business as usual for the store. No explanation to this new strange phenomenon at the front. Sams had a police car sitting in front of it. Just sitting there. Okay. What's going on there. Who stole what. Is there a crime happening in the store. Did someone shoot someone. What's happening. From all appearances....nothing. People were coming and going with shopping carts. Business as usual save for the police car almost parked in the entrance doors.

What's going on.

It appears to be nothing more than Walmart being Walmart. Limiting the number of customers inside their stores. Choosing what they are going to support and promote. How many viruses have I, or someone in my family caught from Walmart. How many times have I had the flu because I caught it at Walmart. Who knows but I do know I once stood in line behind a customer in Walmart's pharmacy that had whooping cough. No employee brought out masks. No one rushed to sanitize the cart they were using. No one limited the number of people in the store.

Now we have this new virus and the world stops turning. All of a sudden not only are governments telling us what we can and can't do to protect ourselves but so are stores and businesses. Some of them are requiring masks, some are limiting the number of people in the store, some are refusing to let children in, some are taking customers temperatures. I saw a Walmart worker tell a man he couldn't stand where he was standing yesterday. The worker actually said, 'you can't stand there. Get on the blue square."

This all sounds reasonable and even helpful, at least on the surface. Afterall, I don't want a possibly ill stranger standing too close to me while I'm trying to check out. I may not be afraid of this virus but I'm not reckless either. There is a place for caution and common sense.

The trouble is that my common sense is beginning to overtake my hope that all of this covid-19 stuff really is in our best interest. Last week at Walmart I noticed that people are no longer friendly. It's like everyone is inside a bubble and no one else can step near that bubble. Gone are the friendly smiles and small talk between strangers. Gone are the stepping close to someone else with an 'excuse me' as you reach for what you need. Now people crane their necks to see how busy an aisle is before they venture down it. It's every man for himself. It's don't talk to me, don't touch me, and get out of my way.

Our fellow neighbors have become our enemy's.

Last week I saw maybe 25% of shoppers wearing masks. This week at least 80% were wearing them. I get it. I really do. People don't want to get sick. I don't either. But there's a fine line between avoiding an illness and being a pawn in someone else's chess game.

When this whole covid-19, Chinese flu, virus first started no one in America seemed worried about it. Not even the government. When it showed up in America, we were told not to wear masks. We were given a date that it 'started' in our country. I have voiced the question many times, do they really think the first person to test positive was the first person to actually get the virus. There has been a convenient lack of acknowledgement that the flu was especially bad this year. At least it was before the Chinese flu took hold. Then it was POOF. No more flu in America. Now doctors are coming forward and saying they have been told to list covid-19 as the cause of death in anyone with flu like, or covid-19 like, symptoms. Oh, and also if they had no symptoms but were around someone that had contact with someone that tested positive for coronavirus. Or if they had a heart attack. Asthma attack. or...maybe even if the boogey man scared them to death.

Okay. That last part may be a bit far fetched.

Or not.

For the record, I don't generally follow the news in any way. I discovered years ago that my life is more peaceful if I don't pay any attention to what the news is reporting. I'm not fond of hearing what they latest popular people are doing or who shot who. So I generally avoid the news like the plague. That changed about two weeks into this Chinese flu. I wanted to hear the latest updates. I wanted to know about the poor people battling the illness, about what doctors were doing to help those on the brink of death because of it, and how this new virus was impacting everyone.

Something happened to that information, though. Somewhere along the way all the daily updates and information kind of fizzled out. Oh, there's still plenty of covid-19 news out there but it's no longer seeming like it's adding up to much of anything. From the beginning we were pretty much given only news that supported the official stance on the virus. Meaning there were no experts stating anything in objection to what was being fed to us. Maybe I'm an odd one but when I get the news I want it unbiased. I want real facts, real details, and no spin on it. I once wrote a post about how we believe being the lens through which one reads Scripture. Meaning, I enjoy reading of God's predestination and therefore verses that speak of it kind of jump out at me because I am reading it through the lens of believing in predestination. I enjoy reading verses about creation so those verses stand out to me. Someone that wants to hear of God's love for them will be drawn to the verses that speak of it. Someone with an arminian belief will find the verses that support, 'choose Jesus', while someone with a reformed belief will see, 'God chose you'.

I don't want news given through someone else's lens. I don't want news that tells me about the numbers of Chinese flu cases while spinning it through a political view. I just want the facts. So I kind of read news sources from all over and figured if both sides were reporting the same thing than there were the facts. I just disregarded the opinion parts.

Now those facts are getting harder and harder to find. As my husband has said...where are the people sharing their experiences on social media. Where are all the pictures from inside the hospitals. Where are the interviews with people that have seen this firsthand, experienced it first hand. We live in a world where everything is posted on social media. Kids today can't pick their noses without their pictures being shared for the whole world. I have seen too many bare baby bottoms on social media because parents don't think before posting. I have seen things that should have been kept private posted for the whole world to see. What I'm not seeing now are people sharing their experiences from inside the hospitals turned prisons in America.

It's been said that when a person gets sick with covid-19 and go to the hospital they are quarantined inside and no visitors are allowed in. I have seen comments online by people saying they haven't been allowed to visit their loved ones in prison, oh, I mean the hospital.

Because afterall, aren't prisons the only places where people are confined without the right to have visitors.

Where are the personal, daily, hourly, updates on their experience with this deadly virus. Why aren't we seeing posts about how great nurse whoever was or how sick 'I' am. Where are they.

Those questions have been in my mind for a while. I've also been saying this will continue to some extent until there is a vaccine for this new virus. It is people's saving grace. It is also money in greedy pockets. Vaccines are always the answer when there's a new virus. This one is no exception.

And who knows, maybe the Lord will use it to stop the spread of this virus. Or maybe it will be people's own immune systems that He uses to stop it. After all, only the strong survive. What if we don't build an immunity, a true, natural, immunity to a virus the Lord has sent and this immunity will be needed to fight the next plague He sends. What happens then.

Or what if people are so focused on the vaccine as the cure that they miss the fact that God sends plagues as a form of punishment onto sinful people.

He does seem to be pretty angry at the world right now. If news sources can be believed there are only a few countries not being bombarded with this plague of the Chinese flu. Maybe we should be real busy repenting for our sins while looking a bit deeper at the way of life of those unaffected countries. Do they allow homosexual 'marriages'. Do they kill unborn babies.

Why aren't we hearing more about the uneffected countries. Why aren't we seeing more stories that tell if a certain ethnicity is immune. Why aren't we getting more facts.

This all has led me to doing internet searches. Internet searches for more personal experiences. I want to know what the preppers and survivalists are saying. They are people that may sometimes come across as crazy, they live on fear and worry, they prepare for the future, a future that may never come, but they also have a tendency to plan for 'the end of the world as we know it'. And so I searched. Oddly enough, there are few search results that aren't news articles.

Hmm...

There has to be forums and social media groups for these people.

But where are they.

Very few of them are coming up when I do an internet search. No matter what I put in the search bar I get the same results written by the same people.

Okay.

I used to do a lot of research. It was necessary for a career I wanted to go into. The Lord didn't let me go that way but He did teach me how to research. So I researched further. It seemed that no matter what I searched...I got the same sites over and over.

That eventually led me to put those limited results to the test against another topic. I keep seeing how a vaccine will be our saving grace. It's going to deliver us from the evil of this virus. Okay. I understand. People need a science based answer and they need a savior. Most of these people are unregenerate, reprobates even, and they must grasp onto something. Enter the saving grace of a vaccine. We need it. We have got to have it. Our lives depend on it.

They simply can't acknowledge that God is in control. That He is pouring out judgement on a sinful world and that only He can deliver us from this plague. The god's of science and medicine to the rescue. They will give them their savior in the form of a vaccine.

But...

This got me to thinking. About vaccines. About the suppressed information I was finding on the other topics, or rather, not finding, that is out there. About ten years ago I did research into vaccines. I looked into their benefits. I researched their dangers. I read fact sheets, ingredient lists, laws, doctors articles, people's experiences. I wanted to know what I had always taken at face value before.

When I did that research, a quick 'dangers of vaccines' in the search bar of any internet search engine brought back enough results to keep one busy until forever. Out of curiosity I searched the same thing today. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Well, maybe there was one response that might have listed the dangers of vaccines. It was a link to a 500+ page ebook on a chiropractic site. Everything else...EVERYTHING else either promoted the safety of vaccines, debunked the 'myth' that vaccines are dangerous, or talks against people that are against vaccines. Where are all the articles, the blogs, the stories of first hand accounts of people that have objections to, or worse, injuries from, vaccines.

They appear to have disappeared.

Maybe a longer search would have found them. Maybe a deeper search would have. Maybe using different words would have found them. Or a different search engine. Maybe.

Or maybe a headline in the news this morning might give a clue to the answer. Facebook is going to censor posts giving information on covid-19. I can't remember if it's censoring for conspiracy posts or misinformation posts. Either way, it's censoring what people put online.

Could that be what's happening to the posts from people inside the hospitals. Could that be where the pages and pages of dangers of vaccine information has gone. Censored out so that we can no longer read both sides and make informed, common sense, decisions based on what is best for ourselves or our family.

There is a law in Texas that the courts recently used to suspend all non emergency abortions. The law says that during a public health crises (emergency, issue. I don't recall the exact wording.) that people 'temporarily do not have the right to do with their bodies as they please'. This is great from an abortion standpoint. It has given the loophole needed to block abortions. I support that holeheartedly.

But...

It also basically takes everyone's rights away. No longer is your body your own to do with as you please. Because of a 'health emergency' people in Texas can no longer be the sole person deciding on what is in their own best interest. How long until laws like that are used to 'better the greater good' through vaccines, experimental treatments, quarantines, etc.

Or are they already being used.

I don't doubt that the Lord is controlling this entire thing. I firmly believe this is a judgment on a sinful world. He promised never to destroy the earth by flood again but His anger is still poured out. These days it's done through disasters, famine, and diseases.

While I believe that wholeheartedly, I also believe that someone, everyone, needs to speak up. We are being told to stay home, to stay away from people. Gone are the days, at least temporarily, of people, strangers, mingling in town, talking to  each other. Now we are told to stay away from people in town and to talk to them online or by phone instead. There seems to be a huge problem with this, though. To call people on the phone you have to have a phone number. That limits you to only those you know. To talk to them on the internet...

That's a great idea.

It opens up a whole world, literally, of strangers. The only trouble is...the internet is censored. We can hardly find anyone...anywhere...that isn't supporting the stance on this whole chinese virus that 'someone' wants us to know. Social media groups are restricting talk of the covid-19 because they want it to be a place free from that for people's sanity. And internet searches don't offer much unbiased, this is the story, kind of information.

God's wrath is upon us...covid-19

*Please forgive the lack of question marks in this post. My question mark key was not working.*

I haven't had much time for Scripture study lately but my mind has gone often to the judgments of God and to plagues. I recall the 'stories' of the plagues I have read in my beloved Bible, the ones I grew up hearing. Back then those plagues and all the other Bible stories were like fairy tales. Tall tales. Amazing tales of a God I did not understand but rarely doubted was there.

These days I'm better acquainted with Scripture and with God. I understand so much more and I realize that those 'stories' I grew up hearing are as far from fairy tales as one can get. Noah and the flood isn't the fun story it was when I was a kid. Back then I imagined life when all the animals in the world just magically arrived, two by two, and walked right into this giant boat that God ordered made just for them. I imagined what life might have been like to live inside that boat with all those animals. As a kid I never once considered what became of the people not inside the boat. Somehow, my childish mind just simply never thought of them.

Maybe that's for the best because rather than being a fairy tale, the story of Noah's ark is nearly a horror story. At least it is from a human standpoint. From a Scriptural standpoint...God was more than patient and he held off far longer than most people probably would if they were in His place. Still...a child's mind probably shouldn't think of everyone on earth dying except for eight people. And a child should probably focus on the magic of a baby in a basket being saved out of a river and not on the hundreds (thousands) of babies that were murdered.

And so in my child's mind, the Lord, thankfully, made all those plagues in Scripture seem like fairy tales and I failed to take in that they were nothing close to a fairy tale. Then I grew up and eventually came to understand so much more about God and Scripture and I understand now what those plagues were. Judgments from God. His wrath. His holy anger turned on a sinful people.

And now we are living in a time where life is nothing like anything we have ever known before. We are living in 2020, a year that pretty much blew in with a pandemic. We are told to stay at home, stay away from people, keep ourselves safe.

People in town are wearing masks and gloves, some have bandanna's tied around their faces like old time outlaws. And no one seems to think anything of it. People are hiding in their homes. They are locking themselves in their 'safe' places in order to not catch this virus while news outlets give us information that seems to have more holes in it than swiss cheese. All while they feed the fear and keep telling us to stay at home so we can stay safe.

Safe.

Now there's a novel concept. Here we are, fighting a battle the president has labeled an invisible enemy. We are fighting with masks, gloves, alcohol, and some might wonder if others are fighting with toilet paper given it's scarcity these days. We are told to sanitize our groceries when we bring them home, that our mail might make us sick, and above all to stay safe at home.

Home is, I suppose, supposed to be our magical bubble that keeps the germs at bay and will save the world. If only we can stay at home long enough.

Safe.

But how long is long enough to be safe from a virus that is sweeping the world. Two weeks was supposed to have been our magic number, at least at first. Then it was a month. Now it's six weeks. How does one put a time frame on when a virus might disappear. I ask that, not based off Scripture but based off the ideas our unregenerate leaders and advisers seem to be tossing our direction and using to keep an entire country on near house arrest. From a medical or scientific standpoint...how long is long enough. When might the virus just turn us lose and we can all emerge from our homes like some kind of end of the world Hollywood blockbuster movie scene, where people slowly come out, looking around in an awed daze, as they realize the danger is over. When do we reach that point. When does life go back to normal.

Safe.

There is no more normal because we are hiding from this invisible enemy to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Please don't get me wrong, I understand that their is a vulnerable population that has a much higher rate of death than the general population. I understand that the elderly and the ill are at a greater risk. I don't discount that. Quite the contrary, this hidden enemy may have played a role in my Mother's death. That thought stays with me. I will never know the answers to the questions that plague me as to whether or not this virus that we now know is with us might have made my mother sick prior to her sudden and unexpected death. I also live each day knowing that at least one of my children is in the high risk category. I may have lost much as a part of this virus and I cannot stand the thought that I could lose more. Far from taking this lightly, I am watching and waiting. Enjoying every moment the Lord gives me with those I love.

Safe.

Each moment that passes is one we cannot get back. For now, we wait. Safe at home. Safe with each other. Safe in the days the Lord has allotted to us because it's all we can do. We wait. We watch. We love each other.

Safe.

And yet...how safe are we when this virus that the world is so afraid of is a virus that has been unleashed by a God that is so powerful that He literally spoke the world into existence. What good does it do us to hide away from a virus that is, according to the information we are being given, only slightly worse than a bad flu, when it is God's hand that is controlling every one of those germs that people fear so much.

Was Noah saved because He hid in the ark or was he, and His family, saved because of his faith in God. Noah did go inside and hide away from the storm. His door was closed, by the hand of God, and he hid inside that boat while the worst storms the world has ever seen raged outside.

Did Moses survive that river because His mother made a basket that was as safe as a boat and was so balanced that no wave or ripple of the water could overturn it. Did he survive and get rescued because his mother kept him safe in that basket, after all, who in their right mind would ever put a baby in a basket, set it afloat in a body of water and expect it to survive. Moses was placed inside the basket, safely secured away from the horror of the murdering of the babies that was taking place, and safely set a sail on the water so that he might not become a statistic, if they had such a thing back then. He was safe. Hidden away from all the horrors.

Noah, Moses, and many others in Bible 'stories' were spared the ravages of plagues, murder, famine, fire...they were safe but how did that safety come about. Did they stay safe at their own attempts. Or was it God's hand that saved them.

Even Christ separated himself, he went into the garden of Gethsemane and secluded himself where he prayed that God would 'take this cup from me if it be Thy will'.

Thy will.

Where does our safety come from. From doctors and government leaders that tell us we are fighting a virus that showed up in our country in December despite the fact that a good number of American's talk about how sick they were in November. Do we stay safe because we take these people's advice and hide away in our homes seeking shelter from an invisible enemy that is sweeping the world. Is this where safety comes from.

Thy will.

Can we be safe at our own hands. Can we protect our families from a virus we can't even see. Does requiring police officers to text their boss a picture of a thermometer with their temperature on it before coming to work protect us when the leading doctors are saying that at least 50% of people that get the virus carry it and show no symptoms. Does locking down a state and requiring people from another state to quarantine for two weeks do any good when they allow worker in certain fields to go to and from without any quarantine at all.

If a person stays home and never goes out, has everything delivered in, are they safe. Does wearing a mask in town guarantee our safety.

 Safe. Safe. Safe. Hidden away in our homes. Locked inside. Kept on house arrest, our businesses all but closed down, a good number of jobs gone, some of them forever, so we can be safe.

But...Safe is coming as an illusion. We can never be safe from God. America has laughed in the face of God. Flaunted sin after sin before Him. Cried, 'Don't judge me', far and wide. They use terms like, 'don't judge', before they toss out everything from, 'I have a heater under my desk' (someone told me that), to 'I'm a homosexual' or 'I've had six abortions' or...whatever. Just so long as 'don't judge' is remembered far and wide, maybe especially by God.

All these sins and more have been wallowed in like the most gluttoneous of pigs in the biggest of mud puddles. And now that there's a new virus, a plague, sweeping the world, these same people are hiding in their homes, closed up in their safe places believing that they can protect themselves and their loved ones from this germ. Even the professing Christians seem to be missing the point on what this virus, this covid-19, this coronavirus, is. They blame it on a virus, which it is, but do not say...'this is God's wrath on a sinful world'. They don't say, 'we, even the so-called Christians, have all but spit in the face of God, daring Him to show His hand, while they say things like, 'come as you are', and 'hate the sin, love the sinner', and they endorse homosexuality, idolotry, and covetousness, to say nothing of divorce and encouraging men to sell Christ to earn more than a fair wage while they do not work six days a week as Paul says they should. So we are facing a 'pandemic' and no one mentions that it's a judgment from God. No one says that we are under God's wrath.

I think of Soddom and Gomorah. No one was safe hiding in their homes. God's wrath was upon them and their was no hiding, no staying safe. And now we have a world, watching and waiting with bated breath, hiding in their homes and behind masks, safe from a virus that is being controlled by God. The same God they defy even in their safe places.

How safe can one be from the very God that gives them breath.

How safe can we be when it is God's hand that spreads the virus. His hand that uses the virus to take a life. His hand that restrains a virus in people that get it but have no symptoms.

How safe are we in our safe places when it is the Lord who decides whether or not our safe place will burn down tonight or topple in a tornado.

How safe are we from God's wrath now that He has decided to unleash part of it on the world.

We are safe in our safe places...so long as the Lord uses those safe places to keep us safe.