It’s a beautiful sunny day out here at the farm.  I’m sitting, looking out my window at the spring green grass, the pink puffs of trees, and my favorite, the cheerful bobbing yellow daffodil heads.  On one of my drives to town, I pass a field full of newborn lambs, sniffing out life or getting a snack from mom, with their whirligig tails spinning away.  Spring has arrived!
But it’s a spring none of us have ever experienced before.  So much is the same, but in reality, it is all totally different.  Pandemic. A word previously only heard in sci-fi or post apocalyptic books or movies.

Today, for the first time, I experienced the sensation of scarcity.  I went to the grocery store, as I normally do on Mondays.  There were people about and it all felt rather normal.  I got my Starbucks coffee and started shopping.  However, as I walked up and down the aisles, there were several long bare shelves – no rice or dried beans, no flour, few cleaning supplies, little cold medicine.  It was unsettling to me – not because I really needed those things, but because I couldn’t get them.  We privileged people in this country are not used to being unable to buy exactly what we want, when we want it.  Maybe we are long overdue for a wake-up call.

And, strolling through the store, I seem to encounter two main types of people.  There were those totally focused on their purchases, impatient if someone was in the way, unwilling to meet anyone’s eye.  Then there were the smilers who apologized if they were in the way and good naturedly got on with things.  I think this is a time when one’s true character will show itself.  And keeping my eyes on God is the only way my nature can be pleasing to Him.

I want to be on the side of the angels.  

We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.   Romans 5:3,4