How often do we really take inventory of our lives? Now amidst the crisis of the coronavirus, it is an opportunity for us all to count our blessings, reach out to our loved ones, and pay it forward with kindness, love, and encouragement. Let’s challenge ourselves to demonstrate genuineness and inspire others who may be struggling with everyday life events. 

It is often tough to stretch our budgets just to make ends meet, pay basic bills such as utilities and rent, and be able to afford healthy, warm meals for our family. This is a good time to purposefully link up with a buddy, another family, or an older adult to support and help each other, find out if there’s some way that we can complement each other in resources, time, childcare, meal planning, household shopping, etc. 

Now more than ever, people all over our country and all over the world need each other. There is someone near us who needs a friend, an encourager, a prayer partner, a dreamer, someone to build them up and to remind them that it’s still a time to plan, prepare, and accomplish. There’s someone out there that doesn’t see a way to make it work in their favor right now. They don’t want to give up but have reached a point where they feel there’s no other choice. Please be that person for someone else – the one that reminds them that there is HOPE. It is something that is needed so very much right now. 

How can we offer that hope to others if we seem discouraged, hopeless, or frantic?  We offer them the hope of the Lord, for He alone is worthy of praise and the holder and giver of hope, faith, love.  God alone is the provider of hope, the sower of faith, and the grower of what is to be and to come.  He is the fertilizer of the seeds of those that seek something to latch onto, that are looking for something to believe, someone to believe in, and somewhere to invest the energy, love, and labor of this life in order to reap His reward of a blessed eternal life.  

We are that light in this pressured time, that light that represents our God, that represents His hope, His peace, His love.  This is a time that people all over the world, regardless of their differences, need us, need the hope that there is an appointed time for these things we are experiencing right now.  They need to know and understand that the story of the current times was already written many, many years ago, and is only narrated now with His permission through media and social outlets. 

There are a time and a season and a purpose for everything, even the current situation of the coronavirus pandemic.  And there is still hope, the hope of God, the hope of Glory, the hope of His Son Jesus, the hope of His Spirit to comfort us.

Contributor: E. Taylor