The Refuge God Offers

It seems to be a basic truth that everything has two sides. Just as a coin can’t have heads without tails, we cannot have joy without the existence of sorrow or health without the inevitability of sickness. Wholeness encompasses contradiction. Humans have a difficult time with this concept; we inevitably dichotomize and judge one side as being better than the other. We also presume that God judges similarly and afflicts us with what we judge as “bad” when we fail to be “good.”

When we had our first community meeting about how to deal with the threat of the COVID-19 virus, Sr. Esther Fangman began by saying, “True joy is knowing God is with you no matter what happens.” One advantage of praying the psalms every day is that this knowledge begins to sink into your bones. When you pray Psalm 18 often enough, the words become your own: “I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.” Does taking refuge in God mean that we won’t ever get sick and die? No, that is not the refuge God offers. God offers the refuge of love and sustenance in the midst of our trials, a presence and promise of eternal life that cannot be taken away by disease and death.

Each of us is capable of calming the fears generated by the COVID-19 pandemic by witnessing that we are not alone; God is with us. Do we trust Christ, who said, “I am with you always”? If so, we can approach all aspects of life with a peaceful spirit and the calm assurance that, as Julian of Norwich proclaimed, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” How can it not be so when God formed the universe to evolve according to the principles of love and new life?