I was at the pharmacy this week picking up a prescription for our family. I walked up to the window…wait, the window was gone! I could reach out and touch the pharmacist if I wanted to! It was so different. Has it really only been two years since glass barriers were placed between us and people working in the service industry?
It felt off. For years now, we have gotten used to the separation and have come up with creative ways to communicate without the whole store hearing our conversation. I asked the pharmacy tech if she was nervous that we could interact without a mask or glass? We can understand each other without yelling. She said that the whole time she has worked there, there has always been glass. It’s like she has worked in a private work bunker and now her safety was exposed. She was uneasy.
Covid has changed our world. Could it really be over? Will we go back to the way things were? Is that possible? Will we go back to interacting with people the way we used to?
I wonder if we liked the separation and coldness of our interactions? We didn’t have to try as hard to be friendly, kind, and understood. We didn’t have to mingle and get close to people that were outside of our family and friend group. Masks and glass barriers were like safety blankets.
What else have we gotten used to? What else is normal that was not normal that long ago? Humanity has always been resilient and adapting.
The biggest thing that we will never get used to is death. Death is the great enemy that most of us spend our lives avoiding or ignoring. We can’t adapt to the idea that this is all there is. The desire to live is embedded deep in our souls. The thought of nothing beyond this life takes incredible denial to accept.
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11
This week I have been confronted by the great enemy three times. Family, friends, and people I love have experienced a reminder of brevity of life. All sudden, all soon, and all deeply hard. We can’t get used to it!
Scripture teaches us that this life is not all there is. It teaches that there is hope beyond the sting of death. There is still something to fight for and to never get used to. Just as God has planted eternity in the human heart, He has conquered eternal death.
Jesus was talking to His friend Martha standing outside the tomb of His friend and her brother as they grieved the loss of Lazarus:
“Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”” John 11:25-26
This shifts our minds from death as the end. We don’t have to get used to death. We can embrace life. In the New Testament, we learn that Jesus conquered death. He has the keys to life and draws all people to Himself.
After I paid for my prescription at the Pharmacy, I reflected on all the changes the past two years have brought. I thought about the things we have gotten used to, adjusted, and changed. Most likely, there is no going back. But for now, barriers are removed from us and the pharmacy tech.
In this life, death’s ugly appearance can’t be ignored. It seems to have won this week. It’s win is short lived! It will not have victory. Jesus has that. We won’t get used to it. We will still fight it. We will still hate it. We will mourn, we will cry, we will get angry, but we will not lose hope.
“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”” 1 Corinthians 15:54-55
ray on life 