Who would have thought that in one’s lifetime a pandemic as severe as this would occur? I never imagined that the time would come when my life would come a grinding halt. And a sudden and shocking one at that.
Over the weekend, I lost my daily routine of going to the office and going to church on weekends. I was optimistic at first, naively I thought they couldn’t halt businesses. The economy would suffer. How will people buy food, etc? But then the unimaginable happened.
Businesses closed. As the country’s biggest malls closed their doors, so did hundreds of businesses and offices. Restaurants were limited to take outs and deliveries. People were forced to stay inside their homes. Regardless if you will have sustained income to last you a month indoors.
It was a good thing that flow of basic goods remained unhampered. Local governments scrambled to implement guidelines and policies such as quarantine passes, market day schedules and the like.
I thought the month long lockdown (technically called enhanced community quarantine) will not last a month. Again, naively, I thought it will be over before the month is up. But as the days progressed, and the cases rose, the government had to choice but to continue the lockdown even beyond the original end date.
Now, my wedding has been postponed – a bit indefinitely – as we are still unsure of the impact of this pandemic.
Now, I have become more pragmatic as to the effects of the current situation – to my life, to the community around me, to my country and to the world as a whole. This is definitely historically and life changing.
And I can imagine how hard it must be to be in power these days. As we are plunged to great uncertainties, making decisions we don’t really know will be true in a month – or even a week’s time – I can only imagine how tough it must be for the people in government to also make plans and decisions.
Will they choose to extend the lockdown seeing as there is no immediate solution to the pandemic? It’s still ballooning. But if they continue on this path, the number of hungry Filipinos will increase and economy will keep on suffering to a point where it will be very hard to bounce back. Finding the balance between saving the economy and saving lives is tough. In each side, there are bound to be casualties.
I tried to look at the history of pandemics to see how we fare with time. As they say, history repeats itself – it is up to us to learn from it. The worst pandemic in history is the 1918 Spanish flu. About a hundred years from today. Around 500 million worldwide died.
There were other pandemics over the course of the hundred years – the most recent being the H1N1 swine flu of 2009. I thought back to my life then. Where was I? What was happening to me? Was I aware there was a pandemic? I heard about it in the news. But did I feel it? My life seemed to move on as normal. It was the year I graduated from school and the year I landed my first job. All seemed normal.
Yet today, I doubt there is a single Filipino who isn’t aware what is happening. Not just because they watch it in the news but feel it in their daily lives. The curfew hours. The restricted movements. The long days. Everyone has been forced to lead a new norm.
I believe that this too shall pass. I believe that, as always, we will bounce back. After all, God who remains in control will not allow harm to come to us. The virus may strike and death may stare us in the face – but His promises remain true forever. At the same time I believe that in the aftermath He will be with us. He will remain steadfast in His promises for guidance and provision. This I believe – not naively – but with practical faith.
And so as I spend my days doing the things I once didn’t have the time to do, I find myself strangely at peace – the peace that only Jesus can bring. The days may be long and the future uncertain, but with God, everything is OK.
