In the Old Testament book of Numbers 14: 33 God tells Moses that the children of Israel will “wander in the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness”. So in the current coronavirus crisis there are people who are suffering and lost in their own wilderness of lockdown and government restrictions. Those that do not have internet access, those who due to health or physical reasons are unable to leave their own four walls and therefore unable to communicate with anyone in the outside world.
These people are the ones ‘lost in the wilderness’ of coronavirus, unable to see any way forward for themselves, too scared to venture out with all the anxiety that going out brings to them. As such bringing on a pandemic of a mental health crisis all on its own.
So can we see a future when things will go back to normal. People talk of the ‘new’ normal but what does that mean. Until a vaccine is found, for many there is no new normal, so what can be done to help those who are ‘lost in the wilderness’?
Those of us lucky enough to have internet access on a laptop, mobile or iPad, we can communicate with each other via email, Zoom or Skype services. But there is a lost generation of those who have no such devices and as such they are missing out – lost in the wilderness – of non-communication and missing the everyday social interaction of conversation, fellowship and for us Christians, weekly Sunday services in church.
The church will hopefully re-open soon and our ‘normal’ as much as it can be under Covid-19 restrictions can resume, but at what cost to those who for the last 6 months have had no normal. Let’s hope we can re-kindle that Christian spirit and fellowship that we had before this pandemic in the weeks and months to come.
Keith Ramsay