About 1 and a half months have passed since writing the last post – however, it was not unwarranted. I had caught the all too notorious COVID-19 in the mid of January, and I, unfortunately, have injured my hands during semester two of last year as I typed too much. During this time, I’ve never felt so powerless and weak in my life. A deep-seated malaise and exhaustion seemed to discolour reality. Isolation in my room for seven days felt like imprisonment, in which any youthful vigour that I had was replaced by the fatigue of the virus. Yet, the feeling of lethargy constantly dragged me to sleep, in which I would sometimes nap twice during the days of isolation. Hence, the days consist of napping, waking up feeling groggy, napping, watching a movie, then returning to sleep for the day.
Without my hands, I lost the avenues in which I could express myself and think. I couldn’t play the piano, journal, or write. As a result, my brain felt clogged. Moreover, it was difficult to concentrate to even read or listen to audiobooks.
Though it sounds like quite a dispiriting time, the experience was not all bad, however. As seven days of isolation seemed an eternity, I had a broad expanse of essentially uninterrupted time to decide to fill. Amidst the challenge that comes with recovering, some of the time was filled with phone and zoom conversations with friends. That in my vulnerability, I had others to rely upon.
There was a close friend whom I was surprised to know had gotten COVID-19 at the same time independently of me. Hence with both voids of time to fill, a few days was spent catching up, discussing from books to ambitions in life to church history, with one zoom call totalling three and a half hours. Despite our vulnerabilities, we were able to share our burdens together. It was during this time that I had a greater understanding of the saying that “a burden shared is a burden halved.”
Recovering from this state has been slow, but sure. I had recently gotten my booster shot yesterday, and it feels like having COVID-19 all over again – as you can tell from the scattered writing of this post. In this powerless season of my life, Paul’s writing ever rings through:
7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 ESV
In my weakness, I was humbled. In my weakness, I had nowhere else to turn but God for mercy and sustenance. In my weakness, His grace is sufficient. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
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