In the First Days of COVID-19, the Lord Appeared to Me
Amy, 18, Colorado, USA
My boyfriend cheated on me two months ago, on my birthday. It goes without saying that I was shattered. For the first few days, I was a wreck. I just cried. Then, out of nowhere, God appeared.
He came to me as a whisper: “I’m right here. You’re not alone.” I then remembered the words of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: “Love is patient, love is kind…love never fails.” It then hit me that God — who IS love — would never fail me. I’d been hurt, but I found comfort in the fact that God’s love would prevail. I trusted Him.
After the break up, my life seemed to be improving. I was doing well, emotionally and spiritually. I was only a few months away from my high school graduation. On top of all of that, my basketball team won the first game of the state tournament and had a real shot at winning. Then, like everyone else, I watched my plans fall apart. Coronavirus.
State tournament? Cancelled. Graduation? Not happening. All of this hard work with no reward? I was destroyed. In no time at all, every shred of normalcy was stripped from me. I cried when my coach told us the news and, for a while there, I couldn’t stop.
But then, again, the love of God was made apparent to me. As our team returned home, our community greeted us as if we’d won. We were given a police escort and our town came out to cheer us on.
During all of this, my awareness of the Holy Spirit was almost overwhelming; there was just this unbelievable outpour of His love. I felt God saying to me, “I love you and so do all of these people. This hurts now, but this is going to become beautiful. It’s not just pain, it’s preparation.” God’s love prevails; that is His promise. And this promise will carry us through this.
Though we might feel alone at times — as I felt after my breakup and as many of us are feeling during this pandemic — we must remember that we are NEVER alone. Jesus makes that abundantly clear: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). And earlier, in Joshua 1:5, the Lord says, “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.” He is with us, always. He is with us, He is for us, and He never loses.