I am tired of being angry, sad, and discontented about the issues as if I had no power to do something about it. I am not powerless, and neither are you.
We have all lost something during this COVID 19 pandemic, and often it is hard to put our finger on just exactly what that is. With every loss comes a period of mourning, then it is time to get up, dust ourselves off and get to work on defeating the real enemy. The five stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Oh no this can’t be happening. Well guess what? It did, it is. We live with it for a bit and think this staying at home might not be half bad, then reality sets in and we realize nothing is the same, things are no longer in our control, so we become anxious, afraid and anger sets in. We begin bargaining like children saying if life returns to “normal” I promise I’ll do this or will no longer do this. When we don’t get the results we were looking for, we get discouraged and depressed. Finally, we realize this is true, it is happening, and life will not be the same as before. The key is to move through all these phases, because unfortunately where we usually get stuck in is anger or depression or both and this is never a good place to be. As Danny Gokey says in his song, It’s time to “tell your heart to beat again.
This is war and what I’ve learned is that we still have a battle to win and being stuck isn’t going to help us win. The late James Bond Stockdale was a United States Navy vice admiral and aviator awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War, during which he was a prisoner of war for over seven years. He said “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted that I would get out, and that I would prevail in the end. I would turn my experience in prison into the defining event of my life.”
When asked who didn’t make it, he said “the optimists.” When they thought they would get out by Christmas and it didn’t happen, then they would look forward to Easter, then summer and fall and it would come and go and still no release they gave in to discouragement. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Proverbs 13:12. He said these men died of a broken heart.
Stockdale went on to say “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” For us this means we are all quarantined, but we will get out. The question is what will that look like? Will we cry all the way, or will this be our finest hour?
Right now, we are in the battle of our lives and it isn’t Corona Virus. It is a philosophy that the Progressive movement driven by a small group of elites have managed to convince us that what they are promoting is good, when it is evil as evil can be. They promote death of babies, the aged, disabled. They enslave children in the sex trade and are working to take our freedoms given us in our constitution. Concerning the economy, it would be ok with them if it all fell apart because they would then take control. This is the time that we have to take up arms and fight for all that is ours. We do NOT have the luxury of feeling sorry for ourselves. We have a battle to win. We have to help the many really good principle centered candidates win. Many will be Republicans, but make no mistake there are many really good Democrat candidates who loathe what has happened in their party and are working to take back what is theirs. We cannot be fighting with each other. We can fight for the bone once we get it, but for now let’s get it. We have to be like our President. While the left is spreading hate and discontent, he is busy accomplishing the goals he set out for our country. When they were trying to impeach him, he was working on trade agreements that benefit our country. He has his sights set and doesn’t have time to get stuck in the muck and the mire. He has too much to accomplish, and so do we.
Early voting starts May 5th and we need to tun out in record numbers. The sad reality is that just over half of the voting population exercise their right to vote, then complain about their circumstances. I believe that if you don’t or won’t vote, you have no voice or right to complain. Get out there and vote. We need to make certain this election cycle that all those we know and support our causes vote. We woke up in 2019, let’s make sure we are still awake. Let’s make this our finest hour.