A friend quarantined with COVID said, “We haven’t been to church in a month or inside a business, and we have COVID!” They are not alone. The culprit seems to be lurking around every corner and slinking in under locked doors. There seems to be no escaping it!

However, it’s not because we aren’t trying. In fact, whole continents are divided over how to avoid the virus while maintaining a level of normalcy. It’s a difficult task. Masks or no masks controversies continue to make the news. Research information contradicts itself continuously, which leaves parents in a quandary about how to best protect their children.

I’ve become fascinated with the growing variety of ways offered as protective measures.  We drove through a toll bridge this past week, and every toll collector was wearing rubber gloves. Gloves, rubber ones, appear to be a common commodity in our lives.

Sanitizers and nifty means of sharing it are located throughout stores along with sanitizing wipes for everything human hands might touch. If hand sanitizers really work, there should never be a need to wash our hands due to the quantity and availability of the germ-killing concoction.

Masks will be a permanent part of the last two years’ history. Their variety is endless and a lot are very clever. When masks were first seen as the best preventive measure, cloth ones were sold in stores and stitched up as the homemade variety. I had a half dozen in my purse at one time. Then we found out the cloth ones can’t keep out the microscopic germs, so people began investing in the tried-and-true more expensive ones.

Last week I saw a fashion mask. It could be worn as a mask, but while eating it slipped around the neck as a scarf — all the while protecting the wearer, or does it?

On my last eye appointment, I discovered another measure created by someone insistent on avoiding the germ. The sign-in electronic device was a touch pad, but I needn’t panic with all those germs hiding out on the screen. A box of rubber, fingertip covers offered protection while touching the screen. I declined the offer. I have enough trouble in the grocery produce department trying to open the plastic bags without licking my fingers to free the opening!

I guess the worst part of protecting ourselves is our avoidance of touching one another. Hugs and close proximity are no longer acceptable in health conscious humans. Knuckle bumps which hold absolutely no sense of affection or greeting have replaced hugs and handshakes. Sad times.

Yet, it’s dark times too. People everywhere are going to great lengths to do all that’s available to avoid getting the virus — it doesn’t matter which strain. And yet, we are all born with a damming “virus” called sin that can only be dealt with by the cleansing blood of Jesus. Without accepting this free gift of grace, purchased by the perfect Lamb of God, we face an eternal dilemma much more serious than any strain of COVID.

Thomas Brooks, a Puritan preacher, spoke truth to all generations of mankind:  “Sin is the most infectious plague in the world.” While so many go to great lengths to avoid COVID, the life-saving “vaccine “ that Jesus offers is seldom considered. Blind times!

 

Letters to Camille Anding can be sent to P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS, 39602, or e-mailed to camille@datalane.net.