Surrendering in the Lockdown

I’m not a morning person. But I was awake at 5am on Monday morning. That acid gnawing away at the lining of my stomach. Just the night before, a friend messaged to ask how we’re doing at home with the kids. Sitting tight, I said. Just trying to lift my eyes up and get on my knees.

Although to be honest I haven’t succeeded. I’ve been watching the news. Monitoring social media posts. Reading articles. And in the past couple of weeks I’ve felt like a rabbit in the headlights, my eyes widening like saucers as each day I digest the next installment. Paralysed.

We’re taking it all in. Burdened with big decisions and small time to lose. As the saying goes… “What a year this week has been!”.

There were the first COVID-19 cases in South Africa a couple of weeks ago. Then the President’s address.  School closures. Gatherings of over 100 banned. We try to act wisely, feeling the weight of responsibility to make sure our kids stay safe and understand the situation without becoming too anxious. We send our helper on paid leave, concerned that our public transport systems are high-risk viral transmission capsules.

At my husband’s business, we migrate from hand washing conversations to business closing conversations in a matter of days. His employees are vulnerable – one diabetic, one in his seventies. One lives in a densely populated township averaging 12000 people per square kilometre. Our families are vulnerable – we’ve been figuring out how to advise aging parents. We read an epidemiologist’s report on how critical social distancing is, and the hysterical maths of exponential growth. We cancel Sunday’s family lunch.

All the while we watch what is happening globally. First Wuhan, China in lock down. Harsh consequences for non-compliance. Europeans short on hospital beds. America short on test kits. We thought it romantic watching all the Italians sing Nessum Dorma from the balconies of their locked down apartments, until we saw military in the streets and pictures of the insides of their hospitals. We slowly become aware of the complete inadequacy of the healthcare system to handle the influx, and the dreadful decisions doctors have to make about who to put on respiratory machines. In many hospitals around the world it’s no longer a first-come-first-served basis – but rather about figuring out who is most likely to survive.

We video call our family in Germany – they are home, healthy, watching and waiting. We cancelled our two-week trip to see them as they go into shut down. Over 38000 infections and 200 deaths in week 9. On Sunday the German Chancellor banned meetings of more than 2 people.  

Here in Johannesburg, after the initial panic buying, there is an eerie and increasing silence in the streets and public spaces. We take in the stats – 50 million people in SA and about 3000 high care beds available. We hear rumours of the dire lack of protective equipment and hand sanitizer and see messages that good Samaritans are jumping on board to try and help. A doctor (who is pregnant) posts her concern about the working conditions she will face at a local government hospital.  She and her husband are preparing their wills as they’re not sure what the future will hold for them.

The thunderstorms have been doing their seasonal rounds in Joburg and I drive past the spruit where someone has been swept away in a flash flood. Four or five emergency vehicles and a search and rescue team are on it. I marvel at the ratio of emergency services to persons in need and think how all that will change in the not too distant future.  I pass a homeless boy holding up a begging sign – a weak attempt at a joke written on it. I try to look intently at his face and see if there’s a flicker of recognition of what we’re about to face – but it’s deadpan.

I talk to the guy at the sewing shop down the road. He’s from Zimbabwe. He tells me of his elderly mother who lives in Harare, who gets up at night trying to make use of the intermittent power spells for her sewing business. Water supply is uncertain. Sometimes it’s contaminated with sewerage. Hospitals are dysfunctional with few doctors and little medicines. My heart fills with dread at the thought of this virus ravaging through Zim.

All the while, there are the overshadowed news reports of hundreds of billions of locust swarms in East Africa, with Kenya having its worst outbreak in 70 years. As airlines are grounded, borders are closed, and international aid redirected towards the Coronavirus, the fight against the locusts is waning and food security in the region is under threat.

Lord, have mercy.

The theme song playing in my head is “Into the unknown”.  I’m desperate to know what to do. How to handle this… how to help. We may be ok, but what about others? What will become of the planet? How long will it last and how deep the effects? And the anxiety rises up…

This is unchartered territory. It’s the third world war that we speculated about but never dreamed the form. It’s history in the making and we will all be telling this story to our children’s children one day. 

Here’s the catch. Right now I can’t DO anything. I’m being told to stay home and lock down. It feels so counterintuitive to the desperate need I have to try and fix something. To take action. To take up arms…

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”*

That’s what Moses told the Israelites when they had an angry army of Egyptians in hot pursuit as they approached the Red Sea. This must have been one of the most anxious moments for a nation in all history. They thought they were all about to die. “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?”, they asked Moses. They thought slavery in Egypt would have been a better deal.

And then the miraculous happened… the Lord saved the Israelite nation by opening up the sea and allowing them to pass through on dry ground.  And then allowing it to flow back and swallow up the enemies.

Wow! Unexpected relief.

I’m grateful to be reminded of this verse. Because when we are facing an enemy, trusting God often means to be still, to surrender.

The goal of the Exodus was worship. God spoke through his servant Moses to tell the enemy “let my people go so that… they may WORSHIP me.” Sadly, it’s in our nature to worship something or someone else. But God is still in the rescue business – rescuing us from our being slaves, to worship the true God.

So, is the real enemy the Coronavirus? Or is it those things that we are really and practically enslaved to – materialism, success, lusts of the flesh, technology and screens – the insatiable desire for more of what this world has to offer? Those things that never satisfy?

Lock down starts tonight at midnight in South Africa. All except essential services will be closed and the military and police will be patrolling the streets. How will we face this time in which we feel the anxiety of a global pandemic, but have limited power to act?

Let’s see this battle for what it really is. The battle for the human heart. It’s time to be still, be on our knees, and to ask the Lord for true deliverance.

* Exodus 14:14