When a pandemic brings an entire planet to a standstill, it really can feel like the end of the world. And if you are a senior in high school or college, there is this sense of missing some important milestones: Senior prom, graduation, state or division championships, final games, and the list could go on. Let’s take a moment and say THESE ARE REAL FEELINGS! Sure, no senior worth their salt is going to compare that sense of loss to someone dealing with the actual virus, or a family situation where mom and dad are now unemployed. Still, it’s ok to be disappointed and even mourn the loss of moments never had. So, take a day and lament by binge-watching something mindless or emotional while eating all the leftover Easter candy in your favorite worn-out PJ’s. Then go to bed and sleep off the sugar coma.
New day. New mindset. Here we go.
Wake up and dream.
Think thoughts you’ve never thought before.
Research problems and injustices that bother you but you’ve never known the full story.
Ask questions that don’t end with question marks, but demand a response.
Find solutions in the confines of quarantine and let your imagination soar, NOW, before social distancing is over.
Let the margin created by a mysterious and narcissistically shifty virus be the margin you need to discover the dream God wants to create in you.
And as you do, remember, this isn’t the first zombie-apocalypse the world has seen, and it won’t be the last. But it is, most likely, the only one of this magnitude you and I will experience in our lifetimes. Consider this truth: the best dreams are born in a culture or world where the problems seem like pandemics. It’s a sobering logic that we stop imagining a better world beyond us when the immediate world around us feels comfortable. In other words, this crisis is an opportunity for your creativity.
So I ask you, “What’s your post-apocalypse-zombie dream?” How are you redeeming this time so that others will see the Redeemer in you? I urge you, I plead with you, don’t settle for just ‘hanging in there’ waiting for this to pass. After all, self-preservation never changed the world. Rather I hope your mentality is one of ‘holding on’ with great expectation…anticipating…believing…that God can use one dreamer in quarantine to change the world.