I’m sure you have all heard about the news that a vaccine for COVID 19 with a 90% success rate has been developed in the US. And so, the virus will most likely controlled by next year. There is some relief from the fact that the end is in sight. I felt a somewhat strange and unfamiliar emotion from having heard this good news. A mix of sadness and anxiety.

You may be wondering why in the world I would feel sadness about the end of a virus that brought so much pain to people in this world. However, I would explain this emotion by stating that we had all experienced a new type of pain over a long period of time, but we are going back to normal before we managed to really learn something – about which I feel a little regret.

After the sin committed by Adam and Eve, sin entered this world, after which everything fell into ruin. However, God sent us His only Son Jesus Christ, who sacrificed Himself on the cross, through which the problem of sin was resolved. The salvation that was given as a result was not one that simply returned us to our previous sinless state. In Romans 5, Paul compares Jesus to Adam – as the second Adam – and emphasises the abundance of grace that was given.

And so, amidst the positive news about a vaccine for this virus, I took the time to look back upon what I had learned during this pandemic. There were definitely many things I felt and learned about my ministry, giving me direction in what I would need to work on improving. However, I cannot confidently say that I have managed to address the problems that I still have, from which I felt anxiety. The Lord had taught us a lot about direction, but I would still need to request for a lot of His grace in order to properly understand how to apply it into my life. Without it, just like a treasure buried in the ground, His teaching will stay as a teaching, and it will not be able to bear fruit within my life – something that I would find deeply regretful.

In our lives, whether it be due to our incorrect choices, or things – like this pandemic – completely out of our control, we will inevitably face pain and go through painful moments. Just like how Henri Nouwen teaches to befriend your pain, pain is something that will always find a way into our lives. As such, considering pain unfamiliar, suffering and waiting only for the pain to pass is too complacent an attitude. If pain and suffering is inevitable, we should accept it courageously, and try to use it as a catalyst to improve ourselves. God often uses pain as a tool to refine us and make us whole.

If you spend your times of darkness trembling in fear and consumed by hatred, those times will just be points in your life that you had suffered through, but if you use that time to refine yourself and become mature. And so, we should spend the remaining time before the end of the pandemic further refining ourselves

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:3-4)