Words

We all must learn to tap into our frustration, anger, and even sadness, and let it out, not as an act of vengeance or grief but as a salve to a world that is bleeding from ignoring its own wounds.

–Jeff Goins

Writing has always been a release for me. While it does tend to exert a pressure of its own in that words compel me to express them, when I push past the resistance and get it all down, I am lighter.

These days have been heavy ones, and a lighter way of being feels welcome.

But when I think of trying to put the past six months into words, I experience the oddest combination of emotions all at once rising up like a panic cocktail bubbling forth and refusing to be ignored. This is not something I want to word.

Am I ignoring my own wounds? Is my reticence to share what’s going on in my head and heart feeding some larger societal problem of failure to express? There’s certainly no shortage of expression on social media, to be sure. I fight the urge to scream my head off most days, but a social media platform just doesn’t feel like the best place to try to make sense of something that seems like an insidious, unnamed disease.

Since March I have felt like everything about the coronavirus was “off”. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it, and when I told someone it didn’t feel right in my spirit, he wanted me to elaborate and I couldn’t. I just knew something wasn’t right with what I was hearing, and I felt it soul-deep.

Over the past weeks, I have begun to learn things that explain why I’ve felt such stirrings of “This is wrong. This is just plain wrong.”

Any time I have questioned the narrative surrounding this virus, I’ve often been ignored or shouted down as a conspiracy theorist, because everybody knows if you question the accepted narrative, you think the virus is fake. I’ve been told that clearly, I have not lost anyone to Covid or I would be more sensitive. I lost two people near and dear to my heart. To Covid. Thanks for asking.

It is increasingly clear that this virus has become a political manipulation tool—if it wasn’t one from the start—and I daresay that by and large we as a people have shown an alarming willingness to shut up and do as we are told. The irony of We the People of the USA responding with such placidity is not lost on me.

Not far into the pandemic, it was discovered that a specific drug safely in use for the past 65 years was being used to successfully treat Covid and was saving lives. Suddenly, it was attacked as dangerous and pharmacists were forbidden from prescribing it for the virus. A few weeks later, we sent thousands of doses to Brazil to help them fight Covid.

A group of esteemed doctors stepped out from among their colleagues and spoke the truth about their experience with treating patients successfully with that drug, and those doctors were immediately attacked and censored. They lost their website. Some lost their jobs.

Something is seriously wrong here.

I have questioned the masking mandates and was told I am selfish and irresponsible and want old people and the immunocompromised to die. I love both groups and want them all to live long and healthy lives. I also like to breathe. At the beginning of the virus scare, we were told masks do nothing to prevent the spread of viruses, and scientific studies were presented as evidence. Shortly thereafter, the “science” changed and suddenly, everyone had to mask up for the good of everyone else’s health. I have quoted peer-reviewed studies stating the ineffectiveness of masks along with their negative effects on health. More name-calling and laughter—or, at best, a pat on the head and a run-along, crazy lady.

I am not stupid. I am not ignorant. I am not out to cause a ruckus.

I am a rule-follower. I also hate confrontation. So make no mistake: to take a firm stand against a mandate and a widely-accepted narrative has taken a courage I had to fight for, dig down deep for, literally beg God for, because typically, I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of girl if it will keep the peace.

And peace? Well, it is a gift I greatly prize, particularly within my family—a gift I have lately had to pray my hardest to even momentarily feel.

This has been anything but a peaceful time in our nation. In typical election year fashion, people groups are being pitted against one another and strife is stirred to keep the masses in chaos while one political figure after another releases a barrage of verbal attacks and threats. This election year is one for the books.

This year will be remembered as one of the most tumultuous in history.

One gratitude that I will not allow to go unexpressed is the small group of people who have stepped in as my tribe through all of this. You know who you are, and I pray that God blesses you immensely.

So here I am, offering out this expression as my word-balm for the bleeding world to encourage you, cherished reader, to make the effort to acknowledge your wounds, word them, and then let them heal.

My hope is that if we muster that courage, we will feel less alone.