I know we are all in the midst of biggest crisis we’ve ever faced in my lifetime–and I’m 60. It is unprecedented, which adds to the temptation to be anxious. In times like this it is good to pause and look up. Instead of focusing on what’s for dinner or if your symptoms are serious or just allergies, why not look up at the big picture?

As long as the earth has existed there have been challenges, diseases, wars and uncertainty. One thing that has always happened is that life goes on. We will recover from this pandemic. There will be Summer and Fall and Winter, unless the Lord returns. So how will we remember this crisis?

Have you thought that your children and grandchildren are living in days they will talk about for the rest of their lives? This pandemic will be studied in history classes 50 years from now. It is a history making event. This makes how we display our response to our children critical.

Will they see you both making the most of the time together, or worried and anxious? Will they remember quality time spent? Or will they wish they could escape for some much needed peace? Take some time and consider your honest answers to these questions.

I have learned that most often our response to difficulty is more important than surviving the difficulty itself. What has been your response so far?

Our daughter’s neighborhood is doing a fun thing to make this experience a memorable event for their children. Residents were invited to place teddy bears in the windows of their homes (see photo above) looking out at the street. As people were out taking a much needed walk, they were encouraged to “spot the bears” from the street, take a photo and send the total number of bears spotted to one email address. What a great way to add some fun the kids will remember.

Another neighborhood had neighbors write positive encouraging messages on the road and sidewalks using chalk, so neighbors could read them as they walk around the block.

How about setting up lawn chairs in your driveways and visiting with neighbors from your own property? Social distancing, but still interacting neighbor to neighbor.

If you don’t have children at home, this is a great opportunity to get some much needed projects done around the house: painting, organizing, spring cleaning and gardening. We don’t have to let the stress of COVID-19 penetrate our every waking thought. God is in control and we can trust Him.

Let’s be smart and make the most of the time. Remember the big picture and how this event will be remembered by our children and grandchildren–long after we’re gone. It matters more than we know.

“What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life – to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” – George Eliot