In the Midst of Pandemic Battleground, Holiday season- (Laboratory Scene)

It’s the holiday season again. As 2020 came to an end we celebrated the most joyful time of the year, the birth of our Savior!

I’m so excited for a new year and so ready for 2020 to be done!

It’s Christmas morning! I wanted this day to be special and memorable for our children.

We had enough time for them to open their presents and share the Word of God about what Christmas is all about before heading out to work.

I was grateful that I still had a few hours to spend with my family this Christmas morning.

With a full and joyful heart, I was ready for work!

It started really great and I greeted everyone with a cheerful smile and said Merry Christmas to everyone I met.

We know we will be busy as we have been fighting this pandemic since March but didn’t expect it to be like a warzone this holiday and the next couple weeks.

As time progressed so did our patients and work load.

Phones were ringing like crazy, preparing blood for transfusions, calling critical calls, and hearing the intercom for succeeding rapid response and coded patients.

In my mind, “what is going on?!”

“Pandemic, duh?” I tell myself.

We were so used to working like it’s normal already. A lot of changes every week about collecting, testing and where to send some of our COVID test orders. New codes to use to enter results. New supplies almost every month. New instructions and changes in ordering COVID tests and new machines to work with.

These changes were good though. Everyone was trying their best in coping with all these changes that SARSCoV-2 is giving us.

Crazy busy (as I call it) went on throughout the next days to over 2 weeks now. Some supplies are getting low (nationwide as well), managing what needs to be done first, analyzing test results, saving samples, ordering supplies and reagents, troubleshooting machines, maintenance,  QC on the tests we run, calibrations in between, and running COVID tests, and preparing Convalescent plasmas for COVID patients and other blood products.

Whew!

At this point, I feel like my brain is fried already!

This is just all in the lab setting. Emergency room is swamped and expanded to other areas in the hospital.

Most of our in-patients are all COVID-19 positive and in isolation rooms.

ICU has expanded to 3 different areas already. I don’t even know where they are anymore.

Some have worked 12 days straight ranging from 10-16 hours per shift. I even spoke to one of the nurses in ER. Some of them are even doing 24 hr shifts.

One morning as we continued in our usual busy times, a colleague of mine came up to me and said that she’s hoping that today will be a better day.

She came closer to me and whispered, “I’m praying to God to make this (pandemic) go away but it’s still here. Am I not praying this right Christine?” she asked.

“I know you read the Word of God. That is why I’m asking you this” she said in a quite voice.

I can see she’s wondering when will this pandemic end and fear in her eyes. She’s in her late 50’s and still working tirelessly helping us in the lab. I can see she’s already exhausted too.. A lot of us are.

As I’m hearing this from her. I asked God right away, praying in silence while listening to her, to let His Holy Spirit guide me and to speak through me.

“It’s not that God doesn’t hear you, but because He is Sovereign, His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. I really don’t know the answer to this question. All I know is that we are to trust Him. It maybe hard to see where this is going but what I remember from scriptures is that God wants us to be joyful and grateful even in the midst of trials. This (pandemic) may be the time to wake us up and get ready because He is coming back soon.”

I went on to say…

“Trials are good for us. In my experience, I would not have grown in Spirit if not for the trials that I’ve been through. And I thank God for all of them. The most beautiful and sparkling diamond is the one that was honed the most. Gold is refined through fire. So are we through tribulations in life. We just need to keep trusting Him and be joyful always as this is what He commands us to do. We will get through this.”

I thought of sharing my conversation with a friend to her too. Thinking she might need to hear this as well.

“A friend of mine asked me if I’m afraid that my kids or myself will die from COVID-19 if ever we get it. I told her that the time of my birth and the time of my death has already been set. It’s all in His hands. I will not let fear steal my joy and my strength. I already told my family that if I die physically, then rejoice since my soul and spirit will be in the presence of the Lord. If God takes my kids early in life, I will mourn (for I will miss them) and also be glad for they are with Him (will be excited to see them again when the time comes).”

“So let’s continue to be joyful even in the midst of all these chaos! ” I told her.

My colleague said she was blessed to hear these words and comforted her.

“I needed to hear this and now I understand” she said.

We hugged each other so tight.

I can see hope in her eyes and a smile on her face behind her mask as she was saying in a positive tone…

“We’ll get through this! We will!” she said.

“We will, Praise the Lord!” I replied.

I’m compelled to share a glimpse of what we go through in this time. Not to be praised for what we do but to encourage, give hope and to inspire you to keep moving on and know that God is real and He hears us in whatever battles we’re in.

You maybe like my colleague wondering when this pandemic will end or will it end?

Wondering when the storms in our life, not just COVID-19, gonna end.

We may never know the answer to these questions.

We may see suffering, pain, tears, mourning and sorrow now but God is in the process of making something beautiful out of all these.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”- Joshua 1:9

Physical death is inevitable. But death’s sting is powerless when you have Christ reign in your heart.

This world is falling apart but my hope is not of this world but of my Savior, Jesus.

My joy and strength comes from Him.

SARSCoV-2 can destroy you, in different aspects of your life, if you let it. It could be from the news or social media or see people struggling to survive from this disease or have died from it or going through it and recovering from it right now.

You have a choice. We all have a choice to how this shapes our lives.

And not just COVID-19 but everything around us.

What evil meant to harm us, God is turning that for good.

Let’s turn our eyes on Jesus and we will be guided with wisdom from above all the days of our lives.

Let’s continue to love, continue to forgive, and continue to be joyful giving thanks to God the Father through Christ, Jesus.

Loving always,

Christine