One Hundred and Five Days of Being Closed - Hang On

In this last week I've heard about several people making major life changing decisions that have been provoked by lockdown. No one was making these changes earlier on this crisis yet now they feel able to recognise what isn't working and walk away.

There seems to be a general uneasiness about. Things are getting better but the anxiety and uncertainty are not going away. Perhaps it's just all the frustration of three months of severe restrictions on our lives that is making its way out.

Alongside this is a sense that we are almost there. The end could be in sight. We've seen other nations start to meet and make progress. But we still need to be careful and we don't want to see any more dying or death because we've all had enough. In amongst this, it seems that people have lost confidence in our government who send out ever more confusing messages about what we can and can't do and exactly when and how we are to do it. They try to control things with finely detailed regulations while relying on people's common sense when the risk assessments don't apply.

The frustration has bubbled over into two major stabbings, street parties that can't be broken up and city celebrations that will not heed the advice of local leaders. The hot weather hasn't helped. People get tired and grumpy when they can't sleep because of the heat.

It seems to me that we are now at the point of this rollercoaster ride of a pandemic where we hope that we've been through the last loop and just need to hold on tightly to get to the end. There's that sense of soon being able to get off and stand on solid ground again. As long as there isn't a hidden drop that they haven't told us about.

My hope is that the natural tendency to preserve ourselves will keep us cautious and alert. Who wants to catch the deadly virus now when the ride is nearly over? The number of people on the beach at Bournemouth this week would argue against this perhaps.

We are continuing to pray that God's hand will be upon our nation. That he will protect and guide us to the other side of this tie of trial. Now is the time to increase our prayers. Now is the time to be kind and generous, defusing tensions rather than adding to them. Now is the time when we must work even harder to overcome evil with good. May God be with us all.