Thoughts on the 2020 Pandemic

By Andrea Erickson Lindsey

I have had some thoughts rattling around in my head and I am sharing them not to shine a light on my circumstances and me but rather show how the Lord is changing me to receive His light that perhaps it may be helpful in some way to someone. I am aware that while my experience with Covid-19 is very individual I also have a connection with everyone in the world right now. That is the amazing thing! We are all connected by a common commotion, though our individual circumstances very e the whole world experiencing this together. It is also my hope that as you read my individual experience and feel so inspired to share your unique story of how you have also seen the hand of the Lord during in your life and the life of your family in this difficult time.

This pandemic’s breadth and duration has tested more and more of the family of God. Many are experiencing shortages in food, cleaning supplies, and much needed medical supplies. Yet lack of preparations of a physical nature is only part of the shortages we are experiencing. Many have been pushed emotionally, mentally and spiritually to the edge of their abilities while seeking to protect their families while homeschooling their children and working from home. Vital truthful information is difficult to detect because of faulty test kits, and skewed test results. Some in positions of power seek to improve their personal reputation, monetary advantage instead of seeking to truly benefit those who have been hit hardest by this crisis.

Perhaps we have even been brave enough to see that our own personal preparations are not enough. I know I have. We are not alone in this struggle and we can discern what is right for our families and how to move forward in this global pandemic. Amidst all the confusion I know there is a steady and unyielding voice of the Spirit of the Lord reaching for us to listen. This kind and loving voice is the voice of God speaking to His children. His is the voice of relief, kindness, and patience endurance. The main condition required by us to hear Him is our own willingness to keep His commandments and be true to the truths we know by His Spirit. Whether we are aware of it or not we are all children of that loving Heavenly Father. He is full of grace and has all wisdom. While we may call him by different names it really doesn’t matter, He is God and He is in charge. He is not at all stingy or impatient with his guidance nor does he get angry when we are lost and ask for help. He is a perfect and loving God that doesn’t micromanage us and he expects us to choose Him because we want to. He requires our participation in listening and if we meet those requirements there are no shortages, illnesses or disadvantages that cannot be turned to our growth.

If we can accept the reality of there be a God then perhaps it won’t be as too far fetched to believe that there is also a Satan that breeds contention, distraction and discontent, despair and oh how he loves to lie and get us to believe that we are all victims of our circumstances and doomed to live in misery. I can imagine God has had his fill us fighting amongst ourselves and quite frankly acting in completely offensive ways. …and like all good Father’s he desires to teach us. I have laughed at the memes that plead with God to let us out of timeout because we have learned our lesson and then thought, “Have we? Have I?” I am not to old that I can’t remember grade school when we all were punished for a few people that were not willing to unify with the class for the purpose of instruction.  I remember thinking oh if they would just get their act together we could all move on…but what happens when we are brave enough to admit that perhaps we can also at times be that person who others depending on to make those essential changes so that we as a people can again move forward?

Now in saying this I don’t want to say that those with very little challenge in keeping the commandments of God are responsible for the earth’s calamities, I am asking if we are brave enough to look inside of ourselves and see perhaps the parts of us we don’t want the rest of the world to know? Perhaps clinging to those faults are keeping us from having true joy, peace and seeing God’s power and how he is leading way out of this present dark time of uncertainty.

To explain my views on this present challenge I have to go back in time. It is a time I can remember vividly. It was the moment that I realized that everything that I was choosing in my life was not going well. Goals and hopes were falling flat, even the good things in my life were quite frankly unsatisfactory. I was not a bad person but I was a flawed person and I was beginning to view myself in a way that helped me realize that reaching my full-potential would require more than my own effort to obtain. At that moment I decided that I would do my best to trust a higher power. I knew that the higher power was my Heavenly Father and He could guide me in my decisions. I also had to still have the courage to make decisions without being told what to do because God would expect that of me if I truly was ready to receive his help…You might see this principle of receiving guidance from God being contingent with our willingness to act and make choices as ironic. Thinking, “How can you make decisions, yet give your will to a higher power?”

The way we can both surrender our will and maintain our agency happens because God is gracious leader who dispenses knowledge necessary to make right choices wholeheartedly. He knows only decisions we make using our moral agency truly have power to initiate permanent personal growth and eternal change. He has no desire to strip away our freedoms rather he needs us to be free to make these choices for ourselves. He is willing to walk along side us in our decision-making inspiring us and at the same time not micromanage our growth. He knows we will have to choose, make mistake, repent and rely on the arm of the Lord, His beloved Son, to fulfill our life’s purpose.  Yet we do not have to make many willful wrong choices to determine our path. A Loving Father would never leave us to go about trying to figure the rules out by ourselves. He has given us His commandments, His words in scripture and plenty of other inspired guidance through men and women called by His Spirit to raise our sight upward towards Heavenly goals.

With His help we can be better than what we are now and we can accomplish more…I know these things not just because I read them--I lived them. At the point in my life when I was willing to trust God and His guidance I had graduated from a junior college and had ZERO desire to continue my education. I knew there was something wrong with my ability to give and receive love. I felt broken and so I had partially I turned my will over to God I chose to serve as a full-time missionary. I served my mission in upstate New York and Vermont. It was while I was serving there I started to be more willing to bravely follow and trust promptings from His Holy Spirit while ignoring promptings from the adversary my life changed forever.

Those who knew me as a youth knew that I was never popular, sought after and most times I just wanted to avoid all social gatherings. I dealt with crippling anxiety and chronic illness and all the while in my heart I wanted to make a positive difference in the world. After making my decision to turn my life over to God I wasn’t left without friends in that effort. With God-sent help from others I made major changes socially, and educationally which led to many more improvements in my life. I am grateful for the friends who had also accepted the call to be true disciples and it was because of them I was admitted to BYU and hired to teach and train missionaries at the Provo MTC.

When I graduated I was guided by the Spirit to train to become a seminary teacher. The training was strenuous to say the least. I don't think it was any accident that I had worked with missionaries for 2 1/2 years and began training to teach Seminary the year that the Seminary program began to shift their teaching style to better prepare missionaries for their experience. Even with all my preparation it took all the faith I could muster and excellent help. I was hired to become a full-time Religious Educator for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2002. At the time I was hired the females in this career did not even equal 1% of the workforce.  I was the first woman ever to be hired full-time in Idaho and I was disillusioned from any thought that it was because of the women that was happening. False ideas of the role of women in the work of God were plentiful in the youth and adults at the school I completed my student teaching. After I was hired I was told by the Area Director that I had to overcome a lot of inertia to get my position. Quite frankly I didn’t know what he was talking about so I had to look up the word…after looking up the word I now had context for the difficulty I experienced in the hiring process. Thankfully there were others inspired by God who helped me or I wouldn’t have made it at all.

The promptings and counsel from the Lord continued and I received with gratitude and some reluctance the message told me to give my whole heart to God’s work and everything would be made up to me. In other words I would not get what I wanted for some time. So I did give my whole heart to the study and teaching of the gospel. In the next ten years I was graciously allowed to teach at UVU Institute after my first year, called an apprentice year, as a full-time Seminary teacher was completed.  I was later accepted into the Religious Education Masters Program becoming the second woman ever to do so. During my thesis work I worked with the General Young Women Department, Church Curriculum Department, Brigham Young University as well as the Seminary and Institute Program on the first correlated effort to provide research that I hoped would help in the goal The Church had to improve the curriculum for the young women. Upon completing my thesis I was called into to speak with a member of the General Young Women’s presidency about my work she asked me how I knew what was needed….I responded I didn’t know I just followed a prompting.

As part of my summer work I spoke to youth all over the United States to inspire them in their discipleship through the now largely retired EFY program and the disbanded BEST of EFY program. I taught for years at Education Week on BYU campus and later taught Institute for 2 1/2 years at Utah State University as a volunteer fulling a long time desire to teach all of the core religion classes that were added right before I left full-time employment with the Church.

I also was challenged in my personal life to seek for greater health. While doing so I was told I would never have children by a very highly recommended Dr. and Surgeon, yet I chose to trust the prompting to not accept that answer and do my best to seek the Lord’s help in healing my body while faithfully awaiting the day I could be a mother. This led me to a very talented Chinese Medical Doctor that healed me. Years later this same Chinese Medical Doctor lost his beloved wife to cancer and as a surprise to both of us we married.  I now am a mother of a very dynamic little 7 ½ year-old boy.  My life now resembles very little of the life I led as a single person.  Instead of helping people in public ways my work with others now for the most part quiet and unseen.  Even though it is very different I still feel great peace knowing that I am doing the work the Lord needs me at this time of my life. I know my responsibilities now are to educate my son while support my husband in his life’s work. I marvel at times knowing my inadequacies and personality that if I was left just to my own choices I know that I would have never had any of the experiences I now call blessings because they went against my nature. I know that God gives experience and opportunities and if we are brave enough to follow we can accomplish anything He needs done. Following Him will take effort that will stretch us in ways that we may feel like we will break, but he will never leave us and through his atoning grace he will make us into who we were truly meant to be. 

I give that LONG background to help you understand that when we hit the pandemic of 2020 I was aware of seeking guidance from God and I knew that I would have to continue with this pattern to deal with these challenges that were now a part of our lives. Just as the challenges I faced before were again above my skill level to handle I was again getting ready to be stretched beyond my comfort zone. The first decision my husband and I were faced with during this pandemic was what to do with my husband’s medical practice. We of course prayed daily to do what we should and one day direction came…It would no longer be possible to maintain both locations of the medical practice. We would need to make the full-time jump to our other office. While this had been the goal anyway it was still (in our minds) not feasible for months. We both had the same answer and while we were astonished at the direction we knew we needed to comply. We had learned through many experiences that following the Lord was the only way everything would work out the way they needed too. The more established clinic that had sustained our family for years was now the one which would temporarily and most likely prematurely close due to the pandemic.  We also knew that we would need to continue working everyday. No only would we be working during the pandemic but I would also need to tackle homeschooling while managing our business. Two things had prepared me for this moment.  I had taught on the elementary level for a school year and was quite comfortable teaching and I had followed a prompting years earlier to homeschool my son the year he was waiting to get into kindergarten having missed the cut off by 4 days. Even though it was difficult to manage the business, home, farm and homeschooling responsibilities the task would have seemed completely impossible without the preparation the spirit helped me to obtain years earlier. I was left with greater gratitude in the knowledge that God was leading me then He could continue to lead me now.

Our journey through the pandemic has not been without fearful moments. For example, “how do we protect our family while still serving and protecting our patients as well?” Everyday we have been required to trust God and move forward. We had made adaptions and changes to our clinic to meet the requirements of having a safe work environment and we have been abundantly blessed. For a time we experienced a significant decrease in business and yet have had enough. We feel so grateful to have a job and to continue to provide for our family while maintaining a safe environment for my son to continue his schooling.

We are also thankful that we have not been left without direction from a Living Prophet. We have appreciated his example during this time. After the first time we were asked to fast for the prophet I had a insight come that it may take more than one effort before we will have made the adaptions as a people to have God remove the plague. The second request by the prophet came as no surprise and again I was blessed with a gift that I had not anticipated…of course I wanted the pandemic to end, but instead the Lord gave me something different he completely took away my fears and I felt the determination to continue in the stressful yet needed course of working while homeschooling my son.

My husband and I have also began to have our minds open to and idea that perhaps this pandemic has given us a great opportunity so that we as a world could slow down for a time and actually evaluate the lives we are living. Since this all began I have been inspired by the goodness in people around the world and how they have continued to serve and reach out to others. Many have lightened my heart with their comedic memes and pandemic parodies. I have felt more united with the people of the world knowing that we are sharing this same experience. I want to help in whatever way I can to end the suffering that is afflicting all of us. God has all power and He always answers our prayers that accomplish His goals. I have also noticed that answered prayers are often accompanied by surprising shifts in our thinking changes in how we choose to live our lives.  

Change is required if we want to be involved in complete the work in which this life is all about. Yet how can we as imperfect beings comprehend God without making changes in our lives? It is impossible!  We must change. To come to know God is the greatest quest any person can achieve, and it quite possible will take my entire life and then some…but I am willing to give it because he has done so much for me. We have shifted; our priorities have dramatically reduced to a home centered gospel instruction, family and our service to the community. I have seen life’s pace like a rushing train that couldn’t be stopped. It was filled with social pressures, economic demands, family needs, religious and community needs. Yet God in his goodness has stopped it all. He has given us time to change. I am so grateful to have the train stop for just a moment during this pandemic so I can with my family reevaluate life goals, ambitions, and make the necessary adjustments so that when this pandemic is mitigated, because I have complete faith that it will be!! It is also my hope that my family and I will be different in happy ways. I feel more determined that when entertainments come back that I partake of the wholesome and I am not guilty of entertaining myself to spiritual death as a wise Religious Leader, President Oaks once said. I know that things will improve and because of the Spirit of the Lord they are already improving in me. I believe in God …I believe that He is…and I desire to go on this great cause. I truly believe that the Book of Mormon’s phrase “it is by small and simple things great things are brought to pass” is true.