After 9 days of dealing with fever, the fever finally broke and I was over the “sickness” of Covid. However, I was not over the effects of the sickness of Covid. It’s been just over two weeks since the sickness ended and I am happy to say that I am about 95% recovered from the effects. What is yet lacking is stamina. Each day is getting better and I am hoping that in the next day or two to be able to say I’m back to 100% capacity. But it’s been a haul!
I do not know what my weight was exactly before the virus hit, but I got on the scales after the fever broke and I estimate that I lost 25 pounds from the sickness. I was happy about the result, but not in the manner I achieved it. My daughter-in-law had prepared a delicious Thanksgiving meal for Carol and me (so Carol has told me) and on Thanksgiving I ate ¾ of a dinner roll. I remember looking at my hand and seeing all the blood vessels bulging through because there was little substance surrounding them. I remember needing to sign a form and my hand was so shaky that I barely recognized my own handwriting. While I was alive, I certainly was not living to 100% of what I was capable of.
I had two options. I could continue to simply be alive and thankful for that ability, but accomplish little or nothing in living, or I could rebuild my strength and return to the life that God has for me. For me, the choice was a “no-brainer” as it probably would be for most. And so I set out, sometimes forcing myself to eat, but eating what I could in order to gain some energy. As each day passed, I gained a little more energy and was able to get out of the chair that had become my “home” for two weeks and accomplish little things here and there.
As I have sought to do in the previous two THOUGHTS, I want to draw a parallel with my recovery from Covid and the Christian life. Unfortunately, there are those who come to faith In Jesus Christ for their salvation from sin and think that, having believed, there is nothing more to do. Happy with the weight loss of sin’s judicial guilt, there is no desire to take in spiritual nutrients. Consequently, there is little or no adding of the necessary pounds of righteous living to their lives. As they move through life, their names are barely, if at all, recognizable as Christians.
When a person trusts in the blood of Calvary’s cross for their salvation, there is an immediate change in their position before God. The guilt of sin has been replaced with the righteousness of Jesus Christ that, positionally, the believer stands perfect before God. But that is not their experience. While yet in these bodies, we need to be fortified with the spiritual food of the Word of God (1 Peter 2:2). It is the intake of the Word of God that effectually works in the believer, enabling the believer to accomplish the will of God (1 Thessalonians 213). And when the Word of God is assimilated into life, far more than just “little things here and there can be accomplished (1 John 2:14).
There is one major difference between my recovery from Covid and the believer’s recovery from the penalty of sin. I was able in just a couple of weeks to return to living to the best of my abilities. Unfortunately, as time goes on and this body continues to age, my abilities will diminish. But for the believer in Jesus Christ, each day offers the opportunity to grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3:18) and to experience life to even a greater degree. If necessary, force yourself to eat. Gain some energy and get out of your chair and live!