intercession overload

Many, many folk — good historians at heart — are saying: as the pandemic wraps around the globe, write a sentence or so each day. That way three generations or so into the future can know what was on our hearts, and not just what was on our minds, or what we said to chivvy along proper behavior. (Morale-boosting is a kind of chivvying, you know.)

Journaling is often my bag — after all, what’s a blog if not a journal! — but I’m not there yet. I am sleeping better this week than in months previous. Yesterday I put in a satisfying day’s work for perhaps the first time all semester. I have a half-gallon of coffee cream and two pounds of coffee beans.

Still lifA Half-gallon ​of coffee cream, amid beverages and leftovers
Still life: Half-gallon coffee cream, amid beverages

I’m feeling like “Life During Wartime,” but with all the drama leached out. <grins>


As I sat down to work — my schooling is all distance learning now — I glanced down at my planner. I saw “Eugene” scribbled in the top margin. He’s ill with COVID-19, in Atlanta… a loved one of a classmate. His name reminded me of “Anna,” an ER doctor in town, another classmate’s loved one.

I prayed for them. I am not nearly the prayer warrior others take me for, but I remembered and so I prayed.

And then I thought: shouldn’t I also pray for my loved ones, scattered everywhere as they are? Isn’t that what one’s supposed to do?

One of the prayer-related things that routinely happens to me (all my life, not just now) is that my list of care gets longer and longer and longer…

and it is now becoming ever more sharply clear to me: my burning my emotional resources for you has little to do with your physical presence within my 6’ radius. If I’m someone who runs out of people-steam (as I am), my steam will run out while I’m sitting by myself as much as it will sitting in a crowd.


Today it stood out to me: since God knows what is on the background of my heart, God already cares for that for me. I will focus the words of my prayer-attention on what’s in the front of my mind. Eugene, may you feel God’s soothing hand on you. Anna, may God give you endurance, perseverance, and ward.

We do what we can with what we have.

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