I’m Grateful

It can be hard to find ways to be grateful for the Covid-19 pandemic, but I’m going to give it a try. I’m grateful for all the ways it has not been as severe as it could have been. When we think about other pandemics - The Black death in Europe, the Smallpox epidemic in the Americas, the Spanish Influenza or AIDS all over the world, the deaths from these pandemics tend to be in the tens to hundreds of millions. We’ve had about 5 million Covid deaths worldwide which is a tragedy in itself and devastating when any of those 5 million isn’t a statistic but a loved one, but we haven’t yet reached Monty Python levels of wheelbarrowing through streets and stacking up corpses. I’m grateful that advances in technology have allowed us to go to pretty extreme levels of quarantine without completely halting schooling and careers and socializing. I’m grateful that advances in science and medicine allowed us to develop several working vaccines in less than a year. I’m grateful that there were practical solutions implemented to halt the spread of the disease. I’m grateful for a Prophet whom the Lord inspired with the Come Follow Me program which shifted the focus of worship from the church to the home so that when all of the churches shut down we could continue to worship. I’m grateful that the political and economic upheavals have given us the chance to reevaluate our social and civil and commercial systems to consider new and in most cases hopefully better ways of doing things. I’m grateful that even though there is a lot of social and political divide, we have all been given the opportunity to go through very similar experiences over the last year when it comes to things like wearing masks, working from home, schooling from home, social distancing and so forth. I’m grateful for the millions and billions of tender mercies the world over that have allowed us all to survive and cope and get through one day at a time. I’m grateful for everyone who risked their lives and their health and their sanity to try to save someone else’s. I’m grateful for everyone who chose and continues to choose love over hate, service over selfishness, friendship over opinions or political views, kindness over cruelty. I’m grateful that the world has been given a moment to stop and think, and I can’t wait to see how that time to reflect will change our lives, in some way for the worse, yes, but hopefully in many ways for the better. I’m grateful for everyone that almost didn’t make it but did, for everyone who held on longer than we could have hoped, for everyone who can still stand up with their backs straight, with a little bit of hope in their hearts, and face another day in this crazy world we live in. I’m grateful for everyone who has seized the opportunity to make someone’s life better, and for everyone who has resisted the temptation to make someone’s life worse. I’m grateful that so many of us are still here to see what comes next.