I developed Bell’s Palsy on a Wednesday in late August last year. Some days you never quite forget.

It had me quarantined at home for two whole weeks as I could do nothing but rest and try not to get sicker as the prescribed steroids reduced my immunity – which was what was attacking my facial muscles due to the condition.

Another day I remember so clearly from that time was the first Sunday I spent alone at home whilst everyone went to church, because someone I knew since my college days asked if she could come visit me. She was one of my dad’s colleagues in Bible school and a missionary I had greatly respected since she occasionally spoke to my batch of Cru students.

“Write it down because once it’s over you will forget.”

“I don’t always visit people who are sick,” she qualified as she sat down with me at my dining table, as straight-talking as usual. “But when I saw what happened to you I knew I had to come and tell you this.”

“This condition will pass and you will be healed – but I need you to remember how this feels like. Write it down because once it’s over you will forget. You will need to know this for your next season. It’s a symbol of your next season of ministry.”

She then referenced the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah and how often their prophetic message was received in having to go through certain experiences that mirrored what was to come for the nations they served.

It was a heavy message she was delivering, but I promised to keep it in mind as I sat with God on what was happening to me.

Shaken as I was with half my face frozen against my will, there was a strange peace in my heart. God is never random. I’ve learnt that when something out of the norm happens, press in.

Maybe it’s the appointed time for someone to hear about Jesus and receive Him. Or have their prayers finally answered through you. Or maybe God is revealing new truth, new light – and it takes the dark for it to shine forth.

I’ve experienced all these in the seemingly disjointed moments of life, when things don’t go as expected. He is always up to something. If we’re watching and listening, we might just catch up with Him in His great moves. After that conversation on Sunday, I knew what I had to do.

“Bell’s feels like I’m trapped in my own body,” I wrote in my journal the next day. “Incapacitated. Like I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. At the mercy of my circumstances. A loss of control. Scared that I have forever lost my smile.”

And when I look at everything surreal that’s hit our entire planet, it really brings me back to what I found in that secret place, terrified that my face was never going to return to normal, reaching again and again to the faith I had in my non-random Saviour.

I knew He was showing me something. Every time he brought His disciples somewhere to have their buttons pressed (think having to find food for thousands or sail through crazy storms) – He was showing them something.

This has always been how He’s tested, taught and trained His people for what is to come. I believe that’s exactly what He’s doing again, now. We need to shut up, sit up and press in.

Because, yes, we feel trapped in our houses. Incapacitated by the Circuit Breaker. We’re no longer in any real control, at the mercy of the invisible enemy. And deep down inside we’re scared that we’ve forever lost what we used to have.

But this condition will pass – and we need to remember how this feels like, what it’s revealing. We need to know it for whatever comes next.

IT TOOK A CORONAVIRUS…

1. To show us how to pray

“Why is God letting all these people die?” Someone asked me over a Zoom call the other day. “People were always dying – but I don’t remember us caring that much about their eternal lives,” I replied.

We’ve been hearing this in the Christian circles: a virus far worse than COVID-19 or any other pandemic that has ever swept through the world has been ravaging humanity for almost as long as humanity’s been around. That’s the curse, the parasite, the virus of sin.

God is teaching us how to pray; He’s showing us the urgency of the matter all along.

People die without Jesus in their hearts every day. I don’t think the bulk of us were as concerned about the state and fate of the rest of the world as we are now – a quick check of our hearts will reveal that.

But here’s what’s also being revealed: how we need to pray. I’m seeing huge groups gathering on Zoom to pray, prayer chains forming and written prayers being passed around almost every other day.

We’re praying for our nation, our world and our generation more than ever before and we need to remember this and take it into our step as the Church.

God is teaching us how to pray; He’s showing us the urgency of the matter all along. Press into the desperation you feel for the world that’s being wrecked. Don’t forget it.

2. To show us the Church is everywhere and every day

When it got more and more difficult to attend church services as restrictions kicked in, I felt the instinct to shepherd my little cell group even more closely.

This was going to be “church” for us now, without the wider congregation we were used to defining it by.

Now that our old methods have been taken from us, we’re forced to take a good look at how we can continue being the Church.

I had my worries: Would they be able to experience church through a livestream? Were they just watching the worship leader sing while multitasking?

Were they being spiritually fed with just one short sermon on a Sunday, whilst every day at home would go by without good Christian community and communion with God?

It didn’t take long to hit me that actually nothing had changed, whether or not we were all out working and attending church and cell group once a week.

The inadequacies of our methods of “doing church” and at times consumerist attitudes towards a faith (and Person) we claim to pledge allegiance to were always there.

We just didn’t have the bandwidth to consider all this as much when we were busy with life before COVID-19.

We always had been the Church, even as a cell group. We could build this Church anywhere we were, whether sitting around a table reading the Word or taking communion over a Zoom call.

We were meant to build it together every day. This wasn’t just the job of four worship songs, a sermon and some Bible study.

Now that our old methods have been taken from us, we’re forced to take a good look at how we can continue being the Church and banding together as the people of God.

This isn’t persecution. It’s refinement of strategy for the near future and what it holds.

3. To show us how to be still and know that He is God

Getting called into a season of extended Sabbath just as the world locked down has to be one of the God’s strangest moves in my walk with Him.

My extrovert self had to watch as my plans to spend time seeing His beautiful world were dissolved, followed by my intentions to spend quality time with the people I loved, and now, from altogether leaving my house – the place I never spent that much time in because there was so much life to be had outside.

Not only have I been mostly home since mid-February, as I was on WFH (work-from-home) for the last few weeks before I started my sabbatical in March, I no longer have work assignments to keep me occupied for most of the day.

I’ve been at this for at least an entire month before you guys.

But again, I find myself going back to that old promise. God knew this was coming. There is nothing random (or a huge mistake) of what He’s called me into.

When the panic is replaced by peace, I feel like I’ve been placed in the cleft of the rock, purposefully hidden away, and the Lord is passing by (Exodus 33:18-22).

He is right there for me to reach out and grab the edge of His cloak (Luke 8:43-48). He is showing me the glory I asked to see. He wanted me where I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Right here, in a secret place that dwells outside of time and space – His place.

It is here that we will learn to lean on our Beloved – the posture we need for the seasons to come.

This is the wilderness we cannot distract ourselves from. The desert where He will feed us by hand (1 Kings 19:5-8). In the cleft of the rock, we can hear the still small voice amidst the thunder and the shaking (1 Kings 19:11-13).

The thunder of a million voices telling us what this virus is going to do to us. The shaking of every crutch we once held dear to and defined our lives, security and faith by.

But if we learn how to sit before Him, to eat of Him, drink of Him, this is the secret to life more abundant (John 10:10). It is here that we will learn to lean on our Beloved – the posture we need for the seasons to come (Song of Songs 8:5).

TAKE HEART, THEN TAKE NOTES

They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I think we don’t always know what is real until we lose what is precious.

Nobody wants to live in the dark, but we don’t know the strength of our lamps until the lights go off.

That’s what I learnt for myself during Bell’s – about what real inner beauty was, when any sense of outer beauty ceased to exist.

What my faith was made of, when yet another source of stability and confidence was taken from me. Who I really was, when it was hard to recognise me anymore.

I found what the Lord wanted to show me. I wrote it down so I’d take it into every new season I walked into.

The army of the Lord is being tested, taught and trained for the days and times ahead. We need to find what the Lord is showing us. We need to savour the new wine He’s bringing forth in the crushing and the pressing.

We must never forget what this felt like. It’s the symbol of our next season of ministry.

Joanne is still on her sabbatical. This was originally posted as a Facebook note and has been republished with permission.