My faith is supposed to help me with fear so I tried to pray. What came to mind in that process was a reminder from something I had read earlier; a historical account of reaction to a deadly epidemic that occurred centuries ago in 165 AD.

 

“Christians greeted the epidemic as merely ‘schooling and testing’” writes Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity. “Christianity offered explanation and comfort. Even more important, Christian doctrine provided a prescription for action.”

 

Historian Stark goes on to explain that Christians didn’t avoid sick people but, “heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.”  

 

That attitude of “love your neighbour” is part of the reason why our staff member Alison

stood in line with her three children, one hour before the clinic opened on the first day that H1N1 vaccinations were made available.

 

Her family is asthmatic, making them part of the priority health group. She waited in line four hours, and what shocked her was seeing 500 people ahead of her and more than 2000 people behind her.  

 

She told her kids, “we want to be part of the solution, to be the ones that are able to care should the pandemic really hit. We want to be ready to be able to help our neighbours, walk their dog, cook their meals, babysit their children.”

 

The next Christian faith response I meditated on came from Claudia Chernesky. Her husband Perry exposed 300 people to H1N1 on the day he went into hospital with the flu.   None of them caught it, but Perry, a pastor, died from H1N1 within two weeks. 

 

“Don’t be paranoid …but be ready to die, because you just never know,” said his wife Claudia in an interview on our program this week. She reminded me of the great belief in Christianity that life on earth is just the first stage of life with God. Our journey gets better after this life. When we die we can move on to life in heaven and discover what it means to live forever in the Kingdom of God. It is the promise written in the Bible;   

 

 “He will remove all their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever.”  - Revelation 21:4

 

You do need to get ready for that. You need to begin a relationship with Jesus Christ if you are to move into heaven: 

 

“… a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them.” - Hebrews 11:16

 

Claudia, the widow of an H1N1 victim, is looking forward to seeing her husband Perry in Heaven again. She reminded me so clearly that to have that conviction, all we need to do is come to Jesus with our weakness and say “Jesus, I believe I need you; you are my God.” 

 

 

The fear I wrestled with over H1N1 was a good reminder to move on in living with a life surrendered to Jesus.