Your Dying Spouse 739 - Face The Fear {Five Minute Friday}

And so, coronavirus.

Being in the top part of the high-risk group, I guess I should be scared. There is a nontrivial chance of death for people like me.

Except, I'm not scared.

COVID-19, to give it its proper name, is a respiratory virus in the same family as many others, including the common cold. It's a bit more lethal, not much, but it's not an unknown quantity. The World Health Organiation says that over 80% of those infected will experience only mild symptoms, and the vast majority will recover quickly.

Its spread has peaked in China, and the rate of infection (even given massive screening) is slowing in the US.

It's not, as the media likes to call it, a 'killer virus'. It's nasty, but it will eventually go away, like H1N1, SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, and a host of others we can't even recall.

It's not a judgment on a sinful world, and while it's certainly no boon, there are blessings contained within the dreadful...

...like the bodies we are given, which have the ability to fight a broad range of infections...

...like the leaders who are willing to step up and implement policy that will protect us, and preserve our economic health from panic...

...like the health-care professionals willing to step into harm's way to care for the sick and comfort the dying...

...like the scientists who have already developed potential vaccines against COVID-19, which are now in testing. (The 'architecture' of COVID-19 is similar to MERS, and has lent itself to a genetically-engineered vaccine similar to that which proved successful for MERS.)

So I'm optimistic...this is not the harbinger of the End. It's a tooth-jarring pothole, to be sure, but our road goes on.

And beyond that, and more fundamentally, I'm at peace. I take every precaution I can, and so does Barb, but if I get the thing, I get it.

If I die, I die.

One thing cancer has taught me is that if I base my joy on the permanence of this earthly life, I'm hitching my wagon to a soap-bubble star.

Happiness can't go far, with that kind of transportation.

I may die, but I won't be gone.

I'll just be starting over, in a brand new, grand new game.

They say doom is upon us,

and we can do nowt but cry;

fortitude's tossed beneath the bus,

and we're all going to die.

They say that we are helpless,

and God won't show His face

to a people now so feckless,

so government is grace.

They say...oh, this is stupid,

and shall not wreck my day,

for they aren't even lucid,

and who are 'they', anyway?

Half full, not empty, is my glass,

and I know this, too, shall pass.

Music from Casting Crowns, with a cool live performance of The Voice of Truth.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.