Colleen and Nikki talk about what they do to survive and stay united during the pandemic. Podcast was published May 17, 2020. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: We’re so glad to be back with you for another check-in during this social distancing. It’s been a couple weeks. I missed meeting with you last time, Colleen.
Colleen: I did too, Nikki. I was just a basket case. I was still under anesthesia. [Laughter.] Or the aftereffects of it.
Nikki: Do you want to tell our listeners what happened?
Colleen: It’s so embarrassing, and it’s touching at all of those things that I’ve always hated when I feel like I can’t manage my own body. [Laughter.] But, as most of you know, I tripped and broke my wrist, and last Friday I had surgery, an open reduction and the placement of a titanium plate to hold my wrist in place. So that’s what was going on last Friday. We had hoped to be able to do a recording on Saturday, but my pain was just out of control on Saturday. So it wasn’t until evening that I called the doctor and got some extra help and some advice and got the pain under control, so by then we just decided “We’re skipping a week. People will have to understand.” [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] And they did. So how are you doing now? How’s your recovery going?
Colleen: It’s much better. The pain is managed. I can tell that my arm must be healing. My fingers are working better than they did before the surgery, the pain isn’t too bad, and it is getting better. I’ll see the doctor this next week, and I’ll know more. How about you, Nikki? What has gone on with you for the last two weeks?
Nikki: It seems like nothing and everything.
Colleen: I know that feeling.
Nikki: You know, it’s so hard to explain how we spend our time during social distancing. I know two weeks ago I had kind of a moment where I needed to be reminded of all of the stuff that we’ve talked about on here, about how to get through this time. You know, you can know all of these truths, you can know what Scripture says, and sometimes you’re just weak, you have a hard time accessing that truth, and so I put my head down and had a cry. But I was able to get back to a functioning place through reading Scripture, and I got in touch with you and asked, “What am I supposed to be remembering right now?” [Laughter.] I just had had it.
Colleen: Oh, I have those moments too. It’s so crazy. It feels so unnatural. It feels so strange to have our house empty for 8 weeks; and even though we’re used to working at home, not having our Sunday lunches, not having people over to share a meal, it’s just been very strange. And feeling like we don’t know how this will end or when it will end. That’s perhaps the crazy-making part for me because if I don’t understand how to fix something, it feels infinitely worse to me than if I know there’s an end.
Nikki: Yeah, because it feels indefinite. It feels like, “Okay, this is the new normal. This is how it is forever, and I never had a chance to say goodbye.” [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.] Aren’t we dramatic?
Nikki: [Laughter.] I think that was the moment that I had. It was like, I don’t know, I suddenly felt trapped, and when I feel trapped –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – I lose my ability to anchor in truth, and so that was kind of where I found myself there.
Colleen: I’m the same way, um-hmm.
Nikki: But praise God, His Word always pulls us out of those places and so does a good night’s sleep. [Laughter.]
Colleen: Oh, that does help. It helps me, anyway. And adding the pain that I’ve had in the last two weeks, especially last weekend, to the whole strangeness has been an interesting thing because I haven’t even been able to do the normal COVID-coping things because of the pain or the loss of function. I’ve had these moments of just feeling like, “That’s it! My life is over, I’m washed up, over and out, done for!” [Laughter.] And again, it’s Scripture that reminds me, only God decides when I’m over and out. I have to keep doing what He puts in front of me.
Nikki: That’s really interesting that you say that, by having this pain it has prevented you from some of the normal COVID-coping things. One of the things that I know we tend to do, as just being social creatures, is when we’re going through something we often look for others who are walking through the same thing and process it together and draw comfort from one another. And I feel like in so many ways even that has been cut away from our norm through this. Not just because we can’t sit together and socialize and have meals together, but even in the places where people can gather, so to speak, on social media, there are so many different reactions to what’s going on right now that even therecan be a difficult place to go and try to find support.
Colleen: I know, the feeling of shame – I can read people from both ends of the spectrum, from “This is the most dangerous disease to have hit our world in the last 120 years and how dare anybody suggest that we start doing anything normal,” from that perspective, which comes from a very legitimate place of real fear, that’s partially unidentified, and to the other extreme of “This disease is a fake, it’s no worse than any other disease we know, and what business do we have sitting in our houses.” Both ends of this discussion can leave me feeling shamed and like I need to just be quiet [laughter] because no one will understand me if I speak! Not that I even know exactly what I think, which is part of my problem. I don’t feel like anybody has the whole truth. Not that some people aren’t trying to tell the truth, but I really don’t believe anybody knows all the truth, and we are not getting full disclosure because nobody’s giving it. And where does that leave us? How do we anchor?
Nikki: I think too that both sides of – and there really are sides. I know that there’s a continuum, but the most vocal online that I see, it’s very polarized, and the thing is, is that both sides of the argument have legitimate evidence. There are legitimate reasons to question the people who are giving us information, and there’s legitimate evidence to fear the unknown aspects of this virus. It ends up being a situation where, like you said, for me, I’d rather just not say much because it’s not a place of support anymore.
Colleen: So here we go, saying what we think, which is kind of like not either end of the spectrum. I find myself going to a completely different place when I think this through because unless I have facts, black and white facts that I know are describing something tangible, how do I know what to act on? And I keep coming back to one thing we do know, and I don’t think I would normally think of a virus pandemic in this context, but I come to Ephesians 6, where Paul is saying, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God so that you’ll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.” And I just think: That’s describing what we’re facing. That’s the bottom line. This is a spiritual issue, and this is a very real thing. This is not just a metaphor for “oh, forces out of our control.” No, there are very real spiritual forces at work that are keeping our whole culture destabilized.
Nikki: Yeah, I completely agree. I don’t know how to say this without sounding terrible, but I sometimes marvel at how effective evil is, because it’s evil to do so many things all at once. Our economics are falling apart. Even our relationships with other countries are tenuous. Relationships online and in families are being affected by this, but probably what I would say is the most concerning to me right now – that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own personal fears. I do. But of all of them, the one that is the most concerning to me is seeing the division it’s creating among brothers and sisters in Christ.
Colleen: That’s alarming, in fact, because we have something uniting us that the world doesn’t have. We have the gospel and the life of the risen Christ in us and the seal of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t stop us from having opinions and experiences that are completely unique. These things in this world should not be dividing us ultimately when we have the Holy Spirit uniting us as Christ’s body. But how does that play out in a literal, physical sense?
Nikki: I think that compassion has a lot to do with it. I think we have to be okay with people understanding the situation differently from us. I think we all filter information through a grid of our own past experiences and gained knowledge and wisdom over our lifetime. Being compassionate with people who don’t see it the same way because really your view of this situation isn’t actually going to change the situation.
Colleen: That’s true.
Nikki: The only thing that’s going to change the situation is what we’re told to do here in chapter 6, to stand firm in the armor of God, to pray for all the saints.
Colleen: That’s right.
Nikki: And it does say to expose the evil deeds of darkness.
Colleen: Yeah. That’s in chapter 5.
Nikki: I want to say too that that doesn’t mean every question mark we have is an evil deed of darkness. And I think we have to be very careful, because we can discredit ourselves when it comes to weightier matters.
Colleen: I can become so preoccupied, or the pain of being misunderstood can be so immediate, because I really do tend to be quite an emotional person, in spite of the fact that want to lead with logic [laughter], I don’t –
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: – in reality. The feeling of being misunderstood can be crippling to me. I have to remember that if I’m going to stand in truth, which I can’t even completely know except that the Word of God is true, I have to give up my right to be understood. That’s not a right that God ever guaranteed that I would have. I think about the Lord Jesus. He was misunderstood by everybody, including His disciples as He walked to the cross. Paul was misunderstood. Peter was misunderstood. No true man or woman of God has ever lived his whole life finding people that fully understood him. I have to give up my right to feel understood and instead know that I’m responding to God, not to myself. If somebody says something shaming to me or asking me “How could you think that?” or “Here’s what I believe,” I have to know that only God knows what is true, and my reaction has to first be in submission to Him, not first in self-defense.
Nikki: And so often that self-defense is so damaging. I see, no matter what side of the argument people are on, one of the arguments that I find the most frustrating, both sides have accused the other of caring more about their position than they care about human life.
Colleen: And that makes me angry right there.
Nikki: It’s absolutely crazy-making, it really is. Because I have friends on both sides, and there isn’t one of them that I would say cares more about their position than human life. It’s a strawman argument. It’s an unfair argument.
Colleen: It’s an ad hominem attack.
Nikki: Yeah. And it creates a lot of division, and it ends the discussion –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – and it doesn’t get us anywhere. And so, I don’t know, I want to encourage all of us to be patient with each other and to speak the truth in love and to understand that whatever it is we’re speaking and believe is truth may not be true right now because everything’s sort of fuzzy.
Colleen: But what we do know is true is what these verses in Ephesians 6 say, and it starts with 13, “Therefore” – now, first I want to say the idea that this whole COVID thing is a manifestation of a spiritual battle is something that I don’t think I tend to think of a lot, and yet it says here, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness.” Well, how on earth are we supposed to face a struggle that is ultimately spiritual? And then he tells us, this is the truth we can stand on: “Take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day.” Now, does this not feel like the evil day? [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] Yeah, it does.
Colleen: It does! It may not be the most evil day, but it is an evil day.
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: “And having done everything, to stand firm.” And here it is. The bottom line is we put on the full armor of God not to go out and fight, but to stand because God is fighting the evil forces. And then it says – here’s the armor – “Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” That’s the armor.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And how many offensive weapons are there in that arsenal?
Nikki: Just one.
Colleen: And that’s –
Nikki: The Word of God, the sword of truth.
Colleen: The Word of God. Absolutely. And the shield of faith. The shield of faith is faith in God, faith in His promises, faith that He is the one holding us. He is the one that preserves us for Himself. He is the one that routs the dark forces and protects His people. And even if we get sick and die, He has us, and His purposes will be accomplished, and our lives are for His glory. So we can know this. Even though we can’t know what’s actually true in all the mixed messages we’re getting, we can know that God’s Word is the only offensive weapon, and the shield of faith is what protects us from all the doubt and fear, the flaming arrows of darkness.
Nikki: And that is our privilege as children of God. It’s our privilege that He fights for us, that He cares for us, that He sustains us and that we don’t have to figure out the secret knowledge or the important details to prevent catastrophe. That’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. We rest in Him. We’ve been talking a lot about Sabbath rest in Hebrews, and Sabbath rest is – it’s a big thing. It’s resting in Christ. He has obtained our salvation for us. We are His. We are adopted. We’re in Him. We don’t have to fear anything that is fearful anymore now.
Colleen: If Sabbath rest is real, and the Bible tells us it is, then it has to work even when our lives feel most out of control. It has to be true for us, even when we cannot control our circumstances. So even when I feel a ton of pain that makes me feel unable to live my life the way I want to, and on top of that I’m stuck in COVID quarantine, and on top of that I don’t know who’s telling the truth, and I feel that old familiar confusion I used to feel in Adventism – that’s one way I know I’m not being told the truth –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – still there is a bottom line: The Lord fights for us, He’s holding us, and He’s told us to wear this armor and let Him do the fighting while we stand. His Word is our only offensive weapon. And then He gives us one more thing to do. Right after the weapon, verse 18: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.” And there it is, we have the Word of God and we have prayer. Those are the two things He gives us. Even in this time of quarantine when we don’t know who’s telling us the truth, there are two things that are certain: His Word can’t fail, it’s an offensive weapon that cuts through the darkness, that keeps us grounded in truth, and we pray for one another because our own brothers and sisters are at odds and shaming one another with their own fears and uncertainties, and we can pray for God’s comfort to hold them and for His peace to sustain them while we’re asking for the same thing for ourselves.
Nikki: Yeah, and it makes me think about, people say, “We’re all in this together; we’re all in the same boat.” And when I see Christians fighting over the details of the situation, I feel like we’re in this boat in this storm, and instead of holding onto each other as the boat rocks, we’re pushing each other down the dock and shoving each other around, and I want to say, “Stop. Stop. Your viewpoint, it’s fine, it’s fair, but it’s not so important to be understood that we are hurting each other.”
Colleen: Like we used to tell our sons: Ultimately in this life you will have each other most of your lives. You will lose us. We’re your parents, we’re older, and only you will remember your past together because you grew up together, so you need to take care of each other. And that’s the message I want to say to my brothers and sisters in Jesus. Those of us who are former Adventists have a particular unique past. Even though our homes were different, our past and our worldview are the same. We share something unique in the Body of Christ, and we have to take care of each other. Whether we understand or agree with each viewpoint and assessment, we can love each other and pray for one another. It’s God’s command to us, and we can know that He’s bigger than this. He’s in charge. He’s not surprised. And He is holding us together, and He is keeping us connected to each other in Him.
Nikki: And I want to say, even though it feels like we’re surrounded on every side by the enemy – I think we kind of are – I want to say, pray for the Lord to open your eyes to see that we are – like Elijah and his servant were, we are surrounded by God’s care, and He is taking care of us, and we need to encourage each other and remind each other of that constantly. And I say this as somebody who knows I need to be reminded of this too.
Colleen: So we just want to end by saying we understand.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We are in this together, and we are as frustrated and confused as anybody else. But I just want to challenge you, as my own brothers and sisters whom I love in the Lord, that as you walk through this strange time with the unknown future, trust God. Ask Him to show you how to trust Him. Ask Him to show you which parts of your life you need to know that He is taking care of so that you don’t have to do all the protection of yourself. He has you. And sometimes it feels like jumping off a cliff to trust Him instead of managing the details, but He’s much bigger and has a much clearer view than we do. Trust that Jesus has defeated Satan. He hung on that cross and defeated Satan in His flesh, and He rose from death and destroyed the curse that was on each of us, and we are safe. If we know Jesus, we are safe. So pray for one another, and thank Him that you cannot fall because He has you.
Nikki: If you have any questions or comments for us, write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. You can also visit proclamationmagazine.com to sign up for our weekly blogs or see back issues of the magazines. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. And join us on Wednesday as we talk more about the Book of Hebrews.
Colleen: Thanks for being with us.
Nikki: Bye.
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