When I was 13, there was a popular TV quiz show where a contestant was led into an isolation booth where they couldn’t see or hear audience reaction. They were then asked a question and given sixty seconds to come up with a correct answer for a big money prize. I remember yelling the answer at the TV (I had all of the answers at that age). I wonder how many claustrophobic contestants never made it to TV because they could not stand isolation for even that short period of time. God created us to be social creatures. He created Eve for Adam and then ordered them to be fruitful and multiply. One of Satan’s favorite tactics is to try to separate us from our support network of those who love and encourage us. Every cult isolates members from anyone who is not in the cult to give them complete control. Solitary confinement is considered a punishment in our prison system.
Today, isolation has been given a new name – social distancing. (Wireless electronic communication has already caused social distancing to a great degree.) I know people who get “cabin fever” after only a day or two of being trapped in a two bedroom house because of weather conditions. Some of them because of lack of social contact and others because they get on their own nerves. In my last post, I mentioned the family locked down in their high rise apartment for over two months in Wuhan, China. Fortunately, they still had social contact with neighbors in the building and because they are Christians, their love for each other and the Holy Spirit within them kept them from stomping on each other’s last exposed nerve.
Before the current pandemic caused this present social distancing, I experienced a degree of isolation because I live alone and no longer drive. My Christian brothers and sisters, my friends and my neighbors maintain contact with me and offer assistance when I need it, but I have never felt alone even after several days without hearing from any of them. That is because I am comfortable with my identity as a child of God; I constantly commune with God’s Holy Spirit within me; and my Lord walks with me every step of the way, even if it is only to the kitchen or bathroom.
A friend told me she worries about the elderly at a time like this; then she suddenly realized she is one of us. I pray for those who have lost loved ones and cannot experience the degree of closure a funeral or memorial service would provide because gatherings are temporarily banned. I especially pray for those who are critically ill and isolated in a hospital or nursing home room; unable to speak on the phone and with no visitors allowed to encourage and pray with them. We must reach out to those who are physically isolated with every means possible, even if it is touching them with our prayers. When we do that, our own isolation will become more bearable and less burdensome.