Many of you are either going to bed or waking up to news of more closures (include school cancellations). Here is how I’m explaining this situation to my children:
-Jesus both taught and set the example of how we are to love our neighbors
-This teaching completely changed the world. Christians started caring for people no one else would care for, especially during times when people got sick. Even though most hospitals aren’t run by Christian organizations today, we have Jesus to thank for inspiring people to start hospitals. Just look at the names of the hospitals!
-Jesus also taught us that we are supposed to give special care and consideration to and for the weakest among us. In every situation, there is a “weakest”.
-Right now, the weakest among us are the great-grandmas and the great-grandpas and people who already have to spend a lot of time going to doctors’ offices and hospitals.
-We know from what has been happening in other countries that the best way we can care for these neighbors right now is to stay home more and not do all the fun things we are used to doing.
-Kids don’t get as sick as older people do from this virus, so you don’t need to worry about that. However, kids pick up germs easily and can carry germs to other people easily. Even without knowing we are doing it. And we don’t want to do that.
-Because the doctors don’t have many kits to check to see if someone has it, we don’t know how many people are spreading these germs right now. But we know it is a lot more than we realize.
-The hospitals in our area already stay very busy caring for people who are sick. If a lot more people got sick, they wouldn’t be able to care for them all. However, by not doing all the things we want to do, we can help the hospitals get ready to care for more people.
-So out of love for our neighbors – especially our weaker neighbors – we are going to stay home for awhile. This is going to be harder for a lot of other people than it is for us (since we already work and school from home), so we are also going to see how we can help our neighbors in other ways.