Three words of hope to help you handle self-isolation

sho my last blog I wrote about us suddenly
finding ourselves travelling through the
unknown and unpleasant land of ‘Covidia’.
Now on the path before us lies self-
isolation or quarantine; of choosing or
being forced to stay at home for weeks.
There are, of course, exceptions to this.
Many people – including many readers –
will not have the option of staying at home
but will be out on the frontline as doctors,
nurses, health staff, police officers,
pharmacists, supermarket workers and
those in other vital roles. If this is you, can
I, along with my readers, express our
admiration and gratitude to you. We who
are on the sidelines of this struggle, salute
you and resolve to pray and support you
through this time.
With self-isolation being what we face, how
do we handle it? Let me share three words
that I hope will help.
The first word is resolution . It’s vital to take
charge of the situation and not let the
situation take charge of us; at the end of
this we all want to be a victor, not a victim.
In as much as we can, we should set
ourselves targets and goals. Our
grandparents were called to war, we are
being called to sit on our settee – we can
do this!
However, justified we may feel it is, don’t
slip into becoming a wreck, don’t be
negative or pessimistic, don’t moan. There
are some people who bring happiness
wherever they go and other people bring
happiness whenever they go! Have a
happy attitude and don’t drain people with
negative talk. Resolve to be cheerful.

Keep up with personal hygiene, change
your clothes, don’t sleep until midday! Find
things to do, books to read (we have
introduced a 50% discount on all my
books; purchase some for yourselves and
order copies for friends, family and
colleagues and we can mail them directly –

And do projects – I am writing blogs,
recording sermons to be broadcast and
writing a new book.
Let’s tidy and de-clutter. Remember how
‘we didn’t have time’? Now we do!
We should resolve to set limits on what we
will drink, eat – no more than one chocolate
bar a day is the goal I have set myself!
And do similar with what we view – avoid
conspiracy websites and unhealthy TV and
film series). Why not watch some of the 53
Facing the Canon interviews I have
conducted. They will give you a faith-lift.
Try to get exercise, even if it’s simply
walking up and down the stairs or the
corridor.
And let’s think and act to help others who
are isolated – even a phone call or
Facetime, or practically to support and
assist.
This is pretty much standard psychological
advice but let me add a Christian
dimension to this. We need to remember
that God rules over all things, including
viruses, and this has not caught him
unawares.
A little word in the first two verses of
Psalm 23 has come to mind. There, in the
middle of those wonderful lines, ‘The Lord
is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes
me lie down in green pastures, he leads me
beside quiet waters . . .’ (NIV) is the word
makes .
Although we all desire freedom and the
ability to do what we want, we are like
sheep and our wise Shepherd may, when it
suits him, make us lie down. God has his
purposes for us in this period: let’s resolve
to make the most of them.
The second thing is relaxation . Now I
apologise if you are stuck in a small flat
with hyperactive children and relaxation is
something you are praying for, but the fact
is most of us will be facing a life that has
shifted down a gear or two. This may well
be a blessing.
One of the characteristics of modern life
has been its frantic pace. Many of us are
familiar with the sort of situation in which
you come across a strange person in the
hallway and realise that it’s a member of
your family. Indeed, you may well have
said as you frown at your twentieth email
of the day over your morning coffee, ‘the
pace of life is killing me.’
Why not consider that, in this self-isolation,
God is gifting us with a slow-down? In the
long run, it may well be the reality – and I
pray that it is – that these days of self-
isolation end up adding months, if not
years, to your life.
Our great Shepherd has slowed down life
and given us time: time to pray, to read the
Bible (Killy and I read four chapters of the
Bible every day – we follow the Robert
Murray McCheyne Bible Reading Plan), to
have those conversations with your loved
ones, to send out those emails that you
never got round to. To relax !
The third thing is reflection . Isolation should
give us the opportunity to think about who
we are and what we are doing. For a brief
moment, the endless stream of traffic on
the motorway of life is stopped and we’ve
got the opportunity to think about where we
are going. While it’s not the moment to
peer into the rear-view mirror of life and
reflect gloomily about our failures and
disappointments, it is a good time to look
forward and to think about what we value
and what our purposes are. In many
accounts from ex-soldiers we often hear or
read something along the lines of ‘what I
saw and experienced in the war changed
me; I made a promise that, if I got out of
this, I was going to do something with my
life.’
There’s a compelling little aside in C S
Lewis’s Screwtape Letters where the demon
Screwtape talks of so tempting a man ‘that
at the last he may say . . . “I now see that I
spent most my life in doing neither what I
ought nor what I liked”‘. What a perceptive
thought on how most people live life!
Why not spend time thinking and praying,
not about how unpleasant things are now,
but how, once this is all over – and one
day it will be – we are going to live our life
in a different way.
Resolve, relax and reflect; and may we find
our period of isolation to not be a burden
but a blessing.
Rev Canon J John is an evangelist and the
director of the Philo Trust. Find him online at
www.canonjjohn.com