When the Test Results Are Not What You Had Hoped
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So, I took an antibody test this week to see if I had had COVID earlier this year. Like many people, I was sick in early March, and the symptoms were enough to make me wonder. I have good reasons to want to know if I have had the virus, mainly a couple of dear people—my parents—who I desperately want to see.
I got the results back today. Negative. I did not have COVID.
Now, this comes as a surprise to probably no one. How many people do you know who thought they had COVID who also, it turns out, did not? I bet you can name at least one person other than me. I knew that the chances were pretty good that my test would come back negative.
Still . . . I hoped I had had it.
Having had COVID would have made my life so much easier. I would get to see my parents without too much concern. I could donate plasma to someone who really needed it. I could be over and done with this stupid disease.
This afternoon I’m processing the news that I’m still at risk for getting COVID. I’m wavering between “Oh my goodness, now I really need to be careful!” to “What does this mean for me now?”
I realized, after I received my negative test result, that I had been wavering on a tightrope about COVID, and each side of the tightrope was a very real possibility. On one side, I could be fearful, afraid of getting the disease. Or, on the other, I could trust that all would be well because God’s got me. Standing on that thin wire, I could tilt toward the side of fear or I could tilt toward the side of trust, but I could never tilt toward both at the same time.
Because fear and trust can never exist together.
Many people I know have chosen fear through this whole thing, and fear looks different on each person. Sometimes fear looks like taking extra precautions, never going outside at all, reading every word of the CDC guidelines . . . among others.
But fear can also disguise itself as bravado. “Nobody’s going to tell me what to do!” “This is a free country!” “I’m not worried about getting sick.”
The last is my usual line—“I’m not worried about getting sick”—even though there is a part of me that naturally wants to avoid getting sick at all costs. When I say I’m “not worried” about something, there’s usually a small piece of me that is extremely worried. Behind my bravado there is an underlying fear, not of the thing itself, but of something bigger or, perhaps, harder to put my finger on.
I could choose fear. Lots of people do.
But I believe the Bible tells me—no, commands me—to choose the opposite of fear.
Joshua 1:9, one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible, says this:
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
See it there? The command to be courageous? The command to choose the opposite of fear?
And why does God command this? Because He promises that He will be with us, wherever we go. Even if it’s to the ER. Or to the ICU. Or worse.
Today, after I got the news of my negative test result, I sat for a while and tried to figure out how to respond to the news that I, like almost everyone else in the country, was vulnerable. (For some reason, while I considered that I might have had COVID, I felt less vulnerable. I don’t know why.)
I envisioned myself on a tightrope, holding that long pole that tightrope walkers hold, looking down into a black abyss beneath me. I could tilt toward fear, easily. I could lean in that direction and fall, down, down, down. But then what?
Then I considered the alternative. What if I leaned toward trust? What if I fully believed that God is in control of my circumstances and chose to trust him completely with them? What if I believed that he really is sovereign and that he can take care of me no matter what?
What if I leaned toward trust and fell off the tightrope in that direction?
Instead of falling down, down, down into an endless, black abyss, someone would be there to catch me.
