Covid 19 – Looking Unto Jesus

Today I have, for the very first time, a guest blog. It is written by my sweet and talented sister in law Esther and I am so grateful she took the time for it. She writes about Covid 19 and looks at it in a biblical view. She manages to do this in such a clear and touching way. Read on to find out more!

Hello everyone,

I’d like to thank Jenna for this lovely opportunity to share a blog post with all her lovely readers. This is a first for me, so sorry if I ramble. There’s one big topic that everyone is talking about at the moment. My neighbours are talking about it and it’s on the news every single day. You guessed it: Coronavirus!

When you start to think about it in more detail, it’s actually quite scary. So many people have sadly passed away, people’s jobs have come to a standstill, and all of a sudden we’re being asked to stay indoors. A weekly shop has become quite risky and people’s worries are becoming endless. There is so much more, but I’m going to stop there. What I’m saying is: life has become pretty uncertain. And if I’m being honest, we don’t really have any certainty of what is coming in the following weeks and months.

Now all that is very much doom and gloom, but I wanted to share something that’s kept me going through this, and through many parts of my life so far.

There are some verses in the Bible that I love, here they are:

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.“

What I love about these verses is that they describe our lives as a race that we must run. Races are hard they can tire us out, but they can also be very enjoyable, just like life. These verses say that, instead of running this race in our own strength and alone, we should run it ‘Looking unto Jesus’. But why? Why should we look to Jesus? The verse answers this. It describes Jesus as the ‘author and finisher of our faith’.

The author of a book is the person who knows that book the best. They know the start, middle and end of the book in such incredible detail. They have designed the book and love it. Jesus knows every little detail of my life, my every worry, joy and thought. He cares for me and loves me so much. I know this because of the end of the verse. He endured the cross for me!

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this verse has helped me in my life so far. One example is my daughter. She was born with an oesophagus that went into her lung rather than her stomach. This meant that she had to have surgery when she was under 24 hrs old. She was in the operating theatre for just over seven hours. Those seven hours, as I’m sure you can imagine, were dreadful! The things that start going through your head are awful. But I had one comfort: she was in the hands of Jesus, and I knew that He knew what was going to happen next, even though I did not. I knew that He loved my little daughter and that everything, good or bad was in His hands.

I can testify when life is so uncertain or hard, as it is at the moment with the corona virus, Jesus will always be there. And I can look to Him to be my strength and refuge. He will be there in the good times too, because we have so much that we can be thankful to Him for.

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About the writer:

Esther lives in Cardiff with her husband Dan, and their daughter who was born in 2019. She moved to Cardiff, from Carmarthenshire. She did this in order to study at Cardiff University and went on to train as a teacher. As a family they are members of Heath Evangelical Church. Esther now works part time doing admin for a Welsh bookshop. She loves the outdoors and enjoys baking in her spare time.