BY BONNIE VAN WORMER – SCHOLARSHIP WINNER

Little Problems

Humankind has advanced in so many ways from when we first walked this earth. Communication, transportation, medicine, and just about every other aspect of life has changed immensely from the way it was even one hundred years ago. However, each society, no matter how advanced, has had selfish people. Never was there a time when people weren’t being looked down upon or abused. After so many years of invention and progress, parents still neglect their children, couples still fight over silly things, and friends still betray each other.

I think sometimes society forgets how bad these “little problems” can be. It’s not a national catastrophe when a family gets torn apart, but the lives of the people in that family will never be the same again. There is no law to stop heartbreaking, but that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Often society and individuals like to blame their issues on God. In the worst-case scenario, they say he hates them, and in the best-case scenario that he’s trying to tell them something. Yet, do we thank God for medical breakthroughs and for family members healed, or is God only in the equation when catastrophe strikes?

I do not credit every bad thing that happens as “the work of God.” However, I do believe that he might be using the bad things we brought about to remind us of a very important truth. As we sit secluded inside our houses, missing our friends and family, worried for our loved ones, do we not start to wonder if our attitudes have been correct? During these days in which everyone has way too much free time, who hasn’t started pondering just how much they have given back?

If God is using this epidemic to tell us something, I think it is this: none of us has ever, or will ever be perfect. We lie, we cheat, even little children have bad attitudes. However, I don’t think God expects us to be perfect. So instead of beating ourselves up about it, or trying to force ourselves to be better people somehow, maybe we should just let go and ask for help. In this time where everyone is starting to wonder what would happen to them should they die today, maybe we should just admit we have problems.

Maybe all that God really asks of us is to trust him to have mercy on us. As we sit feeling lonely and inactive, let’s not blame the coronavirus on God as if his sole job is to punish humanity. Instead, why don’t we look to him for answers? Maybe if our attitudes turn from blaming God, to finding him, our society will change for the better.

Maybe if our outlook stops being inward but outward, each individual can help chip away at these “little problems” that infest our world.

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