If things are beyond our control then we must accept the reality of today. Not the past and not to worry about tomorrow. All we have is today. Reality puts us in a inconvenient situation but how often did our ancestors face inconvenience in order to protect the opportunity for us in future generations to enjoy the convenience of future prosperity? I know my country I think of the 1777 frigid winter at valley forge where the soldier mostly farmers camped out and facing hunger, sickness and frostbite. Where the woman would tirelessly knit blankets, socks, gloves and hats to try and prevent another sawed off foot or finger. In total, about 1,700-2,000 troops died during the Valley Forge. The people believing the cause to be worthy and worth the inconvenience.
A nation divided as families, brother and father sometimes on opposite side of the battlefield. Free men thought it was worth it to risk the fate of a minni ball penetrating the flesh, shattering anything in it's way and due to battle formations it would often travel between 2 or 3 bodies and thus creating prime opportunities for infection. All in order to preserve the Union and free the slave.
A world at war with our young boys in the trenches facing poisonous gases and brutal close combat.
The world in a viscous cycle as nations again rise against each other. A war so great that most men had to fight. The homefront being left to the woman who stepped up to work the factories in times before the victories of worker unions. A nation United in the support of the war and the buying of war bonds to pay for it.
A Korean war that brought freedom to the people of the South who was equally facing the slavery of communism.
In Vietnam our teenagers being drafted into a highly controversial war that looking back started with the same intention as the Korean war but was ultimately doomed from the beginning. Stumbling through the jungle, rain, bug, traps, night and day ambushes, and only for those who returned to be met with disgust.
Other conflicts including Desert Storm and the response to evil in the world. In 9/11 the inconvenience of waiting longer in airports, or increased border security, a loss in a sense of security for all Americans was brought on by this
Years of global turmoil and increasing hostility within the evils of the world have created events that leave our people maimed, one eyed, loss of hearing and a forever struggle with PTSD as they face a world and lifetime of inconvenience often wishing they never would of left the battlefield alive.
We also must think of the homefront. The woman and children through out history within each historical struggle was left often without a father physically or mentally their life was ended on the battlefield. Woman having to do the work of men while raising the children. These same children who would often find themselves again on some distant battlefield.
All within the hope and achnolodgment that some inconveniences are bound to happen but the world must endure for the greater good. Rather it be freedom, security, or to protect the vulnerable from a virus. We must endure together. If Christian history has taught anything it should be that inconveniences have never stopped the Christian from doing right and trusting God. Much of history is the hope for religious freedom and that hope was often worth dying for.
Let us last remember a Pandemic of the past called
Yellow Fever- Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the virus originated from East or Central Africa, with transmission between primates and humans, and spread from there to West Africa.
At least 25 major outbreaks followed in North America, such as in 1793 in Philadelphia, where several thousand people died, more than nine percent of the total population.
The American government, including George Washington, had to flee the city, which was the capital of the United States at the time. In 1878, about 20,000 people died in an epidemic in towns of the Mississippi River Valley and its tributaries. The last major outbreak in the US occurred in 1905 in New Orleans.
Anyways, we have much to be thankful for especially as we compare and contrast to the past. Yes we may have to find alternative ways to wipe our rear ends but we will survive.