PoisonIvy.v.2020

So. Just some 2020 ramblings as I (hopefully) am hitting the end of what has been my worst ever case of Poison Ivy. Yes. It deserves the upper case. 

Our property is highly wooded and even more highly covered with PI, so I bump into it a few times a summer. Which, in the past, has just led to little isolated itchy bumps that fade in a few days like mosquito bites. 

But not in 2020.

This PI started slow. Nothing to write home about. And then it started to spread. And if reporters were writing about it the stories would have been very mixed. Right Hand and Arm: DISASTER! RED ALERT! Left Arm: Not that bad, really, quit your griping. Rest of body: What are you talking about? There is no problem here. Then after a few days of these conflicting reports, the Face weighed in with: AAACK! WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON? And a day or two later the Face shut down one of the Eyes. At which point Brain decided it was time to seek some sort of Expert Advice. Said Expert administered a Sharp Intervention in areas that had not reported any conflict whatsoever. That Sharp Intervention did not seem to have any significant effect for a lagtime of 72 hours. And then suddenly there was a vast improvement on all fronts.

We are now a week from that Intervention. And varied reports continue to come in from parts of the body. The Right Hand and Arm have ceased to weep and are now covered with fresh pink flesh. The Left Hand and Arm continue to have limited squalls. The Face and Eye believe everything is back to normal, why are we still talking about this? And the Legs are fighting very limited outbreaks and saying: Is This What All the Fuss Was About? But the Brain is saying: I wish it were completely gone. What if there is a need for another intervention? And what if we touch the Evil Weed again?

It is hard in the midst of 2020 to know what is going on and what to listen to. 

Let Us Fall Into the Hand of God

So. Right now we are in the midst of a shutdown to try to slow the spread of Coronavirus. Everyone is scared. I was trying to figure out if I am more or less scared than I was at 9/11, and I have settled on: Less scared.

I think it is because this disease seems so directly from God's hand rather than the hand of an enemy and so lacks the same feeling of evil directed against us. I was thinking about David after he conducted the census he shouldn't have (II Samuel 24) and was given three options by the prophet:
‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”

David answers: 
“I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”  

and I have to agree. Then you look at the numbers... 
So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. 16 And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay your hand.”

Wow! 70,000 in three days in a very small area geographically. Praise God for His mercy in staying the hand of destruction, and may He be pleased to do so again very soon.