This almost sounds blasphemous but there is truth here.

When I had COVID and those nasty pneumonias on top of it, fear tried to enter my heart and my thoughts. I had to battle to take every thought captive for Christ and not let fear and its buddy, gloom, complicate my recovery.

Even after as I enter into my fifth month of long haul covid, there are times in which fear, and its new friend, hopelessness, try to overwhelm me. I don’t let it because fear and gloom and hopelessness complicate our view of a situation and make it very difficult to remain positive.

Being positive during illness, injury or dire straits is crucial to a faster and more complete recovery.

I meet a lot of people affected by COVID. Some who are right now in the throes of it. And yes, I follow all the protocols so when someone is contagious I chat with them from a distance. While there are common physical effects of the disease, there is another common element. Fear.

The elderly COVID survivors and the younger sufferers all experience fear it seems. In their weakened state, they also have to deal with some strange and powerful fear or sense of doom.

Unlike other illnesses, COVID has this added bonus of fear. I believe this is an opportunistic spirit attaching itself to the anxiety of respiratory illness causing the afflicted to lose strength and hope, This prolongs healing and worsens some of the symptoms.

This fear is not just attacking those who are sick but it seems to have invaded society as a whole. I have been critical of media and governments for spreading this fear and in some cases causing it.

Let’s face it, fear sells and peace doesn’t. Fear controls while peace frees. Wherever fear comes from, whether spiritual or manmade, it has become a pandemic in its own way.

I have witnessed people in stores actually waiting for me to finish in the aisle before they enter it. People are driving around alone wearing masks.

And fear breeds anger. Our response to fear always does this. Sometimes the anger is directed inward at our own weaknesses or situation. Anger at being isolated and then angry for being fearful while isolated can really complicate things.

While I do notice that, what I see more is anger being directed outwards. And this is causing huge problems for society. We are being divided.

The semi-official lines in the sand are vaccinated versus unvaccinated and mask versus non-masks. 

This plays out in that those who follow the guidelines get to be more free than those who don’t. In the mental and emotional realm, a picture that the government and the media do emphasize is that there are the good people and there are the bad people.

Of course, the good people are the vaccinated and the bad ones, the murderous thugs, are those who are not vaccinated.

There are many reasons why people are not getting vaccinated. They include medical issues and allergic responses to prior flu like vaccines, strong expert voices warning about the vaccine, and the notion of being forced into it.

I realize that the narrative is that there is cohesion among the medical and scientific worlds that the vaccine is safe but any half-hearted search on the subject will yield many qualified dissenting voices. This causes confusion and hesitation.

The fear then flares into anger at the thought of being bullied into submission in order to be good citizen or to enjoy the benefits of the larger society.

Fear and anger hurt us personally and as a society. In more normal times, there is encouraged debate and alternative theories or ideas are at least allowed to be presented. We are in such a state of fear and anger that we don’t want any dissenting views. We want to go to war and we don’t want anybody to tell us it is wrong.

Internal fear hampers recovery, so don’t fear COVID even if you have it. Respect it and do what you can to recover quickly and effectively.

External fear destroys and hampers the recovery of our societies. Respect COVID but don’t let fear destroy what we took centuries to build.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

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Andy Becker is a pastor, retired counsellor and former CEO of a Hospice organization. His book, The Travelers, is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.