Facing the Unknown
We are in the midst of a great challenge. The fear and concern that grips our nation seems to hinge upon one word…unknown. No one knows for sure how this virus appeared, when it will stop, or if another wave of Covid-19 will pass through again. It seems that everyone and anyone can be a carrier. Each surface, door handle, or piece of paper could be hiding the disease.
The last time America saw such unknowns was during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-1920. By the time the 3rd wave of the influenza had swept through, over 500,000 people in the United States had died. All of my grandparents survived those years, and almost everyone was affected.
All of my grandparents survived those years, and almost everyone was affected.
My grandmother, Carrie Dennis (1903-2008), lived on a farm in central Indiana. Her father, Rev. M.M. Wiles preached at a small, country church, as he worked his livestock. When that deadly influenza hit, it claimed the life of my grandmother’s older sister, Ethel.
My maternal grandfather, Dr. D.W. Crankshaw (1887-1977), played a different role in the crisis. He had become a physician in 1913 in rural Michigan. When WWI broke out, he volunteered and served as an American army doctor, sometimes on the front lines. When he returned home after the war, he went back to his practice, which was now engulfed in the Spanish Flu calamity.
My grandfather loved three things: his Lord, his family, and being a doctor.
In rural Michigan, in those days, there were no large hospitals. Instead, Dr. Crankshaw went from house to house doctoring the sick. He soon hired a driver, as his work became 24 hours a day, during the worst of the epidemic. Dr. Crankshaw would try and sleep between farms as they drove through the night. It is reported, almost miraculously, that only two of his patients died during those terrible days.
This new virus that is sweeping our nation, has not even remotely reached the levels of that epidemic of 100 years ago…but it could. Christians are to be examples during this crisis.
Throughout the Great Plague of London, which killed 100,000 in 1665, the Baptists and nonconformists remained, while the established clergy fled the city. King Charles II was the ruler of England, and he regularly jailed Baptist ministers (e.g. 12 years for John Bunyan author of Pilgrim’s Progress [1660-1672]). It is said of those enduring Baptists that they were: preaching the gospel to the living of today who became the dead of tomorrow, and administering to the sick, dying, and bereaved. (Cook, Richard. The Story of the Baptists. 1884. Greenwood, SC: Attic Press. 1976. p. 122)
Our crisis may not come to that…and I hope that it doesn’t. Still, we should determine to follow Paul’s instruction to be…steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (I Corinthians 15:58)