I think the pandemic just changed life as we know it, even here in Mumbai, India. Fear and anxiety have just become part of our anatomy at this point and every day is a less adventurous and brutal hunger game with this virus that seems to consume our screens…
I for one, have found the Lord really working in my everyday life despite the sudden surges of cases, and news of death we receive almost weekly. The Lord is working at a bigger level and He really has been doing a tremendous lot with a desire I have and had been praying for since I moved back home over a year ago now.
A few of us here began to really pray about beginning a Young Professionals Outreach in Mumbai in early January 2020. But when the lockdown began here, we took the virtual opportunity to reconnect with folks we’d grown up with in University Christian Outreach and not really spoken to in ages since then. It was really wonderful to see how everyone organically came together with a desire to worship God on a regular basis. We soon found ourselves in a Friday evening praise and worship routine that over the months evolved into talks, game nights, and small group sharing sessions. The Lord was at work.
For me personally, the Lord gave me newly strengthened relationships with friends I’ve known from the past when I was a student but didn’t stay close together when we got involved in pursuing professional work. But now as we began to meet more virtually and for those of us who live a stone’s throw from one another, we began to meet in person as well. We have grown closer and are more eager to make time to share one on one as well. We realised our struggles were the same and in fact, we’d been craving this time to just sit and talk about all the frustrations and anxieties. We slowly learned to lean on one another and be vulnerable to share our struggles more openly with each other. Thank you, Lord for the gift and power of good fellowship!
The Lord also gave me time to work through the loss of relationships I had n Washington D.C. – especially being part of a wonderful community with the Triumph of the Cross in Gaithersburg, Maryland and their Young Professionals Outreach (YPO) and University Christian Outreach (UCO). When I first moved back to Mumbai, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a part of anything community related. But the Lord very quickly changed my heart and mind, and he gave me the desire to orient my life to serving him wholeheartedly and with other Christians who were also seeking the Lord while tackling working life in this crazy and complicated world we found ourselves in.
At an individual level, I find that during this entire pandemic period, God has been drawing me closer and closer to Him through my daily personal prayer time, family life, and the relationships He is calling me to give my time to and invest in. Recently, the Lord has drawn my attention to a Scripture passage from Philippians 4:6:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
God reaffirmed these promises with another Scripture verse from Isaiah 58:1:
The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
As we move into a time of planning and praying for a vision of what does this YPO look like and how can we personally and as a team continue to grow, I am less nervous and more hopeful of how the Lord will use each one of us to do His work and draw not only one another into a deeper relationship with Christ but also lead new folks as well. I am excited to be honest! If we really look to the Lord on a daily basis, we will find the littlest and sometimes even the biggest ways in which the Lord’s plans are unfolding, and it will surprise if not overwhelm you as it does to me, constantly!!
This article first appeared in The Lovely Commission, a Kairos related program for young Christian women. Since its birth in August 2014, The Lovely Commission has provided an online space for young women to grow and thrive as disciples of Christ. In 2021, the landscape for women can often be exhausting, disheartening and confusing. We want to do our part in the midst of this to point to Christ!