Well… it’s a new day in France.

Moments ago, President Macron announced that Europe was shutting its borders as of tomorrow noon and that all non-urgent local travel was an official no-no. Even extended family gatherings are discouraged and subject to sanction – they’re encouraging people to interact with no more than 5 people per day.

At times like this, it’s even more important to get back to focusing on the #GoodThings, so I’m going to resurrect this theme that I wrote on for a few months last year…

As a Christian, our hope is first and foremost in the Lord and secondly in the precautions that we can take ourselves, so what I’ll do is pick two things from the day that I’m grateful for and one scripture passage that is a source of comfort.

Let’s go for…

Today’s #3GoodThings

1. Work pro-activity: It was only last Thursday that school closures were announced (today was the first day of closures) and the private business school I teach for, part time, was already offering up training on Microsoft Teams, a collaborative tool that facilitates videoconferencing. Beginning next week, we should be able to resume teaching our students at a distance. It looks fairly straightforward and I’m impressed with the schools proactivity! Kudos ESSCA!
2. Family Interaction: After supper, we all gathered around Liz’s phone which was streaming President Macron’s address. It felt pretty “old school” … like gathering around the radio, but more recent. Anyway, once that was done, Timo (Captain Boardgame) suggested we play something, so we pulled out Apples to Apples and played a few rounds.
3. Deuteronomy 31.6: Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
   
   The children of Israel were about to face something entirely new… something they’d not faced before and though Moses would not be accompanying them… he wanted to assure them that the Lord would be. With social distancing as the new norm, we won’t always have our regular support-system “within arms reach”, but the Lord is never far (more on that tomorrow). Reach out to him and let him bring you strength and comfort.

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Looking for some good reading while your other activities are limited? Let me suggest my grandfather’s childhood memories from rural New Brunswick.