Student Reflections from Quarantine: August
We asked some of our students to reflect on their experience of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each month this summer we will share one of those reflections with you.
My house is a place that I typically dread; I tend to feel separated from faith when I am removed from my campus community. Naturally, I became nervous as the time of my departure from school drew nearer. The executive order that lasted until April 13 only contributed to this feeling. However, one fact of my faith was abundantly clear to me: Jesus is my eternal peace and comfort, and so I prayed for a sense of His presence in a place where I have historically hardly felt it. Amidst the chaos of the world, the Lord provided what I needed. By His grace, I experienced solitude instead of isolation. It was here in this place full of so many bad memories of pain and sin that He spoke. In this time of quarantine, the Holy Spirit led me through difficult but necessary conversations with my parents which led to internal suffering, but that suffering has become redemptive, allowing me to grow closer to Jesus.
Continuing spiritual direction with Fr. Nick has helped me to take my first steps in praying to the saints, and praying lectio divina daily has fed me with the Word of God. Abundant fruits have been borne in the house that I associated more with anxiety regarding pain and haunting remembrance of past sins than I did with faith. I cannot attribute these graces to anything other than God’s providence.
Kamaron Wilcox is a junior at Hope College. He is majoring in Physics and Math with a minor in Religion and is a member of the diving team.