Think the coronavirus lockdown is tough? Worried about running out of toilet paper or whether the exact kind of K-cups or bottled water you want is in your next Walmart pickup order? Unless you wear scrubs for a living, stop thinking about yourself and think about the real heroes of our day.

While many Americans are sitting on their couches and binging on Netflix or trying to make sense of their children’s common core math problems, hundreds of thousands of Americans head to their “office” to fight a battle against an invisible enemy, the coronavirus.

Our nation’s healthcare workers are literally on the front lines of a battle with a virus that we don’t fully understand yet, and to make matters worse, they’re not exactly a well-supplied military either.

Countless news articles have been written about how lacking our country is for medical supplies — masks to prevent medical staff from being infected while providing care to the sick, ventilators to provide a chance for the most severely affected patients.

Yet, in spite of those odds, these medical soldiers don’t just throw up their hands, raise the white flag of surrender and go home. They scrub up their hands and go to war, because it’s their jobs, their calling, their duty.

They deal with things — daily — most of us would be reviled by: blood, urine, vomit, feces and more.

But truthfully those are easy problems that a little soap and water can solve.

It’s the things healthcare workers see, hear and smell that cannot be easily scrubbed from the mind.

Desperate gasps for breaths.

Eyes filled with terror and helpless desperation.

Tears of pain.

Such battlefield images remain for years.

Reports from healthcare providers across the globe are terrifying — more coronavirus patients than available hospital beds with more severely ill patients in need of ventilators, a lack of personal protective gear along with painfully slow test results.

The problems are forcing medical professionals in some countries to play God – which patients get care and which ones are left to die — crushingly painful decisions for people who took an oath to “do no harm.”

Health experts say those circumstances may be in America soon, too.

Bear in mind, all the while these healthcare heroes are doing their jobs, they are also dealing with the problems the rest of us face daily — finding toilet paper, child care, putting food on the table — all while trying to stay emotionally stable.

Many are trying to balance work with family obligations and fears they are at high risk of accidentally exposing their loved ones to the virus.

Please spend a few moments today and think about these American heroes.

If you’re the praying sort, please pray – hard.

If not, light a candle, burn some incense or send happy vibes. Whatever you do, please remember our health care heroes and send them love.
God knows they need it now.

And God knows, we all need them, too.