Hygge in the Long Night of COVID: My Story of Finding Hope in God’s Presence
I had made that left-hand turn dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times before, but this time was different. The busy avenue ran perpendicular to the quiet neighborhood street that led to my church, where I also worked. A simple, uncomplicated commute.
With Starbucks in hand, I pulled into traffic and all at once the inanely familiar turned unfamiliar. Four empty lanes sprawled in front of me like a blank page, each one equally inviting. The bright yellow parallel lines that ran down the center of the road challenged me like some street magician with a card trick, demanding that I “pick a side, any side.” But which side?
My hands trembled as my eyes darted everywhere searching for some clue to provide the answer. Which side of the road? I knew this! My mind dug frantically into the recesses of my memory, coming up empty. At the end of the road lay the turn that would take me to safety. I know I need to turn left, so I guess I need to be in the left lane. I continued into the oncoming lane of traffic, nearly reaching the end when a car turned into my lane and appeared head on. A flash of white bumper and the wide-eyed gape of the other driver sent me swerving across the yellow lines into the correct lane of traffic. That was nearly two months to the day after first testing positive for Covid-19.
Had I recovered after the first week, I would have said that I had a mild breakthrough case, so mild in fact that I initially assumed it was seasonal allergies. My attempts to telework through the illness became increasingly more difficult. My strength and energy drained more and more each day. At the end of one month I landed in the emergency room. At the end of two months, the brain fog robbed me of my ability to drive and work more than a few hours at a time. Many days, I had stamina only to move from the bed to the couch before I would shake uncontrollably from weakness. The condition commonly called “long Covid,” or “Post-Covid Syndrome” in clinical terms, had taken hold of my life with a debilitating grip.
The inability to predict or control whether I would be able to get up and function on a given day left me utterly helpless. I stared into an uncertain and empty future, unable to make any scheduling commitments, worried how much longer I would be able to be employed and qualify for health insurance. I quickly learned how much of my personal value I placed in my productivity. I came to see my physical limitations as personal failings, latching on to the notion that if suffering is meant to be some kind of test to build character, I must be doing it wrong or it wouldn’t continue this long. The neuropsychologist evaluating my brain fog raised concern that I was “completely demoralized.” I had lived in that reality so long, I didn’t even recognize it as a symptom. God felt far off and disapproving. My lack of desire to cry out to him only compounded my guilt for keeping my distance. I felt like my life was over, and I didn’t know what the point of it all was.
As my days grew more discouraging and frightening, the winter days also grew shorter. I struggled to telework through thick brain fog and waning physical stamina, and before the workday had ended, the sun, and with it my spirits, sank into darkness. Facing the prospect of a long winter of darkness, both literally and metaphorically, I decided to take a cue from the Scandinavian cultures and lean into the bleak midwinter.
Winters in Denmark begin just as sweater weather in the DC area is hitting its stride and wind down around the time our neighborhoods burst into pink cherry blossoms. Not only is winter long but nights are even longer, sometimes beginning as early as 3:30 p.m. It was in this bitterly cold, dark, long season that the concept of hygge emerged. Hygge doesn’t have a direct English translation, but the word describes an atmosphere and aesthetic of comfort, warmth, soft light, and coziness. Think warm mugs of tea, savory stews with crusty bread, and easy talks with friends. The darker the winter outside, the sweeter the glow of lights inside. The colder the winds that rage outside the window, the more welcome the warmth of a heavy blanket and a crackling fire. Hygge fights barrenness with beauty, isolation with closeness, and prolonged brutality with tenderness. If you’re sensing a metaphor forming here, you are not wrong.
Back to me alone in my apartment with long Covid. Shopping online Christmas clearance sales, I stocked up on twinkle lights, electric candles, and small lamps and lanterns. Each night as the sun faded from the sky, I began the task of turning on my chorus of tiny lights. Usually I would flip the TV on to a YouTube channel of a crackling fire, maybe a vinyl record playing, and curl up with a book or a sketch pad. When I had no energy even for these, I would sometimes just lay there and pray. Sometimes I prayed for others, sometimes I processed my circumstances.
My prayers sometimes felt like “Jacob wrestled with an angel” prayers, limping away exhausted and with only a little calm and peace. I slowly realized that rather than dreading the darkness, I was beginning to look forward to the early sunsets. And rather than the churning pressure within to skip to the end of winter, I instead felt stillness to sit and embrace the season. Likewise, my fears and discouragement settled into acceptance and surrender and a profound sense of the nearness of the God who held each one of my shortened days. This God did not leave us to suffer alone but entered into our suffering. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).
In the same way that the light of hygge shines brighter in prolonged darkness, the grace God gives in seasons of suffering is sweeter, more close. Many times in our suffering we want to hear God’s voice say, “Fear not, for I will fix it and make it go away.” Instead, he offers something infinitely more precious: himself. Isaiah 41:10 captures this with particular clarity: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Just two chapters later in 43:1–2, Isaiah says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
The nature of hygge is something of a paradox in which cold intensifies warmth, darkness intensifies light, and circumstances ripe for despair and isolation intensify the warmth of relationship. The same is true in prolonged seasons of suffering. Sometimes he calms the waters. Sometimes he casts miraculous light to dispel the darkness. But other times, he calls us to sit in the embrace of the long, dark winter and know that he is with us. In our darkness, he is light. In our weakness, he is our strength. In the freezing cold, he warms with his presence and the peace that passes understanding. As English hymn writer John Fawcet wrote, “As thy day thy strength shall be.”
In a poetic turn of events, my energy and stamina began to improve with the change of seasons. While I am not yet recovered to full capacity, much of what I had lost has been restored. In retrospect, I don’t want to sugarcoat this season as if a string of twinkle lights somehow made it all go away. I experienced profound, prolonged despair, and I emerged exhausted. The friends and family who supported me during that season are more deeply endeared to my heart, and conversely, there are others who I still associate with words and actions that only compounded the negative voices within. I still deal with physical symptoms and limitations while recognizing the privilege in a recovery that many others never experience. I am not the same.
And yet, when I think of those long winter evenings, I can’t help but feel a fondness remembering the nearness of the one who sustained me. I may have entered that season bewildered and demoralized, but I have come through on the other side marveling at the love of God for me.
Erin Jones is a freelance writer in Bethesda, Maryland. After teaching humanities for nearly a decade, she now works in music and communications at her much-beloved Presbyterian Church. While completing a Masters in English from Middlebury College, she spent three summers studying medieval literature at Oxford University, and returned to Oxford to study Choral Composition. She has written and managed social media for Romanian Christian Enterprises, and acts as educational consultant and blogger for VenoArt. Additional publications include, Servants of Grace, Sports Spectrum, Bethesda Magazine, and Heart and Soul Magazine. For more of her writing, visit Pencil & Uke.