It’s not very ladylike to put on boxing gloves. I guess that’s why I’m recurring to my faithful pen (or thumbs, in actuality) instead.

We all imagined quarantine to be a time of relative peace. We’d just tuck in and quietly do our thing, waiting out the virus as best as possible. Far, not only from friends and family, but from our very home, we’d make the best of occupying our kids in a rented house and spend our time as imaginatively and productively as possible.

It has been strange being in a town full of people who need to hear the gospel and be powerless to reach them. Yet, as evangelists and church planters, our work can never end. There are believers in our care, none of whom can attend meetings, that need fed and cared for. Quarantine is no excuse for Christians to become cold, but it’s also not an excuse for us to abandon our little flock.

With a deep concern and care for believers here in the south of Mexico, my husband began posting video messages or going live on Facebook, Whatsapp, Zoom and YouTube. He amped up his writing schedule, creating and curating relative content and then posting voraciously to our website gracia más gracia.

There are days I feel like I hardly see him. He spends hours studying and writing, recording and speaking. I watch him struggle through tough passages, dive deep to find the proper, not cliché, answer. I listen while he works through which subjects to take up, his thought process on it all, how to best help and reach out.

But while he’s been buried under a flutter of paper and microphones and cables, another flurry of activity began to brew.

“They’re at it again, Penelope,” he said calmly.

I have to be honest. I started spewing a lot of angry words. I hope it was a righteous anger. It’s not easy being the wife. To have to watch helplessly as men, like hungry lions drawn to a wounded gazelle, take turns ripping and gnawing at your husband’s open, bleeding flesh and know he’ll wisely choose to not fight back.

I have to ask. Do men have no fear of God? Like, we’re in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. I wouldn’t consider this a good time to rail against someone. Not that there is ever a good time, actually.

Is there no love for God’s people? Are you really more concerned with your little precious image over making sure Christians are being kept warm and fed in the middle of this dark valley?

Since when was competition synonymous with gospel work? Since forever, I remind myself. Out of pretense or truth. Dear Paul. You know. May God grant me a little of your grace.

May the men in their comfortable private neighborhoods, feet up on their leather sofas, feeding off the praise and funds of toady sycophants remember that there is not only a wife but a God who sees it all.

Can you, then, really dare to continue accusing him of false doctrine? You can say all you want about unity and division and all that hypothetical verbage you love so well. But false doctrine? About a man who has given EVERYTHING to stand for God’s deepest truths? That, I just can’t take.

Articles on GospelCoalition.org laud the unity in the church, how people have come together to serve and love, how believers have banded together to encourage and provide for one another. Not here. Here’s to another year of contention among people who call themselves Christians, virus or no.

So much for that coveted time of quiet service. It’s getting pretty noisy.