When unrighteousness is revealed and the guilty are called out, the prophet Isaiah asks the faithful to pray. Interestingly he calls them to go home and shut the door (Isaiah 26:20):

“Go, my people, enter your rooms
    and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
    until his wrath has passed by.”

Coincidentally this resembles 2020 shelter-in-place orders, a decree for people to stay in their homes to avoid infection. On March 11, 2020 the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and in the same month a national emergency was declared in the United States.

According to Isaiah there is a time for disclosure (Isaiah 26:21):

“See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
    to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
    the earth will conceal its slain no longer.”

In recent years, innocent bloodshed, racial hate crimes and long-hidden sexual abuse cases have gone public in the US. These things are no longer concealed, but revealed. Injustice is a festering wound of any nation and only by cleansing and dressing the wound can there be a chance of healing. We grieve, address the issues, and get ready to initiate the necessary changes. Heaven cries as earth is going through terrible times (Isaiah 24:4):

“The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth.”

Nobody enjoys disclosure and being judged, but it is a necessary evil. Without it we’re stuck. We need to keep trusting the Lord as we go through periods of reckoning. God is our judge, but He also has all the empathy we can hope for. Perfect peace is promised to His children in the middle of a storm.