Having\nreached a stage where whatever hair is left on my head is white, and finding\nmyself grouped in that category labelled \u201cvulnerable\u201d, I find I can get away\nwith a few things. One thing I can get away with is, for example, when I am\nfinishing an appointment with a health care professional, is to ask him or her\n\u201care you looking after yourself\u201d? The frequent response is a pause, then\n\u201cnobody has ever asked me that\u201d, followed by a brief sharing that probably\nwasn\u2019t on their agenda for the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you asked me that question, I am struggling. When normally (remember \u2018normally\u2019?) I would sleep until about 7am and be reasonably refreshed and ready for the day, I am waking at 4am. Then I wait for the bedside clock in its unhurried fashion to climb its way through the next three hours. I don\u2019t think it is worry, I don\u2019t feel anxious. The fact is, everybody is under abnormal stress. Households full of people usually somewhere else, or almost empty and visits not allowed, jobs and finances threatened or strained, a daily dose of grim news, constant changes, restrictions, a need to adapt. And images from around the world that are heartbreaking. Everybody is under abnormal stress, and looking for ways to cope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What will work for me may not work for you. And if I am led to practical steps to lower my anxiety, it is because my Father is steering me – \u201cTurn all your anxiety over to God because he cares for you<\/em>.\u201d (1 Peter 5:7). I believe that. For example, I have noticed that when I take an opportunity to show kindness or gentleness with a word or deed, it is not only well received, but it also has an effect on my own stress level. \u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>Therefore, as God\u2019s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves\u00a0with compassion, kindness, humility,\u00a0gentleness and patience.<\/em>\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong>Bear with each other\u00a0and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. <\/em>(Col.3:12-13)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Canadians are taking caring to a special level, and have triggered the word \u201ccaremongering\u201d (to counter another word \u201cscaremongering\u201d). Worth looking up.There are many out there needing encouragement right now; having been in the routine of visiting an aged care facility every day until now, I observe that the carers in those facilities are one group that could do with some affirmation. One other practical step is to begin or return to keeping a journal (works for me, may not work for you). I find that I converse with God and hear from Him when I invite Him to arrange my thoughts and I put them down. His voice is almost audible and peace returns.So be kind to others, but be kind to yourself and care for yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pastor Peter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having reached a stage where whatever hair is left on my head is white, and finding myself grouped in that category labelled \u201cvulnerable\u201d, I find I can get away with a few things. One thing I can get away with is, for example, when I am finishing an appointment with a health care professional, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1600"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1603,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1600\/revisions\/1603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashfieldbaptist.org.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}