Protect Your Peace

​Coronavirus pandemic pandemonium is everywhere.  The news is all about the pandemic.  Social media is all about the pandemic.  Educational leaders are working hard to overcome what looks like an impossible task of teaching students while at home.  Teachers are trying to juggle teaching from home as a profession and also teaching their own kids as parents.  Parents are working overtime juggling the new titles of homeschool teacher (to their kids) and working remotely from home.  Some people are also struggling financially as they have lost their jobs.
 
I think it’s safe to say that this pandemic is affecting just about everyone, just in a different way.  Regardless of how you are being affected by this, it is vitally important to protect your peace.  The cares and worries of this world can most certainly weigh you down.  In times like these, our minds can be our worse enemy.  Our mind can go places that are not in our current reality.  How do we protect our peace?  
 

• Stop watching the news non-stop.  Watch enough to hear the updates on the situation and then turn it off.
• Log off of social media if you find that after reading post after post you are irritated by other’s views or you feel you are taking on the negative attitude of those who are constantly complaining about everything (store policies, local officials’ orders, school decisions, etc.)
• If working from home, find a space in your home that can be a workspace.  Walking away from work will help you “turn it off” at the end of the day.
• If you have young children in your home and are now homeschooling, create a schedule to keep order in the house.
• Fix your mind on grace… pass it out like candy.  These are tough times for us all.  There is no one alive who has experienced anything like this before.  People deal with stress in different ways.  When people offend you, freely give grace instead of getting upset.  (I am working on this one.)

 
Finally, Jesus left a very special gift for us.  In John 14:27, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  If you know Jesus, accept the peace He left for us.  If you do not know Jesus, this is the perfect time to get to know Him.  Simply confess your sins and ask Him to come into your heart to live… and then accept the peace He left for us.
 
Be blessed this week!