Finding Comfort In Times Like These
Blog / Produced by The High Calling
Last week, I was listening to a dear friend in agony over the probability of war and the inevitable suffering inherent in battle, especially to women and children. She asked if I had any advice. I shared some things I have learned over the years of being in the midst of mass casualty situations. Several days later, she told me how helpful these small recommendations have become to her. She asked me to find ways to share them with others. So, I am honoring her request.
I have learned that great traumas resulting in mass casualties promote feelings of helplessness, withdrawal behaviors, and affects our ability to focus on the tasks at hand. In times like these, I keep the following behavioral principles in the front of my mind, and I commit to them every morning.
These are:
1. Be very responsible to the tasks and people in front of me, moment by moment. This relieves feelings of helplessness and dampens the secondary feelings of anger.
2. Extend myself personally to at least one other person that is suffering deeply. Build an ongoing intimate relationship with this one. This validates that you can make a difference here and now, plus it will help you stand in solidarity with those suffering in far away places.
3. Extend yourself deeply and extensively in intercessory prayer. This connects you with God who also suffers and with other persons in prayer all over the world. Items two and three keep us oriented to reality by identifying specifically with someone who is suffering and by asking God to relieve the suffering of others.
4. Go out of your way to engage with beauty every day. This will help you remain truly humane. We are created for beauty, not ugliness and obscenities. Beauty reaffirms our true identity as children of the beautiful Creator who loves us in spite of it all.
5. Take good care of yourself. God and others need us to be fit for these tasks. In our behavior, we bear witness to our hope that God will have the last word, and that we will not let the suffering and inhumanities of this fallen world back us into a corner of despair from which we give up on the world.
The demands, pressures and stress of work can put a huge strain on relationships with our coworkers. This 4-day plan from Theology of Work Project and Workmatters provides simple steps you can take to be more loving to your coworkers that will transform those relationships and increase both joy and productivity at work.