This is a bittersweet Christmas. As I write this, the pandemic continues to ravage LA County worse than ever before, with ICUs out of beds in some hospitals. On the other hand, shipments of the vaccine have already arrived and some doses have already been administered to medical professionals. Meanwhile, we continue to hunker down in our homes.
For Christmas, that’s not so bad in some ways. We have our festive decorations, good music, and holiday food. We dearly miss our loved ones, of course; may we never take those large family Christmases for granted again. We gather on Zoom, but miss the high-touch experience of exchanging hugs, exchanging presents, and wrestling with our family members’ dogs and children on the floor. But even as we have to adjust our various Christmas traditions and celebrations to fit 2020, life will still go on in the new year.. We certainly hope and pray that 2021 will be better than this year, but it won’t be a fast transition. That’s probably for the best, as this whole pandemic experience has been traumatic for people on a number of levels, and the healing process will take time. If we were all instantly given access to everything we’ve been missing with no fear of catching the virus, it would still take time to adjust. Think of it: if you’ve been following the guidelines, you’ve been living in a fairly tight circle for some time. If you were instantly able to engage in every kind of social experience you’ve been missing, you could easily overwhelm yourself. Personally, I know that the first time I get to teach class at WCHAS in person again, I may cry. I will probably cry again when I am next able to share a meal with anyone from church. Processing all of that--whatever the landmarks are for you--will take time. As the world reopens piece by piece in 2021, pace yourself and celebrate the small wins. Consider it like letting your eyes adjust to sunlight after being in a cave--for some, that will feel very literal. You may find yourself expecting the world to go back to how it was before, but I can nearly guarantee that there will be permanent changes on the other side. You may find yourself experiencing a kind of reverse culture shock, and that’s OK. Culture shock tends to go in three phases: euphoria, depression, and acceptance. The euphoria, in this case, will likely go like this: “Yay! I can have parties and eat with people and sing in public again!” The depression phase may go like this: “Ugh, I have to sit in traffic again? Will my extroverted friends ever shut up? Wow, I’d forgotten how expensive having a face-to-face social life is!” Acceptance, which is the ultimate goal, goes something like this: “There’s good and bad about this, but I’ll take it as it comes. Meanwhile, life goes on.” The goal of this entire blog has never been acceptance of the spread of a deadly disease that has killed too many people--we must do everything we can to make it stop. It has, however, been about learning to accept reality and keep moving from a place of truth instead of denial. When we started back in March, I did not expect to be writing this long, but I always expected it to drag on at least a few months as others were denying it. It is with some bittersweet feelings that I conclude this blog with this post, given that the pandemic isn’t quite over yet. The premise of this has always been that life goes on, and my reasons for wrapping this up are to help it do so. As we enter the choppy half-vaccinated challenges of the new year, I wish to devote as much time as possible to the youth and children of my church as they process each new development. Since that age group doesn’t really read blogs, it’s a better investment of my time to meet them where they are more likely to be. As we move into 2021, my prayer for you is one of hope. Not the kind of fool’s hope that denies reality, but that accepts it while working to improve it. This is what Jesus did that first Christmas in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. He showed up in a broken reality, accepting it as it was so that He could eternally change it for the better. Because of Him, life goes on and will go on, no matter what happens.
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It kind of surprises me that I haven’t written on this topic already, given that I am a music teacher’s daughter and that the editor of this blog is also a professional musician. I suppose I’ve never stopped to write about it because it’s like a fish asking what water is. Music is such a big part of my life that I just sort of took it for granted growing up that everyone regularly had access to live music and a generous supply of recordings.
Of course, the pandemic has cut off access to live music. Right now, I am listening to a recording of a holiday concert that is normally performed live. The only places anyone’s listening to live music right now are at their outdoor worship services and in their own living rooms--if they happen to have a musician in the family. (Great, now I miss listening to my father practice.) For reasons that would take too many paragraphs to get into, live music truly is the most neurologically beneficial, but the recorded stuff works great, too. The fair question, of course, is why music in general tends to help with mental health. My understanding of the benefits of listening to music is that depending on the kind of music, it activates parts of the brain that are otherwise hard to access. Also depending on the kind of music, it can activate a range of emotions not easily accessible through words. Music also makes it easier to remember good words, such as those in many of the Christmas carols we experience this time of year. Perhaps most powerfully, music activates our memories much in the same way that taste and smell do. Note that much of this depends on the kind of music. Like food, some kinds of music are better for you than others. Some are healthy, and some are toxic; everyone is at least a little different in what helps or hurts them. Like food allergies, your personal history with a given song or style may have more to do with whether it is helpful to your mental health or not. While classical instrumental music is almost universally recognized to be helpful, it will hurt you if the particular song in question is tied to an excruciating memory. While heavy metal is almost universally recognized to break your brain and contribute to hearing loss at the same time, there are some people who have come to Jesus through Christian heavy metal and may associate it with finding God. Music is powerful stuff, which is why it’s important to screen the lyrics. It’s very telling that the Bible preserves the words, but not the tunes, of the Psalms. Sacred music is a wonderful way to sink deeper into the beautiful reality of God’s love, but not all the music you listen to needs to be sacred. It is enough to ask of your music, “Does this help, or is it possibly making my worry, depression, or anxiety worse?” There are some secular songs that are so uplifting that people have been singing them in churches for years despite having secular origins (for example, “You Raise Me Up”). There are also some sacred songs that are actually a little questionable (for example, “I’ll Fly Away” happens to be in the SDA Hymnal even as it teaches the rapture, which Adventists have never agreed with.) One of the best ways to employ music towards improving your mental health, though, is to make some yourself. Even if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, singing is a wonderful discipline both for putting more music in your life and for forcing you to breathe in such a way that more oxygen goes to your brain. With the exception of percussion, keyboard, and string instruments, all music demands controlled breathing that has the side effect of reducing stress and enabling clearer thinking. Also, the process of making music forces you to be entirely “in the moment.” Think about this: music is essentially organized time. When you sing or play an instrument either from memory or from written music, you can’t jump too far ahead mentally into the future or you will misfire what you happen to be doing in the current line of music. The sound and where it’s going next fills your mind, leaving little room for your worries and cares, even if you’ve practiced the piece many times. This Christmas, since there are so many well-known Christmas carols that offer a great excuse to sing for better mental health, why not try singing along with some of your favorites? Whether you live alone or with others, this is one of the best musical seasons of the year to participate with your own voice or instruments. As you celebrate Christmas this Friday, I invite you to make it a musical one to increase your joy. For many years, one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season has been an unabashedly Christian concert that takes place at Disneyland each year called Candlelight. It is a truly magnificent experience, telling the Christmas story through orchestra, handbells, soloists, celebrity narrators, herald trumpets, and a truly enormous choir. For many years, the last reading in the script was a poem called “One Solitary Life” by James Allen Francis, which was well-loved for how eloquently it described how all of human history pivots on this one man from such a humble place.
A few years ago, a number of fans of Candlelight were irritated to find “One Solitary Life” swapped out for 1 Corinthians 13. You know, the Love Chapter, frequently read at weddings with no direct tie to the Christmas story. Quite a few people saw it as an attempt to make the concert more politically correct and were irritated by what felt like the removal of Jesus from this unabashedly Christian concert. I used to share that irritation--I really loved “Solitary Life”--but as our society slowly descended into greater levels of division and brutality, I came to see the value of using such a public, Christian venue to remind the world of the value of love. 1 Corinthians 13 may never mention Jesus by name or refer to the Christmas story, but it defines love in a way that is only possible because Jesus showed up and lived it for all of us to see. The kind of love 1 Corinthians 13 describes is truly impossible to cultivate by human efforts alone. After all, it says “it is not self-seeking.” Unlike the cushy romantic love the rest of Disneyland tends to celebrate, the love in 1 Corinthians 13 is high cost with little immediate reward. It’s the kind of love that motivated the Almighty Creator of the Universe to become flesh in a poor family and eventually march to the cross of His own free will. It’s a fierce kind of love that concerns itself more with what is needed than what is wanted, that works for the good of all with little concern for self. Compare that to your last Facebook interaction. Compare it to how people describe their political or cultural or religious “enemies.” More personally, compare it to the kind of love you have for your own family. We love so imperfectly, even in the situations in which love is easiest to come by. Nothing tests the strength of love quite like daily life and the ominous choice between the pleasure of their company vs. everyone’s physical health. A prayer to love more like Jesus is an invitation to let God help you grow. The beautiful thing about love is that the potential to love better is boundless, just as God’s love is boundless. There are always new ways to love different kinds of people, as well as new sacrifices to be made as new situations come up. The love that 1 Corinthians 13 talks about grows and matures over time, becoming more and more like the love Jesus has for us. Because love happens within relationships, it is often helpful to pray about ways to love specific people. Do you need to grow in how you love your spouse? Your children? Your brothers or sisters (of any age)? Your co-workers? Your boss? Starting with specific people keeps you grounded in the reality that true love is concrete, not abstract. It does not consist of fond feelings (those are a nice side effect of love from time to time), but of deliberate decision and action. To focus on even one person and learn how to love them well will influence you to love others all the better. Along the way, you will get to know God better. He made each person in His own image. As you learn to love another, you get to know them better, which allows you to see more and more of God’s image in them. Different people display different pieces of God’s image, so learning to love a variety of people reveals more facets of God’s beautiful character. People who are hard to love may have something to teach you about a part of His character You haven’t had occasion to see before. In all cases, the image grows more complete, piece by piece, and along the way more of it will be revealed to others through you. Every day, we are bombarded by more information than we know what to do with. It feels charmingly quaint to read Ellen White’s writings describing hers as a “fast” age. If only she knew how much crazier it would get. She wrote at length about distractions and wasted mental energy in a time when those distractions were. . . crocheting and reading novels.
The reasoning behind that last one is very interesting because of how it extends into our day. The arguments against novel-reading had to do with time, but also investing so much energy into caring about a fictitious world that dealing with the real world becomes less of a priority. Go ahead and fight me on this, but I would argue that we now have more information about the real world than is practical or useful. I’m not advocating willful ignorance, but taking a moment to consider the difference between the things we worry about and the things we can actually do something about. The circle of things we can do something about is called the “circle of influence.” It’s a different size for all of us, but for most of us it’s significantly smaller than our “circle of concern,” or the things we tend to worry and care about. The bigger the difference between those two, the more you set yourself up for anxiety and depression. Consider the news. Whether you get it from TV, internet, or the lovely old-fashioned physical newspaper, there is definitely more in there than you can act on. Helpful: the current rules and guidelines about physical distancing and emerging information from credible sources about how to combat the virus. Not helpful, but occasionally amusing: politicians and/or regular citizens acting ridiculous in relationship to these things. Definitely not helpful or amusing: doomscrolling, or the practice of scanning the news to find out what horrible thing is happening next out of a sense of fear and dread. We do not control what other people do. To save yourself a world of pain and anxiety, waste as little emotional energy as possible on the actions of other people you cannot influence. Even before the pandemic made this such a big issue--it’s easy to feel rage at people breaking restrictions and spreading the disease among people who were actually following the rules--I have seen so many people broken up by worrying about things they can’t actually do anything about. Here are some examples of things that I cannot control and am occasionally tempted to worry about: what other people think of my gender in relationship to my job, whether I will catch COVID from someone at the store, whether the American government will collapse over the next few months, whether people I love will die for one reason or another, whether Disneyland will close forever after all this pandemic time off, whether the economy of Anaheim will implode as a result, whether the global economy will implode, whether I’ll end up pastoring a district after pastors are laid off, which pastors will get laid off if giving continues to decline, whether my next platelet donation will give me a painful reaction or be a truly pleasant experience, whether I’ll catch COVID from donating, whether my husband will collapse from whatever mysterious thing ails him, whether people I care about will go broke, whether the next thing I eat will give me acid reflux and knock out my voice for another few weeks, whether I’m doing a good enough job pastoring (whatever that means), whether global warming will fry everyone in my lifetime, whether my health will suffer from secondhand pot smoke (someone who lives near me indulges regularly within smell-distance of my window), and whether the kids who play unsupervised in my neighborhood will get run over by a car one of these days. I realize that was a long list, and quite personal, but I wanted to really drive home the sheer volume of issues flooding my brain, the majority of which I can do little to nothing about. Your own list may look very different, but in reality is it that different? Are you concerned with issues in the news, in the world, and in your home that you can't actually do anything about yourself? Obviously, there are things I can do to affect the outcome of some of these things (in the case of the reflux, for example, I can avoid the worst offenders like delicious, greasy Mexican food). For most of them, though, I am at the mercy of other people with a good deal more or different influence than I possess. So what’s the use of spending the emotional energy to worry about them? Here’s the interesting thing about cares and worries: when we say “no” to worrying about things we can’t control, it frees up more emotional energy to attend to the things we can actually do something about. I cannot do anything--truly, anything--about the Anaheim economy or, in fact, the global economy. By not worrying about those things, I can focus on, you know, making sure my youth group is cared for, preparing halfway decent sermons, taking time to listen to the people in my actual circle of influence in a compassionate way, showing affection to my husband, and, yes, preparing myself decent food that won’t trigger reflux and murder my voice. To do triage on whether something is worth caring about, consider the following decision tree: Is it in my circle of influence? If no, either pray about it or ignore it. If yes, do I have enough energy and/or resources to do something about it? If no, pray about it, ignore it, or schedule a time further down the road to do something about it. If yes, pray about it, do something about it, then move on with your day. If prayer figures heavily into this, it’s because it does a wonderful job of taking all these different worries and giving them someplace productive to go. Prayer is the crucible that turns useless worry dross into silver action. If you find yourself anxious about anything, you may actually need prayer to sort out whether it really is in your circle of influence. Even as my circle of influence has expanded in recent years, I’ve been impressed by how much less I control than I once thought I did. By focusing on what I can do, and do well, I’ve become a happier, healthier, more stable person. Meanwhile, life goes on, and it does so when we do our best about the things we have actually been given the ability and responsibility to do, rather than drowning in an ocean of cares we cannot possibly change. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of people murmur about Christmas being cancelled due to COVID. They’re understandably bummed out about not being able to celebrate with their families or enjoy a number of other holiday traditions. Parties, concerts, programs, festivals, and all kinds of cheerful seasonal activities are now out of the question due to COVID.
I understand the grief over these things, sharing some of it myself, but I would not say that Christmas is cancelled. Sure, certain ways of celebrating Christmas are cancelled, but Christmas itself will happen no matter what happens with COVID. The heart of Christmas is an ancient story which, rightly considered, can bring joy no matter what is going on at the time. The season of Advent, as we said last week, is all about waiting for Jesus’s coming, both in the past and in the present. In both cases, the people who wait do so in dark times. Whenever I sit down and consider the conditions in which Jesus first came into the world, I am struck by how similar they are to today. Terrorism, political strife, illness, economic inequality, and the insecurity caused by increased cultural homogenization were features of that world almost as much as they are ours. In some cases, worse; after all, our politicians at least pretend not to be fine with murdering villages full of children. The joy of this ancient story is definitely not atmospheric, and I’d like to think that the joy of Christmas is far more enduring than the aesthetic of the season. There were no lights, concerts, or parties at Jesus’s birth--one of the most important events of human history happened in the humble privacy of a stable. The angels only went to go get the shepherds once Jesus was already born; I imagine they couldn’t bear to be alone in their joy. What was this joy about? This child, Jesus, was and is the one who will one day vanquish all disease, death, suffering, violence, pain, and fear. This child, Jesus, is the Almighty Creator God humbling Himself into vulnerable human flesh to be near us, to redeem us, to show us up close what divine love looks like on human features. If that’s not worth celebrating, I don’t know what is. This week of Advent focuses on joy, and it’s a good time to ask: is my joy manufactured by lights and music, or does it arise from remembering that Jesus has come and will come again? There are a lot of dark things in the world right now, for sure, and so many comforting customs have gone by the wayside, but there is still Jesus, the Light of the World who will one day obliterate the darkness. Meanwhile, life goes on, and it’s understandable that we miss living it alongside our loved ones. One of the hardest kinds of love to practice is the kind where you separate yourself from people you enjoy to keep them and yourself safe. Humans were not built for isolation, and it does take a toll on our joy to be separated from each other. When you are feeling the gloom of being apart from the ones you love, remember this: you are all experiencing Christmas right now, and while you cannot see each other, you are connected in a very real way. Reach out to your loved ones by phone, Zoom, card, or email to let them know you care. Take comfort and joy in the core of the Christmas story, and don’t let the present isolation keep you from enjoying what good things you can experience together now. Here in sunny LA, we have the distinct privilege of being able to go outside in short sleeves most seasons of the year. Because of this, many Angelenos have never heard of a lovely little affliction called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. SAD happens when the days get shorter and the sun gets covered by clouds. The diminished light levels affect how much serotonin and melatonin the body makes, which in turn affects how much the body sleeps. As the sleep cycle gets disrupted, moods change as well, tending towards the negative.
As you can see, this isn’t a simple case of our emotional associations with light and darkness; physiology is involved. You can love hanging out in the dark all you want and it will still have the potential to plunge you into a deep depression. There is actually a theory that the near-universal use of light to celebrate the season nearest the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) is an active effort to get everyone through the dark intact. In pre-pandemic LA, the vast majority of us could count on getting sufficient sunlight without even thinking about it. Driving to work would admit enough of it through the windshield for that purpose. Most of the time, we work harder to get away from the effects of too much sun, such as ridiculous heat, sunburn, melanoma, and dehydration. Because of this, most Angelenos are not programmed with light-seeking survival skills. Many of us are spending more time indoors than usual, and some of us may even be able to conduct the business of life without leaving the house for days. While keeping your germs to yourself is great for public health, it’s not great for your personal health to stay inside all the time. Even medieval Europeans, who were physiologically adapted to shorter, darker days, still had to go outside to get water, to chop firewood, and to do other necessary tasks--even in the snow. Even with all their outdoor time, they’re the ones who are historically responsible for putting Christmas near the solstice as an excuse to light more candles and build more fires. Unless you have the most amazingly huge windows in your house and you keep them unshaded, you need to go outside at least once a day--especially if you are of a darker complexion. The good news for those who are rightfully concerned about public health is that the virus does not transmit easily outside, where it can dissipate in every direction. Indoors, it gets trapped in the room and does not dissipate for about 3 hours. This means that if you take a walk outside and happen to pass people, you’re far less likely to exchange germs with them than you would even in the supermarket. If you or a family member are in total quarantine for one reason or another, there are still ways of boosting your light intake. Open all the windows as often as you can, and light candles if it’s allowed where you are. If you can afford it, there are a number of companies that actually make special lamps designed to mimic the broad-spectrum properties of real sunlight. I received one as a gift at the start of my time in Michigan, and it definitely helped me get through the winter. To get more light in a fun way, put up every Christmas light you’ve got and don’t take them down again until a little bit before the Super Bowl, the American landmark of when it is truly no longer socially acceptable to have Christmas lights up. If your Christmas lights aren’t too obviously Christmas-y, go ahead and keep them up through Valentine’s Day; you and your spouse could probably use something resembling a romantic atmosphere in a world that will probably still not include in-person indoor restaurant dining just yet. Neutral fairy lights can bring joy year round, and there’s no shame in using them during this pandemic. If your light sources are limited indoors, mirrors and other reflective surfaces can be great for boosting the power of what you do have. They also have the benefit of making your space look larger, which also helps combat the cabin fever of pandemic life. This, of course, brings me back to the importance of going outside every day if you can: even if all you do is step outside your front door for a minute, it reminds you that the four walls you live in do not encompass the entire world. Meanwhile, life goes on. Last weekend, my youth group and I began a month-long celebration of the Advent season. For those of you unfamiliar with this, the Advent season is composed of the four weekends leading up to Christmas and is frequently celebrated by lighting a candle for each week until Christmas day. It’s been celebrated by Christians in some way or another since at least the fifth century, and commemorates the joyful expectation of Jesus’s coming.
Which coming, you might ask? After all, the Bible describes two: when He showed up in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago and when He will show up again at some point in the future. In fact, the name Seventh-day Adventist refers to this second coming. The Advent season celebrates both these things, drawing rich parallels between those who waited for Him long ago and we who are waiting for Him now. In this celebration, the past collapses with the present and we become a part of that story. The hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is frequently sung on the first weekend of Advent and I love how its lyrics would make sense for both those who waited for Jesus long ago and those who wait for Him now: O come, O come, Immanuel, And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, And order all things far and nigh; To us the path of knowledge show, And cause us in her ways to go. O come, Desire of nations, bind All peoples in one heart and mind; Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world with heaven's peace. A close look at this hymn reveals it to be a prayer for Jesus to come and accomplish all that He has promised. It is a prayer for salvation (verse 1), a prayer for wisdom (verse 2), and a prayer for peace (verse 3). Salvation and wisdom are prayers most Christians are fairly familiar with, as these are core messages of hope that Christianity has to offer, but peace? We live in a world that has never really been at peace. This year alone, most of us have been subject to the “envy, strife, and quarrels” the third verse refers to in nauseating proportions. A prayer for peace is a bold thing--it goes against the grain of human nature to set aside our differences to “bind all peoples in one heart and mind.” Why pray it, then? Because we need it, and because Jesus is the only One Who can make it happen. Total peace in our lifetime may not be possible without His actual second coming, but it is vital to pray for it and work towards it wherever it can be found. When we sing of peace on Earth at Christmastime, we must not content ourselves with the feeling of peace--the soft glow of Christmas lights and all those other sentimental pleasantries--but reach for real peace based on the desire to listen and to seek each other’s good. Toward that end, we wait and we pray. We pray for hope and for peace, and we know that Jesus can bring it when He comes again Welcome to December! For many people, this is one of the most stressful months on the entire calendar. The holidays alone can be a source of energy or stress, depending on your circumstances and personality. They come with an awful lot of “stuff”: financial pressure, family pressure, social pressure, religious pressure, and now pandemic pressure as well. (What do you mean, no enormous extended family Christmas parties?) The time displaced by face-to-face gatherings is likely more than made up for in extensive hand-wringing about how to do the holidays in this incredibly strange year we’re all having.
Before you make yourself sick from all of this, take a deep breath and consider this: you don’t have to do it all at once. Instead, break these things up into their individual tasks and do one at a time. No matter what your project or goal is, from losing weight to planning Christmas, you will lose more time by panicking over how much there is to do than if you start somewhere and start chipping away at it. I used to sit down and list out all of the open projects I had to work on in one giant list. This was not good for my anxiety, as the sight of that list could really freak my brain out. Instead, I found a measure of peace when I began the practice of scheduling when I would do my tasks as I thought of them. Not everything needs to be done today. In schools, they used to teach the use of assignment books, where you write down when things are due in a planner. In college, I took this practice further and started planning when I would write my papers. Because I was taking a ridiculous courseload each quarter, this practice allowed me to leisurely write 1-3 papers each Sunday morning instead of losing sleep to get them done. In my entire college career, I never pulled a single academic all-nighter. Both my work and play were better for it. Unfortunately, when we get into the messiness of the non-academic world, it can be easy to forget that these skills transfer. There is a great deal more variety to the odds and ends that we do as adults and fewer externally imposed deadlines. This can trick us into considering this method useless (and hey, if you’re exceptionally high-functioning and can stay on top of your life without the help, good for you), but actually, for most folks, it’s very handy. By scheduling your tasks, you have a sequence to follow. Instead of stressing your brain out by having to make constant decisions, organizing your tasks in time gives you a sense of what is urgent. If you’re really winning at doing this, you’ll schedule a few of the things in this life that are important but less urgent as well--like calling your relatives every once in a while to tell them you love them. By seeing things laid out on a schedule, you can keep yourself from biting off more than you can chew in one day. It could take you time to figure out what you can and cannot do in one day. Recently, I gave myself a day and a half’s worth of solo work to do on a Tuesday that already contained appointments. Fortunately, it turned out fine because I was able to start on that day’s work the previous Thursday after following the sequence of tasks I had laid out well enough to get a little bit ahead. Knowing where you are in time on your task lists can give you the option to work ahead and brace against the unexpected. It can also reveal to you where you may simply not have enough time for something and have to say “no.” The greatest gift of planning and scheduling, though, is having a clearer sense of when you are “done.” When you finish the day’s tasks, there may be more stuff you can work ahead on, but you have the security of knowing that even if something comes up, you will be fine for the next day. You can leave the day’s work and engage with your loved ones in your off time knowing that you’ve given it your best for the moment. We plan and God laughs, but by planning, we are better prepared for whatever this crazy world has to throw at us. Whether you’re planning the holidays or finishing off work for the year, scheduling these tasks will give you more peace and concentration as you work. Meanwhile, life goes on, and you can actually enjoy living it. (For another perspective on this topic, see this article: https://forge.medium.com/be-a-schedule-builder-not-a-to-do-list-maker-396096a7486a?utm_source=pocke) Our current pandemic has revealed many of the limits of our understanding of the human body. It has also revealed tensions between faith and science in the Christian community, with some Christians holding shoulder-to-shoulder maskless services indoors to express faith that God will protect them from the virus rather than common sense health protocols. I believe that this stance goes against the grain of the Bible, in which God gives health protocols to His people, including ones specifying quarantine times for various ailments, as an act of love to protect them from disease. Obedience to the principle of taking reasonable precautions is consistent with the Christian faith.
However, it would be unwise to practice all the sound science the world has to offer but neglect the beautiful tool of prayer. As this pandemic has painfully revealed, even those who follow every precaution can sometimes still get sick. We can follow scientific advice to encourage the health and healing God wants to give us, but God is ultimately the only physician who actually understands every ailment. For this reason, prayer is a vital part of the healing process, not opposed to science but participating with it for the best outcome possible. When illnesses beyond our current understanding of medical science arise, all we can do is pray, but prayer is no small thing. I have seen prayer literally bring people back to health from life-threatening illnesses, leaving their doctors confused over how it managed to happen. I’ve also seen prayer help direct people to courses of treatments they were previously unaware of that ultimately healed their ailment or gave them more time. Of course, I’ve also seen people die despite plenty of prayer being offered on their behalf. This is purely anecdotal, but in my experience, many have been people whose lives had already been extended before and were already living on gifted time. However, even in the case of lost infants--something that frequently happens despite a good deal of prayer-- it’s important to remember that death is not actually the worst thing that can happen to a person. One day, our Great Physician will bring them back from the grave and answer those “what if?” questions that haunt us so much when loved ones pass away too soon. Cooperating with our best understanding of medical science and trusting in our Great Physician to act from a place of wisdom, we have a beautiful privilege and responsibility to pray for the sick. For a healing prayer to work, it’s important to believe that it can work. I find it curious that in my Adventist faith, anointing has sort of come to be seen as last rites instead of what it is--a way of focusing prayers genuinely meant to heal. There is no special power in the oil; rather, having something physical to manipulate helps both the person praying and the recipient of the prayer connect with the reality of what they’re trying to accomplish. You do not have to use oil or even be in the sick person’s presence to pray for their healing, but the more concrete you can make it for both yourself and them, the better. The awareness of someone else’s prayers for one’s health can be a very real part of healing because of the mysterious link between the mind, body, and spirit. Being mindful of this mind-body-spirit link, it’s important to learn as much as you can about someone’s condition as you pray for their healing. When some people mention psychosomatic illness, they do so in a derogatory way to say that it’s all in the patient’s head. Actually, emotional suffering that spills into the body is dangerous enough to kill and can cause a good deal of very real physical agony. Medical doctors can’t always untangle symptoms caused or exacerbated by emotions from the infections and diseases their medicines and surgeries can actually fix. Listening compassionately to the patient before praying with them can help make it clearer what the prayer really needs to be about. It’s also important to listen to how God might be leading you to pray. He, the Great Physician, knows what most needs healing, and will steer you in the right direction. Then, you are ready to ask from a place of belief. When you ask, it might be tempting to hedge your bets with phrases like “if it’s Your will.” This is where the belief comes in. If you’ve listened well, you will pray within His will. He does not desire anyone to suffer without cause, and you can always confidently pray for Him to comfort and guide the sick person, knowing that He will do it. It does get a little dicier when you get into praying about specific symptoms or even about whether they will live or die, but start where your faith is strong and move on to the rest when you are ready. To that end, it is important to incorporate gratitude into prayers of healing, both before and after the person is healed. Gratitude itself can help with the healing process, both from a boring scientific perspective and from a faith perspective. Scientifically speaking, concentrating on what’s going well helps the physical healing process far more than dwelling on the negative; depression is terrible for the immune system. As I mentioned in my last post, taking time to thank God for what He is already doing is an invitation for Him to do more. Whatever you do, never blame a person for their illness. Even if they did something to cause or exacerbate it, blaming them for it will not help them heal. If they’re open to it, it might be good to suggest a few things that could help in their situation, but leave their past mistakes well enough alone. They’re already suffering, and there’s no need to add to it. You are there to bring hope to the situation, and to let Jesus’s healing light shine through you. You are not the physician, but the tool in the Great Physician’s hand. There is no greater honor. One of the things that makes anxiety and depression so insidious is how it refocuses our minds on things that drag us down. If you talk to someone who is severely anxious or depressed, chances are that there are some legitimate concerns and losses underneath the fear and sadness. The problem isn’t acknowledging these things, but giving them too much power. To counteract that, gratitude is powerful.
In churches, gratitude frequently comes up as something that’s good for your relationship with God. It is, of course, and God is pleased to hear us thank Him for what He has done for us. In Christian circles, though, I think we often miss the value gratitude has even apart from the God we address. I have relatives who are atheists and practice gratitude, much to their benefit. It’s something the Bible teaches not just because God likes it, but because God made humans and knows it’s something that will help us. When we take the time to list out things we’re grateful for, it pulls us out of our focus on the negative. Even if all you can summon yourself to be grateful for is the fact that things could be even worse, acknowledging that fact alone tells your brain that you are not in the most unbearable situation possible. That is a cognitive distortion called “catastrophizing.” Cognitive distortions are things which, like fun house mirrors, take the facts of our reality and skew them in ways that make us miserable. I could easily run a series in this blog on all the known cognitive distortions, but for the moment, it’s helpful for you to be aware that they exist, and that gratitude is one of the things that helps correct for them. There is an extensive form of therapy that focuses on cognitive distortions called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It’s a very effective form of therapy that directly attacks distorted thoughts. However, without the supervision of a caring therapist, it can be dangerous to do that. By paying too much attention to your negative thoughts to attack them head on, it can sometimes feed them and make them worse by giving them too much attention. The beauty of gratitude is that it helps the distorted thoughts recede without paying direct attention to them. Rather than engaging with the thought, “The COVID numbers are up and I’ll contract it any day now!” (which could lead you down the rabbit trail of doomscrolling for more bad news to see if you’re right), thanking God for your health recalibrates where you put your attention. Without ignoring or disconnecting from the realities behind that panicky thought, gratitude can help you shift your focus to what is going well, what is helping the situation, and how God has or can bless you despite (or even because of) the chaos. I am in the practice of thanking God for five things each morning, and writing them down in my journal. I have a personal rule that I can’t thank Him for the same thing two days in a row (which could run the risk of reducing the exercise to routine meaninglessness). Some days, it’s easy, and I dash off seven or so items like an overachiever. The days in which the exercise helps me most, though, are the ones in which I struggle to think of five. Those are the days when I most need the refocusing power of gratitude to face the day. For example, this year I had to take my husband to the ER the night before my birthday, and he was admitted to the hospital. I was up half the night and slept poorly, waking up on my birthday with zero energy and concentration. I thanked God for catching his illness early, for my birthday, for my free birthday Starbucks drink (helping with the sleep deprivation), for my ordination date being set (that happened a few hours before the ER visit), and for my parents reaching out to me over the difficult night. All of this put me in a frame of mind to have a decent day where it could have been truly miserable. As you face the joys and struggles of the week--perhaps the beauty of the Thanksgiving holiday paired with the frustration of figuring out how to celebrate it without spreading COVID--look for things to be grateful for. By throwing your attention onto those things, the frustrations, sadness, and fears will gradually move into proper balance. Happy Thanksgiving! |
AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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