Arquivos Fear and Anxiety - OTPB - Ordem dos Teólogos e Pastores do Brasil

mar312020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Parenting Anxious Kids in an Anxious Time

ATUALIDADES

In the midst of the fear and uncertainty we are experiencing with COVID-19, I want to offer some brief, even basic and practical ideas for managing your own anxiety, as well as your children’s. In many ways, how we manage our own anxiety will transfer to how we are (or are not) able to appropriately care for and shepherd others, including our children. 1. Remain informed through trusted sources. Strive to consult trusted news and information sources rather than media that is sensationalized and headline-focused. Examples of such trusted sources include: 2. Limit media exposure. It’s necessary to stay informed, and it’s also wise. However, it’s incredibly tempting (speaking for myself) to become too consumed and too drawn in by the next headline. Set a limit on when and how you will che...

mar292020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Quarantine Is Hard. God Is Good.

ATUALIDADES

During the last week of January, my family and I were relishing the end of a lovely vacation in Thailand and watching the news closely. We were considering what to do in light of the coronavirus chaos unfolding in China, where we currently live. As we prepared to return, though, I was just as concerned about the quarantine time as I was about the virus itself. I did the math: (4 very active young kids) + (1,600-square-foot apartment on the 25th floor of a high-rise building) x 8-plus weeks = potential insanity Fast forward almost two months and we’re still intact, but it hasn’t been easy. The question I’ve repeatedly asked is, What does it look like to depend on God during these uncertain and stressful times? Medicine from a Cave Enter Psalm 57, a psalm of David, written in a cave...

mar282020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

When You Fear Not Being in Control

ATUALIDADES

Households across the world are aglow from screens delivering coronavirus updates. They’re also replete with fear. Leslie worries about her aging husband, whose health has been in slow decline since he turned 65. Tom knows he has no control over his pregnant wife’s health (or their baby’s) and goes to sleep nervous every night. Jessica is scared about her kids’ safety when they have to run to the grocery store, and Ron fears contracting the disease when he goes to work at the nursing home. Brittany can’t seem to control her anxiety over the virus, but it comes on full force at random moments, and she fears the next unexpected attack. Then there are fears surrounding policies and quarantines, as people anxiously await the choices their leaders will make, choices that are out of th...

mar242020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Make Fear Your Friend. Turn to Christ.

ATUALIDADES

Not all fears are irrational. In fact, to have no fear at all, at this point in the coronavirus crisis, would either be the side effect of thoughtless irrationality or else a chemical-induced nerve numbing. Now, for some people, such ignorance is bliss. To not know is to not fear. But this logic runs counter to another common belief about our fears: we think it’s the unknown that we’re truly afraid of. But I’m a skeptic. As we deal with perpetual unknowns, unanswered questions, looking for a vaccine and lacking testing, we might miss the fact of what really scares us: we’re more afraid of what we do know. Runaway Train What we know is that each of us is traveling on a runaway train that is hurtling toward a bridge-less divide. We can’t stop it; we can barely hop...

mar242020 by @prflavionunesNo Comments

Practice Hospitality. Especially During a Pandemic.

ATUALIDADES

Recently, after COVID-19 was declared a rapidly spreading pandemic ravaging every nation on earth, the president declared the United States in a state of emergency, public schools shut down interminably, colleges abruptly released their students for home, and social distancing became the new norm. Although these were clearly extraordinary times—I twice disinfected doorknobs, bathrooms, light switches, and all surfaces that didn’t have a cat sleeping on them—my doorbell continued to ring. Homeless dogs, college students, and neighbors with pressing needs stood on the porch like it was any other Saturday. But the pandemic had displaced them (some physically, some emotionally), and a single question filled the six feet between us: “How does this change things? What does radica...