Peace in the Midst of Chaos

For two weeks now, my family has been home. One Exception – We’ve made regular visits to my mom’s house, who has also stayed home. We have played outside each day that the weather allows and then we come back into our home.

At first, I found myself checking on the daily news, most of the time on my phone so that I could shield my children from the unexpected updates that are sure to come during a time such as this. Watching the news is not the norm in our house because we have young children and the world is negative when portrayed by news media. If my husband and I want to stay informed, we check out the headlines on personal devices, which can cause headaches and the need for filler injections to make the eleven lines (google it) go away.

But somewhere in the middle of last week, I thought about why I’m scrolling and reading headlines. There are good reasons and dumb reasons, but I felt a need to figure this out. Are you too sitting on your phone daily to check out how many people are sick and dying? That may be good or it may be dumb, I think it depends on the person. And no judgment either way.

Here are the reasons why I was/am falling into this habit:

1. I care about humanity
2. I want to be informed
3. Information guides my prayer life
4. I get bored
5. I get fearful
6. I get discouraged

As I said, some good reasons, some dumb. The top three are driven by peace. The bottom three are driven by fear. So right there in my self-reflective list, I understand that we have two choices: always only two choices. We can choose to live in peace or in fear. We can choose to fill our spare time with acts of peace or acts of fear. We can calm ourselves with peace or rial ourselves up in fear.

And that one distinction gives me great freedom. In a world where we can’t control much, we can control if we are driven by peace or fear. The Bible puts it this way, “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7)

We get to decide how we live during this pandemic. Each day, and sometimes each moment, we can choose peace or we can choose fear.

I am praying God’s blessings over you and yours during this time. Wash your hands and look for the unexpected blessings in each day. Although the days may seem long right now, we all know that time flies by. Accept this gift from God of time to enjoy all that He has created and made just for you.