Stress Awareness Month

The Health Resource Network, a non-profit health education organization, has designated April as Stress Awareness Month for the 16th consecutive year. Health care professionals, health promotion experts and caregivers across the country will join forces to raise public awareness about the cause and cures for our modern stress epidemic.

For this reason Community Chaplains of America, which provides care for individuals during difficult and stressful situations, have offered 10 simple suggestions on how to provide care and essentially reduce stress, according to christianpost.com.

• Provide a listening ear. Often, those who are going through stressful times simply need someone to talk to. Make an extra phone call or meet a friend for coffee and offer the opportunity for them to talk.
• Send an encouraging note. Words are powerful. In the age of emails and text messages, handwritten notes show that you took time and effort to show you care.
• Say “thank you.” Offer your gratitude for people. Thank a coworker for his or her hard work or a waiter for serving you dinner. Everyone wants to feel appreciated.
• Laugh with someone. A good hearty laugh can relax you both and mentally lighten your load. Tell a joke or rent a funny movie with a friend.
• Perform a random act of kindness. Surprise someone with the unexpected. It can be as simple as paying for a friend’s coffee or offering to watch the kids so a mom or dad can have that extra time to relax.
• Help someone organize. When the places and things around us are in order, we feel a little more put together. Take time to help a friend clean out a closet or scrub the bathtub.
• Take a walk. Exercise releases endorphins and makes us feel better all around. Walk around the mall with a coworker on your lunch break or meet a friend at a park after work and enjoy the fresh air.
• Share a smile. This contagious act can easily brighten someone’s day. Smile to a passing stranger; it may make a big difference in his or her day.
• Get away. Get away from the everyday circumstances that may be causing stress. Plan a weekend getaway or a day trip with a friend.
• Pray. Say a quick prayer for your friend and put his or her stress in the hands of the Ultimate Provider and Healer.

Make Disciples

Our Purpose: To Know God and to Make Him Known

Our Command: Make Disciples (Go, Baptize, Teach)

What is a Disciple? (an apprentice; a student who acts out the Word)

· Someone who continues in the Word of Jesus

· Someone who with a Teachable spirit

· Someone who Loves God and others

· Someone who forsakes all for the Kingdom of God

· Someone who practices the disciplines of fasting & prayer

· Someone who puts the Word into action

· Someone who continues the works of Jesus

Guilt and Grace

When friends confide to me that they are wrestling with guilt or remorse, I usually feel clueless about how to encourage them. What can I possibly say that will offer the grace and truth they need and want without sounding preachy or pat? I wonder.
I’m certain I thrust a similar dilemma on my sister Denell last week. A message at church had sent waves of conviction, guilt, and regret washing over me, and I was torn up over the implications of the disobedience God brought to my attention. Knowing I could use someone else’s prayers and insight on the situation, I emailed my sister. Her response not only provided the encouragement and help I hoped for; it also has given me some principles for how to respond to friends who come to me with similar burdens.

She came alongside me. Despite the safety I feel in our relationship, I was hesitant to open my sister’s reply. What if it minimized my struggle or compounded my guilt? Denell’s opening words dispelled these concerns. She agreed to pray for me as I processed the situation. She let me know that she too had wrestled with similar conviction. And after acknowledging that she didn’t have all the answers, she offered some thoughts based on her experience.

She reminded me of God’s grace. Before going any further, my sister gently reminded me of what was true about me in Christ: I am holy and blameless in God’s sight, not because I have obeyed God perfectly, but because Christ paid the penalty for my sin on the cross. More than that, God has clothed me with the perfect righteousness of Christ. He no longer holds my sin—including the one I currently faced—against me. In fact, He now views me with the same pleasure and love He has for His Son.

She didn’t discount my sin. Denell didn’t downplay the conviction I felt. In fact, after reminding me of the gospel, she encouraged me to identify and accept responsibility for my sin. But because she had first pointed me to what Christ has done for me and how God views me, I was now able to respond to that sin appropriately. Rather than wallowing in guilt or trying to make things right on my own, I could confess my sin to God, accept the forgiveness and cleansing He had already provided in Christ, and move forward in His grace with joy and freedom.

She pointed me to the Holy Spirit. Finally, Denell encouraged me to ask God to give me the strength and will to trust and obey Him, which He has promised to do through His Spirit.

Denell’s response closely mirrors Paul’s approach in his epistles. No matter what spiritual issues the recipients were facing, his response nearly always included assuring them that he was praying for them, reiterating the gospel, and then encouraging them to live it out through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now that I’ve experienced the benefits of this approach firsthand, I’m thinking about ways I can come alongside others in the same way.

Dianne Bundt

Editor

DJ Online News