Building Relationships in the Crazy COVID Crisis

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Building Relationships in the Crazy COVID Crisis by Susan G Mathis Communication is the lifeblood of any relationship; it will affect every aspect of your relationships. Good personal communication is the act of revealing yourself—your past experiences, present feelings, and future dreams. It’s sharing your fears, needs, and desires carefully and honestly. Communicating well is also about setting boundaries, confronting problems, admitting when you’re wrong, rejecting fearmongering and negativity, and extending grace to each other. But in this crazy COVID season, it feels so isolating, so anti-relationship, and so self-withdrawing. In short, it’s scary. It’s confusing. It’s lonely. It makes…

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Honoring the Fallen

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Honoring the Fallen This Memorial Day feels different than those in recent memory. I’m sure its sense of untimeliness is related to the COVID-19 issues swirling around us. We need community – as believers and as humans – and that sense of community has been threatened. Today is a perfect day to remember those who have fallen while fighting for our communities. Those warriors cannot hear our thanks, but their families and descendants can. May we acknowledge their sacrifices by remembering that nothing we possess or enjoy has been gained or achieved on our own. Others have contributed. The Psalmist…

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Thoughts on the Lockdown (Kingdom Economy)

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  “(Misfortune) can ruin your life only if it ruins your character. Otherwise, it cannot harm you—inside or out.” Aurelius “The great objective of this life is character, for it is the only thing we can carry with us into eternity.” Austin Phelps Doesn’t it help to keep in mind, when life feels particularly hard, that God has our character growth in mind? Right now with the COVID-19 epidemic keeping most of the world in lockdown, with economies declining, it is easy to see loss and limitations. The usual props we rely on to keep us afloat seem suddenly tenuous,…

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Hope Springs Eternal…So They Say

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   “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5). Who reading this today has been…

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