Being Kind to yourself

Being Kind in this COVID 19 Storm

At this time its easy is to stop beeing kind to yourself

Its easy to stress out and blame yourself for things

Its easy to wake up and feel like you havent slept

Its easy to always feel on edge and stressed about life.

To fell tired a lot

People are saying we are all in the same boat right now, but might I suggest we are not all in the same boat.

We are all in the same storm right now the COVID 19 storm but we are not all in the Same boat. Some peoples boats are really big they have a job and its not been affected at all they are still working and getting on with life. Nothing has changed except they may be just working from home.

Others may have been furllowed they had a Job but have recently been put to one side, and told not to work for now but they are being paid for 80% of their wages slightly less than normal but are able to just get by

Then there is the last boat of people out of work no money coming in, or self employed and a small amount of money coming in. Finding it hard to get from one week to the next. Even paycheck to paycheck is not currently working.

Thats the three boats we are currently find ourselves in.

So were not all in the same boat but we are in the same storm.

Being Locked in your Home

Now if like myself you have been locked in your house for the past two months

Its been difficult

Our relationships are testing

Our recreational time has grown we have found a lot of time on how hands.

At first it felt like a nice holiday a couple of weeks off, then the time has just gone on and one.

It becomes stressful in its on way as you begin to get board. Everything on your Netflix has been watched, those Jobs around the house have been done, those books have been read.

Our routine has gone our lives feel like they have now been turnt upside down.

For some of us we do not know if there is a Job to go back to.

It has become a siliently stressful time

Its easy to get snappy at our selves as we get into a rut

Parents are finding it hard when we see other parents online looking like they have it all together in their online pictures

We think were not as good as them

One thing we must note about life online

It only shows the best bits

So be easy on yourself

Its not showing that mum pulling her hair out in the morning because both her kids are not eating breakfast

Its not showing the dad thats stressing out before a Zoom call with work, because his little one may of just peed on the floor.

What it shows is a 2 second snap shot of their life in that 2 second happy moment

It takes 2 seconds for the shutter of the camera to go off and capture a moment.

Your seeing 2 seconds of someones life not their everyday.

So we must be graceful on ourselves

Some of us are finding it harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning because being closed in is setting off your depression

Our money is not lasting the full month

Those car loans or rental agreements are just going on and on, even though we have asked for the car to be returned to the dealer.

The news doesnt get any better each day

So its easy for us all to be harder on ourselves and in a rut with others.

Its harder to have grace for ourselves and others

Its harder to forgive ourselves for the little things and others

Its harder to have those forgiving arguments with our partners or kids knowing full well the other person is going to do it again.

Yet we find that for our mental health to move into a postive aspect this is what we have to do.

Forgive and Be Kind to ourselves and others

To have Grace on ourselves and others around us.

Yet its easy to talk about but hard to put into practice.

This weeks story of hope

This brings me onto this weeks story of hope

There was once a man who lived in a great house lets name him Steve. He lived in a leafy town he had a nice car, but on credit, he had a nice house but a massive morgage, and he had a nice family, a beautiful wife Emma and two beautiful kids.

He was a good friend to people and he lent out his money from his pay and told his friends to pay it back when they can.

He had a great Job in London, and earnt a nice wage in london

He owed a lot of money to the bank, for different loans one being his nice car that he drove.

Yet he had the wage to be able to pay small parts of it off a month.

He and his family thought he had a job for life so they didnt have any worries about their debt

Then one day, there was a huge drop in the financial markets and the company he worked for went bust, he lost his job in an instance.

The bank he had borrowed money for called him in, as they had just made 95% loses that year from the drop in the market.

He went in to have a meeting with the bank manager and explained he could not pay the loan, he sat their crying and wailing because he had realised he had taken out more than he could pay.

He had nothing because no one was highring and his prospects for getting a job in the short term looked bleek.

This was the worst recisssion that his country had ever seen

The bank said to him on this occasion were going to write off the debt for you, you can keep everything the house the car and we will right this debt off.

He left the bank elated and happy jumping for joy.

He saw his friend Dean in the steet that he had lent money too and straight away started asking him for the money.

He said to him if you do not pay me im going to let your wife Samantha know that you borrowed money from me.

His friend got into a right mess and said I cant pay you back right now but give me some time.

This man got annoyed called the police they all ended up at Deans house, and in front of his Samantha, Dean was arrested and thrown into jail.

Samantha bumped into Emma, Steves wife in the highstreet the next week, and they were chatting and she had mentioned that they had been let off a lot of Debt from the bank.

After this conversation Samantha went into the bank and spoke with the bank manger and explained the situation, that her husband was now in Jail and that Steve has been let off of his bigger debt.

The bank manager called Steve in, with the police explained to him that he was let off his debt but because he did not let his friend off of the debt he was now going to Jail and had to pay all the original debt off.

Grace Upon Grace

The point of this story is to show that, in these times we must be graceful to one another

Like God is graceful to us

You see God is the bank manager in this story

and we are Steve

God gives us so much grace out of love, so that we can in turn show his love to others

If we dont then justice is always served.

Its not that God is a hard God please dont think that

Its that God is a loving God and will show all Grace and justice no matter who you are.

Yet in these times how do we be gracious to others when we are finding it hard

Well Jesus the Son of this God (Who was the Bank Manager in the story.)

Gives us some advice and its great advice.

We can find it in the bible here:

Matthew 6:34 ESV

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

To understand how this works let me explain it in terms of borrowing.

Now in this Picture is a Digger digging up dirt

When excavating the digger must bring up the dirt to which it then creates a mound

In life we like to do this, we reach forward into tomorrow and begin to think about its problems

Like how will I pay for this

How will I achieve that

How will I reach this goal

I personally do this a lot

You may think,

What if my Kids dont learn this

What if my kids cant do this thing

What ends up happening is you dig so far into the future

That you end up building a mound of problems onto you

Then you cant move forward and you constantly worry

You essentially borrow tomorrows problems and put them into today.

This verse is great advice here it teaches us to not worry about tomorrow

To be graceful to ourselves

If you dont go borrowing tomorrows problems then you will have enough grace to get through today.

Im sure you have heard the advice to be in the present

Well that was taken from the bible and adapted into mindfullness

This is where it came from this verse

So dont go borrowing tomorrows problems when you only have enough grace to get through todays problems.

When you have enough grace for yourself you can then be graceful to others

We can actually hold more when we are graceful to our selves

In christianity, we pray about everything

Well I know I do. I pray about the smallest of things and the largest of things

Like I pray for a certain meal that I want

I also pray for a new car

A new laptop

I pray for help with things in my Job in my life

I pray and ask god for help with everything in my life

Then it helps me not to dig mounds

But to be graceful to others and myself

So dont build up mounds for yourself

Dont be anxious about tomorrow

Be gracious to your self and to others.

You see if you go into presence of God like Dean in our story went to the bank manager and pleaded with him

He basically said look I have so much going on in my life ive gone completly wrong in my life

“Ive borrowed more than I can pay”

Then God the father comes in like the bank manager and says dont worry I can pay for that debt and write it off

Because Jesus did that many years ago on the cross for us

He went and died for our debt that we build up today and its all been forgiven

Literally ready for you to come to him and say

Jesus help me, in my life I have borrowed more than I can handle

I have too many problems going on

My anxiety levels are through the rough!!

Help me Jesus

Then he goes like the bank manager do not worry I can sort that out I can write those problems off.

Story about my own life and how much I borrowed from Life

Debt

Girls

Relationships bad

Yet Jesus took all that and over a period of a year or two fixed all those problems as I went to him each day just asking him to sort this out.

This is what you can do right now today

Go and get all your problems and sit there and say to Jesus (The Bank Manager)

Look Ive borrowed more than I can pay

If you come into my life and help me, ill follow you

And he will help you

He will get rid of the Anxiety

The Stress

He will fix the things that is wrong in your life

Because he is the all loving Bank Manger of your life, my life.