Page 210 - South Mississippi Living - August, 2020

FINAL SAY
JORDAN
DUCOTE
Lead Pastor, Northwood Church
“God, we thank you for our lives and for the life that Jesus lived for us to give us hope and purpose on this earth. We thank you for all of the healthcare workers who are serving our community during this pandemic. We pray that you would protect them physically, emotionally, and spiritually as they put themselves in harm’s way to provide the vital care needed. Be with their families who are also dealing with anxiety about the safety of their loved ones. Lord, we believe that you are sovereign and in control. So we trust you with our fear and anxiety and also with our plans for the future. We pray you would bless and keep us at this time.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”
2020 has quickly become one of the most complex years that I can personally remember. As a 35-year-old who has grown up in South Mississippi, I have not seen anything like this since Hurricane Katrina. At least with the hurricane, everybody came together to clean up and rebuild. With the combination of the pandemic and societal tension, it seems we are in uncharted territory.
This means that we are individually experiencing unique feelings. These emotions are genuine and can have so many adverse effects on our physical bodies, whether we realize it or not. Many of us are living in a constant state of fight or flight. Every time we open social media. Every time we get into a conversation. Every time we look at our kids and wonder what the next few months and years hold for them. We are facing a mountain and can’t even see the peak yet. So what do we do?
I was raised as a devout Christian, and so I have walked through every season in my life believing God has a plan. As a result, I am anchored to something bigger than myself and more significant than any temporary struggle. However, that does not remove me from experiencing the immediate reality of the here and now. I thought I would share three quick ways that we can stay anchored through this time.
Take it a day at a time. We have the uncanny ability to overlook today and look at tomorrow. The problem is we do not have the grace for tomorrow. We only have
the grace to walk through today. Do not allow fear of tomorrow rob your joy for today.
It usually isn’t as bad as you think it is. We typically think about situations from a worst-case-scenario standpoint. The crazy part is that it usually doesn’t turn out as
bad as we think, or it never happens at all. We end
up experiencing those negative emotions a thousand times without any grace for it. Therefore, our emotions have gone on this journey even though we have not gone through it physically. This can create anxiety and depression.
Identify your source of hope. One thing we all need is hope. We need to have hope for a better tomorrow. In the face of this pandemic, some people are putting their hope in the medical field to create a vaccine that will fix this. For others, their hope is based on the virus disappearing and everything going back to normal. However, if your hope is based on a moving target, every day can leave you on an extreme high or low. Hope has to be based on a constant for it to be a consistent source of hope. So what is your source of hope?
For me, my source of hope is in Jesus. I believe that
the brokenness of this world will one day be completely restored. Nothing that can steal the hope that’s based on Him because He is an immovable target. This pandemic is temporary. The problems we have in our society are temporary. Hope based in Jesus is eternal.
210 | August 2020
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living