The Bible urges us to be ‘kindly affectioned one to another’ but, we often ignore this advice. Social media makes it easy to see how many people choose to be mean, short tempered, even cruel instead of being kind and thoughtful. Constant political party bitterness and never ending gun violence are clear indicators of not forgiving. Man’s dark, agonizing history of never-ending wars surely is absent the light of kindness and forgiveness.

People often speak of music as the “universal language,” powerful and transformative. What is it about music that can electrify, and uplift or sooth and settle us? Does music itself have the power to heal or is there something deeper?

This past year of lockdowns and isolation has been difficult for everyone. For some who struggle with feelings of loneliness in normal times, this experience has been especially dark. During the second wave of the pandemic, suicide rates increased and mental health concerns in many areas spiked.

One common goal or aspiration is good health. Across the globe, despite our differences we all desire to feel well, physically, mentally and emotionally. When you consider your health do you think about your spiritual well being? When you are calendaring physical fitness and continuing education goals do you also schedule time for spiritual growth?

It is stating the obvious to say we are all coping with loss, grief and the unknown in today’s world. Even if you skip the barrage of daily news reports touting: mass shootings, racial tensions and injustice, climate crisis issues, human rights violations, political infighting, etc.; there is the pandemic. We’ve lived with the unknown of Covid now for more than a year. In a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, nearly half (45%) of American adults reported they were negatively affected by worry and stress over the virus. Some of us coping better than others, but all are coping.

“Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.”

We hear about increased social isolation in the news, daily. We see groups of teenagers, seemingly together but staring into their phones instead of interacting with each other. Increased use of social media has led to heightened feelings of social isolation. Recent research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that the more time young adults spend on social media, the more likely it is for them to feel socially isolated.

It is often human nature to want the answers to life’s agonies to be complex. I mean, the problems are complicated, right? Diseases have names we can barely pronounce, let alone understand. Layers of past emotional pain we can’t even begin to unravel. We trick ourselves into believing that if prayer is connected to healing, it must be complex. We search ourselves for hidden sins; somehow thinking that any brokenness, any cracks in our veneer will block our connection to God. We are quite certain that we need to “fix ourselves” first before we can be worthy of God’s healing or grace.

The power of prayer has been debated in the media often in the last few months. Some say prayers are valueless, but many, when faced with an untenable situation, turn to prayer for comfort and help. Merely repeating words of a prayer may not solve a life situation, but deep, heartfelt communion with God does lift us out of life’s challenges and puts us on a more steady path of good. People, communing and listening to God, have experienced healing both physically, mentally, and situationally.

There are so many things going on in our day to day lives that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and fed up with everything that comes with our daily routine. From moms running around taking their kids to and from school and soccer practice to young adults trying to find their way in a very confusing and chaotic world, everyone is going through something that is challenging them and potentially wearing them down both mentally, physically and emotionally.