Foreshadow Now, ‘Season of the End Times’:
Blog note. Jesus indicated that ‘fearful sights’ (various natural disasters) would occur leading up to the time known as the Tribulation and Great Tribulation (a combined seven year period of great destruction on earth). Although these types of things have occurred in the past for centuries and thousands of years, they could be identified as the ‘season of the times’ due to the ferociousness of these events. They would be occurring in greater intensity, severity, frequency, size, duration, scope … just like the pains that a woman experiences in labor the farther along she is in the labor process. We are in the ‘season of the times’ that comes just before the seven (7) year Tribulation/Great Tribulation period
… And great earthquakes shall be in diverse places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:11).
… And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; (Luke 21:25)
… Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken; (Luke 21:26)
… This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2 Timothy 3:1)
Jesus is giving a series of prophecies about what to look for as the age of grace comes to a close. These verses are several of many such prophecies from throughout the Bible. 2017 was the worst year in recorded history for the intensity, frequency, severity, duration and occurrence of a large number of severe natural disasters worldwide. Earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, torrential flooding, unprecedented wildfires in unusual places, devastating droughts, excessive/scorching heat setting records everywhere, record snowfalls in Europe and Russia. Snow in the Arabia. This list can go on. Most studied Eschatologists believe these ‘fearful sights’ and massive natural disasters are all part of the ‘CONVERGENCE’ of signs that this Biblical and prophetic age is closing. Most people who study prophecy are familiar with the routine reference(s) made that these things will be like a woman having labor.
‘A House or Family Divided’: Family feud: Clashing over coronavirus is the new source of household tension, fighting. Millions of households and families.
Maria Puente USA TODAY April 9, 2020
Remember those good old days when the main source of tension in your household might have been politics? Forget that. Now it’s all about coronavirus.
Just what we need: A new source of family division as we clash over how to properly respond to a killer pandemic when millions of American families are shut in for maybe months and already getting on each other’s nerves.
Your spouse thinks it’s safe to eat with friends on the patio; you think it should be home-cooked meals with family only. But the kids want to go to the lake house and get takeout every day. You drop off groceries for the grandparents, while they keep going to Costco just because they’re bored. And they’re pressing to see the kids, never mind social distancing.
By now, you may be fighting over who gets to walk the dog just so you can get the heck out of Dodge.
Brandi Cypher, a Seattle mother of two boys, is managing lockdown with her ex-husband who lives in a different house. Both are working from home, and communicate amicably by text and phone.
“I did not agree that his parents should come in to town, with Seattle being the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak at the time,” she says. “He did not think that I should have my friend, who also cuts my hair, come to my house even though she had been in quarantine for several weeks. These are new kinds of disagreements that have come up with coronavirus, and do cause some tension.”
Many of us might be thinking we need a family therapist about now. In fact, sociologists, psychologists, therapists and relationship trainers say they are already hearing from clients and patients, even though no one is actually seeing them in person (it’s taking place by phone or online via video links).
“They won’t apply the words, ‘it’s because of the virus or the pandemic that I’m feeling this way,’ ” says Mandy Mitchell, a licensed clinical social worker at the Center for Counseling and Wellness in Myrtle Beach, S.C. “Instead, they say, ‘I wanted him to buy seven cans of corn and he only bought three’ and they think they’re arguing about corn when what they’re really arguing about is the need to feel secure and stable.”
All families have underlying issues; in times like these, they’re exacerbated or easily triggered, thus launching potentially toxic interactions, says family therapist Helen Park of Manhattan’s Ackerman Institute for the Family, a mental-health clinic.
“It’s just so much more pronounced now because the climate for everybody is such an acute, pervasive level of anxiety,” Park says. “That kicks up the sympathetic nervous system; the fight-or-flight fear responses are very much always on. That’s where you get problematic cycles of interactions, which are so difficult to interrupt if you’re in a heightened state.”
Indeed, American households are dealing with a whole new level of fraught these days, one that makes the usual squabbling seem tame.
Elizabeth Tenety, a co-founder of and occasional columnist on the popular parenting site Motherly, says she’s noticed how virus lockdown is affecting her own family; she and her husband are the parents of four kids under 7, and both are working from their New Jersey home.
“A week or two ago, I just attacked my husband – I had what I now understand, after a lot of reporting and writing about it, was a natural human reaction to so much uncertainty and terror,” says Tenety, co-author of “The Motherly Guide to Becoming Mama.”
“I’m trying to cope with demands, he’s not coping the way I want him to be coping, and I handled it in the worst way, very accusatory,” Tenety says. “We’re hearing from our audience there are thousands of women saying ‘me, too, I’m fighting with my partner’ more.”
Stacey Engle, president of Fierce Conversations, a Seattle-based corporate training and coaching firm (based on a self-help book of the same name), says her company trains people on how to have “better conversations” aimed at listening and communicating with less rancor. Now that they’re delivering their training online to couples and families, they’re advising clients that existing tensions can be resolved or ameliorated before relationships become irreparable, Engle says.
“Because a core idea is that the conversation IS the relationship,” Engle says. “If you want an open, loving relationship, you need to have the same in conversations.”
Teaching people “the skill of listening to understand rather than to form your rebuttal” is the aim of the Seattle-based Gottman Institute, which preaches a research-based approach to relationships and trains certified therapists like Mitchell. She says she’s seeing an increase in conflict among her clients they hadn’t experienced since they started therapy.
“It might look like anger but it’s really just fear, because that’s a very primal part of us as human beings,” she says. She tries to help people learn to dial down accusatory and aggressive interactions. “How do you approach any subject in a way that is gentle and kind and shows what we call unconditional positive regard, meaning: I love you no matter what.”
Even in the best of times, it takes work to consciously de-escalate tensions or remember to just check in regularly with each other, says Tenety. She and her husband have arranged an ad hoc shift system to give each time off from dealing with kids, school, household chores and work during quarantine.
“We’re hearing this a lot from the parenting community, about being as empathetic and generous with your partner as you would want him or her to be with you,” says Tenety. “I’m so fried at the end of the day, I am going to bed early but my husband is staying up and working on his garden, so I give him the space he needs to cope, and I get the space I need to sleep.”
How families cope depends on how they responded to family tension before they were shut in, says Tziporah Rosenberg, an associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry & Family Medicine at the University of Rochester medical school.
“If they avoided hard conversations or fought over every difference before, you can reasonably expect that’s how they’re handling things now,” Rosenberg says. “For most people, it’s not the time to hatch brand new skills.”
And it does take skills to cope when the anxiety meter is soaring because of fear.
“When we’re fearful we’re not operating at our best,” Rosenberg says. “We’re operating out of survival instincts and there’s not a lot of room for empathy, compassion, patience, listening deeply -– those are higher-level skills.”
So what can be done? It’s not like you can flounce out of the house in a huff.
Engle suggests taking a straightforward approach: Address and talk about whatever needs to be talked about in a non-confrontational way.
“If there are issues occurring or bothering you, you have to name it, get clear about it and why is this an issue, and get more clarity to prepare to have a conversation with whoever is involved,” Engle says. “You’re addressing issues with a person alongside a person, it’s not confronting a person.”
In the midst of an argument, remember to hit the “pause” button, says Rosenberg.
“We’ve recommended this for years, (that) when couples get into arguments, blow the whistle and take a time out,” she says. “Go to mutual corners and revisit the conversation a half-hour later. It takes our brains at least that long to come down from agitation.”
That time-tested technique is even more relevant now, says Engle. “In this time, you have the opportunity more than ever to pause, reflect and connect with the people you live with in new and meaningful ways,” she says.
Try self-soothing and self-care techniques. Take a yoga class online or learn to meditate via an online course. Look for a celebrity workout routine on Instagram and try it. Lose yourself in a book, work in the garden or even take a nap.
More:Coronavirus: Stressed, depressed, and feeling bad? You’re not alone. Where to get free help online
Kirsten Ngheim, who lives with her husband and two young sons on Bainbridge Island, Wash., says so far she and her husband are in harmony about their lives in lockdown, and maybe it’s because she’s focused on her garden in trying to prepare for the unknown.
“I’m thinking more about planting foods that grow plentifully, further reducing the need for store runs,” she says. “But I’m also planting lots of flowers, which evoke an appreciation for nature, happiness, and love just by seeing them. Creating joy in beauty (and) inspiring mental health.”
Another thing to remember is that a therapist is only a video link away. “One of the great things is that there are all these resources for self-care so readily accessible online,” Park says. “Normally these workshops or retreats, you have to show up in person and pay a lot of money. Now they’re free online.”
Cypher says she tries to focus on the positive aspects of her situation in Seattle. Not being in the same house with her ex makes things easier, she says.
“We don’t have constant exposure to one another so in that sense we aren’t getting on each other’s nerves the way some folks who share a home probably are,” she notes. “As this continues, I’m sure other issues will come up but fortunately thus far, it’s been relatively smooth.”
It might help to remember that millions of families are struggling to cope, too. You can tell because people are talking about it online and on social media. Or joking about it.
“Thank God, my wife has multiple personalities. I’m quarantined with a different person everyday and its not boring at all,” joshed Paul Barbar.
“Is this a tension headache caused by my friends and family still not taking this pandemic seriously, or am I just coming down with the novel coronavirus: a fun, daily question!” tweeted Tiffany C. Li, an attorney and legal scholar.
Even America’s celebrity sweethearts want to throttle each other. Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, married since 2013 and parents of two young daughters, openly admitted it in a video interview with Katie Couric last month.
As the lovey-dovey couple sat next to each for the video, the tension was obvious on camera.
“This is as physically close as we’ve been in a couple of days ’cause we’ve just found each other revolting,” Bell said, sharing they had been “at each other’s throats real bad.”
Jesus Christ’s Offer of Salvation:
The ABCs of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the Lamb)
A. Admit/Acknowledge/Accept that you are sinner. Ask God’s forgiveness and repent of your sins.
. . . “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).
. . . “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).
B. Believe Jesus is Lord. Believe that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be; that He was both fully God and fully man and that we are saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. Put your trust in Him as your only hope of salvation. Become a son or daughter of God by receiving Christ.
. . . “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).
C. Call upon His name, Confess with your heart and with your lips that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.
. . . “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (John 1:8-10).
. . . “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 2:2).
. . . “In this was manifested the love of god toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:9, 14-15).
. . . “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10).
. . . “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).
. . . “Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).
. . . “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1:16).
. . . “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts: 4:12).
. . . “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).
. . . “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
. . . “But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12).
True Church / Bride of Christ Spared from God’s Wrath:
Romans 5:8-10. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Romans 12:19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 1:10. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Jeremiah 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.
Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.