Coping With Tragedy: Set Your Mind

Last week I introduced my new blog series about coping with tragedy. The latest news of the Las Vegas mass shooting, along with the devastating hurricanes has many of us searching for ways to be strength and light in a world that has become fragile and dark. If you missed my first post which introduced four ways we can be difference-makers, read it here.

Today’s post will focus on the first of four ways you can cope well and make a difference: You can set your mind and keep it set.

Tragedy has a way of violently rocking our emotions. We don’t know what to do with it. We strain for understanding and hate that catastrophe has gained the upper hand. It leaves us feeling helpless, fearful and cynical. If we want to be strength and light in the midst of devastation, we must heed the Bible’s wisdom to set our mind and keep it set.  Colossians 3:2 instructs us, “Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value].”

It’s vital to remember – you get to choose your thoughts. If you typically default to negative thinking and hopeless thoughts when tragedy strikes, it’s time to change your default setting. This will take conscious effort and practice, but it is well worth it. Why? Because you are a person of influence – especially over your kids. Your thoughts directly affect your words and actions, and they are watching how you act and talk in response to the news. This is your opportunity! Will you build their faith or build their fear and cynicism?

If there is only one thing my mind can set itself on during overwhelming disaster, it is this:  God can bring overwhelming good from overwhelming bad. As people of God, we are never without hope. If we look hard enough, we will find stories of beauty rising from the ashes of tragedy. When we do this, we deprive evil of its power. We make room for good to triumph in our hearts and in the hearts of those we influence.

Here are some beautiful things to look for and bring to center stage of your thoughts and conversations:

Look for God working through his people to be an ever-present help in time of need. Watch how communities come together to help restore and rebuild. See people, whose hearts were once hard towards God, come to him for comfort and healing. Stand in awe of the small and unexplainable things that happen in the days to come which can only be explained as God.

As you set your mind to watch for and celebrate the beauty, let this build your faith. Our time on this earth is like a mist – it lasts only a short while. But in God’s great mercy, he has given us a living hope through Jesus Christ and an inheritance in heaven that can never be destroyed. Our souls are shielded by God’s power. So in all this “you can greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials, these have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6).

Next week, we will focus on God’s promises. Setting our minds on specific promises helps us get a grip when our foundation is shaking. It keeps us from being wishy-washy Christians and enables us to be strength and light in our fragile and dark world.  So come back next Thursday for more of the conversation!

Anna Frye is a speaker, author, television host and founder of the Chosen and Crowned tribe. She invites moms and wives to celebrate imperfect progress fueled by the grace of a perfect God. She helps women bravely talk about the messy places of life, instead of hiding shamefully under them. She believes that lasting beauty comes when women courageously surrender their ashes to God and allow him to do something mind-blowingly amazing with them. If this resonates with you, then you belong with the Chosen and Crowned tribe. Connect at www.ChosenAndCrowned.com/blog