A helpful free app for these and other difficult times is One-Minute Pause from John Eldredge, a counselor, teacher and author.

The app provides “a place to develop the practice of pausing and releasing everyone and everything to God.” This is part of what Eldredge calls “benevolent detachment.”

Users take a pause for 1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes. As the app is set up, a user must do a specific number of the shorter pauses before moving up in time. It also provides a reminder function that can alert you of a time you set to take a pause.

During the pauses, Eldredge helps users with the prayer: “Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you.”

The app stems from Eldredge’s book, “Get Your Life Back: Everything Practices in a World Gone Mad,” which was just published in February. The practices include kindness, outdoor activities and reduction in use of technology, as well as the one-minute pause and benevolent detachment. The book is highly rated on Goodreads and Barnes & Noble.

Essays on benevolent detachment, union with God and healing the soul also are available on the app.

Eldredge created the app before the coronavirus pandemic. He has placed a message of encouragement about the quarantine on the app. It contains one of the wisest messages about the pandemic that I’ve heard: “The world is frankly no more uncertain than it ever was. And God remains absolutely as certain as He ever was.”