Archive for Prayer that heals

Health and wellness are important to everyone. 80 percent of Internet users look for health information online. We want to be educated.

Yet, health information flows toward us even as we commute to work or relax at home. Advertisements repeatedly broadcast the symptoms of diseases and the side effects of applicable medications. But is this knowledge always helpful? Are we educating ourselves into illness and suffering, inducing problems with fearful predictions and images? Read More→

There is just one game left, the Super Bowl. The regular season of the NFL (National Football League) is complete. It was a special year. The Green Bay Packers flirted with a perfect season. Tim Tebow’s faith and dramatic comebacks stole many a headline. The Houston Texans even won their first playoff game. Yet, the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will now decide which team is the best of the best at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on February 5.

I am a fan of the game. Although I spend more time watching games than I should admit, I spend even more helping to heal the pain and suffering of others. Therefore, it quickly caught my attention when Dallas Cowboys’ safety, Gerald Sensabaugh, recently said, “Pain is just mental.”

The news report I was reading stated that there are only a small number of football players who are able to complete a game with a strained arch and as well, play another game five days later. However, after he helped his team defeat the Miami Dolphins, Sensabaugh has been added to the list. Read More→

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn reported on a Health 2.0 Spring Fling in her post at Disruptive Women in Heath Care.

She wrote:

Wellness and disease prevention were the meta-themes … Dr. Dean Ornish told the attendees in the standing-room-only ballroom space that the joy of living is a greater motivator than the fear of death. And the 1.0 version of managing health risks has been more the latter than the former. As a result, Ornish’s two decades of research have shown that health is more a function of lifestyle choices than it is drugs and surgery. In fact, people have a “spectrum” of choices to make based on their personal preferences — not a one-size-fits-all “diet,” Dr. Ornish has learned.

Descriptions such as Sarasohn-Kahn’s show that society is beginning to look up from the deck, — ascending above materialistic forms of healthcare. Sadly, however, it may be some time before people are ready to free climb to a purely spiritual system of effective healing. Read More→

It was 3:30 in the afternoon. A squirrel rested, unaware he was about to be an afternoon snack for an approaching owl. So, I started my rent car, which startled the squirrel, and he dashed to safety.

My actions saved one, yet, irritated another. Then I wondered about the actions that had landed the young people, I was about to meet, into trouble. What had caused them to act or react?

I was sitting in my rental in the parking lot of a baseball field near the Barbara Culver Juvenile Detention Center in Midland, Texas. I had arrived early and decided to take thirty minutes to collect my thoughts, a little spiritual reasoning. Read More→

Dec
23

Praying away the cookies

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My most recent piece has been posted at CNN-Belief.  Please check it out!

(CNN) – With Christmas cookies, fruitcake and eggnog tempting us at every corner, it is hard not to gain weight during the holiday season. Yet it is not just holiday foods that are enticing.

Oversized and disproportionate – that about sums it up when the average American is 20 pounds overweight. The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said, “Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they are getting worse rapidly.”

Personally, I have been fortunate never to have had much of a problem with my weight. I was an active, slender, Texas kid. Our family didn’t have a television until Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, so my brothers and I spent countless hours playing outside. I always ran like a jack rabbit, especially after jumping the fence at our neighborhood riding stable.  … read more

Find Keith on Twitter: @TexasCS
Related post:  Health Benefits of Mistletoe?

Dec
19

Health Benefits of Mistletoe?

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The National Institutes of Health reports that 40 percent of Americans are actively seeking alternative approaches to health. Since this is the time of year that mistletoe begins popping up, I decided to look into any possible health benefits to this potential alternative.

After some investigating, I found that there is no measurable evidence to support claims of a healing effect or improved quality of life from the use of mistletoe extract. So, forget the mistletoe, perhaps, kissing is the key to better health.

It’s been reported that those who kiss their partner goodbye each morning live five years longer than those who don’t. Frequent kissing has scientifically been shown to stabilize cardiovascular activity, as well as decrease blood pressure and cholesterol. Is this why kissing under the mistletoe has been going on for decades? Read More→

Kirsten Dunst (Photo by Francois Durand/Getty Images)

While promoting her role in the new Lars von Trier film, Melancholia, Kirsten Dunst recently revealed that she has experienced depression. In the film, Dunst plays the role of a woman named Justine who suffers severe mental illness.

Dunst’s admission is yet another celebrity disclosure. Carrie Fisher, Angelina Jolie, and Christina Ricci have all shared similar stories. Yet, there is hope for these women and for everyone.

Weeks ago, while in Durham, North Carolina, I attended a news briefing where the Wave III Baylor Religion Survey was unveiled. The survey confirmed what I have been discovering: Improved mental health is found through greater spiritual awareness. Read More→

Everyone seems to have a chip on his or her shoulder. From the Occupy Wall Street protesters to the Obama-haters, aggression is in the air. Hate appears to be the flavor of the day.

This hate is causing an accelerated polarization of society. But it is causing something more. Are we hearing the warnings that hostile hearts can jeopardize health? Besides straining relationships, hate is a mental poison that causes bodily harm.

Deborah Smith, staff writer for Monitor on Psychology (a publication for the American Psychological Association), in her post Angry thoughts, at-risk hearts, writes “Research findings indicate a clear pattern — being an angry or hostile person is bad for your heart.” She goes on to cite several studies that prove the point.

It’s my experience as a Christian healer that hateful thoughts can be harmful not only to the heart but to every part of the body. Therefore, if hate is a poison, what is the antidote? Read More→

Nov
23

Gratitude 101

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Here are three truths I’ve found about gratitude:

– Gratitude brings the magnitude of God’s majesty and order into our lives. We live to express God.

– Circumstances and opportunities do not create gratitude. Gratitude creates circumstances and opportunities.

– Gratitude and pain are incompatible. Read More→

I respect the great heart, the motive, of every physician and healer. For, I believe, they yearn to improve their patients’ quality of life and care. Yet, is this what’s taking place? Perhaps not — because when it comes to health care, we are learning more is not always better. Sometimes more means that quality of life suffers.

For example, many American primary care physicians believe that their own patients are receiving too much medical care. This was the take-away from a survey of primary-care doctors conducted in 2009. Read More→