Category: worry

Jun 07

The Healing Power of Your Mind

So, who do you think you talk most to every day?

I know who that person is for me and although I can’t prove it, I bet it’s the same for you.

I don’t usually speak out loud to this person although once in awhile I have been known to blurt out a few words.

I don’t often engage in long conversations with this person, but during the night when I’d rather be sleeping they occasionally drag on.  Sometimes when I talk to this person it’s encouraging, but other times I feel worse when I hear this person speaking.

Can you guess who it is?

Well…the person with whom I converse the most each day is me! And I betting the one with whom you talk most is you.

So if we all talk that much to ourselves, what we tell ourselves becomes really important, doesn’t it?

Especially because our mind’s influence on our body can be positive as well as negative!

And while I don’t believe our thoughts can guarantee completely restored physical, emotional and mental health, I do believe they can influence all of these. Christian psychologist, the late Dr. William Backus says we need to remember three facts:

Your beliefs create your thoughts.

Your thoughts generate feelings.

Your feelings affect your body’s healing systems.

Dr. Backus advocates not just positive-thinking, but telling ourselves the truth about our situation. He has gathered many examples of truthful healing beliefs embraced by those who have survived life-threatening illnesses. Here are a few—I hope you add them to your mind’s “pharmacy” or share them with someone else who needs a healing touch:

  • “I refuse to believe my diagnosis is an automatic death sentence.
  • I believe treatment is effective against this illness, especially the skillful efforts of scientific medicine combined with my strategies for replacing lying thoughts with the truth.
  • I believe my hormones and immune system were created to be on the side of my healing and can work to overcome this illness.
  • I believe God is on the side of my healing because His unbreakable Word says so.
  • I believe I am personally responsible for my treatment and for managing it.
  • I believe hope is a choice. I choose hope, not hopelessness.
  • I believe I’m on earth to share hope, and joy with others. I’m here to love others, regardless of my physical condition.
  • I believe that God’s will is good. I believe that He loves me and wants only the best for me—no matter what He is allowing me to experience right now.
  • I can recover from this illness and live a rich, productive life. But whether I recover or not, I am going to leave this life someday regardless. Until then I can live a full life of service every day for as long as I am given.” *

You don’t just honor God when you speak pleasing words to Him, but you also honor Him when you speak pleasing words to yourself.

Gentle words are a tree of life; a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
–Proverbs 15:4

Kind words are like honey—
sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.–Proverbs 16:24

 

*William Backus, The Healing Power of the Christian Mind (Minneapolis: Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 1996) 96.
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Open in your browser to hear “Let the Words of My Mouth” by Fernando Ortega.

Mar 14

Dancing for “Stable”: My oncologist has cancer (Part 10)

STABLE.

As an adjective, Merriam-Webster defines it as “not changing or fluctuating” and gives it synonyms like firm, solid, steady, secure, fixed and strong.

Those words have positive connotations and especially when applied to a disease not considered curable. Like the very large, very rare, neuroendocrine carcinoma of thymus origin lurking behind the heart of my oncologist and dear friend, Dr. Marc Hirsh.

When I got the good news last week that his scan at Hershey Medical Center once again showed the tumor was stable, I was elated! However, as you can see, my text response was decidedly understated. That’s because I was sitting at a nice restaurant with three women who had driven half an hour to meet me and discuss broadening their cancer support ministry–so, it didn’t seem appropriate to be scrolling through my phone for just the right celebratory emoji!

Marc’s Hershey visit was with a new oncologist (his former one retired) who had mountains of records to read regarding this incredible journey which began in late May 2020. Marc was so sick and the prognosis was so poor back then that he immediately closed his three-decade old, solo-oncology practice.

Because no effective treatment was known, Marc devised his own protocol consisting of monthly hormone injections, daily radiation and an oral chemo.

“So far your regimen is working,” the new oncologist told him.

Marc isn’t ready to give the treatment all the credit because he also believes in the healing power of God.

“Whatever the reason (the tumor is stable), I’m just grateful to have the time,” he told me me on the phone.

So I asked this 72-year-old beloved physician, husband, dad, and grandfather how he uses this gift of “extra” time (besides enjoying family!).

“I read four or five hours a day–books on medicine, philosophy, science and theology; newspapers and magazines,” he replied. “I exercise an hour or two a day, play piano about an hour.”

Oh, and he’s rereading the entire Bible–something he first did in 1973 at the age of 29 after a  good-looking lifeguard at his apartment pool promised him that “if you pray and read the Bible with an open mind, God will reveal Himself to you.”

Marc and the lifeguard have now been married 42 years and shared the ups and downs of life together–including both being diagnosed with COVID-19 in December after attending Marc’s family reunion in New York.

Elizabeth’s symptoms resembled a mild cold. But with the nearly 2.5-inch tumor behind Marc’s heart and one of his lungs damaged from an initial collapse, he fared much worse.

“I had very serious symptoms and was surprised how much pain I had,” he said.

Flat on his back for two weeks, his oxygen levels dropped, but never so low as to need intervention. Both are grateful for vaccinations and boosters, which they feel may have saved his life or at least prevented hospitalization.

Marc admits that he was “slightly worried” heading into this last checkup because of lingering COVID-19 symptoms. But after he and Elizabeth got the good news of “stable” they celebrated.

“When we got home, I poured us each a glass of Moscato (wine) and we danced to some old 45s,” he said. “It was nice.”

Marc, we rejoice with you both that the tumor is “unchanging” and most of all that our God is too.

Jesus Christ never changes! He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. –Hebrews 13:8

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As always, I close with a song by Rich Mullins, Marc and Elizabeth’s favorite Christian artist. This one is called “You’re My One Thing” and based on Matthew 5:8 in the Sermon on the Mount, one of Marc’s favorite passages.

 

 

Feb 28

The Queen of Recycling

Probably not many people outside of my immediate family know this, but…I am the Queen of Recycling!

Yes, it’s true. I attained this title by memorizing what’s recyclable and then fanatically making sure nothing gets missed. I even bring home all the plastic containers from fast-food restaurants so I can rinse and toss everything into the recycling bin (also eases my guilt a little for eating fast-food).

My daughters know that I will be looking in their kitchen trash and recycling containers to make sure items are in the correct bin and will lovingly move them if necessary. However, I do refrain from inspecting friends’ kitchens and making the same adjustments. (Well, maybe I’ve moved a few items at our good friends’ house across the street.)

My obsession got a huge boost a few years ago when our local trash hauler built Total Recycle, a  multi-million-dollar “groundbreaking state-of-the-art single-stream recycling facility.”

Since then we have been able to recycle all kinds of flexible plastic packaging like candy bar wrappers, drink pouches, plastic wrap, and all those bags for chips, pet food, groceries and food storage,

We have weekly, curbside recycling pickup and our big blue pail always is full, sometimes spilling over into two smaller containers. (Disclaimer: I don’t always wear my crown when I take out the bin, but I wanted you to know my royalty is legit.)

Christmas 1980

And why am I so committed to recycling, you ask? I’ve decided it’s in my DNA.

My mother, born during the Great Depression, was the oldest of nine and learned from an early age to salvage, safeguard and save everything possible.  (In photo: my Barbie doll clothes she  made from fabric scraps and I handed down to my girls.)

Mom’s thriftiness carried over into my marriage, especially during those years of me staying home to  raise a family on a not-very-large pastoral salary.  I don’t need to scrimp and save like I used to, but repurposing, reusing, and restoring things (especially OLD things!) just seems to be in my nature.

And that got me thinking about the God I love and serve.

He doesn’t just recycle…He refreshes. He renews. And He restores.

It’s His nature.

And the One sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”
–-Revelation 21:5

And while much of that promise refers to the final restoration of a new Heaven and a new Earth, there are still plenty of promises that God makes things new right now.

What would you like to see restored in your life? Relationships? Health? Peace of mind? Hope?

What needs renewing in your world? Your marriage? Your thoughts? Your words? Your attitude?

Hear God’s message to you:

Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin anew every morning.
–Lamentations 3:23

So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support and strengthen you,
and He will place you on a firm foundation.
–1 Peter 5:10

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs.
–Psalm 84:6

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
–2 Corinthians 4:16

Perhaps  Psalm 51:10 could be your prayer today: Create in me a clean heart, O God; restore within me a sense of being brand new.

And whenever you recycle something, don’t think about me, the Queen of Recycling. Instead stop and thank the King of Creation who can renew, refresh and restore your walk with Him.
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I hope you’re blessed by the song “You Make All Things New” by Big Daddy Weave ©2019 CURB/Word Entertainment .

Feb 14

Shock, Despair, Peace and Hope

Carolyn and Mark, Vermont vacation a few weeks before diagnosis

Last year when my friend Carolyn took ornaments off the Christmas tree, she wondered what changes would come to her family before she unpacked them again.

Never could she have imagined what 2022 would bring.

But neither could she have foreseen what God was going to supply for one of the most difficult years of her 59-year-old life.

First, in May of last year, a freak boating accident claimed the life of her brother-in-law, a respected radiologist.

Then in July after returning from a wonderful Vermont family vacation, two weeks of random stomach pain led her to consult a doctor, who thought she had a gallstone. But a scan showed something much more ominous: advanced pancreatic cancer related to an inherited gene mutation.

“Shock, tears and wrestling to understand, ” Carolyn recalls. “My daily life–and our family’s–as we knew it was over.”

This diagnosis was her “worst nightmare” as her mother died from ovarian cancer when Carolyn was only 9.

Carolyn’s genetic BRCA mutation, (which was found through testing I did with her many years ago at my oncologist’s office) is associated primarily with increased risk of breast or ovarian cancer. She had taken great pains to lower those risks, but now found herself among the 1-to 3-percent of carriers  who develop pancreatic cancer, for which no reliable early detection exists.

Multiple complications and severe chemo toxicity early on in treatment landed Carolyn in the hospital for extended stays three times in only two months.

“One night as I lay awake in the hospital, my left leg twice the size of my right and throbbing from a blood clot, I was trying to pray… pleading with God,” Carolyn recalls.” Was He even there? Had He abandoned me?

“Then these words came into my mind: ‘Are you willing to suffer for My glory?'” Carolyn says. “I knew immediately this was the Lord speaking.”

She didn’t have to think long before whispering: “Yes, Lord, of course.”

The words “for My glory” lingered in Carolyn’s mind because as a longtime journalist (we actually met in 1988 while covering a civil trial in a Harrisburg courtroom), she always has said “my mission with my writing is to use it for God’s glory.”

“Could it be that the best story I would write to showcase God’s glory would be my own?”

Much has changed since the first oncologist didn’t seem to think treatment could help. Seven months later, Carolyn’s tumor marker has decreased by more than 90-percent, the liver lesions have shrunk, and her current oncologist gives her something crucial: Hope. This month she starts a clinical trial with that Philadelphia oncologist who specializes in BRCA-related pancreatic cancer.

“I have come a long way since last fall when I told Mark to put me on hospice,” she says. “I had lost all hope in the midst of intense physical suffering…but God broke through and I was able to feel Him and talk to Him again. I was filled with a wondrous peace that sustains me still.”

Becky, Olivia, Amy & Carolyn

Carolyn doesn’t know what her future holds, but she’s looking forward to May when oldest daughter Olivia gets married and middle daughter Becky graduates from law school.

“It’s pretty hard for a planner like me not to let my mind wander too far down the road,” she acknowledges. “But there is great relief and peace in being utterly at God’s mercy, one day at a time.

“Every day I approach the throne of grace with boldness, asking God to save my earthly life.”

She also ponders one of her favorite Oswald Chambers’ quotes:

“Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God?
Then remain quiet…When you are in the dark, listen and
 God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.”

I’m trusting that Carolyn’s words will be a “precious message” for someone today.

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As soon as I heard the song “Desert Road” by Casting Crowns, I thought of my dear friend Carolyn.

Jan 03

A Good Word (or two or three) for the New Year

Do you know the first word you ever spoke? Perhaps “da-da” or maybe “ma-ma?” I don’t recall whether my mother ever told me mine, but I know for certain what our oldest daughter initially uttered.

Lindsey, 8.5 mos. old, Jan. ’83

Danielle was 8.5 months old and crawling after my parents’ Siamese cat when my mother and I heard her say “kitty.” We both thought perhaps we were imagining, but she clearly kept repeating it and has impressed us with her vocabulary ever since!

(BTW our very articulate and youngest daughter Lindsey, born on Danielle’s 4th birthday, also  spoke the same first word, also at 8.5 months, also while crawling after my parents’ cat!)

I love words.

I love word games.

And I especially love the people who are willing to play word games with me (both of you)!

I know many of you select a personal word for the new year–something to inspire, encourage, challenge, or focus you. I was contemplating why I never have embraced this great idea and concluded it’s because I love words so much, I don’t want to stop at one!

Instead I’ve chosen three sentences on which to meditate as I walk with the Lord in 2023. I plan to say at least one of them each morning even before my feet hit the floor and perhaps even before I open up my eyes.

The first is: “God is God and I’m not.”

I don’t know who gets credit for this simple statement, but I’m certain that basically all my worries, fears and anxiety are centered on me wanting to be in control instead of me trusting that the Creator of the universe can handle it all. My health, my family, my finances, my future are all safe in the hands of an all-knowing, all-powerful God. I don’t have to plan it or even understand it. Instead I can respond as our Father commands:

LifeHopeandTruth.com

The second is: “God says, ‘I loved you first and I love you best’,” (spoken by pastor/author Albert Tate https://alberttate.com )

If I truly believe this in the deepest part of my being, I can quit trying to earn God’s favor because He’s the one who began this whole love relationship. He loves me more than my dearest friends. More than my beautiful family.  More than my wonderful husband of nearly half-a-century.  And whenever I feel lonely, disappointed or unappreciated, I can find comfort in God’s declaration:

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
—Jeremiah 31:3

The third sentence is: “How shall I use my inheritance today?” (penned by my favorite devotional writer, Chris Tiegreen https://christiegreen.com )

“And since we are His children, we are His heirs.”
—Romans 8:17

What do heirs get? An inheritance! The Apostle Peter describes our inheritance as “priceless”–and while some of it is still to come in Heaven–much is already available now, including the power of the Holy Spirit, participation in the Kingdom of God, and authority over the Enemy!

Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

Tiegreen suggests you “ask God if there’s any aspect of His authority, His Kingdom, His purposes, His resources that He wants to entrust you with today” and then “watch for opportunities (because) they will come.

“The owner of all that exists…has promised everything to His Son and the Son’s siblings.”

So as you face the new year, pick one word, or like me pick a bunch of words.

But whatever trials come your way, never doubt that God is God and you’re not.

That He loved you first and always loves you best.

And that from Him you have an incredible, infallible, and inexhaustible inheritance.
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P.S. (If you’re curious about middle daughter Bethany’s first word, it was “ball” and foretold the great athlete she would become.)
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Please enjoy the music video “This My Inheritance” by All Sons & Daughters