Category: healing

Encouraging a Depressed Loved One

  The word “encourage” means to inspire or fill someone with courage, spirit or hope. But how in the world do you encourage someone who is depressed? To answer that difficult question, I’d like to share some thoughts from the book New Light on Depression by David Biebel, D.Min. and Harold Koenig, M.D. “Family members, loved …

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How Your Mind Can Help Heal Your Body

Isn’t it amazing the impact our thoughts can have on our bodies? Back in 1990, I got chemo every Wednesday and that evening we would take our girls to Shoney’s Restaurant for supper because kids 12 and under (of which we had three!) were free. I was always pretty nauseous, so while my family enjoyed the …

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“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

I can’t promise you that Abraham Lincoln really did utter these words, but they have been attributed to him as far back as a 1914 newspaper column, and I agree with Honest Abe—or whomever really said them. And I can promise you that our minds can have an amazing impact on our bodies.  I got …

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Given No Hope–Alive and Well 50 Years Later

  “There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin to Winnie‑the‑Pooh in Pooh’s Most Grand Adventure I love these words of encouragement from one best friend to another. They were the sentiment of a life-changing pep talk given to me in high school …

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A Simple Way to be Healthier in 2018

So are you one of many people trying to eat healthier in the New Year? I’ve seen  quite a few Facebook posts touting various plans: Whole 30, Clean-Eating, Volumetrics, Eat This Not That, and the 3-Day Military Diet, to name a few. Or are you one of the scores of folks aiming to exercise into a …

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Searching for a 100-percent Guarantee

            I remember back in 1990 when doctors told me I had about a 40- or 50-percent chance of surviving my colon cancer, which had metastasized to several lymph nodes. I felt as if someone were going to toss a coin: heads, I live; tails, I don’t. I desperately wanted …

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Is Jesus REALLY Enough?

          My cancer diagnosis  in 1990 was especially upsetting to my husband because he had lost his first wife nearly 20 years before to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) while they were still newlyweds. To watch me then face a life-threatening illness and an uncertain future was more than he felt he …

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Does Following Jesus Make Everything OK?

        “Why I Follow Christ” Reprinted by permission from Believe in Miracles, But Trust in Jesus by Adrian Rogers, Crossway Books, 1997. (Taken from a letter Dr. Rogers’ friend wrote to his own daughter–Emphasis mine.) I have not seen clear statistical evidence that fewer Christians die of cancer than nonbelievers, or that they …

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A Prayer for Healing

        A Cancer Patient’s Prayer for Healing (Ed. note–substitute any disease/trial for “cancer.”)           Father God, I choose to believe that you are the same yesterday, today, and forever.  I believe that you healed people in the Bible, that you have healed people in history since then, and that you are still …

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An Amazing Story of the First Survivor I Ever Knew

        “There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Christopher Robin to Winnie‑the‑Pooh in Pooh’s Most Grand Adventure I love these words of encouragement from one best friend to another. They were the sentiment of a life-changing pep talk given to me …

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