Dr. God

7 September, 2011 by 1 Comment
 


     We have always heard God referred to as “father,” but how often do we really think of him as our father? Our daddy? It’s hard because he is not tangible. We cannot touch or hug him. But when he created us, he gave us the ability to have faith. We just have to tap into it. With faith, we can use our imagination to imagine him sitting on the sofa with us talking; sitting at the kitchen table while we do read our Bible; wrapping his arms around us when we are hurting. All we have to do is take the step to go there.
     Now let’s take it a step further. God is our father, and he wants us to talk to him and get to know him just as we would our earthly father. But he is also the great physician. Our great physician. So why do we rely so heavily on doctors and medicine to help us? I’ve quoted this before, but it definitely bears repeating:
     “If God’s aim is to grant perfect health to all his children, he has failed, because no one enjoys perfect health, and everyone dies. But if God’s aim is to expand the boundaries of his kingdom, then he has succeeded. For every time he heals, a thousand sermons are preached.”~Max Lucado
     When I had my first seizure, it was a total shock. It came completely out of nowhere. Here was my thought process: “What in the world happened to my brain and why? How am I possibly going to keep from driving for 6 months with three kids? Well, maybe somehow this is God’s way of protecting me from an accident or something.” Then, after a few months I thought, “You know, David and I have gotten to spend much more time together since I haven’t been able to drive. It’s really been good for us.” I was looking for what God was teaching me. But then, after I had the second seizure when I broke my nose and ended up with sinus surgery, my focus shifted. Rather than rely on God and look for what he was teaching me, I began to try to figure out how I could fix myself. The ‘sciency’ pharmacist in me began to search for a cure. That’s when the snowball turned into an avalanche, and for seven years I was lost…searching…in all the wrong places. 
     As a child, we need our daddy to “make me feel better.” As adults, whether our dads are still with us or not, we must rely on our heavenly father to make us feel better. Well, God is not only our father, but also the great physician. We can rely on him for comfort in times of need, but we can also rely on him for healing. He WILL heal us if we accept, love, and get to know him personally. But here’s the catch: God has so much good stuff in store for us, but it may not be here on this earth. He has perfect health for us, but it may not be here on this earth. We will have to endure tough stuff while we live in this world. He tells us in John 16:33: In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. He will heal us, but it may be through death and entrance into heaven. 
      We think of our lifetime as lasting forever, because our human brains cannot comprehend eternity. But in reality, the span of time we spend here on earth is like a drop in the ocean compared to eternity. The sooner we can focus on the bigger picture, accept what we have here do what God wants us to with it, the sooner we can find peace, contentment, and happiness in our life here because we know it’s in preparation for bigger things to come. I’m not saying to just accept bad things as your fate in life…we just can’t have a victim mentality. I’m just saying if we take what God has given us, and look for ways to use our life for him, we will find peace and will be rewarded abundantly. 
      So let’s rely on God, our heavenly father, our great physician, to lead and guide us through whatever we are going through. Use his words to find comfort and healing. Imagine his loving arms around you and his peace flowing over you. I have Marlee imagine Jesus wrapping his arms around her every night when she is in bed saying her prayers. Please don’t roll your eyes…I know, it might seem silly to some. But if you can just do what he says when he tells us to “Be still and know that I am God,” the intangible will actually become tangible…real. If you are still enough and quiet enough, you can feel him. 
     “Be still…”
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Filed Under: Beating Depression, Brain Functions, Chronic Illness, God's Pharmacy, Living in Faith, Overcoming Addiction, Your Relationship with God Tagged With: , ,

Does our sin separate us from God?

30 August, 2011 by 1 Comment


Two years ago, I attended a “Women of Faith” conference, and was very intrigued by one of the speakers. Her name is Ashley Smith. A few years ago in Atlanta, she was instantly place in the spotlight as she was abducted and held hostage by Brian Nichols, a convicted killer. Her book, “Unlikely Angel: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Hostage Hero,” was an amazing account of every thought and action that took place during the seven hours she was held hostage.

I listened to her speak, and while she was very humble, her “miracle” was very fresh, and I wondered whether or not she could maintain a drug free life and uphold the promises she made to God that night.

In her book, she reveals she had tried and tried to become free of drugs, and she was reading and studying “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. While she had told God time and time again that she was done with drugs and ready to straighten her life out, she always kept a little stash “just in case.”


I think when we are in sin and are telling ourselves that we won’t do “whatever” again, and we still have that something on the back burner available if we need it, we are separating ourselves from God. I think of it as an invisible shield between God and me. In our head, we think we are doing the right thing. We talk ourselves into it…we justify. But at the same time, we know in our heart and in the back of our mind that we are keeping that sin on standby. 

Other than our prescription verse above, scripture also tells us when we justify our sin, we don’t have truth, which is the light in Jesus Christ. 

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 ESV

Ok, back to Ashley Smith. I picked up her book to read (after having it for two years) and after finishing it, decided to Google her to see how she’s doing now. I was so happy to see that she is doing great. I’ve included a video here (part 1 and 2) of a show she was interviewed on not too long ago. I hope you will enjoy it.


For me, my sin was addiction. Yes, I had an issue with Lortab, and that was awful, but that is not the big picture. As the title of my story reflects, I was addicted to the chase…the chase to cure my migraine headaches; the chase to cure my seizures; the chase to be happy; the chase to grab my mask so no one would know how miserable I was; the chase to constantly isolate myself from family and friends because I felt such guilt when I was around them. Instead of focusing on God and what he could do, I focused on myself. On my misery; my search for a cure; my guilt. During that time, I missed an opportunity to let Christ minister to me. Thank goodness he rescued me from myself!

When I finished reading “Unlikely Angel,” and I thought about how I’d held on to my sin, I realized something important. When you make a promise to God that you will no longer give a home to your sin, and you truly have made the decision to put it behind you, the best way to stay on course is to use your experience to help others. I know blogging and writing is not the right avenue for everyone, but when we begin to help other people in similar situations, God gives us strength. When we can share with another person the covenant we’ve made with God, we will hold ourselves more accountable to it. When we can really be transparent, and realize that we are not perfect and neither is anyone else, we will find great freedom. It’s amazing to find out how common your struggle is…whatever it is. 

If you have read my story and my blogs, you know how truly happy I am. I’ve always had a heart for people, but for the seven years of my illness and “chase,” I lost my focus. I couldn’t see others very well, only myself. Now that my vision has been corrected, there is nothing more rewarding that sharing the amazing love that God has for us…and actually feeling it first hand. 

From my heart, 
Celeste

Filed Under: Living in Faith, Living with Purpose, Your Relationship with God Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What is the purpose of life?

29 August, 2011 by 5 Comments

I received the following email today from my stepdad containing the answer to universal question we all ask: “What is our purpose?” On August 10th, I posted “In Sickness and in Health” with this same prescription, and this interview with Rick Warren is right along those same lines. Enjoy!
You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having ‘wealth’ from the book sales.
This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life” and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
“People ask me, ‘What is the purpose of life?’
And I respond: In a nutshell, life is a preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him and in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body—but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act—the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn’t going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one, or you’re getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys—you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, which is ‘my problem, my issues, my pain.’ But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.  
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her—It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don’t think God give you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God’s purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, “God, if I don’t get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better.”
God didn’t put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He’s more interested in what I am than what I do.
That’s why we’re called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quite moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.”
Enough said.

From my heart,

Celeste
Filed Under: Living with Purpose Tagged With: , ,

In Sickness and In Health

11 August, 2011 by 4 Comments


Now I have read this verse before I’m sure, but never has it jumped out at me as it did today when I was reading. Not only is God telling us that his word is all we need for our soul and spirit, but our joints? marrow? thoughts? heart? I looked up a commentary on this verse, and basically it’s pointing out that if we know the word of God, we have no excuses. God is able to search out all of us…right down to the differences between what we believe in our heart vs. our mind. I couldn’t help but see it even more literally. God’s word is alive and well, and can pierce into every system in our body. So shouldn’t all christians then experience perfect health if they claim the word of God? NO. This brings me to a quote from Max Lucado…”

“If God’s aim is to grant perfect health to all his children, he has
failed, because no one enjoys perfect health, and everyone dies.
But if God’s aim is to expand the boundaries of his kingdom, then
he has succeeded. For every time he heals, a thousand sermons are
preached.”

In sickness, in health, in happy times, in depression, in faith, in anger, in life, in death…God  is using us. God loves us. God is preparing us for our next purpose. God has eternity waiting for us. 


When struggling with a health issue, it is so easy in our nation to get on the computer, try to diagnose ourselves, and then put our diagnosis together with a drug we saw advertised on television, and the chase begins: the chase to find the right physician to listen to you, the chase to try and try again to find the right drug to fix you. We want to be fixed. Now. We don’t want to dig into God’s word and see what he might be trying to teach us, or even someone close to us.  


If you are battling any type of health problem, here’s the thing: you may be healed, or you may not. You may have a life long struggle ahead of you. BUT…if you continue to pursue God and seek out what his purpose is for your life, you can find happiness and peace in him. I firmly believe that if your desire to have a close, intimate relationship with God is greater than your desire to have perfect health, you will find peace. Seek your answer in God’s words to you, his child, in the most complete instruction manual ever written, the Bible. God’s answer for you may not be to grant you perfect health, but if you allow his words to penetrate your heart and soul, and let him to use you in whatever condition you’re in, you will begin to see things from more of an “eternal” perspective. My daddy used to love to tell me to “plan like you will die tomorrow, but live like you will live forever.” I thought he was talking about money, but now I see he had a deeper, more eternal, perspective. 


I have a friend whose husband recently died after a battle with cancer. He had so many people praying for him during his battle…praying for a miracle. At his funeral, I will never forget what my friend said as she hugged me standing beside his casket. 


“We got our miracle.”  


What a testament! Even in her fresh state of grief, she knew through his illness, family members came to Christ who might not have otherwise, and that her husband is now in Heaven with Jesus…completely and eternally healed. 


If you know my story, you know that God completely healed me and my purpose on earth is not yet finished. Through my healing, I pray that “a thousand sermons will be preached” (or written), but for others, it’s through sickness and death that healing takes place, and a thousand sermons are still preached. 


God is in control of it all. God knows our hearts. Embrace him in sickness and in health, and whatever purpose God has for your life will be fulfilled. 


From my heart, 
Celeste




Filed Under: Beating Depression, Chronic Illness, Fighting Your Fears, Have an Eternal Perspective Tagged With: , ,

Do you get it?

6 August, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Have I told you lately how incredible it is to be made brand new in Christ? Well, until September 25th, 2010, I really had no idea. I was saved when I was seven years old, and I did all the things that a good lil’ southern baptist girl should do (or shouldn’t do), but I just didn’t get it. The weird thing is, though, that because I didn’t get it, I didn’t know I didn’t get it. Get it?

I went to church. I prayed every day. I read my bible. I went to bible studies. I would see people like Beth Moore or Joyce Meyer speak, and I would always be amazed at the passion they had for Christ. I truly just thought my personality was different and I didn’t express myself they way they do. What it boiled down to is I didn’t truly down deep, to the core, feel like I needed Christ. My brain knew I did, because I’d been taught all my life that Jesus is the only way. My heart, on the other hand, could not simply “learn,” it had to “feel.”

I don’t know whether it’s because I’m stubborn, my sinful human nature was too strong, or it was simply God’s plan, but I had to endure some pretty tough stuff to realize how much I needed God and how much he wants me. I believe wholeheartedly that accepting Christ as your personal savior will get you a ticket into heaven, but to have a full life on earth, you must not only accept him, but pursue him…constantly.

When I was seven, God wrote my name down in the lamb’s book of life, and secured my reservation in heaven. But on September 25th of last year, he made me brand spanking new! Now I know some of you who are reading this are thinking…”here’s another one…thinking God is the answer for everything.” I promise you I had those thoughts about people all my life…until now. I’m not saying God is the only answer for everything, but I promise you that if you invite him into every situation in your life, he will meet you there. Good or bad, happy or sad, you will never be alone. I just want to share a few areas in my life that have changed since I let God be God, and welcomed him into every part of it.

My depression is gone…completely and totally gone.
My migraine headaches are minimal, and when I do still have one, I can handle it.
My seizures are completely gone.
I am free from the prisons I kept myself in…fear, dependence, worry, guilt, failure…and the list goes on.
I have a much more eternal perspective…a new “destination” in life that I actually think, read, and wonder about.
The act of forgiveness is no longer such a struggle. There is such a freedom in letting go of a grudge and letting God handle it. (I hesitated to list this one…God may test me on it!)

Now those are some pretty big areas right there…but what I did not expect were the changes in the seemingly insignificant areas in my life.

Meal planning and cooking are easy. No longer the daunting tasks they were.
The heat of the summer has not bothered me at all compared to summers past.
The housework gets done when it gets done. Not a single soul that walks into this house cares if I have a sink full of dishes or a basket of clothes to fold.
Exercising and losing weight is not the overwhelming goal it used to be (although definitely a long term goal).
If something on my “to do” list doesn’t get done, it’s okay. I just move it to tomorrow’s list!

Do you see where this is going? EVERYTHING in my life is easier. Now I see why Beth Moore teaches with such passion. When you can finally “get it,” you will know it, and you will be compelled to share your joy with anyone and everyone who will listen.

From my heart, 
Celeste

Filed Under: Your Relationship with God Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

America on Drugs

4 August, 2011 by 3 Comments

Bear with me here guys, this is a long post, and this comes from years of being a pharmacist and the personal experience of being a patient…but for anyone on an antidepressant or other “brain” drug, you need to read this:


Your Brain on Drugs…no, I won’t be showing you a picture of a fried egg, though I must say it’s a great analogy! We know street drugs fry your brain, that’s a no-brainer! (Sorry =o)
I’m talking about prescription drugs…and not just the “controlled” ones. I’m talking about all of the psychotropic drugs prescribed in the United States today. As a pharmacist, it has made me crazy to see this huge increase in my years in this industry. As a patient, I fell right into the trap. Let me give you just a few statistics from reputable sources to put it in perspective for you…


A study was done by the American Medical Association from 1988 to 1994, during which time the visits to a physician for depression increased from 10.99 million in 1988 to 20.43 million in 1994. Visits for stimulant drugs increased from .57 million to 2.86 million. In a much more recent study, the Centers for Disease Control the percentage of people who use five or more prescriptions drugs increased by 70% in the last 10 years. It’s obvious to me that this increase is largely due to the increase in psychotropic prescription visits. 


Our society is in danger. Real danger. Christians and non-Christians alike. Many physicians  are prescribing narcotics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and other miscellaneous psychotropic drugs like candy, and do not realize the true danger they are putting their patients in. Different doctors and different pharmacies lead the way to missed information and drug interactions. Doctors cannot possibly keep up with all of the drug interactions possible between the thousands of prescription drugs on the market today. Even as a pharmacist, I ended up with a potentially life threatening drug interaction that my doctor(s) and pharmacist missed. I had not been working in pharmacy during the time Cymbalta was approved and put on pharmacy shelves, and due to an interaction with my migraine prescription medication, I ended up in a state for 24 hours where I did not know what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t know if this world was real, or if I was dead or alive. At one point, I did not know David was my husband. Marlee was laying next to me in the bed and I actually asked David if she was dead. It was the scariest night of my entire life. I know this sounds crazy, and even when I was in the midst of it I felt sure that I would wake up in a straight jacket staring at four white walls!  


When my reality began to become more clear, due to my pharmacy training I knew what happened. I immediately began researching the medications I had taken, and quickly discovered I’d experienced serotonin syndrome. Now I must say should have known the possibility of this interaction, but in this case, my brain was, well, sick. Seizures, migraine, depression, and medication did not leave me in the mind to catch these things…my doctor and pharmacist should have caught it. I know that when my prescription was filled, the pharmacist was required to manually override a drug interaction possibility, which means they just overrode it by habit, without really looking, or just neglected to mention it. Last summer,in a total of approximately eight days working as a relief pharmacist, I called doctors on four separate occasions to warn them of this exact same interaction. All four times the prescriptions were changed. 


This incident is just one of millions that happen daily. While there are definitely patients that require psychotropic drug therapy, these drugs are widely overused. I’m not sure why doctors feel so much more comfortable prescribing these drugs now than in the past, but where therapy was once first course of treatment, doctors now tend to give the drug first, to “dial things down” before therapy is started. Once the patient gets the prescription, they do not want to follow up with expensive therapy. Our society of immediate gratification and prescription drug advertising on every venue possible lead us to the “quick fix.” After all, “Depression Hurts, Cymbalta can help.” Right? 


Due to the depression I experienced during my years of seizures, my doctors kept trying to get me to take an antidepressant. I finally conceded and began taking Cymbalta. If I wasn’t miserable before, I sure was then! After about a month on the Cymbalta, I felt horrible and was still depressed, so I decided I would wean off of it. Ha! Now that was a joke. The “non-addictive, harmless” antidepressant was everything but. I know you have all seen the commercial for Cymbalta, but in my research I stumbled across a youtube video that really makes the point.  It is a little on the extreme side, but only a little. 


Depression hurts, Cymbalta hurts more


Before I conclude, let me just say this…there is certainly a need and a place for antidepressants. We have just come to rely on the quick fix of drugs way too much. If you happen to be on Cymbalta and doing well, Yay! For me, many of the side effects of Cymbalta were front and center. As patients, we have just become too trusting:


First,we trust our doctors to know everything we need to know. No one can know everything. 


Second, we expect our pharmacists not to be too busy to counsel us every aspect of the drug, but they can’t control the 15 people waiting on prescriptions at once (and I can assure you, the chain pharmacies push the limit on the number of prescriptions allowed per pharmacist), nor can they control the hurry we are in to get out of the pharmacy.


Third, we trust the FDA not to put anything on the market that could harm us. It is sad we cannot depend on our government to keep our best interests at heart, but unfortunately, the almighty dollar often takes priority.


And yet, we are not trusting enough in God. We don’t believe and trust that God is all that we need. I know I used the verse on this prescription in another post, but it says so much. When God created the earth, and created man to inhabit the earth, he gave us everything we’d ever need. With so much emphasis placed on the synthetic psychotropic drugs available today, we lose our focus. We need to think simply and eternally at the same time. More talking, more prayer, more God. Put God at the head of your medical team, and let him lead you in the very best way to restore your mind…for eternity. 


From my heart, 
Celeste

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Filed Under: Beating Depression, God's Pharmacy, Living in Faith, Managing Prescription Drugs, Overcoming Addiction Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

God’s Pharmacy

27 July, 2011 by 4 Comments

When God created the earth, it was good. So when he created man, we had everything we would ever need. Between the resources he gave us and the brain he equipped us with, mankind was all set. Until…


Sin. 


Everything on this earth was created from, well, this earth. We started out with what God gave us, and that is all we have ever had. All resources we have ever needed were given to us when God created this earth. 


Normally if I hear anyone speak of this verse, it’s in relation to nutrition, food choices, or a vegetarian diet. I’m going a little deeper. In pharmacy school, I learned about the origin of all pharmaceuticals. What  would you imagine it is? If God created everything on this earth, then things on this earth were all we had to work with. Between the use of our brains and the resources God gave us, our “pharmacy” was created. There actually use to be a class in pharmacy school called  “Pharmacognosy,” which is the study of medicines derived from natural resources, but most school have eliminated that class because we have manipulated drugs so much that the “natural” part of the drug is basically obscure. 


In the development of drugs over the years, scientists have discovered amazing chemicals  vital to survival. The problem is, however, the more we learned about what our brain can do and what chemicals can do, the farther we have strayed from the pharmacy God created for us. Sometimes knowledge is power, sometimes it’s dangerous. Depends on what you do with it. Ever been told that you know too much for your own good? 


Take the coca plant for instance. It is a plant that God created that is now used in manufacturing cocaine. Someone, sometime, somewhere, realized the effect the coca plant can have on your brain if altered a certain way. We have many chemicals in our brain God gave us to help us live as he desired, in his image. Seratonin and dopamine are well known from the knowledge of the popular antidepressants so widely dispensed today (Prozac,  Zoloft, Cymbalta, etc…). The manipulation of these chemicals with synthetically altered resources has landed our society in the mess it is today with extremely addictive, dangerous, and illegal drugs.


I have added two links here you should check out…both from reputable sources.


The first is a fact sheet on commonly abused drugs, where they came from and how they work, published by the American Council on Drug Education. You might be surprised by some of this information…Fact Sheets on Drugs.


The second is a video by National Geographic on “meth”, and how it actually works in your brain. I know you will be surprised by some of this info. Here’s the link…The science behind your brain on drugs.


This information is important. This immediate gratification, computer generation we’re in is moving too fast. Kids are hooked on drugs before they can even realize what they are. Drugs are being used more and more casually, and if we don’t educate ourselves and our kids, it will be too late. I thank God every day that when I had a hard time getting off Lortab after  sinus surgery, that I was educated at least enough to recognize it, and do what I needed to break free from it. Someone in the same situation without the knowledge of how it happened and what to do will often turn to the street to get what they need. As parents, it is imperative that we learn. Don’t be the parents that think, “my kid would never do that, he’s too smart,” or “that kind of stuff doesn’t happen in our school around here.” I’m telling you it does. It’s everywhere. And don’t think for a minute that your child is the only one at risk. Adults are at the same risk, if not more. How do you beat drug addiction? 


Education and prevention. Once the addiction has found it’s home, it’s an overwhelming beast to overcome.


I’m going to leave it at this for now. There is so much more to be said, and I will discuss it more in future blog posts. But the main point today is this…


God created us in his image. He gave us everything we should ever need. If we have God working in our hearts, and let our brains function as he created, we will never have the need to seek out “alternative” methods to escape our reality. 


…as I gave you the green plants, I gave you everything. 


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Filed Under: Brain Functions, God's Pharmacy, Managing Prescription Drugs, Overcoming Addiction Tagged With: , , , , , ,

One God, One Hope, One Choice…It’s that simple.

22 July, 2011 by 2 Comments
One God, One Hope, One Choice…It’s that simple.

Now when you read this statement, you might think, “what does she mean it is that simple?” Believe me, when I was in my state of depression, I would not have thought so either. When I felt like I would rather chop my head off that have my migraine continue, nothing was simple. My well-meaning, glass-always-overflowing teenager would say, “think about it this way, it’s better than if you were in a wheelchair or lost your arm or something.”

As frustrating as it was, she (or any of the rest of my family) could not understand my pain because they had never experienced depression, and I pray they never do!

The word “choice” is a key word here. I am not speaking of the “choice” to be happy and not depressed, or the “choice” to be cancer free, or the “choice” to be financially successful. There are, of course, steps you can take to help yourself in any of these situations, but there are some conditions beyond our immediate control, not situations we got ourselves into by “choice”.

The choice I am referring to here is Christ. He is my choice. Choosing Christ over everything else is really the only choice that matters.

Think about the choices you make in any given day:
“What do I wear today?”
“What do I want to eat for breakfast?”
“Should I start housework first or get my errands done first?”
“What should I cook for supper tonight?”
“How should I spend my time today?”
“Should I go the back way to avoid traffic or stay on the highway?”
“Should I buy this dress or is it too expensive?”

The list is truly endless. Everyone’s choices are different from everyone else’s, and they are different from day to day. When we were building our house, someone told me that throughout that process, you will make 360,000 decisions. My guess is that it was even more than that!

Make a list of choices you made this week. Looking back over these choices, how many of them were choices that will still be important tomorrow? What about next week? Next month? Ten years from now?

There is only ONE choice that you will make that will be important forever. FOREVER!!!
That is the choice to accept Christ as your savior and let Him have control of all of your life. Doesn’t that make all of the other choices seem silly?

There is a forever out there for each and every one of us. The choice you make today, right now, may be the choice that determines your forever.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

What else is there?

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Filed Under: Making Changes, Your Relationship with God Tagged With: , , , , , , ,