Purity 268 11/18/2020
Good morning!
Today’s photo comes from a friend who took to the woods of Columbia
County this past weekend where they enjoyed the peace that comes from entering God’s
natural cathedral of the great outdoors.
I share it as a response to several friends posts that are expressing
their stress over negative circumstances in their lives, with one lamenting something
to the effect of “Why is life so hard?”
Why indeed?!!! I hear you! Sometimes
life is a real chore. If working and supporting our families wasn’t enough, we
have to deal with everything falling apart as we go through life. We have to face work issues, medical issues,
car issues, house issues, children issues, and extended family issues. That’s all in our immediate circle. If we include the problems of our dear
friends into the mix, we may have the view that life is utter chaos!
That’s why finding moments of peace can be so important to our mental
and spiritual health.
Hear that. Sure changing our circumstances
into quiet times or pleasurable times can help us to recharge our batteries but
in order to have a peace that goes beyond all understanding and that transcends
our immediate circumstances we have to bring God into the mix.
With our eyes on Him and by being connected to Him through prayer and
talking to Him and living a life according to His will, difficult situations
are put into the proper context.
If we feel rejected, we know we are accepted by the One that matters the
most.
If we don’t know what’s going on, we can trust that God does and He will
be with us.
If we need peace, wisdom, or strength, we know He has an infinite amount
to share if we would just stop long enough to receive it from Him.
We need to stop and examine our experience and ask if God is part of it.
If we want His peace, we must surrender a piece of our life to Him. The more we give of ourselves to Him, the
more we receive His promises.
(There is More
at the restricted blog). Follow me on Twitter, MeWe, or Parler for easy access.
Blog M T 4 Christ dot org – This is
where the Facebook post ends.)
I don’t know if any
prescribe to the idea of prophetic dreams but I have had some experiences with
dreams that seemed to reveal some things that later came to pass but were too
shady to really predict anything.
I also have had
moments in prayer and seeking the Lord’s wisdom that I was given a word of
knowledge. For example in prayer with a friend I asked the Lord if the house I
was looking was “the one” and I was given an overwhelming sense of certainty
that I could stop worrying and that “this is it”.
Similarly, in the
weeks leading up to the election, I asked the Lord for a word of knowledge of
who would win, and I had the impression that it would be Joe Biden. I did confess this to my kids prior to the
results but kept it quiet around most of my Trump supporting friends, who are
still passionately pulling for Donald. I’ll
let my Sovereign God decide. He uses all sorts for His will, for good or for
judgement.
Anyway, last night I
had a dream in which I was in a Walmart and the shelves were bare again. That’s
all I got. It could be a view to the months ahead or just my subconscious fear
that I won’t have toilet paper! I’m not
sold on this one being prophetic but if I “see something” I’m going to say
something and be prepared.
Today we continue to share from Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope
Again, where I will share the remaining information about Medical Treatments
for Depression.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to
support his work:
The temptation among many people is
to believe that depression is purely a physical disorder requiring medical
attention. That would be incomplete. Depression is inseparably a condition that
affects body, soul and spirit combined. If all three components were implicated
in the initiation of depression, then all three areas would be avenues of
intervention as well. Physical assessment or a medical exam is often warranted
when depression is moderate or severe.
Marcia struggled with extreme
tiredness and felt incapable of doing even routine things around the house. She
couldn't eat and wasn't sleeping more than a few hours a night. Later, she
wrote this letter describing her condition:
When
I am in my depression, I feel like there is no hope. I see no way out. I sit in
my chair or on the couch and I can't do much of anything. When I am depressed
everything seems so overwhelming. It is even hard for me to eat. My mind and
body are weak. I feel this is the way it's going to be forever. I want to wake
up in the morning for once and not dread the day, knowing it will be filled
with fear and hopelessness. No, I want to wake up and feel joy.
The
only thing I could do is to cry out to God. In those times when things felt the
darkest, that's when God would speak to me. He always seemed to bring scripture
to me.
Marcia discovered through Christian
counseling that truth could indeed set her free, but she was also helped by
seeing a doctor who examined her physically. An antidepressant medication was
prescribed to help her concentrate better, thus enabling her to mentally
process issues in her life that needed to be resolved.
Some people mistakenly think that
science has found a way to measure brain chemistry with great precision, and
can then prescribe the exact medication that will cure all types of depression.
That is not the case, and the vast majority of psychiatrists and doctors who
can legally prescribe medications have no readily available means of measuring
brain chemistry. The general procedure is to get a good reading of the
symptoms, and then prescribe a drug that has proven to be helpful for others
who had similar symptoms. A Time magazine article commented on the
present level of understanding about serotonin:
Despite
years of study and impressive breakthroughs, researchers are only beginning to
understand the chemical's complex role in the functioning of the body and
brain—and how doctors can make adjustments when serotonin levels go out of
balance. So far, the tools used to manipulate serotonin in the human brain are
more like pharmacological machetes than they are like scalpels—crudely
effective but capable of doing plenty of collateral damage. Says Barry Jacobs,
a neuroscientist at Princeton University: "We just don't know enough about
how the brain works."
Even though doctors readily admit to
a low degree of precision, medication is still accepted as a primary way of
treating depression. Prozac has been prescribed for more than 17 million
Americans, and 580,000 children are currently on the drug—which now comes in
peppermint flavor.
Electroconvulsive
Therapy (ECT)
Electroconvulsive therapy, or shock
treatment as it is commonly called, is used to treat severe cases of endogenous
depression that are not responsive to medication. It is one of the most
misunderstood of medical treatments for mental illness. Primarily because of
perceived abuses in the past, it is widely distrusted by the public.
ECT administers a small electrical
shock to the brain to induce a convulsion. Muscle relaxants and a short
anesthetic are administered so the seizures are not felt by the patients. They
usually experience mild amnesia, but very little pain. The one occasional side
effect is short-term memory loss. Nobody knows why, but ECT seems to stimulate
the production of neurotransmitters. In some cases, it is more effective than
antidepressants, works much faster and has fewer side effects. Still, most
psychiatrists see ECT as very useful, but a much later treatment option.
Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.
------------------------------more
on tomorrow-------------------------
God bless
you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.