Category Archives: Vital Signs of Healing

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Life Principle #1: Don’t Criticize, Condemn, Complain

I continue to revisit a book and audio book that I wish that I had memorized when I was younger: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Time and time again  I have found myself using (or trying to use) his principles in my marriage, parenting, and other relationships.

Recently I have had conversations about affirming and its counter–criticizing your spouse.  I have seen and heard about a wife or husband who continually criticizes their spouse.  I have been a master at this myself.  For the most part, I have made a major effort to STOP completely this process.  It is a waste of time, and it turns out to do the opposite of what you want it to.  We seem to think that by giving ‘constructive criticism’ the other person will improve, but they don’t.  In fact, they seem to do MORE of the actions that we want them to change!

2 things:  1. The more you affirm and not criticize; the MORE likely their behavior will change!   2. Don’t try and change your spouse; just love them the way they are!

Principle #1: Don’t Criticize, Condemn, Complain

  • “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.”
  • “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself.  Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment….B.F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior.”
  • “Lincoln…had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.”
  • “The secret of…Ben Franklin’s…success? ‘I will speak ill of no man…and speak all the good I know of everybody.”
  • “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain–and most fools do.  But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”
  • “As Dr. Johnson said: ‘God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.’  Why should you and I?”
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Head Injury in Kids

This is a VERY common concern that I see at work.  “My kid has fallen and hit their head.”

This article clarifies that the VAST majority of head injuries in kids are nothing to worry about and do not need imaging.

Kids under 2:  If they have “normal mental status, no scalp haematoma except frontal, no loss of consciousness or loss of consciousness for less than 5 s, non-severe injury mechanism, no palpable skull fracture, and acting normally according to the parents”, then they are at very low risk, and they do NOT need imaging.

Kids over 2:  If they have “normal mental status, no loss of consciousness, no vomiting, non-severe injury mechanism, no signs of basilar skull fracture, and no severe headache”, then they are at very low risk, and they do NOT need imaging.

They obtained a total of  14,969 CT scans and only 0.1% needed neurosurgical intervention.

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The Top 3 Things That Women Struggle With

My wife returned the other day from a Beth Moore Bible study group. They listened as Beth Moore told them of her interview results.  Beth had interviewed 400 women and asked them what are the top things that they struggled with in their lives.

As told by my wife, they were:

#1. submission.  Now when I said, “REALLY?!” My wife clarified that women struggle with not having control over their lives and having to give up control over certain things at work, parenting kids, and in marriage.  So I said, “They struggle with the same thing that men do: PRIDE.”  We ALL struggle with the fact that we LOVE control but really have very little of it, and we all LOVE ourselves and think mostly of ourselves.  Call it a struggle with submission to authority, submission to others or lack of control, but it boils down to pride.  We want to be large and in charge.

#2. balance.  This again could or should be on the men’s list as well.  We all struggle with balance.  Finding the time for what is truly important (which often is at the bottom of our to do lists): Wife, Kids, & Relationships.  Relationships are HARD work to maintain and to do right.  It is often times much easier to just go to work or tune out checking email etc. than to do the work necessary to have a deep, abiding relationship with your wife and kids.  Not to mention the struggle that most men have trying to develop truly meaningful relationships with other men.

#3. hormones.  This one my wife and I had a GREAT laugh about, but the really sad truth is that men are clueless with their OWN hormones! Yes we have hormones too.  They produce anger, jealousy, frustration, lust, etc.  I have been told that the ‘window to reality is through our emotions’.  We would be much better friends, husbands, etc. if we would embrace our emotions and learn to process them better rather than trying to stuff them down and then using a pop off valve to unleash the pressure–which often looks very ugly.  AND, of course, being more in tune with our wives emotions and hormones.

An interview of 32 Southern California women in my wife’s group came up with a different list but equally important for us to consider change :

#1. High Expectations: Denmark is the happiest place on earth. When researchers went to find out why, they found that it was because they had low expectations.  Our wealth and materialism has driven us to covet and always believe that the “grass is always greener” when we should be focused on watering our own lawns and counting our many blessings

#2. Beauty/body image:  Again interesting and sad.  Our obsession with the perfect figures has driven women mad trying to augment everything.

#3. Hormones

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Wear a HELMET!

My ENTIRE family wears helmets when they ride bikes, skateboard, razor, etc.  I started wearing a helmet after I saw an 11 year old girl die before my eyes when I was in training.  She was roller blading on her street and a car at low speed hit her.  She tore one of the main arteries in her brain, and you could see the blood gushing out of her nose–it was very graphic and memorable.  Wear a HELMET!

I am always amazed at how few kids wear helmets in my neighborhood even when driving around in the motorized scooters.  Wear a HELMET!

I just received an email about a kid who was not wearing a helmet and fell off his skateboard and had multiple skull fractures and a severe concussion.  This is what his mom said in her email:  “If there is a lesson as a parent that Mark and I have taken, it is to hug your child every day and look at them for the perfect creatures that they are, and as a true gift from God.  Don’t sweat the small stuff, because life can change in an instant!  And, . . . to make them WEAR A HELMET, even if they think they are too cool.  That includes us as parents, as I will be purchasing myself one before our next bike ride.  So to my friend Patricia, who I always see riding with her helmet on and giggle, I will soon be in your club!”

Wear a HELMET!

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Reunion Relationships

It finally happened. They found me.  I wasn’t hard to find although I have been missing since I was a little boy.  They knew me when I was ‘in my prime’ or so they say.  I abandoned them once as I transitioned into a different social group.  I was added to their brief email banter just prior to our 20th college reunion.

I am no different than all the rest.  Men don’t do relationships well.  We lack the gene or we are raised within environments that continue to perpetuate the small talk training, distant/missing father figure woundedness that continues the cycle.

Although my dad and I have been through counseling together (shocking, awkward, and painful–really you should try it) and connected in deeper ways (yes, we even hug, at times!), it still amazes me how quickly we fall into small talk going on and on with the safe, meaningless discussions of the weather as if there is any weather to talk about in Southern California.

My freshman roommate had found my email and folded it into the rest of my dormmates email list to reunite just prior to the reunion.  I faded from their lives while I was still in college when I joined a fraternity, and since college, I have faded from my fraternity fellows as well.

Have I learned how to relate.  Not much.  Do any of us?  2 of my closest friends know when my relationship receptors have maxed out.  One of them will even cut our conversation short and say, “I’ll call you later.” (knowing that I have shut down and tuned out).  My other friend asks, “Is the turtle’s head out of his shell today or not.” (funny and sad)

Most men really do live alone.  Yes we are married with kids, co-workers, and a few buddies, but we are still alone with no one to share our fears and hopes.  I can share story after story of men who have told me that they are ‘buddies’ or ‘close friends’ or ‘best friends’ and who are convinced that they know each other well.  But with some deeper sharing time, I find that they don’t REALLY know each other at all.  This is no fault of their own.  It is in our genes and from our environment, our upbringing.  We major in the minors of small talk–sports, weather, politics, etc.

If there is anything that I have learned over 20 years, it is simply that I don’t do relationships well.

About 10 years ago, I took a risk and stepped out with my wife and shared with her my final ‘skeleton’ in my closet of secrets, and our marriage has been transformed from good to truly amazing.

About 7 years ago, I took a risk and stepped out with a friend of mine and shared some of my deepest hopes and fears, and he didn’t laugh or run away, and our relationship is now one of those unique, transformational relationships: you can turn to in time of crisis, tell ALL, and share ALL.

About 5 years ago, I took a risk and slowly developed another transformational relationship with another friend.

About 3 years ago, I went to counseling during a crisis time in my life.  It was awkward, stressful, but important.  I learned a great deal about myself, and how I was ‘trained’ to disconnect, never to show emotions or need to be connected.  But in a time of crisis, I found the importance of my wife and my friends–thank God that I had developed those deep, intimate relationships!  “Emotions are a window to reality.” At least that is what my counselor told me.  I am still working to understand that reality.

Do I know anything about relationships? Not really.  But I am so thankful that I took risks.  My relationships with my wife and my 2 ‘best friends’ continue to grow—far too slow for them–but for the turtle–they are moving at just the right speed.

Regrets? A few. Learnings? Yes. Hopes? That my friends would take risks, do the hard work, lean into their relationships–in the end–it is ALL that matters, and when the going gets tough (as I have learned it WILL), there is nothing like a friend and a wife who are by your side laughing and crying with you.

Advice. Be more vulnerable, take more sharing risks, take the time to develop your marriage (it is HARD work, and easier to go to work for many of us…but it is worth it–this I DO know.) and find a friend who you can relate to and start to do the tough, awkward work to develop a true relationship.

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I am not enough!

I am NOT enough! My eyes have FINALLY been open to this reality.  Most of us have this ‘wound’ but we just don’t know it.  I have written a brief summary of my learnings to help us all to learn from our past so that we may grow spiritually and emotionally in the future:

“Drew, can you be 1st base coach?” How hard could that be? The player’s are only 5 years old so all I had to do was point them in the direction of 2nd base, say, “great job!”, and my job was done. Or was it? My dad came up to me afterwards and said, “You know that you could have coached them more.” How many times has your mom or dad told you that you could have done a better job at something? Well at 35 years of age, my dad’s comment went on deaf ears until I mentioned it in passing to my wife. She thought his comment was significant, and comments such as those can have a lasting impact especially when you are young.  When she said this, I shared with her those times when I was young that my dad would critique one of my school projects, and he would insist that I throw it out and start all over.

More recently, I followed my father-in-law’s advice and bought a new barbeque from the exact same store and arranged the details of the delivery just as he instructed me. I proudly mentioned to him that I had left just the right amount of money on top of the old bbq so the delivery man would willingly take it away when he delivered the new bbq. When I showed off my new bbq to my father-in-law, I couldn’t get the propane tank hooked up to the bbq because my new bbq had a different attachment than my old one. My father-in-law said, “Oh, I always have the delivery man make sure and hook up the propane tank to the bbq before they leave to make sure that it works.” Finally, I recently had the pleasure of trying to pass a kidney stone. Not wanting to miss any work, I arranged to have it extracted during my vacation time. In passing, I mentioned to my retired father-in-law that I had only missed 1 day of work in 11 years. He said, “I missed 1 day of work in 30 years.” Have there been times in your life when your mom and dad have ‘zinged’ you (probably not even knowing that they had)?

Our dad’s (sometimes our mom’s) tell us over and over again as we are growing up—You are NOT enough! In so many subtle and not so subtle ways. This is the wound that so many men (and women) carry with them. It creates a fiercely critical spirit, a chip on our shoulders, and abrasive arguments when anyone tries to give us “constructive criticism”. We become our dad. It was only recently that a friend pointed this “I am not enough” wound out to me.  It was life changing to begin to process what it meant, how often I responded to my wife and others because of it, and how to learn and grow from it.

There are many practical ways that knowing about this wound has transformed my life.  In the past when I would write an article, I would immediately ask my wife to proof read the article for me.  When she would quickly use the red marker to slash and destroy what I thought was an almost perfect article, I would respond in a fury.  Now I see that I was only responding to my childhood experiences of not being enough.  My wife now knowing my wound has taken it upon herself to help heal my wound.  When I ask for her to proof read anything that I have written, she will affirm me, put it aside for at least 24 hours, and then she will slash away with her red marker.  It is amazing how quickly I become unattached to my work, and then can handle her critiques and edits much better.

My wife and I have an amazing marriage, but we have our share of arguments.  To my surprise, most of our arguments revolve around my “not enough” wound.  We argue because I feel that she has told me that “I am not enough”.  It can be simply because she told me that I loaded the dishwasher the wrong or that I should drive around the block again so my oldest son will be late to a birthday party because he does better when he is not the only kid there.  Yes, believe it or not this can set me off because I feel she is critiquing my driving and my favorite mantra that being early is one of life’s valuable secrets.

Two things have occurred since my “wound” was discovered.  Our arguments still occur, but they are much shorter and often end in laughter.  A less obvious by-product of my discovery stems from my wife’s repeated comment, “Ok already, I got it.  You are not enough.  When will it stop being about that!”  The wound is now so obvious and so prevelant that we both can laugh about it.  I have been healed enough through the process to laugh and with my wife’s encouragement to even tell myself, ‘Get over it!’

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Piercing the veil to our hearts

I love to read, but so often, I read and read and read but nothing sinks in, nothing stills my heart, nothing pierces soul.  Last night these words pierced my veil.  If only I was willing to allow God to tear down my veil how free, how joy filled, how wonderful marriage, friendship, fatherhood CAN be if we allow Him in….if we allow our wife and our closest friend(s) in to see our true heart and soul.
“What but the presence of a veil in our hearts? a veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look in our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction…There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered…

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free. Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified.

There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the Presence of the living God.

Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as Thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith.”–Pursuit of God by Tozer

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Patient Satisfaction Linked to Expectations

This article in the September 2009 Annals of Emergency Medicine: Patient Satisfaction as a function of Emergency Department Previsit Expectations points out, once again, the importance of interpersonal skills often can be more important than what you know and what skills you have as a physician.  I am confident this applies to most occupations.

Books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People can help us to be better husbands, friends, parents, and professionals by focusing on interpersonal skills.  I strongly recommend this book.

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Medical Myth #6 (example #4): Placebo’s don’t work

The power of the placebo is so incredible and interesting that I have shared many examples from this thought provoking book (Enjoy example #4):
Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine (David Newman)

“Moerman describes a study in which placebo injections for pain are given to two sets of patients under nearly identical circumstances. In the first, the physician is told that theres no chance that a real narcotic medication will be given. In the second, the physician is told that theres a chance that the patient will receive a narcotic. In both cases the patient receives a placebo, but the placebo is far more effective in relieving pain in the second case, when the physician believes that a narcotic may be in the injection. While the impact is very different in these cases, the only difference is in the physicians beliefs.”

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Medical Myth #6 (Example #5): Placebo’s don’t work

This is the 5th and final example of the placebo effect from Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine (David Newman):

“In 1961 Henry Beecher, a distinguished Harvard professor and researcher of the placebo effect, published a paper comparing sham heart surgeries in two groups of patients from two different studies (the paper discussed only those who had received shams, not the real surgeries).* Using observations of interactions between the physicians and patients Beecher described the surgeons as enthusiasts or skeptics based on their attitude toward the procedure and toward the patients having the procedure. Patients of the enthusiast surgeons achieved nearly four times more complete relief of their chest pain and heart problems than patients of the skeptics….

…The healing is in the psychosocial and biologic contextthe contact, the ceremony, the bond between doctor and patient. The healing is not in the pill or the scalpel any more than the strength to run faster was in the sneaker, or the taste was in the color of the can….

…Medical education, taught primarily by physicians, is a reflection of medical culture. Currently, we dont routinely teach the meaning response. In heart disease and major depression, to name only two, estimations of the effect of placebo pills have shown that theyre proportionally more effective than most real medications.”

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Medical Myth #6 (example #3): Placebo’s don’t work

Here is yet another example of the power of the placebo from Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine (David Newman)

“…Just five months after Dr. Freeds group published their work, a group in Vancouver, Canada, published a study…using a brain imaging technique called positron emission tomography scans, or PET scans, the researchers recorded the production of dopamine from the diseased areas of the brains of Parkinsons patients. While this had been done before, the researchers performed the images on an unusual group: patients from the active treatment and placebo groups of a trial being done to test a new drug for Parkinsons at their medical center. The PET scans showed that patients receiving placebos had visibly and measurably increased dopamine output from the diseased cells. The PET scans had allowed researchers for the first time to see the placebo effect….

Skeptics have argued that these studies dont provide evidence of a true physiologic placebo effect because pain, or even nausea, can be a subjective measurement. But dopamine output in the brain, and endorphins, are not subjective. Physical healing is also not subjective. Just as more pain reduction is seen with two placebo pills than with one, ulcers seen by endoscopy in the lining of the stomach or intestine heal more quickly when a patient is given two placebo pills rather than one. Real medicine reduces high blood pressure, but an inert pill does so as well, albeit somewhat less effectively. Real medications for asthma dilate the lung passages, making it easier to breathe; but if you tell an asthma patient that hes going to receive a medication that will dilate his lung passages, and then give him an inhaled placebo, his lung passages dilate. The patterns of placebo response are virtually identical to the patterns seen when using an effective pill.”

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Medical Myth #6 (example #2): Placebo’s don’t work

Here is our 2nd example from the medical literature regarding the power of the human mind to generate healing by placebo. Enjoy and share your thoughts with us.
Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine (David Newman):

“In the late 1930s, cardiac surgeons developed an innovative procedure to help those suffering from repeated chest pains due to severely blocked coronary arteries. The surgery consisted of making two incisions in the chest wall to tie off two unnecessary arteries that supply blood to the inside walls of the chest. Theoretically this could shunt extra blood flow back to the heart, thereby increasing flow through the hearts arteries and reducing chest pain. Initial reports indicated it was highly effective, and case studies showed success rates of up to 75 percent. For the next two decades the surgery became common, until the late 1950s, when two researchers studied the procedure separately and found strikingly similar results. The studies compared the surgery to a sham (placebo) procedure in which two incisions were made in the chest wall and then sutured without tying off the internal arteries. The studies showed the real surgery to be as successful as surgeons had believed. In the true surgery groups, 67 percent of patients showed major reductions in pain and in the need for medicine, and major improvements in the ability to exercise without serious chest pain. But the sham surgery was an even bigger hit: in the sham group 83 percent of patients showed the same improvements.”

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Medical Myth #6 (example #1): Placebo’s don’t really work

Medical Myth #6 is the notion that placebo’s don’t work.  The fact is that they work incredibly well, and we all should embrace them as a legitimate means of healing.  Here is our first incredible example—
Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine (David Newman):
“In 2002 an unusual study from Houstons VA Medical Center was published. It was a study about surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee, a condition that causes pain and disability due to thinning and breakdown of cartilage (the padding) in the joint. Patients occasionally have surgery to shave off the rough edges of the cartilage, or sometimes to wash out the knee joint. There were three groups of patients in the VA study: one group got the cartilage in their knees shaved, another group got their knees washed out, and one got an elaborate act. When the patient arrived in the operating room he was given anesthetic and the surgeon was then handed a sealed envelope telling him which surgery to perform. If the card inside the envelope said placebo, three incisions were made in the skin but nothing surgical was done to the knee joint. In case the patient was able to subconsciously hear or feel, water was splashed to simulate the sounds of the surgical procedure. In addition, the patient was kept in the operating room for the length of an actual surgery, during which the surgeon asked for all instruments and manipulated the knee as if surgery was being done. The operating room staff was sworn to secrecy, and outside the operating room no one was told which surgery the patient had undergone. The study results were shocking to many, including the orthopedic physicians who perform knee surgeries every day: the two real surgeries had been no more effective than the sham surgery. In retrospect, perhaps this should not have been surprising. Osteoarthritis is due to thinning of the knee cartilage, and there never was a good or even very feasible argument for why either of the treatments, shaving or washing, should work; after all, neither cures or reverses the thinning. But what is surprising even in retrospect is that all of the groups showed significant improvement in knee pain and function. In an article about the study and a closely related smaller study by the same researchers, one gentleman who had been enrolled told an interviewer that he was now able to mow his lawn and walk wherever he wanted, and added, The surgery was two years ago and the knee has never bothered me since. Its just like my other knee now.  He was in the placebo surgery group.”

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Judge NOT & love and understand as Jesus would (Matthew 7:1)

As I write this I am STILL recovering from the tongue lashing that I got from a patients wife yesterday.  We were having a congenial discussion about her spouse (the patient), and as I prepared to write orders and discuss the possible diagnoses, she went OFF.  I mentioned that his chronic abdominal cramps may, in the end (IF all the tests continue to come back negative) be entirely from stress.  Well she did NOT like that option at ALL.  “Don’t tell me it is stress! It is NOT stress! I KNOW it is not stress.  There is something wrong with him. That is what the other doctors said….”  She proceeded to sware at me for a good solid 2 minutes which seemed like a lifetime.  I was so frustrated and mad! I just finished a great book on how to be a better doctor, and I continue to try and improve my doctor skills.  In the book that I had just read, the author spoke about what a disservice doctors have done by just ordering more and more tests without getting at the heart of the matter and just talking with the patient.  It is SO frustrating to try to spend the time and show compassion and try and educate the patient to get spit in the face for it.  When you see over and over again that the patient is NOT interested in hearing what you have to say then you become hardened and numb and just give them what they want even if it is not necessary or the best treatment option!

After this very stressful situation, I found from the patients primary doctor that his wife has ‘gone off’ on him many times in the past, but that she is a professing Christian.  Now I was even more frustrated and angry.  I SO wanted to go back in to tell her how angry I am at her behavior.  How dare she act like that and claim to worship my precious Savior.

Now this is where the healing, the importance of fellowship, and the lessons were learned comes in.  I talked it over with one of my colleagues who is a believer.  And he challenged me to not judge her in that way.  OUCH!

He said: 1. just think how tough she would be without Christ and most importantly 2. you have never acted that way??? really never??? we are ALL like this at some time in our lives.  You MUST consider HER situation.  She is frustrated; she is scared; she has been dealing with this without any answers for months….WOW!

Now a day later, I see that God was teaching me a powerful review lesson on forgiveness, understanding, judgment, compassion, love, AND that I MUST continue to strive to love and go against the grain–and communicate with my patients with MORE compassion and understanding!

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How simple is the Christian walk of faith?

Here is a marvelous quote from 2 Christian missionaries who live in Africa about the Christian walk.

“Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength will take you to the end of yourself, and you will find yourself looking out over a precipice. Only God can keep you from falling. Only faith working through love counts. Let’s never leave the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus. All we know when the pressure becomes great is Jesus and Him crucified. We exist by the power of the Cross, safe and secure.”-Rolland and Heidi

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Imagine: Using our Minds and Imaginations to Grow Closer to God Part 2

Enjoy sermon #6 in the Animate Series by Greg Boyd

Here is an excellent book that helps with prayer life and using imaginitive exercises to grow closer to God:

Animate Sermon Series by Boyd (This is the link to notes on the Series)

Celebration of Disciplines by Foster (This is an AMAZING book on spiritual disciplines.  It is filled with GREAT quotes from Christian disciples and with practical ways to grow deeper with Christ.  It is a How To on prayer, Bible study, fasting, etc.  Below is an excerpt from the book.)

mediation exercise: “The following is a brief exercise to aid you in “re-collection” that is simply called “palms down, palms up.” Begin by placing your palms down as a symbolic indication of your desire to turn over any concerns you may have to God. Inwardly you may pray, “Lord, I give to you my anger toward John. I release my fear of my dentist appointment this morning. I surrender my anxiety over not having enough money to pay the bills this month. I release my frustration over trying to find a baby-sitter for tonight.” Whatever it is that weighs on your mind or is a concern to you, just say, “palms down.” Release it. You may even feel a certain sense of release in your hands. After several moments of surrender, turn your palms up as a symbol of your desire to receive from the Lord. Perhaps you will pray silently: “Lord, I would like to receive your divine love for John, your peace about the dentist appointment, your patience, your joy.” Whatever you need, you say, “palms up.” Having centered down, spend the remaining moments in complete silence. Do not ask for anything. Allow the Lord to commune with you, to love you.”-Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

Finally I end with a quote from Francisco whose devotion, passion, and focused imagery inspires and transforms our often lifeless faith.  Try starting your day with Jesus WAITING for YOU to take each day as a unique adventure!

“When I wake up every morning, Jesus is waiting for me.”-Francisco

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Imagine: Using our Minds & Imaginations to grow closer to God Part 1

I have placed 1 of the 8 sermon series on this post because it is so important for Christians in the U.S. to come back to the early church practices of prayer, meditation, and using ALL of our sense and especially using our imagination/minds.

As a western physician, my brain is entirely left without a right.  The use of imagery in prayer and in our walk with Him could transform our faith if we took the time to practice these exercises.

As a former atheist, I am quick  to put distance between myself and God when life is going smoothly and to be filled with doubt when life is going rough.  These sermons inspire and challenge all of us to use our minds/imaginations to grow closer to Him.

Animate Sermon Series by Boyd (This is the link to notes on the Series)

As always share with us your thoughts.

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Kingdom Living: Listen & Look for God moments

In Mike Erre’s newest book: Death by Church, he has an important chapter titled: Postures of Incarnation.  We need to show the world the incarnation through out actions.  We need to prayerfully watch and listen for the God moments–those moments every day where God is nudging us to show his love to others.

“I used to hate interuptions to my ministry until I understood that interruptions were my ministry.”-Henri Nouwen

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Medical Myth #2: Antibiotics & Bronchitis

I can’t tell you how many patients that I have seen that have had cold and cough symptoms for 1-3 days and come to see me for antibiotics. They rarely seem satisfied when I try and educate them that they have a viral upper respiratory tract infection that must run its course and that antibiotics won’t help and may make matters worse.

“Many studies and large reviews have compared antibiotics to placebos for acute bronchitis and concluded that antibiotics are unnecessary and offer no significant benefit. In addition, antibiotics have a significant downside: they produce common side effects such as diarrhea, allergic reactions, rashes, and yeast infections, as well as rarer side effects such as fatal or nearly fatal allergic reactions, liver problems, and severe skin reactions. Their extremely frequent administration has also bred an ongoing international crisis of antibiotic resistance. This means that in the aggregate, antibiotics are harmful both in the short and in the long term (when there’s well-documented risk and little-to-no benefit, the risk/benefit ratio is an easy calculation-it equals harm).”-Hippocrates’ Shadow

“People often visit their physician between roughly three and seven days from the beginning of their symptoms, and the average viral illness lasts approximately seven to ten days. In most cases, then, the illness is about to abate regardless of whether or not antibiotics are taken. But patient belief in the power of antibiotics is reinforced by the coincidence of their feeling better just days, or even hours, after the first antibiotic dose.”-Hippocrates’ Shadow

“There are roughly twenty-four thousand life-threatening allergic reactions each year from the unnecessary antibiotics. Giving antibiotics for viral disease is essentially a large-scale game of Russian roulette, and there are thousands of losers.”-Hippocrates’ Shadow