There is nothing funny about cancer, yet today I wanted to start my blog off with, a funny thing about cancer... It makes you think about your life as a whole, which could be a depressing thing for many. I personally jump into God's word and bath myself with his love and healing power. No this is not the healing power of the body, but I do believe God can if He wills. I am talking about the emotional and mental healing power of God's word.
Today I was reading Romans chapter 12, which is a book of the Bible I find myself going back to again and again. The passages I was reading talked about sacrificing your body as an act of worship and transform yourself by the renewing of the mind (sorry this is a loose paraphrase). In my field of study and career choice, the renewing of the mind is something I am trying to do daily with people who are hurting and are mentally struggling. Maybe this makes be a cognitive therapist, but it makes sense. If you can transform the mind to think clearer and to be more positive, you can really change your outlook on life as well as your feelings. But to sacrifice the your body as an act of worship, this may be harder for me.
My body feels fatigued often, my body feels weak, and my body aches; this makes me less motivated to get out of bed. So to sacrifice your body is to fight all those feelings and jump into action. So what actions needs to take place in the body so I my worship my creator? This makes me a behaviorist, because by doing a new act over and over again, I change my feelings and my thoughts about the issue or problem. Back to the question, what do I do?
I praise God with more acts of worship, I spend more time on my knees in prayer, I get out of the lazy boy and walk with God more, I spend more time fasting, I serve more, I breath deeper, and I live so that I may live. Worship with your body then with your words. Take joy in aches and pains of the body, because it is a sign you are alive.
Today, my thoughts may seem unclear and random, but sometimes the deeper more profound things in your life are not the things that make sense to others.
So dear reader, I leave you with this. What behaviors need to take place in your life, so that you my worship God?
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
2nds
The funny thing about starting Chemotherapy again, much of your time you really just want to lay in bed. It takes a lot of motivation to get up everyday and do something when you just don't feel good. I have been motivating myself by taking all this free time to explore more of my craft. I have also been motivated to study God's word that much more. My craft if you don't know is counseling and what better place to learn more about counseling then from the great counselor. I read the gospels and I see the compassion Christ had for people and how that has played a great role in my own compassion for the hurting and the ill.
In psychotherapy we are always looking inward, asking the questions of clients or patients that will cause them to explore deeper into their being. Today my question for myself is, "Christ's compassion has motivated my to be compassionate toward the hurting and the ill, but does that compassion reach myself?"
Often when you are sick you start blaming or become defensive. You think to yourself where did I go wrong, am I not eating right, am I not working out enough, am I not seeking the treatment needed to bet cancer, etc. I start examining my own thoughts and think, can I avoid it, do I get angry, do I over rationalize it, do I need to pray more, do I need to read the Bible more, do I need to just let go of my health and praise God for the moments I have on earth.
That last one makes me cry.
Thou this makes me sad to think about death at such a young age, I can remember the words of Paul, "we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4) What great joy that brings to a believer, to walk anew, to live life with Christ for eternity, to worship our Heavenly Father with our unborn child, with our family before us and our children after.
This too brings tears to my eyes, but they have changed from sadness to joy.
So I leave you once more with a question, "Is it not time for you dear reader to check your heart and ask the deeper questions of yourself and your faith?"
In psychotherapy we are always looking inward, asking the questions of clients or patients that will cause them to explore deeper into their being. Today my question for myself is, "Christ's compassion has motivated my to be compassionate toward the hurting and the ill, but does that compassion reach myself?"
Often when you are sick you start blaming or become defensive. You think to yourself where did I go wrong, am I not eating right, am I not working out enough, am I not seeking the treatment needed to bet cancer, etc. I start examining my own thoughts and think, can I avoid it, do I get angry, do I over rationalize it, do I need to pray more, do I need to read the Bible more, do I need to just let go of my health and praise God for the moments I have on earth.
That last one makes me cry.
Thou this makes me sad to think about death at such a young age, I can remember the words of Paul, "we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4) What great joy that brings to a believer, to walk anew, to live life with Christ for eternity, to worship our Heavenly Father with our unborn child, with our family before us and our children after.
This too brings tears to my eyes, but they have changed from sadness to joy.
So I leave you once more with a question, "Is it not time for you dear reader to check your heart and ask the deeper questions of yourself and your faith?"
Sunday, October 21, 2012
1st
Life is full of ups and downs. It seems in the moments of downness, we start taking the time to reflect and ponder why life is the way it is. My life right now seems it could not get any worse. I will be battling cancer for the forth time and I have just learned that my wife and I have lost our unborn child. It seems we can't catch a break, but maybe that is the whole point? I know may people blog to help with their pain and my hope blogging my help with the pain I feel inside, who knows? I do know I need to vent and I feel this could be my new voice.
To begin a blog may seem to be an easy idea for some, but to have your personal thoughts and feelings put on display seems so narcissistic, but here I find myself wanting the attention and wanting people to say, "oh poor thing, it must be so hard". I guess this is my sin to be the center and to remove Christ from his place in my life. Maybe it is just being human. Since the being of time right after the fall, all mankind has wanted was to have the knowledge to become the authority of self and the world.
God has given us that authority and seems the world is just becoming worse, I can't seem to manage my self, and life just does not seem to turn out how we plan it. So I give my self, my world, and my life to God through Christ Jesus. Now what? Isn't is suppose to make things better? I trust God and I have not lost faith, so don't get me wrong when I say these things. I say them in hopes that the pain would not be as great.
Pain is a funny thing, we all have it and we all need it in a sense or we would just go around killing ourselves. Pain brings about an awareness that we are still living, we hurt, we breath, and we are continuing on. Pain deep inside us will motivate, will cause us to fight, or to avoid, pain makes us put up our defenses so that in someway we may feel safe or in control.
So as any great writing teacher would tell you don't end with a question, but the question here seems so fitting. What do I do with this pain I am feeling, do I avoid, do I fight it, or do I change to use it to motivate me and others?
To begin a blog may seem to be an easy idea for some, but to have your personal thoughts and feelings put on display seems so narcissistic, but here I find myself wanting the attention and wanting people to say, "oh poor thing, it must be so hard". I guess this is my sin to be the center and to remove Christ from his place in my life. Maybe it is just being human. Since the being of time right after the fall, all mankind has wanted was to have the knowledge to become the authority of self and the world.
God has given us that authority and seems the world is just becoming worse, I can't seem to manage my self, and life just does not seem to turn out how we plan it. So I give my self, my world, and my life to God through Christ Jesus. Now what? Isn't is suppose to make things better? I trust God and I have not lost faith, so don't get me wrong when I say these things. I say them in hopes that the pain would not be as great.
Pain is a funny thing, we all have it and we all need it in a sense or we would just go around killing ourselves. Pain brings about an awareness that we are still living, we hurt, we breath, and we are continuing on. Pain deep inside us will motivate, will cause us to fight, or to avoid, pain makes us put up our defenses so that in someway we may feel safe or in control.
So as any great writing teacher would tell you don't end with a question, but the question here seems so fitting. What do I do with this pain I am feeling, do I avoid, do I fight it, or do I change to use it to motivate me and others?
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