My Reasons for Not Taking the Vaccine!

 

Dennis Edwards

I wanted to share with you briefly my reasons for not submitting to the voluntary vaccine campaign. I will write these one by one. Here is reason number one.

I have trusted God for my health my whole life and don’t see why I should stop now!

I have at various points in my life refused to follow the doctor’s perscription of pain killers and relaxatives. Instead I looked for the cause of my affliction, rather than just aim at the symptons. My sciatic nerve problem, my hernia problem, and my extreme heart pain problem were solved without medication except for one anti-inflammatory which I took for the sciatic nerve pain on the insistence of my loved ones. I took it more for their sakes than for mine.

I have found that by seeking God’s guidance in my affliction, that He has guided my thinking and has helped me when necessary change my habits and or life-sytle to the benefit of my health. When after 3 days of intense heart pains, as if someone was forcing a knife into my heart, I finally went to the hospital, what happened? After all the tests: urine, blood, x-ray, blood-presure, etc., what was the conclusion? I was seemingly in perfect health for my age. The doctor, however, diagnosed from the fact that I had seven children that the problem I had was stress related. She said the stress was causing my nervous system around my heart to react which was causing the pain. Therefore, she concluded that I needed to take a pain killer and a relaxant. 

But I responed, “Doctor, the pills are just aiming at the symptons of my problem, not the cause. I need to fix the cause.” “That’s true, Mr. Dennis, she replied, but you need to make sure you take your medicine.” “How can I reduce the stress, I asked?” She advised, “Watch the moments when you see your stress level building up and then avoid those moments, that would be one way. But make sure you take your medicine, also, until it runs out. If you have any more problems see a doctor.” I thanked her for her help, but as I left the hospital I put the perscription she had given me in the rubbish bin. 

I later researched on-line and found out that vigorous daily exercise would help reduce stress. The normal 15 minutes of sex-related exercise every day or every other day that I was getting was not sufficient. That’s when I started my daily jogging routine. Over time, I worked up from only being able to jog for 10 minutes, to being able to jog for 90 minutes or more. I finally kept to between 35-50 minutes a day or around 3 miles or 5 km. Both my hernia problem and my sciatic nerve problem were solved mainly with rest without medication. Being self employed enabled me to take the rest I needed and my dear wife was able to take over my work responsibilities.

My wife has reminded me that at the same time I started exercising that I also started to use more praise in my life. I started to accompany my running by listening to Becky Hardling 64 recommended songs of praise and worship. She has written a small booklet called “The 30-Day Praise Challenge.” I read the book and incorporated praise and thanksgiving into my life. I filled my mind with the 64 songs she recommended. Those positive songs of praise greatly improved my spiritual state and well-being which no doubt was a help in eliminating much of the psychological stress from my life. Praise has powerful pyschological power. My exercise routine was accompanied by my praise and thanksgiving music which I carried with me in my mobile phone. My body was destressing through the exercise and my mind was destressing through the Godly songs of praise. 

My wife and I had earlier on decided not to vaccines our children after the research we had done on the subject. You can do your own research. However, Google has changed the search algorithms for vaccines and it is much more difficult to find opinions that do not support vaccine taking. Robert Kennedy’s organization Children’s Health Defense found here: childrenshealthdefense.org may be a good place to look to get an alternative opinion. Del Bigtree on his site thehighwire.com also delves deeply into the vaccine question having had a personal incident with his son as a result of a vaccine he was given as a child. These people are not fanatics. The are concerned parents and legal adivsors. 

My children were not vaccinated and when they started school were allowed to attend because as parents we stated we did not vaccinate because of “questions of conscience,”or religious beliefs. Our beliefs were not trampled on by the local school administration. Even though vaccines were required by the school system, the law in the country that we lived in was that vaccination was not obligatory. It was kind of a “Catch 22” situation, where most people believe the vaccines were manditory. They were and are manditory, but if you have convictions and know your rights you can make a legal stand against them.  

Some years earlier in another country, my oldest son cut his hand on a glass bottle. The ligament between his thumb and first finger was almost cut. After the emergency doctors stitched his hand these two young doctors can out to me with much enthusiam asking me, “What have you done that your son’s blood is so healthy?” They had never seen anything like it. At that moment, all I could think of was that it was our natural food diet. We didn’t use white suger or white sugar products, nor white flour or white rice. We ate lots of fruits and vegatables and not an enormous amount of meat and followed the Biblical advise concerning our meat and fish alimentation: no pig meat, only sheep, goat, or cow; no seafood, only fish with fins and scales.  

The doctors didn’t seem convinced that “diet” alone could be the source of the healthy blood and walked away with a puzzled look on their faces. It was only later as we drove home that it came to me that the fact that my son was not vaccinated was probably the prime factor in his blood health. Two days later in an unrelated incident, our home was raided and our seven children taken from us by force. We had never seen a “Child Welfare Officer” before. She ordered the police to take the children. She held a court order against us for “child abuse” and “child neglect.” The children were being “home-schooled” and therefore delinquent to the mandatory school attendance rules. As she marched the children out to the police vehicle she snarled at me, “And the first thing we will do is vaccinate them.” 

Why people get so upset when you don’t conform to their rules and opinions is beyond me, especially in countries where the freedom to think and act differently is frequently defended by the government. The government supports the freedom to act or think differently as long as the thinking and acting differently is in accordance to the way they want you to think and act differently. Eventually, our children were returned to us as both the criminal case and the civil case against us were found to be unsupported. In fact, our “home-schooling” became a point that the local government tried to prove was neglect. They forced the Constitutional Court to rule on “home-schooling” and the court decided that home-schooling was within the confinds of the law for obligatory schooling. Our children were not being neglected, they were being home-schooled and now the legal system had sided in favour of “home-schooling.” 

As you can see by those testimonies, I just don’t follow whatever everyone else is doing. I don’t follow the propaganda spouted on the daily news. I dig deeper and try to come to an educated decision on any given subject. I don’t just accept the opinions being given in the news or on a television program or serial, or daily talk show. I find most of that to be just plain and simple “brain washing.” The fact that I have lived abroad in different countries has helped me to realize the power that television has to form public opinion. As a foreigner, you are not so easily convinced by the local propaganda.  

During the time of the Vietnam War, I refused the order to report for military service. I was not being a coward and was ready to go to jail for my stance against the war. Not only was I following my own personal research on the war and the government's war hungry economy, but even further, I was following the voice of conscience. I was follwing that still small voice that speaks to us that we often have a hard time listening to. It is that same voice today that is telling me “don’t take the vaccine.” I believe it’s God’s voice and that’s my first reason for not taking the vaccine. Like Martin Luther said before the Diet of Worms in 1521 "to go against conscience is neither right or safe." 

When Policarp was asked to deny his faith and worship the Roman gods or he would be tortured and killed. How did he respond? "86 years I have served my Lord, and He has never done me harm. How can I blaspheme my King and Saviour now?" He refused to go against his conscience. And so he went to a cruel death by his Roman persecutors.

In a similar vein I say, "I have trusted God for my health for 72 years and don’t see why I should stop now? It is neither right nor safe to go against conscience."

To go to part two follow the link: https://fightforyourfaith.blogspot.com/2021/06/more-reasons-why-i-did-not-take-vaccine.html

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Stress Not

By Dennis Edwards:

Scientific studies have shown over and over again that one of the surest ways to reduce stress is to exercise. But for exercise to come about, like everything else, it must be scheduled in your daily plan. Exercise must be seen as an essential, important, vital part of your work and health. If not, you will usually neglect it until something happens at work where you become impatient, angry, or miserable. Or something happens to your health, like it did mine a few years ago, when I had a severe heart pain for several days. That’s finally when you get down to business and say, “I need to do something about this, before it’s too late.”

Like the doctor said to me after all the medical exams showed I didn’t have any physical reason to have heart pains. She said, “From what you’ve told me about your life, it’s obvious you’re suffering from stress. When you have stress in your life electrical impulses send charges to your heart which cause that excruciating pain. You’ll need to reduce the stress in your life, because if you don’t, it could kill you. Stress kills.”

We have all heard that stress kills, but how do we reduce the stress level. What practical steps can we take to help us maintain that calm and peaceful composure we desire to have? We have already mentioned the importance of daily exercise as a preventative measure. Vigorous exercise like jogging, speed walking and aerobics have been shown to be good stress relievers. But they need to be worked into your daily schedule and not pushed aside when the work load builds up. Your exercise period needs to be seen as a priority for health, but also as studies have shown, exercise actually increases your creativity and mental capacity.

Another step to take is to avoid and eliminate the situations or thought patterns which cause you to become stressful. The famous founder of the Jesuits Order was Ignatius Loyola, the Basque soldier whose spiritual experience in the battlefield caused him to become a disciple of Jesus. Ignatius developed a system of mental discipline for himself and later used it for his new disciples. Each new Jesuit recruit was to evaluate his thoughts throughout the day, learning to reject those thoughts that were contrary to the Word of God, and act upon those that were in accordance to God’s Word. 

In a similar manner, those suffering from stress will need to have diligence to monitor their own behavior and thoughts to learn what situations or thought patterns lead them to stress. Such situations or thoughts will need to be vigilantly avoided. You may even need to ask the help of those around in your monitoring. 

The Bible teaches, 

“I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me, because he trusts in me.”[1] 

So an important aspect of eliminating stress is to keep our mind on the Lord. We do this by spending time reading and meditating on His Word. Again, your time with God must be something that you schedule into your daily plan. It may be in the evening before you go to bed, or in the morning before starting the day, or both. But you need that time with God. If you spend time in His presence, His presence will go with you and stay with throughout the day.

I find that while I’m jogging, I can not only pray and bring my problems, worries and loved ones before the Lord, but I can also review and memorize verses or hymns. I just recently memorized the Christian song “How Great Thou Art,” which has been a big encouragement to me and has helped me to put more praise into my thoughts and life.

If you are suffering with stress you may need to make a conscious effort to praise God more. The Bible tells us, 

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”[2] 

So bringing more praise and thankfulness into your life is another positive weapon to help you to defeat worry and fear which are causes of stress. 

The Bible also tells us, 

“One can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight.”[3]

So it could also help to ask for pray of your loved ones, companion, or workmates. Your confession and humility will help promote a positive and trusting attitude in the workplace and home. So cast your burdens upon the Lord, because He promises to sustain you.[4] He has also said,

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”[5]

With this in mind, you may need to re-evaluate your work load, or ask others to help you re-evaluate it. It may be that you are trying to do too much in your own strength, or you’re not delegating enough to others whom God has already raised up to help you. The Lord can’t help us if we don’t cooperate. You may need the help and input of others to properly see what really are your responsibilities and tasks, and what you should leave undone, and what you should delegate to others. Eliminating extra unnecessary work can reduce stress and help us major on the majors and as a result work smart and get more done. 

In summary, No.1: Organize your schedule to include daily exercise preferably running, vigorous walking, or aerobics for 30-60 minutes a day. Do more walking at work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator when possible. Walk to lunch instead of taking the car. 

No.2: Watch your thoughts and monitor the situations that cause you to get stressful and attempt to avoid them. Ask the help of others in this. You may need to cut down on your coffee intake if you are drinking too much. 

No.3: Use prayer, praise and God’s presence to help change your thought patterns and renew a positive spirit in your life. Spend time with God and He will spend time with you. He says, 

“Seek me first, and all these things shall be added unto you,”[6] 

even a stress-free life, so stress not, amen? 

[1] Isaiah 26:3 (KJV adapted)
[2] Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
[3] Deuteronomy 32:30 (KJV paraphrased)
[4] Psams 55:22
[5] Matthew 11:28-30
[6] Matthew 6:33 (KJV abbreviated)

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How to Overcome Stress and Burnout!

By Dennis Edwards:

Some years ago I passed through a very stressful period of my life. There was work to do, but our finances had taken a nose dive as the novelty of our product came to its end. Yet we were still living according to our previously higher income, while our present income had dropped and bottomed out. Our savings were suddenly taking a beating and we had little work for the amount of personnel we had employed. We needed to make some changes. At home our teenagers were being teenagers and I was learning quite slowly how to adjust to their new behavior. It was just getting to be too much all at once. 

It was then that I developed a strong pain in my heart. It felt like someone taking a knife and stabbing me. When I felt the pain, I would massage my heart. I also asked my wife and some close workmates to pray for me. Someone suggested I use canine pepper, which is supposed to be a good heart attack preventative. I started using canine pepper in all my foods and drinks. But after a three day period, and I was still suffering with the knife-like heart pain, my wife convinced me to go for a check-up at the local hospital. 

I arrived at the emergency ward and explained my problem. I was around 58 years old at the time. The doctor took down my details and because of my profession as a Missionary worker for a Christian NGO decided to do every test available to find out what the problem was. My pulse and my blood-pressure were normal. We spent the next hour and a half doing a blood test, an x-ray, and a urine test to see if any irregularities showed up. But the conclusion was nothing.

I seemed to be perfectly fine. “But Doctor,” I asked, “why am I having these pains in my heart.” The doctor asked me again. “How many children did you say you had?” I responded, “Seven.” She said, “I have two and those two give me a lot of stress. I can’t imagine how much stress you have. That’s why you are feeling that pain in your heart. The stress is causing erratic and dangerous electrical charges. If you don’t eliminate the stress, it can kill you. Stress kills.” 

She then prescribed a pain-killer and a relaxant for me to take. I asked her, “What if I don’t take these?” She said, “What do you mean you won’t take them. You better take them. Your life is on the line.” I didn’t want to argue, so I thanked her for her careful analysis of my problem and left.

However, I was under the impression that just taking a pain-killer and a relaxant was not really getting to the root of the problem. It was acting against the symptoms, but I needed to find a way to reduce stress, to eliminate stress which was the cause of the pain. After praying and asking the Lord what to do and researching on the internet, I initialed a three-fold plan of attack. 

First, I was going to strengthen my relationship with the Lord by spending more time in praise and prayer. Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart. And ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”[1] So my first priority was to come unto the Lord, to praise Him more and bring my burdens to Him in prayer. 

By bringing more praise and prayer into my life, it helped me to be more relaxed and trusting in the Lord. Instead of carrying the burdens on my own shoulders, I was transferring them to the Lord’s shoulders. Suddenly stress began to subside.

The second part of the plan was I was also going to be on the look-out for those moments when I got stressful. The Bible says, “I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon me, because he trusted in me.”[2] I was going to try to keep the Lord’s peaceful spirit with me. I was going to try to identify those moments when I was tempted to get stressful and avoid them. You see, you don’t need to go around full of stress. You can decide to not get stressful. You can make a conscious effort to change your behavior, with the Lord’s help. You do not have to let stress dominate you. 

The third part of the plan was I was going to have regular exercise for one hour a day. I started to jog and to walk for one hour. At first all I could jog was ten minutes and then I would walk for fifty. Over a period of time, I worked up to one hour of jogging. If you go on the internet you can find hundreds of articles on the importance of exercise to help eliminate stress. I started walking up the stairways instead of taking the elevator. I started walking to the office, which was about two kilometers away, rather than take the car. And it worked. 

In the end, I hadn’t taken the pain-killer or the relaxant, but God had given me a plan to reduce stress. He can do the same for you. 

Having a stress-free life is your choice. He says, “Seek and ye shall find.”[3] So if you’re suffering with stress, try this three-fold plan, or ask God for your own personalized one. He loves you and wants you to have a stress-free life. 

[1] Matthew 11:28-30

[2] Isaiah 26:3 (KJV paraphrased)

[3] Matthew 7:7

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A Lumber Executive Loses His Voice and Finds Balance

By Jennifer Van Allen, NY Times, March 9, 2016:

CASCO, Me.–Kevin Hancock, chief executive of his family’s lumber company, thought things could not possibly get worse: The housing market was sputtering, hundreds of lumberyards had shut down and his company had to resort to painful cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs at its sawmills and retail stores.

The future of Hancock Lumber, started in 1848, and the livelihoods of hundreds of workers weighed heavily.

“It was pretty stressful,” Mr. Hancock said.

Then, he lost his voice.

When he tried to talk, his throat would tighten. He sounded and felt as if he were being strangled. What Mr. Hancock initially dismissed as a sore throat was diagnosed as spasmodic dysphonia, an incurable neurological condition that causes spasms in the vocal cords and is made worse by stress.

Mr. Hancock worried whether his work would prevent him from regaining consistent use of his normal speaking voice. He wondered whether he could continue as chief executive.

He did.

That was in 2010. Today he considers the loss of his voice a positive turning point. It prompted a trip to one of the most impoverished corners of the country. And in the five years since, the privately held company has hit record levels of efficiency and productivity, and sales of nearly $140 million in 2015.

It is not known what causes spasmodic dysphonia, which affects an estimated 50,000 people in the United States, including the radio host Diane Rehm and the environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For some people, like Mr. Hancock, the initial onset follows a stressful event, said Dr. Andrew Blitzer, director of the New York Center for Voice and Swallowing Disorders.

Mr. Hancock got temporary relief from speech therapy, and from injections of Botox into the muscles of his larynx, a standard treatment.

When his symptoms were at their worst, efforts to speak left him gasping and sore. “It was pretty isolating,” he said.

He had to reinvent the way he worked. At meetings he once led, he now sat in the second row, jotting down notes. As he spoke less and listened more, he discovered how many managers and front-line employees had ideas for changes and wanted to take responsibility for them. He began delegating more.

“You see the passion and ideas coming from others,” he said. “People are smart, and they know what needs to happen and they want to do a good job.”

By 2012, the company had regained firm financial footing, and Mr. Hancock was ready to take some time off.

He had always been interested in the history of the American West in the late 19th century. He had read about the severe housing shortage at Pine Ridge, an Oglala Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. He felt drawn there.

At Pine Ridge, Mr. Hancock completely unplugged from his duties as chief executive. And he began to realize how much those duties had come to define him.

“I learned that being C.E.O. of Hancock Lumber was just a role that I played,” he said. “I felt that I acquired S.D. because I had become too consumed in my roles and work responsibilities. I needed to bring more balance into my life, which for me meant that the work would be important but not all-consuming.”

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What Burning Out Taught Me About Prioritizing My Work

By Carson Tate, Fast Company, June 25, 2015

It was December 26. The day after Christmas; 10 days after my daughter’s first birthday. I was sitting on the floor coiling Christmas lights when I began to try to stand up. Almost immediately, I sank back down to the floor.

I was tired: physically tired; emotionally tired. Even my soul felt tired.

How did I get here?

Six weeks after the birth of my daughter, I chose to jump back into the whirlwind of busyness–airplanes, travel and meetings–striving to build my consulting business. I spent the entire first year of her life haunted by my ego as I frantically tried to grow my business, serve my clients all over the world, and prove to myself that I was needed and valuable.

This was all part of something bigger for me personally. I wanted to live up to my image of the successful woman–smart, driven, professionally accomplished; a Mary Poppins mom; a loving wife; a leader in the community. That superwoman was my gold standard, and I had spent years, and especially the last year, trying to live up to it.

But now, on December 26, I’d awakened only to realize that as much as I was chasing the dream of the superwoman, I wasn’t living my life.

And the words of Socrates–”beware the bareness of a busy life”–were suddenly eerily real. It was time for me to face my fears and make bold choices about my life and the way that I worked.

I started to make these bold choices for my life with three key strategies that not only anchored me as I picked myself up that December 26, but also continue to support me today as I work to overcome my fears and build a life where I live fully.

Focus on impact not output. For many years, I prized my ability to produce significant amounts of work–my output. It became something I was known for, however, it came at a tremendous personal cost. There is work and then there is the real work, work that has an impact on the bottom line, your clients, and your organization. Where are you focusing on output instead of impact? What would shift for you personally and professionally if you appreciated impact more than output?

Honor the way you work. I cannot sit still. I prefer to stand when writing. My brain shuts down after 9:00 pm. I do not pull all-nighters well. I am grumpy and unfocused if I do not exercise. And, if I am hungry, there is nothing that can keep me focused. It took me a long time to admit these things to myself. Then it took even longer for me to actually honor that as the way that I worked.

Honor the way you work: When do you do your best work–in the morning, afternoon, or late at night? Under what conditions do you produce your best work–when you exercise, have adequate sleep, or are listening to great music? Resist giving into work cultures that undermine your productivity. Let the quality of your work and the impact you are making speak for themselves. If you do, no one will question how you work.

Stop getting derailed by what you “should” do. It is difficult for me to say no because I get seduced and derailed by something I call the “shoulds.” The shoulds are those voices in your head–you know the ones–saying “You should be doing this,” “You should like that,” “You should spend time on this,” “You should stop doing that,” and so on and so forth–endlessly. The problem with the shoulds is they lead you to over-commit–and when you over-commit, the quality and impact of your work suffers. To combat the shoulds I use the “POWER No.” It’s based on the acrostic POWER–Priorities, Opportunities, Who, Expectations, and Real. Here’s how it works:

Priorities. When that voice in your head tells you that should complete this task, lead another project, attend another meeting, or make cupcakes from scratch, evaluate the priority of that message. How does this should align to your priorities, the organization’s strategic priorities, and/or your families’ priorities?

Opportunities. Explore the opportunities. What opportunities does this should create for you? Is there something that does actually need additional attention in your life? This should could be shining a light on something that you need to address.

Who. Who or what triggered this should? Was it an old script from childhood? Was it an ad in a magazine? Was it your colleague?

Expectations. Whose expectations are these really? Your manager? Your mother? Your spouse? Your child? Society’s?

Real. Get real. What is this should really about? Are there real priorities that are driving this should? Or are you taking on societal expectations that are not in alignment with your priorities?

Say no to the many things that threaten to distract you and derail you, so you can focus your energies on the handful of things that will lead you to your success. The POWER puts you back in the driver’s seat, empowering you to respond rather than merely react. Stop shoulding all over yourself and take back control.

Facing my fears was hard. I am not sure I would have done it if I had not been sitting on my family room floor that December 26. My advice to you is this–don’t wait until you reach your breaking point or there is a catastrophic event to start making bold choices about our life and the way you work. This is your work. This is your time.

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Fatal Heart Attacks Occur On Christmas More Than Any Other Day

CBS 11 News, December 18, 2014

NORTH TEXAS—It’s become the norm for many of us: harried, hurried, and just plain old stressed!

“We drive ourselves very heavily in our society,” says Mark Gross of Grapevine. “No doubt about it. But, there is a cost. There is a cost.”

Mark very nearly paid with his life. “I felt it. I felt the aortic dissection rip through my chest,” he recalled.

It was February of 2012 and Mark says he can remember the moment when he felt the largest artery in his body—battered by high blood pressure and chronic stress—tear. “I said, ‘it may be all over with, and I was preparing to lay back on the bed and die. Literally.”

Mark was eventually taken by air ambulance to Baylor’s Heart Hospital Plano where he spent five weeks in a coma. That was followed by 12 weeks of rehabilitation to re-learn how to walk. It was a stark contrast to the active lifestyle he’d previously led—white water rafting, zip-lining and enjoying the outdoors.

“I’m just a regular guy. [I] let my blood pressure get out of control with the stress and kerboom! Here it happened.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, high blood pressure affects one in three Americans. Add on chronic stress, and experts say there’s a reason that high blood pressure is called the silent killer.

“You can have it and have virtually no symptoms and not really know it—not recognize it,” says David Brown, MD, at cardiologist at the Heart Hospital Baylor Plano. “It’s a big deal.”

According to Dr. Brown, “it can cause heart disease, heart attacks. It causes disease in the brain that leads to stroke. It causes kidney disease that leads to kidney failure that leads to dialysis. The list goes on.”

But, not for Mark Gross. He says he walked away from the high stress job and is now more deliberate about managing his blood pressure—and his stress. He has learned the hard way to not take life for granted. “No,” he reiterates, “I don’t take it for granted at all.”

Mark says his story is also a cautionary tale for those tempted to take stress in stride…especially during the holidays.

Researchers, more than a decade ago, found that more fatal heart attacks occur on Christmas Day than any other day of the year. The 2nd busiest day is December 26th and the 3rd busiest is January 1st.

The pattern has continued for so long that health care workers coined the term “Christmas Coronary.”

Mark has decided to pass on the lethal package—gifting himself and his family with lifestyle choices that support heart health. “So the quality of life is a lot better.”

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How to Recover from Stress

By James Clear, ETR, Dec. 16, 2014

It was my first year of graduate school and my professor was standing at the front of the room. He was telling our class about a mistake he made years before.

About a decade earlier, my professor had been one of the senior executives at Sears, Roebuck & Company, the large department store chain. They were in the middle of a massive national campaign and preparing for a major brand launch. My professor was leading the operation.

For almost two months prior to the launch day, he was flying all over the country to strike up buzz with major partners and media companies. While crisscrossing the country on flight after flight, he was also trying to run his department from the road. For weeks on end he would meet with the media and business partners all day, answer emails and phone calls all night, squeeze in 3 or 4 hours of sleep, and wake up to do it all over again.

The week before the big launch day, his body gave out on him. He had to be rushed to the hospital. Major organs had started to fail from the chronic stress. He spent the next eight days lying in a hospital bed, unable to do anything as the launch day came and went.

Imagine that your health and energy are a bucket of water.

In your day-to-day life, there are things that fill your bucket up. These are inputs like sleep, nutrition, meditation, stretching, laughter, and other forms of recovery.

There are also forces that drain the water from your bucket. These are outputs like lifting weights or running, stress from work or school, relationship problems, or other forms of stress and anxiety.

The forces that drain your bucket aren’t all negative, of course. To live a productive life, it can be important to have some of things flowing out of your bucket. Working hard in the gym, at school, or at the office allows you to produce something of value. But even positive outputs are still outputs and they drain your energy accordingly.

These outputs are cumulative. Even a little leak can result in significant water loss over time.

I usually lift heavy weights three days per week. For a long time, I thought I should be able to handle four days per week. However, every time I added the extra workout in, I would be just fine for a few weeks and then end up exhausted or slightly injured about a month into the program.

This was frustrating. Why could I handle it for four or five weeks, but not longer than that?

Eventually I realized the issue: stress is cumulative. Three days per week was a pace I could sustain. When I added that fourth day in, the additional stress started to build and accumulate. At some point, the burden became too big and I would get exhausted or injured.

In extreme cases, like that of my professor, this snowball of stress can start to roll so fast that it pushes you to the brink of death. But it’s important to realize that cumulative stress is something that you’re dealing with even when it isn’t a matter of life or death. The stress of extra workouts or additional mileage. The stress of building a business or finishing an important project. The stress of parenting your young children or dealing with a bad boss or caring for your aging parents. It all adds up.

If you want to keep your bucket full, you have two options.

Refill your bucket on a regular basis. That means catching up on sleep, making time for laughter and fun, eating enough to maintain solid energy levels, and otherwise making time for recovery.

Let the stressors in your life accumulate and drain your bucket. Once you hit empty, your body will force you to rest through injury and illness. Just like it did with my professor.

Recovery is not negotiable. You can either make time to rest and rejuvenate now or make time to be sick and injured later. Keep your bucket full.

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Relax from the Stresses of Life

A compilation
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Everyone needs to rest at some point! If you’ve been going through a prolonged period of hardship due to … your business, your family, your relationships, your finances, or your children, you still must learn how to rest in the Lord, even in the middle of that difficult situation you are facing. If you don’t, the battle will wear you out!
That’s why Paul told the Thessalonians, “And to you who are troubled rest with us....”1

The word “rest” comes from the Greek word anesis, which means to let up, to relax, to stop being stressed, or to find relief. One scholar comments that the word anesis was used in the secular Greek world to denote the release of a bowstring that has been under great pressure.

It was also used figuratively to mean relaxation from the stresses of life and freedom to have a little recreation. By using this word, Paul urges the believers in the city of Thessalonica to find relief from the constant stress they are undergoing as a result of opposition to their faith. Paul exhorts them to let it go, shake it off, and learn how to relax, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

An interpretive translation of this verse could be: “To you who are still going through difficulties right now, it’s time for you to let up, take a breather, and relax. We know what it’s like to be under pressure, but no one can stay under that kind of stress continuously. So join us in learning how to loosen up a bit. Shake off your troubles, and allow yourself a little relaxation and time for recreation....”

I realize that when you’re dealing with problems, a vacation is the last thing on your mind! You just want to survive the challenge and make a transition into the next phase of your life—and to do it as soon as possible! You may even feel that it’s irresponsible for you to put up your feet and relax for a while. But even God rested on the seventh day!

Take Paul’s counsel to heart, and allow yourself a little relaxation and time for recreation—time away from your problems. When it’s time to come back and face those problems again, you’ll be refreshed and recharged with renewed vision. You’ll see that challenge with new eyes, and you’ll face it with new strength.

So say goodbye to your problems today. Take a break, and allow yourself a little time to rest, relax, and recuperate!—Rick Renner2

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When wearied with the strain of it all, you can fly to God on the wings of prayer and faith and get the relief that He alone can give you.—David Brandt Berg

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There is a time and a purpose under heaven for all things: a time to work, a time to rest. A time to seek, a time to find. A time to pray, a time to play. All is not work and all is not rest. All is not prayer and all is not recreation. There is a time to rest and recuperate.

When you rest, I can give you the freshness that you need to do that which you must do. Don’t worry about what is ahead or what is not being accomplished. As you rest I can show you how you can do what must be done. I can speak to your heart and you will hear Me more clearly, for you will not have your mind cluttered with the worries, cares, and affairs of this life.

When you take time away from your work and you rest, in body and in spirit, you will receive clarity in your thinking and renewal of your spirit, body, and outlook. You will see your work in a new light, for you have renewed strength.

It is not enough to rest only in spirit—your body also needs rest. Your body houses your spirit, and when your body is weary and weak and under constant strain and stress, your spirit is also affected. Together they are one, and both must rest. The body is refreshed through relaxation, sleep, and recreation. And the spirit is refreshed through prayer and the infilling of My Word. Through this you will find the rest that you need, that you may be strengthened and refreshed in Me.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.—Psalm 37:73

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You’ve toiled so long and hard in the field of harvest. Your hands and feet ache, your body is weary, and you deserve some time of respite. Just relax your mind, body, and spirit. Let My Spirit flow all over you like a soothing oil. Let peace and quiet overcome all the cares and worries of your work. Your service for Me you will have always with you, so put it aside and take some time to love and appreciate Me, and to simply relax and enjoy Me and My creation.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”—Mark 6:31

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Life is not a contest to see how tired or weary you can get. This race is long enough that all will be tired many times at many points. There’s no worth in trying to prove your stamina to Me or others by carrying your own burdens and tiring yourself out. There will be many times when you need to work hard and push, but there also need to be many times to rest. Take your rest, My dear one; lay down your burdens. Relax and rest in My arms. Let Me carry you for a while. You’ve done much for Me and I know you will do so again, but let Me hold you now and replenish your strength.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.—Psalm 23:1–3

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And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”—Exodus 33:14

Published on Anchor November 2013. Read by Simon Peterson.
Music by Daniel Sozzi. Copyright@tfi


1 2 Thessalonians 1:7 NKJ.

2 Excerpted from a devotional in Sparkling Gems from the Greek (Harrison House, 2003).

3 Unless otherwise indicated, the scriptures in this compilation are from the ESV.

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Embrace the Chaos: How to Reduce Stress in 5 Easy Steps

By Leo Babauta, Fast Company, March 17, 2014

Stress is one of the biggest causes of health problems in many people’s lives: it can cause heart disease, depression, anxiety attacks, sleep problems, auto-immune diseases, weight problems and more.

But we’re busy—how do we drop the stress levels down while still getting our jobs done, taking care of ourselves and our families?

The busy person might have no time for weeklong meditation retreats, mini-vacations, or weekly counseling sessions. So what can be done?

I’m going to be brief about this: there are five small things you can do. A few shifts in mindset, a couple actions that take only a couple minutes. These won’t solve the most severe stress problems, but they’ll help most of us.

1. Be completely in one task. Instead of being in the stressful task-switching mode, take your next task, let everything else go, and just be in the moment with this one task. Let yourself be immersed in this one task, letting go of the feeling that you need to quickly rush through it, that you need to get on to the next task. There will always be a next task—the nature of task lists is that they’re never-ending. So let those other tasks come later. Just be in this one task, like it’s your entire universe.

2. See your ideals and let go of control. Fear is causing you to be stressed, not external factors like your job or family problems. Those external things are just a part of life, but they become stressful when you fear failure, fear people won’t like you, fear you’re not good enough, fear abandonment, and so on. This fear is based on some ideal (and you fear not getting that ideal): you have an image that you’re going to succeed, be perfect, have people like you, be comfortable all the time. These ideals are a way to be in control of the world that you don’t actually control, but they’re hurting you by causing fear and stress. Instead, let go of control. Be OK with chaos and uncertainty, and trust that things will work out. You’ll fear less and be less stressed.

3. Accept people and smile. We get upset at other people because they don’t meet our ideals of how they should act. Instead, try accepting them for who they are, and recognizing that, like you, they’re imperfect and seeking happiness and struggling with finding happiness. They’re doing their best. Accept them, smile, and enjoy your time with this person.

4. Take a brief walk. When things are getting stressful, take two to three minutes to take a walk and clear your mind. A short walk does wonders.

5. Do short mindfulness practices. You don’t have to meditate for 30 minutes to get the benefits of mindfulness. You can do a quick body scan (see how your body is feeling right now) in 10 seconds. You can pay attention to your breath for 30 seconds. You can watch your thoughts, fears, ideals for a minuteYou can do each of these kinds of mindfulness practices in little bits throughout your day.

And beyond: If you have extra time after doing those things, I have a few other recommendations that will help. Eliminate unnecessary tasks on your to-do list, reduce your commitments by saying no to people, start a regular 5-minute meditation practice, eat healthier, exercise regularly, spend some quality time with loved ones, get more sleep.

I should note that many people cope with stress in unhealthy ways: alcohol, smoking, drugs, unhealthy eating, lashing out at people, watching TV, procrastinating. Ironically these cause more stress. Instead, learn to cope without these crutches.

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THe Place Where You End, I Begin

The Place Where You End,
I Begin

By Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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There is much in life that seems impossible, but with Me, all things become possible. When you look at life or yourself, you often only see problems and impossibilities, and that perplexes you. You fall down in despair, knowing that you can’t bear the weight of all the difficulties, demands, and responsibilities, or even cope with the faults and failings that fill you and surround you.

I’ve shown you the face of seeming impossibilities both within and without so that you could see My hand and power at work and believe, and so that you could be set free from trying so hard to overcome in your own strength. Your confidence in Me has been renewed, knowing that I really am your salvation, your hope, your deliverer, that your salvation is in Me.

Now, as I lift you above the fog of futilely trying to do it all yourself, above the fear and frustration, above all the lying vanities,1 and pull away the façade of impossibilities and show you that your strength and hope lies in Me, you find great peace and confidence. You find hope where there was no hope. Your faith in Me has grown, even though your confidence in yourself has been shaken. You have seen Me keep you and deliver you so miraculously that now you better understand that even though you can’t, I can.

I want you to know that I desire and will do the impossible for you if you cease from your fretful, futile, and frantic struggle to keep yourself, to deliver yourself, to work out your own problems. “I am the Lord that keepeth thee.”2 I want you to put your life into My hands, to rest in Me, to learn to trust where you don’t understand, and to let Me lift you above the problems that come your way; to get you so confident in Me that nothing will easily shake you.

No man can save himself, or add Me and My power and virtue to himself by the force of his own will and works. That’s the madness of self-righteous man. It’s in calling out to Me in desperation to do for you what you know you can’t do for yourself that the miracles of deliverance from your problems by My great power can be performed.

You’ve seen that there are some situations in which nothing but prayer can prevail. Your will, your charm, your goodness, your cleverness, and all such tactics may fall short. But sincere, desperate, humble prayer moves My hand and gets things done when nothing else can. This is a precious gift from Me. Humility is also a very precious gift, though humans don’t always see it that way at first.

How difficult it is to rescue a drowning man when he’s still frantically trying to save himself. His mind is full of fear and he’s a danger to all who come near to help him. Often I want to help you more, but I must wait until you stop struggling so hard. When you’re in a great battle with your fears and problems, you must learn to trust Me to save you and cease from your frantic efforts in the flesh so I can speak to you, still your heart, and bring you out of many waters.

Fight to be calm and to have faith, to believe in Me. Then cast all your cares upon Me.3 Trust Me without reservation and learn to rest, having done all you can; for giving it all to Me is the best thing you can do.

When you feel your fears crushing you on all sides and there’s no apparent way to escape, call on Me and let Me command the storm to cease and bring you up into My secret chamber where all is peace. In an instant I can lift you up and set you upon My rock, My mountaintop, high above the cares of this world.

When you reach the perimeter of your ability as a man, when you fall defeated at the retaining wall of your own limitations and realize the impossibility of escaping what seems like the prison house of your own human frailty or ability, that is when you come to really know your limits, and that with man it is impossible. But the place that seems to be the end of all that’s possible for you is not the end at all of what is actually possible!4 That’s really the place of great beginnings. That’s the border, the frontier, the great divide, the place where you end and I begin.

What may seem like a place of great defeat for you and your pride is not a place of total failure, complete loss, or of despair and utter hopelessness. Just the opposite is true, for just beyond the line that marks your limits is where I begin, an eternal sea of limitless power and possibility that is yours in Me.

So don’t be cast down and fall into despair at what seems impossible and hopeless to you. Simply know you’ve finally reached the borders of My kingdom where you end and My power and glory begins. You’ve come to the holy mountain, to the house of your God, to the doorstep of the King of kings. You have simply come home to your Father’s house, and He who has seen you coming from afar now runs to greet you with open arms and great joy and rejoicing, knowing that you’ve finally come to the end of yourself, and finding yourself unable, have turned from yourself and come home at last to Him.

There I will lift you up into My arms and carry you into My realm, for in your own ability you are too weak to even walk there. There I will clothe you in wondrous robes and call for a feast, for that which was lost is found. Nothing in your hands you bring; simply to My love you cling. When you discover it truly is not in you, but only in Me, then I can lift you up. You can’t rise above by your own will and works, but only through humble surrender and submission to Me.

A soul that has come to the end of itself, to the end of its human endurance and abilities, is actually a greater threat to Satan than a soul full of its own self-confidence. That’s why he attacks with such fury and force, trying to cause those who are broken to despair of life and fall into great self-defeat and condemnation, feeling totally worthless. He doesn’t want them to see that they’ve come to that place of great power—that sacred place where they end and I begin. He doesn’t want them to discover what infinite power is there; that My Spirit is ready to rush in and fill them and give them the pure power of My presence in them, lifting them up. What wars are fought at the border of My kingdom to prevent those weary souls from calling out to Me and casting themselves upon Me that I might deliver them.

Why do you wonder at the mysterious ways of God? Why do you seem so surprised that out of seeming defeat I bring forth My greatest victories? Why are you so confounded that in the moment when you feel weakest, totally defeated, crushed, and unworthy to be called My son, you find yourself most blessed by Me? Have you not read? Have you not heard it said that God’s way up is down? That victory doesn’t go to the swift? That the last shall be first? That the greatest are those who are least in their own eyes, who esteem others greater and who make themselves the servant of all? Have you forgotten that the meek shall inherit the earth? That the broken and humble sinner will enter in before those who are proud and righteous in their own eyes?5

So I say, cease from your futile attempts to do what can only be done by Me. Don’t look into yourself for solutions, but rather step out of your world and into Mine. Come quickly into My courts with praise and thanksgiving.6 Lift up your eyes and look into Mine and find strength for the task, power for the hour, solutions to impossibilities.

Rise up, sweet child, and sing,
For the victory I will bring.
Like a rising tide within,
I wash you free from the bindings of sin.
Where once was naught but gloom and self-despair,
I plant a garden of faith, power, praise and prayer.
Though you have walked the valley of death and worldly care.
Wondrous lessons have you learned there:
That I love you,
That My Word is true,
That there is naught that your flesh can do.
Still, all things are possible in Me through you.

(My soul replies to God:)
You are become my hope,
My high tower,
My strength,
My refuge,
The lifter up of my head,
The source of all my power.
When I seem to fall and die,
From ashes I rise and fly.
With man such things can't be done, dear love,
But in You is the secret of rising above.

Originally published November 2010. Updated and republished August 2012.
Read by Stephen Larriva.


1 Jonah 2:8.

2 Psalm 91:11, Isaiah 42:6..

3 1 Peter 5:7.

4 Mark 10:27.

5 Ecclesiastes 9:11; Matthew 19:30; Proverbs 3:7; Philippians 2:3; Matthew 23:11; Matthew 5:5; Luke 18:9–14.

6 Psalm 100:4.

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