Unmasking Health, Faith, & Life for People with Chronic Illness
by Jacqueline L. Jones
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Welcome back. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already. Come back again.by Jacqueline L. Jones
Living with a chronic illness can challenge your faith in everything and everyone–God, recovery, other people, the medical profession, and yourself. It’s easy to believe there is no hope when an answer could be just around the corner. It’s also easy to believe change will come when it’s time to accept the inevitable. Knowing the difference is a matter of faith.
Most “experts” in this country scratched their heads as stock markets around the world went into a free fall on Monday, and continued to fall Tuesday and Wednesday. The cause–worries about the weakening American economy.
The week before, a spokesman for Intel wondered aloud why the company’s stock fell 15 percent as investors responded to the company missing it’s sales target for the last quarter. An economic slowdown in the U.S. is no big deal, the spokesman said, because the U.S. represents only 25 percent of the computer market worldwide.
How naive of me. Just when I thought the political process had changed, Mitt Romney’s opponents got stuck on his supposed “flip-flopping.” Romney fought back with charges that are equally suspect. Supporters of the Republican candidates threw mud in the name of the cause in South Carolina. An email message continued to circulate around the Internet spreading lies that have all been disproved about Barack Obama, and last week Hillary Clinton and Obama started the first in their series of ridiculous arguments about who said what and when. Perhaps John Edwards said it best in Monday night’s Democratic debate. “This isn’t about us.”
by Jacqueline L. Jones
The evidence is clear. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), people with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease account for more than 75% of the nation’s $1.4 trillion in medical care costs each year. That figure could jump 42 percent by 2023, according to an Oct. 2007 report by the Milken Institute, a think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.
As the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), and practitioners in emerging and ancient disciplines report positive results in fighting these illnesses, the path to reducing health care costs seems clear. Equal access to disease prevention services and effective natural treatments could reduce costs for all.
I’m not a fan of U.S. politics. Most campaigns since I began voting in 1980 (and most likely before) have lacked substance. The few citizens who cast their votes did so for the candidates who told them what they wanted to hear, and candidates spent more time trashing their opponents than discussing the issues.
The 2008 presidential campaign has been pleasantly different so far. Voters have demanded substantive debate on the issues, and the candidates have delivered.
We need to learn to praise the Lord as much for a closed door as we do an open door. The reason God closes doors is because He has not prepared anything over there for us. If he didn’t close the wrong door, we would never find the right door.
God directs our path through the closing and opening of doors. Once a door closes, it forces you to change your course. Another door closes, it forces you to change your course again. Then, finally, you find the open door and you walk right into your blessing.
The Lord directs our paths through the opening and closing of doors, but instead of praising him for the closed door (which keeps us out of trouble); we get upset because we “judge by the appearances.”
You have an ever-present help in the time of trouble that is always standing guard. Because He walks ahead of you, He can spot trouble down the road and set up a roadblock or detour accordingly. But through our lack of wisdom, we try to tear down the roadblocks or push aside the detour sign. Then the minute we get into trouble, we start crying, “Lord, how could You have done this to me?”
We have got to realize that the closed door can be a blessing. Didn’t He say that no good thing would He withhold from them that love Him?
If you get terminated from your job, praise God for the new opportunities that will manifest themselves: it might be another job, it might be school.
If that man or woman won’t return your call, it might not be them, it might be the Lord setting up a roadblock (just let it go).
We can sometimes trap ourselves in doubt and discouragement through judging by appearances. Be grateful for the many times our Father has closed doors to us just to open them in the most unexpected places.
The Lord won’t always say in spoken words: “Go to the left, now to the right” … sometimes He will just close the doors that are wrong for you.
It’s official. The economy is in trouble. After weeks of rosy forecasts about the strength of the global economy, the mainstream media found it’s first real cause for alarm in November. Sales dropped at Starbucks, and the company had to advertise for the first time in its history. Oh horrors! What will we do now?
