Here are my thoughts from my reading of Health Care You Can Live With by Dr. Scott Morris, founder of the Church Health Center in Memphis, Tennessee. The excerpts below are directly from the referenced chapters.
Excerpts From Chapters 21 and 22
Real love provides the strength to deal with the adversities of life.
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:4
Love doesn’t come from Hollywood, it comes from God. God loved Jesus, and Jesus revealed God to us. Out of love, God sent Jesus. Out of love, Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could be connected to God without any barrier in between. And out of experience of God’s love, we love others. Love is a profound dedication and sense of commitment to another human being. Love will do what it take to help that person experience more wholeness – health – as a body and spirit created and loved by God.
Love is the engine of life. It is the essence of who we are as human beings. We miss the truth that God does not love us because we deserve it but because God chooses to.
God loves you.
Loving yourself is instrumental to your health. It is essential to caring for yourself.
Are you so stressed by the demands of your life that treating yourself with love doesn’t even make the list of what you will attempt? Treat yourself with love. It will be good for your health.
Practice matters. Without practice, few play the game (of life) well under stress. Without practiced patterns, we lack a meaningful context for important decisions. Without practiced patterns, sudden stress knocks us off our feet. Without practiced patterns, suffering throws us into a tailspin.
Decision moments come at unexpected times. If you have not examined what’s important to you in times of calm, you won’t know how to respond in times of stress. You can develop a way of living that gives you joy akin to winning the lottery. You can take steps toward health care or you can live with.
Know yourself. Many people come to us with illnesses or physical diseases but the more substantial question is this: What causes the behaviors that lead to the physical distress? So often patients don’t make the connection. They may understand, for instance that eating too much causes them to carry an unhealthy weight. But why do they eat the way they do? That they may not know. They haven’t ‘connected the dots‘ between the stress factors in their lives and their eating habits. And it’s not unlikely their eating habits will change until they do connect the dots. It’s difficult to change behaviors if the core reason behind the behavior doesn’t change.
It comes down to personal choice to change, and change starts in identifying what’s wrong in the first place. If virtues are not a part of your life – guiding your choices, values, and relationships – then making choices that lead to a fuller, or whole life won’t matter to you. If you don’t feel good about your ability to be a whole person for yourself and others, you will have a terrible time navigating the kinds of change that will make you healthier physically and spiritually.
You’re in charge. You are the expert in your own health care, and you can be in charge of this process.
Individual choices to practice healthy behaviors come down to caring for the body God gave us because we understand we are whole beings created and loved by God, body-and-spirit.
Exploring the whole meaning of wellness for body-and-spirit allows you to decide on your own health care because you were actively caring for the whole you, rather than waiting for a doctor to fix you after you break. You can take the turn and decide to practice good health behaviors and truly love the body God gave you.
My Comments:
I agree wholeheartedly with Morris that unless you are able to “connect the dots” between your sickness or condition and what is at the root of the behaviors that likely caused the problem, you’re not likely to change the behavior. Often, their is a root issue that is driving the unhealthy behavior.
Each of us have the capacity to choose our lifestyles. Our day to day choices determine our habits, which in turn largely determine our health status. And, I believe that we must make a choice deep in our will that we are going to make healthy choices as this is a big factor in being successful at healthy living.
When is the last time that you got alone with God and made a commitment with him – deep in your will – to care for your body as God’s temple?
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Connecting the Dots
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