HEALING GOD’S WAY

Addressing the mind-body-spirit connection.
Kiri Christina Hyatt, editor

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1. MINISTRY ARTICLE: FAITH ON THE MISSION FIELD
   By Kiri Christina Hyatt (c)

I recently read the following true story in the Gospel For Asia (GFA) News Magazine, Send:

Shilu's parents rejoiced that he was even receiving an education. He now had a safe place to play and learn. He was so happy with the other children.

But their hearts ached as they watched him limp around the schoolyard. An illness had left Shilu crippled in one leg. Doctors told them it was paralyzed, and they had no money to treat their little son.

Pastor Pakoli, the GFA missionary who served at the Bridge of Hope center (a GFA children’s school), knew about Shilu's crippled leg. He also knew of the gods and goddesses Shilu's parents worshipped who could do nothing. With compassion, Pastor Pakoli went to visit the family with a story about the Great Physician.

"Peter and John went up together to the temple," he read from Acts chapter three, describing the encounter they had with the lame man who begged at the gate. Then came Peter's challenge:

"Silver and gold I do not have," Pastor Pakoli read, "but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk."

The story gave Shilu’s parents new hope. They learned that Jesus Christ was not a god whose powers could be bought through sacrifices or offerings. As Pastor Pakoli explained God’s love and desire to redeem their lives through His Son’s sacrifice, Shilu’s parents trusted Christ to heal their son.1

As you read the first part of this story what pops into your mind? Be honest with yourself, would you read Acts 3:6-7 to someone with a crippled leg? Would you tell someone with a physical disability that Jesus is able to heal him or her? Shilu is a real little boy with a real disability. His parents love him and like all parents wish he was well.

I must admit if I was trying to lead someone to Jesus who had a son with a crippled leg, I do not think I would chose to share Acts 3:6-7 like Pastor Pakoli did. In fact when I read this I reacted negatively. I felt like Pastor Pakoli was giving this family false hope. Do you agree or disagree with me?

Now for the rest of the story:

Pastor Pakoli prayed for Shilu’s healing, and the little boy jumped to his feet, walking normally.

As in the story in Acts, Shilu now ran and played with the other children, "walking, leaping, and praising God" for his miracle. Three days later, he stood in front of all the children at his Bridge of Hope center to tell them about—and show—what God had done in his life.

"No one present could stop praising God," wrote a field correspondent. "Praise God for healing Shilu and making him a witness to many."1

How you responded to this story may reveal whether or not unbelief is a problem for you. Often we are not healed of chronic illnesses simply due to unbelief. Most chronic illnesses have multiple spiritual roots behind them. Those roots may be fear and anxiety, or anger, or self-hatred, or guilt, a broken spirit, etc. In addition to these roots though, unbelief is often the key to why we do not see healing in our bodies.

Miraculous healings like the story described above are common in other parts of the world where demons often reveal their power to people who worship them. When told about Jesus, it is easy for these people to believe and receive immediate healing in their bodies. Here in the US we spend our childhood’s in school being taught science. We are told what may appear mysterious or supernatural really has a scientific or logical explanation. I assume the same is true for individuals growing up in Canada and Europe.

The sin of unbelief though is much more then a product of western education. Unbelief is rooted in not trusting God. If we do not trust God how can we really believe He is going to heal us? If we do not trust God how can we really believe what the Bible says?

Hebrew 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."

If Jesus is the same today as He was when He walked the earth, and we know He healed people back then, why would He not heal people today?

Often a person has difficulty trusting God because he/she learned growing up not to trust anyone, and now finds he/she cannot even trust God. Or maybe something happened in his/her life and blames God. Maybe he/she feels God is just not trustworthy. There can be lots of reasons we find it difficult to trust God, what is yours?

It is easy to say I trust God, I believe God can heal me. It is easy to say all sorts of things, but if you continue to have health problems even though you have addressed many of the spiritual roots of those health problems, then you need to ask yourself if you really trust God and really believe God not only CAN heal you but WILL heal you. Listen to what you are telling yourself. Listen to what you thought as you read the story about Shilu. Ask God to reveal the truth to you. Is there a hint of unbelief hiding in the background?

If unbelief and/or lack of trust in God is a problem for you, I suggest doing the following:

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1Taken from Send, a Gospel For Asia News Magazine, vol. 26, no. 4. http://www.gfa.org/

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2. MESSAGE FROM A FRIEND

There is no such thing as trust in God without unanswered questions.
Retold by Joyce Meyer

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A father and nine-year-old daughter were swimming in the ocean. While they were separated by some distance, the tide began to go out. The father knew he could not reach his little daughter and bring her to safety alone with the tide running so strongly against him. His only hope of saving her was to get help quickly.

"Float and swim quietly," he called. "Don't become excited. I'll be back to get you." Then he hurried for a boat and help.

By the time the boat was brought, the little girl had been swept far out to sea by the strong tide. It took a long time for the men in the boat to locate her. When they found her, she was calmly floating and swimming around as her father had instructed.

Later the newspaper reporters swarmed around the little girl, asking how she had been able to remain so calm and to keep up so far out at sea all alone.

"My daddy told me that he would come back. I knew he would come, so I wasn't afraid. I did what he told me to do, and I was all right," the little girl replied quietly.

Our Heavenly Father has promised that He will come back for us . . .

Source: 501 Illustrations, By Robert H. Pierson, Copyright (c) 1965, Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

3. SITE OF THE WEEK

World Atlas

http://www.worldatlas.com/

DISCLAIMER: The following news stories are provided as a source of scientific information on mind/body medical research, environmental issues, and other topics.   AOCCCI does not necessarily agree with all the viewpoints or suggestions expressed in these articles. Not all viewpoints and/or therapy modalities recommended in these secular news stories are compatible with Christianity. If you have any questions or doubts about a therapy mentioned in a news story below,feel free to contact AOCCCI for advice.   These news stories are provided as a public service only.  

4.1 Low-Income Dads Key to Child's Development
    Nov 16, 2004

TUESDAY, Nov. 16 (HealthDayNews) -- Fathers in low-income families may play pivotal roles in their child's intellectual development, concludes a new study from the Society for Research in Child Development.

The presence of an educated, supportive dad can also improve relations between children and their mother, the researchers found.

The study included 290 ethnically diverse, low-income families from across the United States. Researchers videotaped fathers and mothers as they played individually with their 2- and 3-year-olds for 10-minute intervals.

The researchers then performed tests assessing each child's language skills and intellectual development at ages 2 and 3.

Paternal education and income predicted children's language and cognitive development, the researchers report. The fathers' education was also associated with the quality of interaction between mother and child.

Specifically, the study found that 2-year-olds with sensitive, emotionally warm and intellectually stimulating fathers were much more likely to have similarly supportive moms by the time they reached age 3, compared to toddlers with less engaging dads.

Fathers and mothers who'd completed high school and who had higher incomes were also more likely to engage in supportive parenting, compared to parents with less income, or those lacking high school diplomas, the researchers added.

The bottom line, according to the researchers, is that good parenting by moms and dads alike can help kids reach their full intellectual potential, despite the challenges brought on by poverty. To that end, programs aimed at boosting the involvement of fathers in their children's lives and education should be encouraged, they said.

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4.2 How "Daddy" affects your job: psychologist
    By Ellen Wulfhorst
    May 12, 2006

Successes or failures of employees in the workplace can be traced to what kind of father they had, a psychologist argues in a new book.

In "The Father Factor," Stephan Poulter lists five styles of fathers -- super-achieving, time bomb, passive, absent and compassionate/mentor -- who have powerful influences on the careers of their sons and daughters.

Children of the "time-bomb" father, for example, who explodes in anger at his family, learn how to read people and their moods. Those intuitive abilities make them good at such jobs as personnel managers or negotiators, he writes.

But those same children may have trouble feeling safe and developing trust, said Poulter, a clinical psychologist who also works with adolescents in Los Angeles area schools.

"I've seen more people hit their heads on what they call a glass ceiling or a cement wall in their careers, and it's what I call the father factor," Poulter said in an interview. "What role did your father have in your life? It's this unknown variable which has this huge impact because we're all sons and daughters."

Styles of fathering can affect whether their children get along with others at work, have an entrepreneurial spirit, worry too much about their career, burn out or become the boss, Poulter writes.

Even absent fathers affect how their children work, he writes, by instilling feelings of rejection and abandonment.

Those children may be overachievers, becoming the person their father never was, or develop such anger toward supervisors or authority figures that they work best when they are self-employed, he writes.

"A lot of people say, 'I never knew my dad,"' he said. But, he added: "You knew the myth, you knew your mother's hatred, you knew your anger, you knew your dad was a loser. Trust me, you knew your dad.

"The father's influence in the workplace is really one of the best-kept secrets," he said. Poulter co-authored an earlier book on mothers and daughters called "Mending the Broken Bough." "The Father Factor" is set for release next month by Prometheus Books.

Looking at the influence of fathers fits with other recent research on workplace behavior, said William Pollack, a psychology professor and director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital, part of Harvard Medical School.

"There's been a good deal of research to show not only that our family-life experience and our experience with our parents affects our personality, but it affects our corporate personality, both as leaders and followers," said Pollack, author of "Real Boys."

"There's also good research to show that for men and women, the way they identify with their father and their father's role may well affect how they interact as a manager or leader in the workplace."

Poulter, by the way, describes his own father as the absent type. After this book, he said, "my dad won't even talk to me."

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4.3 Thought for thinkers
    'Follow your gut,' study advises on big decisions
    By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff
    February 17, 2006

Scientists have some remarkable new advice for anyone who is struggling to make a difficult decision: Stop thinking about it.

In a series of studies with shoppers and students, researchers found that people who face a decision with many considerations, such as what house to buy, often do not choose wisely if they spend a lot of time consciously weighing the pros and cons. Instead, the scientists conclude, the best strategy is to gather all of the relevant information -- such as the price, the number of bathrooms, the age of the roof -- and then put the decision out of mind for a while.

Then, when the time comes to decide, go with what feels right. ''It is much better to follow your gut," said Ap Dijksterhuis, a professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam, who led the research.

For relatively simple decisions, he said, it is better to use the rational approach. But the conscious mind can consider only a few facts at a time. And so with complex decisions, he said, the unconscious appears to do a better job of weighing the factors and arriving at a sound conclusion.

The finding, published today in the journal Science, would have practical implications if borne out by further research.

This is because the new research challenges the conventional approach to making everyday choices that shape so much of life.

But the work is also important, scientists said, because it provides more evidence for a profound reconsideration of the nature of the human psyche.

After Freudian psychology, with its focus on repressed desires, fell out of favor, psychological research largely dismissed the idea that the unconscious played an important role in mental processes. More recently, though, in research popularized in Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller ''Blink," scientists have been finding evidence that the unconscious is not just relevant, but that it is smart.

''There is a bit of a revolution going on in psychology the way that we look at the unconscious," said Timothy Wilson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. ''It is a very different unconscious than Freud imagined."

''Blink" largely focused on snap judgments, such as deciding whether a couple was likely to divorce by watching them for a few moments.

But the Science article looked at what the researchers described as the ''deliberation-without-attention effect."

This was described as the power of the unconscious mind to process information and to mull through possibilities without the person being aware of it.

In one experiment, students were asked to pick one of four cars based on a list of positive and negative attributes. A description of each car's attributes was flashed on a computer screen for eight seconds, according to the paper

First, the experimenters provided a simple choice, where each car had a list of just four attributes, some positive (''has good mileage") and some negative (''has poor leg room").

Half of the students were asked to think about their choice for four minutes. The other half were asked to do challenging, distracting puzzles for four minutes, preventing them from consciously considering the car options.

In this experiment, the conscious thinkers did a better job than the distracted students of selecting the best car, which was the only one with three positive characteristics; other cars in the experiment had fewer.

Next, the researchers did a similar experiment, but with a much more complicated choice: Each car was described with a list of 12 attributes rather than the four in the prior test.

This time the students who were not allowed to think consciously about the decision did a better job of selecting the car with the most positive attributes

The results, Dijksterhuis said, underscored flaws in conscious decision-making. A person can pay attention to only a limited amount of information at once, which can lead people to focus on just a few factors and lose the bigger picture. The unconscious is better, he said, at integrating large amounts of information.

Another flaw, he said, is what he called a ''weighing problem." The conscious mind can weigh some factors too heavily, and discount others that are important.

For example, when people buy a house, they tend to put too much emphasis on its size, and not enough on their commute every day, he said. When working through a decision consciously, the mind has a tendency to focus on factors that are easy to articulate -- like the number of square feet -- at the expense of other factors that are hard to put into words.

To see whether what they had found in a lab applied in a more realistic setting, the researchers questioned shoppers. Via surveys, the team determined that people consider more factors when purchasing furniture than when purchasing kitchen accessories.

So they interviewed shoppers leaving a furniture store and a store that sells kitchen accessories. The shoppers were asked how much time they had thought about the product between seeing it and buying it. Later, the researchers contacted all the shoppers to ask how happy they were.

For shoppers who had bought kitchen accessories -- typically a simple choice -- those who had thought about their selection longer were found to be happier. But for the furniture -- a complicated choice -- those who had spent less time consciously considering their selection were said to be happier.

The implication is that for complex choices, once you have done a certain amount of thinking to gather relevant information, further thinking is counterproductive. Instead, busy yourself with other tasks, and let your unconscious work on the problem. (The study did not include data on people who shopped on impulse, spending little or no time gathering information on an item.)

Still, more work will need to be done to rule out other potential explanations for the data, scientists said. For example, it may be that shoppers who spend more time thinking about expensive purchases like furniture could be more critical people, and more apt to perceive problems with their purchases.

Luc Wathieu, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School, said that he is critical of the boom in research that questions the value of rational deliberation, and that he thinks there will turn out to be other explanations for the finding.

Wilson agreed that the research would be controversial, and predicted that it would spark a lot more work in the area. ''Like any great paper," he said, ''it raises more questions than it answers."

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4.4 Washing Our Sins Away -- Literally?
    'Showering Is Linked to Morality in a Way We Never Knew,'
         Researcher Says
    By SIRI NILSSON, ABC NEWS Medical Unit

Sept. 7, 2006 — - Germs may not be the only things you're washing away at the sink.

Washing one's hands may also give the feeling of washing away your sins or cleansing a dirty conscience, reveals a new report in the journal Science.

Physical cleanliness is linked to moral or spiritual cleanliness in religions and cultures worldwide.

Scientists have finally put that concept to the test and have found that physical and moral purity are indeed psychologically intertwined -- and sometimes even interchangeable.

"Showering -- a simple everyday activity -- is linked to morality in a way we never knew," said study co-author Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University.

Liljenquist and her colleagues were inspired to research the phenomenon of the sense of linkage between physical cleanliness and morality after remarking that movie characters almost always showered after committing a heinous crime.

"Showering can feel so good," Liljenquist said, "like it's more than something physical. We wondered if there was something more to that."

Researchers Ask: Clean Body, Clean Mind?

The researchers first asked a group of 60 college students to concentrate on either something ethical or unethical that they had done in the past.

Students who remembered their own unethical behavior were more likely to act as if they felt unclean.

For example, the "unethical memory" students were more likely to say that the unfinished word "W _ _ H" was "WASH" instead of "WISH."

And they were more likely to see "S _ _ P" as "SOAP" instead of "SOUP" or "STEP."

In another similar experiment, 32 other students also were asked to remember some ethical or unethical action from their past.

Each student then got a choice of two free gifts: a pencil or an antiseptic wipe.

Sixty-six percent of the students who said they had recalled an unethical memory took the antiseptic wipe, as if they wanted to wipe their hands -- and perhaps their conscience -- clean.

Only 33 percent of the students who said they had conjured up an ethical memory took the wipe.

Just like committing murder drove Lady Macbeth to wash her hands compulsively in William Shakespeare's play, unethical acts or even unethical thoughts give us "a dirty feeling. … We need to get that feeling off of us. Get that grime away," Liljenquist said.

"It's interesting that [showering or washing] can compensate for moral indiscretion," she said.

"Washing our hands can change the way we behave and the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us," said study co-author Chen-Bo Zhong, a behavioral researcher at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Dirty Hands Make a Dirty Conscience?

Bad deeds made students feel dirty, but researchers found that the reverse was also true.

Feeling dirty made students feel bad.

Students who felt physically dirty were more likely to help another student in need.

It was as if they were trying to behave morally in an effort to get physically clean, the researchers said.

In this experiment, students first remembered an unethical deed, and then either washed their hands or did not.

Finally they were asked to help out a desperate graduate student -- by volunteering for another research study without pay.

Those who had been unable to "wash their sins away" with water were more likely to volunteer to help the needy student, the study found.

Seventy-four percent of those who had not washed their hands offered to help, while only 41 percent of the participants who had washed their hands did.

Zhong cautions that the study does not mean everyone should wash their hands more often to become more moral, or that those with less-than-perfect hygiene might have less-than-perfect moral slates.

The association is interesting, though.

"If we want to wash our hands, we shouldn't always attribute the urge to some inner moral turmoil," Zhong said.

"And we can't always just wash and wash and wash our mistakes away. But we should be aware of the psychological impact of our daily behaviors," Zhong said.

A little soap and water might make us feel better about those behaviors. The finding is definitely something to think about.

"Do we assume that cleaner people are more moral? Do cleaner environments make people feel more or less moral?" Liljenquist

said that these questions were two of many that the research team was now wondering.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

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4.5 Homesickness 'can be prevented'
    January 2, 2007

Homesickness should not be an automatic experience for children staying in unfamiliar surroundings, say psychologists.

In the journal Pediatrics they suggest simple steps, including the offer of counselling, could prevent it.

US surveys suggest 90% children staying at summer camps get homesick - 20% severely so.

Youth camps are not common in the UK, but experts say children staying long term in hospital could also benefit.

Dr Christopher Thurber, a staff psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school in New Hampshire, said: "For over 100 years, camps and schools have patted homesick children on the back, tried to keep them busy and hoped it would go away.

"But research shows that it's healthier, and more effective, to think about prevention."

He, and Professor Edward Walton, an expert in paediatric medicine, have compiled a list of tips to parents and carers about preparing children for their stay away from home.

This includes telling children that homesickness is normal, encouraging them to write letters to home, arranging a practice time away from home and telling them to talk to staff if they feel homesick.

The advice also stresses the need to make sure that children take medicine for conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or for behavioural problems on the trip.

Professor Walton said: "What parents say - and what paediatricians say - beforehand matters, and is very important for the intensity of homesickness."

Fun in hospital

In the UK, stays of even a few days in hospital can be a distressing time for children, and if homesickness takes hold, this can interfere with the success of treatment.

At Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London, a strategy has been devised to make children feel as secure and comfortable as possible during their stay.

The hospital offers free overnight accommodation either in the same room as the child, or in the neighbouring newly-opened patient 'hotel'.

There is also a trained play specialist on every ward, whose job it is to created a relaxed environment for younger children.

A spokesman added: "Each ward has a social worker and psychologist assigned to it who are on hand to talk to children, and staff meet regularly to discuss individual cases."

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