Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Emotions and Disease

by Donna L. Watkins

© Donna L. Watkins - Pileated Woodpecker At Suet
The medical world admits that 75% to 85% of all disease is stress-related. That would make most diseases emotionally rooted, wouldn't it? If God tells us to be "anxious for nothing." Should we be? Can He bless us if we continue to disobey without even a heart to make an effort to change? Do we believe the world's "go-go/run-run" instead of Him...and thereby reap the consequences of it? If God gives us a command should we obey it? If we do not, aren't there natural consequences?

So when we beg God for healing and it doesn't come ... is it because we have" asked" to be sick and weak? In Deuteronomy God gave a choice of being blessed or being cursed. Do we make the choices for the curses and expect the blessings? Is God's Word true and is He unchangeable - the same today, yesterday and tomorrow? Scripture tells us that He will show mercy where He will show mercy, so there can always be exceptions, but basically as I see it, He has set the world up and it works the way He ordained it to do so.

As Pastor Henry Wright puts it in the book, A More Excellent Way, "It isn't that God cannot heal, it's an issue that He can't do it without denying His own holiness and giving us a leavened gospel that would say we can keep our sin and receive His blessings."

I've been reading Dean Ornish's book, Love and Intimacy, which mentions all the research that has been done with heart disease, and other health issues, and the link between relationships and the emotional side of health. When they studied this, all of the "environmental" factors didn't even count. If somebody had a meaningful, loving relationship (and the more they had the better the odds), then their prognosis ended up so much better (like 6X) than those without. And the amazing part of it was that it crossed the boundaries of the co-factors of smoking, diet, drinking, exercise, etc.

As I read I thought of what the Bible says: "the greatest of these is love" and "love covers a multitude of sins" (diet, toxins, etc.). VERY intriguing! I thought about the environmental factors in regards to cancer, allergies and the diseases of our present age. If the toxins are the key, then why doesn't EVERYBODY have the diseases from it? Why do some people seem to slip right on through without the health problems?

The studies show that where diet (junk) enters, so does disease ... but is that because the nutrient deficiencies make us addicted, messes with our blood sugar, and changes our mood and personalities?

Or is it the other way around? Do we eat the junk because of a love hunger and hatred for our own body? That's what Dr. Ornish mentioned. You can tell people how much difference changing the diet makes, but unless the person loves himself, he doesn't have any motivation to leave what he does love behind - the junk food.

Think about it!

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