Health and Thanksgiving

 

The Health Benefits of Thanksgiving  

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving 
and pay your vows to the Most High. 
~Psalm 50:14 

This is precisely what we do at this time of year as we gather with others. We are mindful of and acknowledge God’s many benefits to us through our giving thanks. It is a tradition that we often trace back to our pilgrim ancestors, but "thanksgiving" has a much more ancient history than that. Since the earliest dealings between man and God, there has been a desire within us to acknowledge God’s provision and goodness, hence the establishment of the altar, upon which the very first offerings of gratitude to God were made. Each week we celebrate the goodness of God to us as we partake of the Eucharist, which in the Greek means thanksgiving! It is a natural instinct within us to want to give thanks. To be thankful is a good feeling! It is the recognition and acknowledgement that we have been recipients of good things.

An article in USA Today cited studies which show an actual link between gratitude and health benefits. Thankfulness was clinically proven to improve both physiological and psychological health! For example:

• People with high blood pressure not only lower their blood pressure, but they feel less hostile and are more likely to quit smoking and lose weight when they practice gratitude.

• People who care for relatives with Alzheimer's disease feel less stress and depression when they keep daily gratitude journals, listing the positive things in their lives.

• Those who maintain a thankful attitude through life appear to have lower risks of several disorders, including depression, phobias, bulimia and alcoholism.

• Most people can lift their mood simply by writing a letter of thanks to someone. Hand-deliver the letter, and the boost in happiness can last weeks or months.

Practicing gratitude in these systematic ways changes people by changing brains that "are wired for negativity, for noticing gaps and omissions," Researcher Dr. Henry Emmons says. "When you express a feeling, you amplify it. When you express anger, you get angrier; when you express gratitude, you become more grateful."

And grateful people, he says, don't focus so much on pain and problems. They also are quicker to realize they have friends, families and communities to assist them in times of need. They see how they can help others in distress as well, he says.

We all can be thankful for so many things; big things such as the love of family and friends, food and shelter, the freedom to live in a nation such as this, the ability to worship God wherever we please etc. We can also be grateful for countless “little” things that we take for granted: a hot shower, the warmth of the sun, technology that puts us in touch with a loved one far away, and after a meal such as many of us will soon enjoy, we can be thankful for running water and dishwashers! We could all come up with our own list, and really we all should make a list of things we are grateful for and remind ourselves of them on a daily basis.

But what about the words of the psalm, “Let us offer to God a SACRIFICE of praise”? Giving thanks can also involve great sacrifice, as we hear the psalmist say. What do we do when we find ourselves in situations where it is very difficult to muster within us a sense of gratitude. How can we thank God when we are faced with a health crisis or financial hardship? How can we offer praise when rejected by a loved one or friend? Does the hardship we endure mean that God Himself is not good? Do the actions of others and the sufferings they may cause, whether friend or foe, whether city councilor or president, negate the goodness of God? Is this life only about how well things go for us, or is it not meant for us to garner a deeper meaning, which most often comes, ironically, from the hardships we experience? Is there not a bigger picture to all we experience?

Giving thanks can often be a true sacrifice. At times more true by far than to put a check in the basket. It can sometimes be one of the most difficult things we do, but in giving thanks, we can relinquish the heartache of certain situations and find the blessing in it. How many women are thankful for the pain of childbirth at the time of delivery? Yet that pain brings forth something more precious than gold. Often the pain we endure serves a greater, often hidden purpose, for which we later give thanks. We would do well, as the apostle Paul says, to “give thanks in all things.”

An entry from the devotional God Calling says this:

The hard dull way of resignation is not My Way.  
When I entered Jerusalem, knowing well 

that scorn and reviling and death awaited Me, 
it was with cries of Hosanna, and with a triumphal procession.  
Not just a few "Lost Cause" followers creeping with Me into the city.  

There was no note of sadness in My Last Supper Talk with My disciples, 

and "when we had sung an hymn" we went out unto the Mount of Olives.

 So trust, so conquer, so joy.  Love colors the way. 

Love takes the sting out of the wind of adversity.

May you enjoy a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

~Amy

The Hope of Halloween?

With Halloween upon us, there is a lot of talk about saints, souls, and spirits. During any other time of the year, you’d get the impression that those things don’t exist because they can’t be explained scientifically. Yet all of a sudden, we’re bombarded with the ethereal at Halloween! I can’t tell you how many times I attempt a conversation dealing with the “spiritual” side of life, only to be shushed or looked at with full blown skepticism, as if the spiritual realm can’t be “known” and references to it are purely conjecture. How fickle our culture is today. Stories of vampires have made it big in Hollywood, but mention of a personal soul with a personal relationship to a loving creator God, and you should be tried among the witches of Salem!

In reality, most of us have loved ones or have known people who have passed on to live in a realm that is entirely “spiritual” and where most of us hope to find ourselves after we shed our physical bodies. But the fact remains – eternity has already begun! It is ongoing and we are part of it. Our friends and loved ones live on, though in an entirely new dimension and each of us will meet with them again in our new dwelling.

Friends, this IS the hope of our faith. This IS cause for great celebration! Few things excite me as much as the thought of life with God in an unimaginably free state of being where all is set right and creative possibilities are limitless for all eternity. To dwell with God, who IS LOVE and has created us for his purposes is what awaits each of us. We have been given a great gift - eternal life after this vale of tears. Rejoice, my friends, when this life presses hard (and it does) in the words of Jesus – “In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also”.

~ Amy