Is Stress the Number One Cause of Heart Attacks?
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My name is Jean Freeborn and I want to share how God used Mark and Charity's book Unleashing Healing Power through Spirit-Born Emotions to bring healing in my life following the death of my husband.
When we fail, we can beat ourselves up for several hours, days or months, or we can be cleansed instantly and return to peace and rest. Demons howl in laughter if I beat myself up, for I have removed myself from God’s presence, and stepped out of the Kingdom of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17) and into the kingdom of demonic lies and accusations.
This group is designed “For people who want to take the next step to having a deeper relationship with our Heavenly Father by being transformed through His counseling and healing.” Within it you will find blogs, devotionals, free events, quotes, teaching video snippets - all used for discussion purposes with the members. You will learn about available resources, attend free online events, be part of a group of people who have similar interests and desire to learn from each other.
Having recently suffered a heart attack because of stress, I decided I should research what the Bible says about Sabbath rest. Growing up on a dairy farm, we milked cows every Sunday. As a preacher, I preached every Sunday. However, in the story of creation God established the rhythm of six days of work and one day of rest.
While in the hospital recovering from bypass surgery, I found the most effective prayers I prayed were those using imagery, where I saw the prayer need already met by my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and we were celebrating together in a field. Since I grew up on a dairy farm, I LOVE open grassy fields. We were laughing and having fun!
(Much of the information below is my summary of the book, How God Changes Your Brain by Andrew Newberg M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman. I have added my own reflections to their ideas.)
I was 100% convinced that if I ate right, exercised, and didn’t drink or smoke, I had zero chance of ever having a heart attack. And yet I had one. How could I have made such a cataclysmic mistake? As a teacher of truth I was upset, angry and aghast that I held such a mistruth or half-truth. When I experienced chest pains, my wife had the presence of mind to give me a dropperful of Dr. Schulze’s “Cayenne” in some water, so my pains subsided and I walked into the urgent care facility 10 minutes later.
Second only to compassion, gratitude is the most powerful emotional state in which we can live. We see an example of this in the story of Jonah. His experience of being swallowed by a fish and spit back out is incredible! What we may have overlooked, however, is what Jonah did immediately before he was delivered out of the fish’s belly. It’s actually quite impressive, because with all the things not going right at that moment in Jonah’s world, he still found something to be grateful for.
Inner healing is one of the most powerful prayer approaches we use. It is inviting Jesus into the scene of a painful memory, looking and then seeing Him appear on the screen inside our mind. We invite Him to move freely, tune to flow and watch the flowing pictures (vision) and receive flowing thoughts (His voice).