Healed People Heal People

I am sure you know the saying, “Hurt people hurt people.”  That saying means that when people are hurting, they tend to lash out and hurt others. It may be unintentional, like snapping on someone you love as soon as you get home after a long day of your boss jumping all over you like he was a 10 year old in a bounce house. It could be more intentional, you are getting abused at home by your dad so you go to school and bully kids weaker than you so that you can feel power.

If hurt people hurt people, then the opposite is true as well. Healed people heal people. Once I have overcome something, I have a unique insight into what I went through that most people don’t have. For example, I spent 25 years of my life in addiction. I have now been clean and sober for over 5 years. I know what it takes to get clean and stay that way. I can share what has helped me, what I have seen help others as well as the science that has validated some forms of treatment to be evidence-based practices.

I have several close friends, that have been diagnosed with cancer and after treatment are now either cancer-free or in remission. They have unique perspectives that I lack. One, they have been diagnosed with cancer. I have no idea what that feels like, to be diagnosed with cancer. I have never had cancer, so although I can have empathy and support someone who has cancer, my friends come from a place of wisdom that I don’t have. Second, that they have overcome that cancer through treatment. They are living proof that surviving a cancer diagnosis is not only possible, but a reality because they have first hand knowledge. They can help people that I cannot because of having lived through cancer.

Everybody has been through something. We all have been hurt in one way or another. It could be physical abuse, sexual abuse, feeling fat, being told we are worthless, being bullied, depression, cancer, child of an alcoholic/addict, grief and loss, etc. I am sure you get the idea, there are a lot of ways life hurts us. Life puts holes in our souls.

Once those holes are placed, many of us use something to escape, numb or forget the hole is there. Food, sex, money, cutting, power, alcohol and other drugs are a few of the things we use as band-aids to numb/escape our past. These bandages don’t heal the problem, they just cover them up. They are still festering underneath and more issues are being added to it.  

Fortunately, some of us figured out how to stop covering the problem up. We have learned what it takes to fix the problem. Once we have learned how to deal with the holes instead of running from them, we have unique wisdom that only someone who has gone through what we have gone through has. Once we have that wisdom, we can impart it to others. That is all part of what I call my garbage theory, which you can read about here:http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-mehow-can-i-make-peace-with-my-past_25.html

Many people live with regrets about their past choices and things that have happened to them. I have learned to embrace mine. I am not defined by them, but instead I define myself by my recovery. I realize that all those events led me to be the person I am today. The person I am today helps people, and if it was not for everything I have been through, I would not be as effective in doing that.

The same is true for you. Everyone has survived or lived through something that had an impact on them. Never forget that the past has made you who you are, and the person you are today is awesome and will only get better with time. To quote a dead jazz singer, “My God don’t make no junk.” You are not junk, and there is no reason to let your past issues define you. My past did not defeat me, instead it made me stronger and wiser than I ever would have been without it. The same is true for you!  

Smoking Marijuana for Medical Purposes is a SHAM!

I am just a little confused. I am hoping that someone can explain some things to me so I will be less confused. We want to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. Let me start by saying that I AM NOT against the use of marijuana IF IT IS TO BE USED MEDICINALLY. If there is a medical reason that someone is using marijuana, I say let them use it. But that is not the reason marijuana is being legalized.

Find me a doctor who says that smoking anything makes it a better way to take any medication. You will find arguments for taking drugs intravenously and ingesting either in pill or liquid form, but never for smoking a medication. There are multiple reasons for marijuana in a smoke-able form to not be made legal.

1. Marijuana contains dozens of carcinogens (cancer causing substance)
2. Smoking marijuana has been linked to respiratory problems as well as an increase in several types of cancer including lung and testicular.
3. Marijuana is not FDA approved

My favorite argument is that smoking marijuana does not make cancer more prevalent. That is complete crap. Are there some studies that show there is no link between marijuana and cancer? Yes, there are several studies that show this. There is a far more substantial body of studies conducted that show a link between cancer and marijuana smoking, though. Marijuana has many of the same carcinogens and chemicals that cigarettes do. It also produces more tar than cigarettes. It is also smoked unfiltered, taking huge inhalations that are held in which means more carcinogens and tar are delivered to the lungs.

Marijuana is not FDA approved for a number of reasons, and not because they are controlled by the pharmaceutical companies. There are over 400 chemicals in the cannabis sativa plant. Some of them have unknown effects. If the dangers do not outweigh the benefits than the FDA will not approve it. Also, when passing a medicine it is standardized in each dose. A 50 mg dose delivers 50 milligrams. Cannabis is highly unstable and the dosage changes from one leaf to the next leaf on the same plant.

Are there some medical uses for marijuana? There are medical uses for some of the chemicals found in marijuana, such as CBD (cannabidiol). CBD has been found to alleviate pain associated with cancer and multiple sclerosis, reducing anxiety and various other positive uses. THC (Delta 8 and 9) have been found to increase anxiety in studies. Unfortunately, in the marijuana that is being confiscated, the levels of Delta 8 and Delta 9 (substances that induce the "high:) are increasing and the levels of CBD are decreasing.

There are also some substances substances in the cannabis plant or their chemical derivatives that have been shown to stop the growth of cancer in Petri dishes as well as in some animals that have been tested. This affect has not been clinically tested and proven to occur in humans, though.

Here are several more arguments for marijuana that are not allowed. First is the income from legalizing marijuana. If legalizing marijuana was all it took to increase the economy, then California would be rocking. After all, marijuana has been legal there for quit some time and their economy at the state level sucks.

There is also the argument that legalizing marijuana would greatly reduce our prison population. A survey by the Bureau of Justice found that 0.7% of the state prison population in the United States was there for marijuana only. It does not list how many of those were people who agreed to plead guilty to marijuana charges so they could avoid more serious charges. So we let out less than 1 percent of those who are in state prisons. Yeah, that makes a huge dent. How NORML gets 1 in 8 are in prison for marijuana charges I will never know.

Finally, the last argument is that alcohol and cigarettes are legal and kill people while marijuana is not lethal. I won't argue traffic accidents, because that is too incidental to get into and there are the arguments that marijuana stays in your system long after it still would impact your driving. Instead, I want to look at the basis of the argument. This drug is not as bad as these, so it should be legal?

How is that a good argument? Not that I don't agree, alcohol and cigarettes kill a lot of people and their basis for legality is disputable. There is a causal link between smoking THC and getting into accidents just like there is a causal link between male/female intercourse and getting pregnant. Does this mean that every time you use THC you will get into an accident. Of course not, and you will not get pregnant every time you have sex.......but it happens. Why risk it if it is not even addictive, like so may argue. If it is not addictive you don't have to do it so that solves the problem right there. Case closed!

Here is a great reason why marijuana should be illegal. States that have medicinal marijuana laws have shown an increase in marijuana use of 30% for teenagers in the 12-17 year old group. Studies show that youth who are 14 or under and smoke marijuana at least once a month are twice as likely to drop out as their non-marijuana smoking counterpart. Why would we want to legalize marijuana?

I am all for the spray, oil and pill forms of various chemicals in cannabis that have been found to be helpful. I am against smoking it, though. The risks outweigh the benefits and there are far better methods to use. Any argument that says smoking medical marijuana is the best, most efficient way to use it is nonfactual. There are much better ways to ingest it. The problem is that they don't get you as high, if high at all and that is what most people want to use it for.

Lance Armstrong: I'm Not Sorry

Lance Armstrong went on Oprah to finally admit that he used steroids. Of course, we already knew that. That is why he was stripped of his Tour de France victories and his bronze medal from the Olympics. It was no surprise that when he had an opportunity to admit to what people already knew he was willing to do that. He stated the blatantly obvious in his interview. There are some other things he needs to take credit for, and this was his chance. Here is a look at how he did.

He had multiple team mates and friends state he was using steroids. The United States Anti-Doping Association investigated him. Each time someone told the truth about him, or tried to, he would defame their character and often took them to court. He decimated these people, denouncing their word and shouting about their dishonesty from every BULLY pulpit he could find. He destroyed the reputations and careers of those who told the truth. Instead of an apology to the specific people he has maligned, he says that there were so many he forgets who they all are.

Lance Armstrong is a cheater and he has the chance to admit it. He had 7 consecutive Tour de France victories. He says that he did not cheat, because cheating is having an unfair advantage over others and everybody was doing it. Then he says that clean riders are heroes. How can there be clean riders if everyone is using? By his very statement he admits to there being non-doping riders. So he is saying that using performance enhancing drugs and blood doping did not give him an unfair advantage over those not using. Of course it did, so he cheated. He does not even have the decency to admit it.

Not only did he cheat, he left other riders in his wake. Those who were clean and rode with him he bullied into using. The riders on the tour who did not use lost to a rider who had an unfair advantage. I am sure he left many a rider with shattered dreams. Someone other than him should have won the Tour de France and had that dream they had worked their entire lives for come to fruition. The same about the medal. Someone lost out on getting to stand on the platform and represent themselves, their family and their country by getting a bronze medal.

Lance Armstrong is a thief. Not only did he steal the victories and glory, he also stole money. There is prize money, money from sponsors, book deals, endorsement deals that all could have gone to someone else. Let me restate that, should have gone to someone else. He stole from them, no different than sliding his hand into their wallets or breaking into their houses and taking it. Yet there appeared to be no true remorse in the interview.

Finally, how about cancer itself. He had a lot of people that looked to him as a hero, a paragon of virtue. They used him, from overcoming cancer to being a success and doing it all while being clean, as the inspiration they needed to fight cancer. Now, he has been tarnished and those who put him on a pedestal will suffer. The LiveStrong Foundation also took a serious hit in credibility and has lost donors. Hopefully people will remember that just because he was the face doesn't mean the foundation isn't a great non-profit. Sad that so many people are affected by the actions of one man.

It would appear that Lance Armstrong is sorry for one thing. He is sorry that he got caught. His lack of true ownership would lead one to that conclusion. Also not accepting the damage he has done to so many people. Seriously, he never even admitted that what he did was cheating???? This guy has some nerve. Sure we are all human. I have done many things that were low and despicable. I have also owned up to them in person and publicly. That is what a person who finds morals, principles and an ethical code does.

Lance appears to be attempting to con everyone again. That is just my opinion. But that tends to be the opinion I listen to. Saying your sorry then blaming everyone and everything else for your choices shows how you really feel. For his sake, I hope that he truly begins to show remorse. This first interview showed that remorse is not in his vocabulary yet. Neither is accountability. Get a conscience and WORK A PROGRAM that doesn't involve lying and cheating!

Movie Review - My Sister's Keeper

I have managed to get emotional since I had a son and stepped into recovery. I am unsure of which of these two events caused me to get a heart, or if it was a combination of both of them. The short story is that now I care, now I cry, now I allow myself to feel. Generally this translates into a tear here or there during a movie. After all, I am a movie guy. I love movies, even ones that have no redeemable value. This movie was quite different.

I just watched a movie that ripped my heart out, from start to finish. It was one of the most emotional movies that I have ever seen. It tugged at my heart as both a parent and a care giver. It touched on some important ethical concerns that in some cases need to be addressed. I was amazed at the dark nature of the movie, but it is about a young girl who is diagnosed with Leukemia. Enough said.

The movie consists of a family of five. There are three children, oldest child is son Jesse. Then there are the two daughters, Kate is the middle child with Leukemia and Anna is the youngest. Anna was genetically engineered by her parents to be a perfect donor for her sister Kate. She has been a donor for her sister her entire life. There are a lot of flashbacks and montages through out the movie that point to how Jesse was ignored and Anna's feelings and the pain she endured were never taken into account by either of her parents.

Anna has gone to an attorney to get medically emancipated so that her parents can no longer harvest her body against her will. They have taken a lot from her over the years, and this time Kate needs a kidney. It is interesting to see the love that is still shown by Anna to her sister and the love that she receives in return from Kate. Her mother, who is an attorney, is willing to take the case to court. How dare her daughter not want to give her kidney to save her sister's life.

Through the court case we see the interactions that the family has had with each other and how Kate's Leukemia has caused them to grow closer together. We also see the pain that Kate has gone through in relationships and in her disease. There is a boy who also had cancer that she had a romance with that is replayed through flash sequences.

The movie has raw emotions that are laid out before us by some pretty superb acting. The plot continues along as the case is taken to court and the initial shock of Anna's announcement continues to ripple through the family. There is humor that is interspersed through out the movie, and it flowed well.

I do not want to give away that much of the movie, I guess that this review is simply to tell you that it ripped my heart out. It will probably have the same effect on you. It was a tear jerker, and there was a good story to go with it. It shows how some parents will do anything for their children, and often the child's own concerns and best interests are not taken into consideration.

Sometimes we as parents do what is best for us, and what we perceive is best for our kids. I grew up with kids who hated playing football (or basketball, baseball, cheerleading). They practiced all year long and went to camps for the sport from elementary school all the way through high school, and hated every minute of it. They only played it to make their parents happy. When they tried to talk to their parents about not playing, they were never listened to and taken seriously. That cannot be!

I guess that what stood out to me most in this movie was my responsibility as a parent. I have a responsibility to look out for the best interests of all of my children. I should never put one before the other, and I should always make sure that what they are doing is something that they want to do. It should not be for me or because of what I think is important.

 There will always be things our children want to do that they cannot, that is a no-brainer. What I am saying is that we should listen to our kids and not live out our fantasies through them. This movie made me think of the children that are never given a choice, but instead expected to do what their parents want without taking what they want into consideration. It is also a scary look at the ethical dilemmas that we could theoretically face thanks to our advances in technology.

All in all, I give this movie an A-. There are definitely some lapses in the story that is told, but Abigail Breslin and Sophia Vassalieva are exceptional as Anna and Kate respectively. Alec Baldwin is great as the attorney hired and Joan Cusack does well as the judge. Jason Patric is believable as a dad torn between supporting his children and backing up his wife. Finally, Cameron Diaz plays the mother bent on saving her daughter's live no matter what very well. There was some offensive language, some underage misbehavior, alcohol and some graphic hospital and health related scenes.

Songs of Recovery - Blessings

I was listening to some music today, and the song "Blessings" by Laura Story came on. In this song, Laura looks at the things in our lives that we pray for, the things that we do not think are fair. She also looks at how we may come to doubt God if these things happen to us. We may come to doubt the goodness of God, we may doubt that he loves us.

This made me think of how our relationship with God looks sometimes. We come to God all of the time to ask for healing, forgiveness, successful job hunts, to be content, to be happy, protection, etc. We have changed the Our Father Prayer to, "Our Father, who is in heaven, gimme gimme gimme!" Don't get me wrong, I think that healing does happen, and we can ask God for it. I just think that we look more at what we want and less at what God's will is for us. What if we have cancer, or were molested, or have a sick parent. Should we pray to be cured? I think that we should. We may not get our prayers fulfilled. God sees the big picture that we do not. So what if God does not answer our prayers the way that we want him to? Some feel that He should answer, and that He should cure us of our afflictions.

In fact, as I have recently been reading in Charisma magazine, there are some who feel that God performs miracles all of the time here in America. The problem is that we do not have enough faith in God, or we would be able to be cured of all ailments both mentally and physically. Bethel Church was in the magazine, and one of their church leaders said that that the problem is not that we ask for too much. The problem is that we don't ask for enough. It is not enough to accomplish worldly goals such as building churches in South America or digging wells in Africa. We should be curing the blind and making the lame walk, that is the the power of God and the power of the Holy Spirit according to the article written in Charisma magazine.

I do not know how I feel about that. I feel that God cures people sometimes, other times He gives us the ability to persevere. Iron is used to make steel. Steel is nothing more than iron that has had an impurity, carbon, added to it and then is remade in the fire. I feel that we too are made stronger in our fires. Even more than that, I feel that our fires can make those around us stronger too. How many of the Christians that have been executed over the years have brought non-believers to faith, not through their deliverance from death, but from their faith and compassion that never wavered when they were executed.

In the song Blessings, the song looks at how God's greatest gifts just might be the trials of this life, the illnesses, the loss, the spent tears, the persecution. We grow through adversity and hardships. When do not get strength and our faith is seldom bolstered if life is lemondrops and lollipops. We grow not on the mountain tops, but in the valleys. What if we are supposed to feel pain and hurt. What if every time that we work through this it makes our faith even stronger, makes our resolve to worship even greater and brings those around us closer to Christ? What if we are made how we are because that is how God wants us?

Psalms 139:14: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

God made me, and because He made me I should be happy with where I am in life. I should make the most of my opportunities. I think of one of my favorite inspirational speakers, Nick Vujicic. His ministry is called "No Limbs, No Limits." Nick was born with no arms and no legs. He does not ask God to cure him of his "handicap." He does not see it as a handicap. Instead, he is able to reach thousands of people and let them know that faith in Christ will allow you to accomplish all that you need.

My wife is legally blind. She was taken to a healing conference by her youth pastor so that her vision could be fully restored, and she was not cured. She was told by some people that it was because she did not have enough faith in God. Wow, how that had to hurt a legally blind teenager. "God did not cure you because you do not love Him enough," she was told. She, on the other hand, did not think that healing was what God had in mind for her.

Today she works at Global University (an Assembly of God missionary college) as their video editor.......a legally blind video editor. She has been to multiple countries to film Christians all over the world. To hear her talk about her "disability", she feels that God created her to do what she does, "I can see better through the lens of a video camera than I can with the eyes I was born with." Does she need to be healed? I think that she is wonderfully made!!

I do not know about you, but I feel that many Christians come to a point where we feel that God owes us something. I believe in God, I tithe, I attend faithfully so He should cure me. If trials pop-up, if I get sick, God should make it go away. I just do not feel that is true. God made me the way that He wanted me. This world to many may be full of sin and disappointment, but what if that is what makes us realize that there has to be more than just this world we now live in? I yearn for something that I know I cannot have on this Earth, but that I know I desire and I know exists. I yearn for hope and happiness. Where do I find that?

One of the most influential people that I ever met was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He was given 3 months to live by the specialist. He told people not to pray for him to be cured, but to pray for God's will to be done. He died with a smile on his face, and got to meet his heavenly father. That is what he talked about in his final days. He was consumed by pain that the opiates could not touch, but he lay in bed and would talk to us about how lucky he was to be going home. He died in pain, but he remained positive and peaceful.

His death was the instrumental piece that brought his estranged son, who was an atheist and a drug addict, to Christ. His son was by his side for the first time in over a decade when he died. His son came to Christ less than a month after his father's death. If his father would not have died as happy and hope-filled as he did, his son would not have been redeemed. He told me this. I was was not friends with the man who died, I was a friend of his sons. But that is his testimony, not mine.

I am saying that if he would have been cured, his son would not have gotten saved. I know women who have been raped and beaten that have turned their experience into a ministry to help others going through the same experience. I am a former convict and drug addict who works with convicts and drug addicts. I am proud of all that I have been delivered from. But there are also things that I have not been delivered from. I no longer obsess over drugs, but I desire them on occasion. I am okay with that. The Holy Spirit allows me to work through the desire. I have been transformed, I have been healed but not cured.

Cured is a medical term to me as a clinician that means something has been beaten or suppressed. Healed on the other hand could mean that the pain was embraced and that we moved forward from it. Curing asks, "what needs to be fixed?" Healing asks, "how can I grow?" My friends dad may not have been cured, but he was healed and allowed his son to be healed through his death. Why are we often not cured?
2 Corinthians 12: 7-10, "To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." You see, God can grow in the face of  illnesses, weaknesses, trials and tribulations whether they are cured or simply healed.

I am no greater than Paul was. God spoke to him personally. He saw Jesus in the flesh. He wrote 13 books in the New Testament. If he was allowed to live with a handicap and not be healed, a man who talked to Jesus face to face, than who am I to expect more? I thank God for the mercies in my life that came disguised as hardships. In the end, they have made me stronger and brought me closer to Christ!