"Love One Another"

It's not been very productive for me this past week being sick and in bed the entire holiday week!  However, I was able to watch a National Geographic video on Stress and found it extremely profound.  I want to share a few points that the documentary left with me.


1.   Social hierarchy determines how much stress can effect our health.  The lower you are on the hierarchy social ladder the more stress related health problems you incur, i.e. high cholesterol, diabetes, digestive problems, auto immune disease, just to name a few.
    
2.    Those people that are caregivers for children with disabilities have more stress regardless of the hierarchy in social setting.  These mothers especially, are proven to age 6 years to every one year of serving their disabled child.

3.   Because we are humans and live in a social environment we tend to feed into the stress of those people we are associated with daily.  We do this by what we say to them, how we react to our own actions, how we react to others' actions.  Our simple interactions with others can cause stress to those people that is unnecessary and thus the cycle of hierarchy continues.

4.  Finally, we can help eliminate stress in those loved ones that we live with just by not snapping at them when we are having a bad day.  We can help repair damaged stressed related health issues by enjoying the simple things around us, find something that helps the endorphins to be released naturally, laugh often and GIVE rather than receive!

This was just a quick overview of some major points I found to correlate with a lesson my father taught me up until his death in May 2008.

My story:

The year of 2007 was an rather difficult year for me for so many reasons.  It seemed like the year started out really good with a lot of promise but went downhill quickly.  When things started to slide south it all started to tumble into a spiral spin.  There was one particular day that I was struggling with some major decisions and I needed to have some fatherly counsel from my tender and wise father.  After sitting with him and unloading some of my burdens upon his shoulders he gave me this advice,  "You cannot heal without serving others"!  He gave me his counsel that if I would turn my worries and pain into that of serves to others I would be able to heal.

Well, for the first year after his counsel I didn't want to serve anyone!  I didn't know how.  I was so self consumed with the stress' that I was carrying around on my shoulders that my health had begun to weaken and uncertainty without hope clouded my decisions.  I was in a spiral! 

It was a day in May of 2008 that I found whom I wanted to serve. This opportunity came so natural, without warning, without solicitation.  My father was dying.  It happened so quickly!  It was he whom I wanted to serve.  It was my father I wanted to pour my hurt stressed heart over too in the name of service and love.  There was nothing I was going to allow me not to serve him until his end.  I didn't do anything miraculous.  I didn't have to.  It was simple things, ice upon his dry lips, a change of sheets as he sat in his chair for a minute or two. Service came in the terms of small tidbits of tender loving care to someone I loved. This was the first time in an entire year I had turned my heart aches away from myself.  I was alive, I felt a change.  It wasn't the way I wanted it at all, I wanted my father to live too.  I laid next to him on his bed before his time at home ended and told him he had become my service project, how ironic!  He smiled!  His last words to all of us were that he loved everyone!

Jesus Christ taught us to "Love One Another" and I believe that this is a healing remedy for every alignment that haunts us as human beings.  Without love for another, we cannot serve others. 

So back to the beginning of my post today.

1.  Social hierarchy can cause us stress..."Love One Another".

2.  Caregivers of those that have disabilities definitely do...."Love One Another".

3.  Interactions with others can influence their stress so...."Love One Another".

4.  Having a bad day?   "Love One Another"!


I am truly blessed!