“What Wouldest Thou?”

“…And Caleb said unto her, ‘What wouldest thou?’”

Joshua 15:18  King James Version

EXPLORATION

“What Wouldest Thou?”

“Anyone who…thinks that, through her own words and actions, she initiates and controls the connections between herself and God – must not have much experience of God’s boundless affection for even the grudgingest of creatures.”
Nancy Mairs

What would it mean to me to hear my heavenly Father say, “What will you have Me do for you?”

What specifically would I tell Him I want Him to do in my life?

“God’s gifts put (woman’s) best dreams to shame.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Poet

INSPIRATION

“When Jesus saw him lying, and knew that he had been now a long time, ‘in that case,’ He saith unto him, ‘Wouldest thou be made whole?’” John 5: 6
American Standard Version
Darby Translation

God the Father Does Want to Heal You

All of the above verses are definitely showing us that not only does God the Father have the personality attributes to want to heal us, but that He also has the full divine power to actually be able to heal us – no matter how severe the sickness or illness may be. However, will He actually do it if you properly approach Him in your prayers?

These next set of verses will show you that not only does God actually want to heal us – but that He can and will heal us if certain conditions are met. Not only does the Bible give us knowledge and information on the personality attributes of God and Jesus, but it also shows us how many times in the past God and Jesus have actually healed other people.

Once you read how many times God and Jesus were healing other people back in both the Old and New Testaments, then this will help build up your own faith and belief that just maybe God and Jesus can also do the exact same thing for you.

Lifestyle and Fertility

By Chris Woolston, M.S.

Humans are closely tuned to their surroundings - especially when it comes to making babies. Just as bears and elk wait for the right season to sire offspring, our bodies reach the peak of fertility only when conditions seem right for raising babies. If there's any sign of illness, malnourishment, or an unhealthy environment, our bodies may decide to put parenthood on hold.

Get Over It! Fat People Have Sex...Lots of It...and It's Great!

New book discusses the complicated relationship between fat and sex

RAGEN CHASTAIN 

STUART MCCLYMONT/THE IMAGE BANK

I don’t know a single fat woman who hasn’t been told that she needs to lose weight because, as Rebecca’s grandmother told her, otherwise “no man will ever love you.” Setting aside the heterosexism of assuming that your fat daughter wants a man, it is a little alarming that we tell children, who are sometimes barely old enough to understand what love and sex are, that nobody will ever want them. Doesn’t anybody realize the irreparable damage it could cause…or how false that statement even is?

Rebecca Jane Weinstein sets it straight with her new book, Fat Sex: The Naked Truth. She mentions the apparent urban legend that says fat women are better in bed. I didn’t know this previously but as fat urban legends go, I’m not gonna lie, I’m a fan of this one! She also offers the truth -- which is that lots of fat people have lots of great sex. Fat people have sex with partners of all sizes who are able to get past their bigotry of fat bodies (sometimes including their own) and enjoy their supple lovers in all their glory. But getting there is no easy task.

Healing Testimony : Pastor Jack Hayford

About Pastor Jack Hayford

Jack Hayford knows the awesome power of God firsthand. When he was a baby, he was gripped by a life-threatening illness. But as a result of the earnest prayers of friends and family, he was miraculously healed. The doctors had no other explanation except that the grace of God snatched him back from the brink of death. 


Several years later, Jack was struck down again by sickness. This time it was polio. The church elders anointed him and prayed for his recovery. God heard their petitions and granted a second miracle. 


These two extraordinary events ignited in Jack's heart a passion for God and convinced him that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in the contemporary church. 


"Contrary to our preconceptions, God is not economical with healings and miracles. Such wondrous works are frequently attending the proclamation of truth in Jesus’ name," asserts Pastor Jack.

Finding Peace in Troubled Times

Written by Claire Colvin

Whether you have a child serving in the war in Iraq, recently lost a loved one or have no way to pay the mortgage this month, crisis takes many forms. Its impact is felt deeply. We feel helpless, we feel sad, we feel overwhelmed. Some of us are in crisis right now, for others, the images flashing across the TV screen are bringing up painful memories from the past.

Shaky marriages, divorce, death, illness, accidents, terrorist threats, war arouse in us a crisis response. What happens when crisis or trauma impacts people’s lives? How can we prepare and respond to crisis? Marriage and family counsellor Lynette Hoy, stresses the importance of differentiating between a problem and a crisis:

The Wake-Up Call My Battle with Depression

By Aliza Hausman

I couldn't make myself get out of bed for the morning megillah reading last Purim. Venturing out the evening before had sapped all my energy. I couldn't bear the scrutiny of the prying eyes of others. I was sure that everyone would read the emotions on my face. I didn't want to go on living. And I didn't want anyone to know.

Just two years earlier, I was all smiles at the public high school where I taught English. As I teased my 11th grade students mercilessly, they groaned in response. I had finally found a career that challenged me. I pictured myself retiring in twenty years with countless stories under my belt. I was already a hit at every Shabbat table where I delighted the hosts and guests with stories from my colorful classroom.

Depression: Illness or Spiritual failure?

Written by Cynthia Cavanaugh

Angry, frustrated and confused, I boarded a plane for Southern California. My dear friend and mother-in-law lay in a hospital bed with the shadow of death hovering. As I sat on the plane numb and expressionless. I cried, “Lord, where are you? Can’t you see my wounded heart?” I wanted to scream instead of cry, “LORD, I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!” I felt as though his face was shrouded from me.

This was one of the few times in my journey with God where I truly felt that I had been abandoned by Him. So many traumatic events had happened. Just two weeks earlier we had buried my grandfather–the spiritual rock of our family. I had had the privilege of caring for him and walking with him through his last days and now, just weeks after his death, I was possibly facing another. I felt as though the foundation of my childhood was being bulldozed.

Sexuality and Breast Cancer

How Breast Cancer Can Affect Sexuality

By Cory Silverberg, About.com Guide

Updated September 28, 2010

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board

Sexuality is part of life, and all life experience may affect our sex lives and sexuality. Even if you haven't had a confirmed diagnosis of breast cancer -- you think you've felt a lump, a doctor suggested they'd like to take a closer look at something you hadn't noticed -- the possibility of breast cancer, the idea of it and all that it evokes, can affect your sexuality. We may not always say them out loud, but people often have questions about sex and sexuality early on in their experience with breast cancer, questions like:

• Will breast cancer change the kind of sex I can have?
• Will it change how much I want sex, or how much I enjoy sex?
• Will it affect who I get to have sex with? Will people not want to have sex with me?
• Will sex feel different?

It can be easiest (although easy probably isn't the best word) to focus on detailed questions like these, the anatomical and physiological parts of sexual activities. This approach is often supported by doctors who, if they are comfortable talking about sex at all, tend to focus on sexual functioning. But there are drawbacks to this approach, including:

• Focus on individual and not social, cultural, environmental factors that affect sexuality can mistakenly lead people to think that they can solve every problem with the right medication or attitude.
• Breaking sexuality into its "functional" components can strip it of much of its meaning and limit opportunities for sexuality to be a source of strength and support.
• Medical models focus on heterosexual intercourse, ignoring the infinite possibilities for sexual pleasure (not to mention the fact that we don't all have heterosexual intercourse!), and eliminating the possibility that breast cancer can lead to positive personal exploration.
• Focus on the individual or couple also contributes to social isolation, reducing the opportunities to connect with others around shared challenges.

It is almost certainly the case that breast cancer, like any other significant life experience, will change your sexuality and your sex life. What we forget, or sometimes don't realize until we're confronted with an illness, is that our sexuality is always changing, and in the long run, that change may be for the better.

Below are links to information on some of the predictable ways that diagnosis of and treatment for breast cancer can affect your sexuality in general and your sex life in particular. As you're reading, remember that each of us experiences sex in our own way. Comparing yourself to what is written here or to others, may feel like the right thing to do, but in the end it's often not that helpful. More helpful in the long run is to start with yourself. Ask yourself what connections you're already aware of between what's happening with and to your body, and your sexuality. Know that you have the right to care as much about sex, or as little about sex, as you want. Along the way you'll have to pull partners and/or health care providers in for support and ideas, but ultimately you are the one that should be deciding the priorities, pace, and timing of conversations about sex, and having sex.

Sexuality and Breast Cancer Diagnosis
In what ways does a diagnosis of breast cancer immediately change the way you think about sex, the way you imagine your immediate and distant sexual future? If every message we get about sex is that it's for the young and healthy, what does it mean for your sexuality if you're now branded as "sick" or "diseased"? Here are some examples of obstacles people face when they are diagnosed with breast cancer, and tips on how to reduce the affect and increase your access to sexual health and pleasure following breast cancer diagnosis.

Sexuality and Breast Cancer Treatment
There are many different treatments for breast cancer and each of them can have multiple effects on sexuality. On the one hand it's important to get detailed information from health care providers about the effects of your treatment regimen. On the other, it may be time to broaden your definition of what sexuality includes, in order to find ways to be sexual during what can be a long and difficult process, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Sexuality and Surviving Breast Cancer
Surviving breast cancer doesn't mean that your sexuality or sex life will go back to the way it was. Just as your sex life when you're 30 won't ever be like it was when you were 20, your sex life after cancer won't be exactly the way it was before. We can't go back. Mind you for many of us the way it was may not have been so hot, and there are those who talk about how dealing with major illness, including breast cancer, has eventually led to them having better sex because they had to learn to ask for what they want and become more active participants in their sexual pleasure.

Sexuality and Terminal Diagnosis
Just as sexuality is a part of life and living, it's a part of dying too. No one has the right to tell you that you should or shouldn't care about sex or want sex to be a significant part of your life, at any time, and least of all at the end of your life. If your cancer diagnosis is terminal you may feel a silent pressure from those around you to put sex and sexuality way on the back burner. And if that's how you feel too, that's okay. But if sexuality is an important part of your life, know that it can be a part of the end of your life as well, it just takes advocacy, desire, creativity, and usually some humor.

gotquestions  http://sexuality.about.com/od/Cancer-and-Sexuality/a/sexuality-and-breast-cancer.htm

We Live In A Good Friday World

David Burchett

A couple of years ago I saved an article from USA Today . The title, We are Easter People, was intriquing enough to merit a second look. Here is a portion of the piece written by Diane Cameron.

One of the lowest points in my life occurred years ago when I was living in Washington, D.C., at Easter time. My older sister had recently died and both of my brothers were seriously ill; my best friend was leaving town, and on top of that I was questioning my work. In my journal that April I wrote, "Am I depressed?" When I read those pages now I laugh and shake my head. "Depressed?" That I even had to ask. In that long year I thought I'd never laugh again, just as I thought I'd never again feel love, the joy of easy friendship, or the satisfaction of good work.

I went to church that Easter out of both habit and desperation. I had grown up in a church-going family. It was what we did. And so to honor the family that I was losing I went. Easter after all, is the centerpiece for Christians, honoring and recalling Christ's triumph over death.

I chose a big downtown church for Easter services — one with hundreds in the congregation — not daring to visit a smaller church where I might have to speak to people or be embarrassed by my own tears. I wanted the paradoxical safety and anonymity of being in a crowd.

The minister that Easter Sunday said many things that I don't remember, but one sentence has stayed with me all these years. He said, "We live in a Good Friday world."

That I understood. A Good Friday world is a world full of suffering, questioning, unfairness, trouble, mistakes, hurts, losses and grief. Good Friday in the Christian faith is the day Christians commemorate Christ's suffering and death on the cross. So that certainly made sense to me at that difficult time in my life.

"But," he continued, "We are Easter people." Those words stopped me cold. I was stunned to be reminded that painful morning that there was something other than what I was feeling.

Wow. What an amazing message as we head into the Easter week. We do live in a Good Friday world. How easy it is to stop right there, just short of healing, not realizing the hope of resurrection. The story of Easter week did not stop on Friday. The hope of this season is all about Sunday. Tony Campolo writes about a life changing sermon he heard in his book It's Friday but Sunday's Comin'. (Note to spiritual cyber hall monitors...I know Mr.Campolo is controversial. Just enjoy this illustration, take a deep breath, and move away from the keyboard). Campolo writes about hearing a wise African-American pastor preach about the events of Easter week.

For an hour and a half he preached one line over and over again..."It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'!" He started his sermon real softly by saying, "It was Friday; it was Friday and my Jesus was dead on the tree. But that was Friday, and Sunday's comin'!" One of the Deacons yelled, "Preach, brother, Preach!" It was all the encouragement he needed.

He came on louder as he said, "It was Friday and Mary was cryin' her eyes out. The disciples were runnin' in every direction, like sheep without a shepherd, but that was Friday, and Sunday's comin!"

The preacher kept going. He picked up the volume still more and shouted, "It was Friday. The cynics were lookin' at the world and sayin' `As things have been so shall they be. You can't change anything in this world; you can't change anything. But those cynics don't know that it was only Friday. Sunday's comin'! It was Friday, and on Friday those forces that oppress the poor and make the poor to suffer were in control. But that was Friday! Sunday's comin'!

It was Friday, and on Friday Pilate thought he had washed his hands of a lot of trouble. The Pharisees were struttin' around, laughin' and pokin' each other in the ribs. They thought they were back in charge of things. But they didn't know it was only Friday! Sunday's comin'!

Campolo continues, "He kept on working that one phrase for a half hour, then an hour, then an hour and a quarter, then an hour and a half. Over and over he came at us, "It's Friday, but Sunday's comin!" By the time he had come to the end of the message...He had me and everybody else so worked up that I don't think any of us could have stood it much longer. At the end of his message he just yelled at the top of his lungs, `It's FRIDAY!' and all 500 of us in that church yelled back with one accord, `SUNDAY'S COMIN'!"

A lot of people who stumble across this site might be in the middle of what seems to be an interminable Friday. It is hard to accept suffering and illness. Relationships that hurt us make Friday seem like it will never end. The trials of living on a fallen planet will make this seem like a Friday world at times during the journey. Two years ago Joni’s diagnosis of cancer put us into a Friday state of mind. But we trusted that Sunday's comin'! As we told our wonderful sons, if your faith doesn't work at times like this it is of little value for the rest of the time. And it does work. We have been blessed with healing for now but we have the greater hope of the resurrection of Jesus as we continue. We trust in a God that has been faithful to strengthen us for the battle, work through us for His glory, and teach us to be dependent on Him.

I believe the message of this week. Sunday's comin'. And I believe that with all of my heart and soul. Paul wrote in Romans...

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1 NIV

I am not ashamed of the gospel. I fact I am excited about the gospel. Even though I may be living in a Good Friday world today I am convinced that Sunday's comin'!

Dave Burchett is an Emmy Award winning television sports director, author, and Christian speaker. He is the author of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and Bring'em Back Alive: A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church. You can reply by linking through daveburchett.com.

http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/david-burchett/we-live-in-a-good-friday-world-11570780.html

Why Am I Ill?

All that said, the question most of us are most interested in is not the mushy general question of why there is illness. The questions that count are "Why am I sick?" and "How do I become whole again?"
I'm a human, and humans are a fell kind, a broken people in a broken world.

Thus : If I am ever to be whole, my wholeness must be firmly based in what God has done and is doing about that situation.

I'm ill right now, in this moment, because this out-of-kilter body has left me open to the rest of out-of-kilter things in this out-of-kilter existence -- the germs, viruses, war wounds, accidents, fights, brain chemistry, and such, in the world around me.

Thus : if I am to be whole, I must be so within that world and that ecosystem which I'm a part of, and deal with it in every moment.

I'm sick within the community, tradition, and identity group of which I'm a part. That community has its own way of envisioning the illness, placing it within a narrative context or 'story'. This in turn helps me listen for how I, and also the God of this real-life story I'm in, can speak through it.

Thus : if I am to be whole, I must learn the framework that holds together such a varied wholeness, a framework that will help lead me through my life during, and hopefully after, the illness.

I'm ill. ME! I'm not quite like anyone else. I have my own identity. I have my own consciousness which, in a way, is the community of all that is 'me'. I am the main context of my own illness, and it is my life that's at stake.

Thus : if I am to be whole, I must be honest with myself. Because the stakes are so high for me, I cannot afford not to listen for the words of others who know how this illness operates, those who can name it (diagnosis) and then hopefully map out with me a course of action (treatment) for both the medical and non-medical aspects of the illness. I am responsible for me.

By looking at these parts of the illness, we can envision for ourselves what it means to be both cured and healed/made whole.

gotquestions  http://www.spirithome.com/healings.html

God-Talk About Healing

Healing is a divine mystery. God does not provide the same things to everyone, nor the same thing all the time to any one person. The gifts are measured according to the Kingdom's standards, not our standards, and are given entirely for God's purposes. It's not a 'health and wealth' thing where one presses a prayer button marked 'gimme' and out pops a new Mercedes or a faith healing. The idea of automatic blessing is presumption and control, not faith. Yet, charismatic Christians take issue with the church in general for not seriously believing that God will lead, heal, or empower. They believe that God can and DOES step into our lives. They trust that God will do right by them when they are ill (Matthew 6:19-33).

However, there's a serious problem among some churches. It's especially severe among fundamentalists and fringe Pentecostals, but the problem can be found in members of just about any church. The problem starts with a simple idea: that unconfessed sin can cause illness. The Bible teaches that (Psalm 107:17; Micah 6:13). Life experience teaches that. I myself have gone through serious physical distress because of what an unconfessed sin did to me from inside, twisting me into such knots that I developed itchings and sores and headaches and bodily weakness. I knew it, too. I confessed it, then started doing something about it, and indeed, it went away.

The problem is that many Christian churches teach this in reverse: if you're ill and it doesn't go away with prayer, then it must be caused by unconfessed sin or the absence of faith. Baloney! It usually isn't caused by unconfessed sin. Illness is made possible by the sinfulness which comes with being a part of this created world -- the sort of sin which Christians mean when saying that all human beings are 'fallen'. This 'fallenness' (having to do with 'original sin') has put us all out of kilter and made us un-whole. Our state of sin is what makes it possible for us to become ill, and guarantees that we will die. But all the confession in the world has never once gotten rid of that state of sin. It's with us till the Kingdom comes. Specific sins are usually not what gives a specific person their specific illness at a particular time. You may make the causal connection that sin A led to illness B, but the logic does not hold in reverse - illness B can also be caused by germ C, or gene D, or accident E, or someone else's sin F, or other things G through Z.

Yet I can tell you of dozens of people I have met (and hundreds I have heard about) who were scolded, berated, shunned, shamed, and labeled as a grave sinner just because they happened to be ill and it didn't go away when they were prayed over. I've seen this happen with my own eyes more times than I care to recount. Most Pentecostalists I know of are aware of this, and say that they don't believe that the failure to be healed is always from unrepented sin. Yet, even for those people, old habits die hard. Often, the first thing that even those believers will do when someone isn't healed is to start interrogating the unhealed person about the parts of their life that personal sins are most expected to be found - usually involving sex. Tens of thousands of people every year are driven away from the church by this belief. They flee because instead of being loving people who gave grace to someone in need, the church was an angry, superstitious, bitter, legalistic, elite clique which showed no love at all, and indeed showed exactly the opposite of such love. This is not the way of Christ: Christ made contact with the ill, Christ treated them personally, Christ healed them, Christ showed them love. If your church doesn't do that, either change churches, or if possible, cause the church to change. It is a matter of the Gospel.

http://www.spirithome.com/healings.html