Tag: health

Overcome the 4 C’s

Published on by lindseybiggs2 Comments

Christ Jesus says, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (Matt 9:16-17 NIV)

Emptying the bottle of thought of the old is a prerequisite to being receptive and ready for the new!

Holding on to old thoughts, old ways of seeing ourselves and others means there isn’t room for  new inspiration – the new ideas – that come today.  The new inspiration will be spilled and wasted because there isn’t room for it in the bottle of our old thought.  We have to let go of the old thoughts first!

For me, emptying the bottle of thought of the old has been the actively resisting the 4 C’s.

  • Criticism
  • Condemnation
  • Comparison
  • Complaint

Criticism

Criticism actually hurts the one doing the criticizing in addition to being hurtful to others.  It is a public or private confession that you are not seeing the child of God that has been created.  Seeing God’s child, His image and likeness, requires inspiration, spiritual discernment and light.  The temptation to criticize tries to cut us off from that light.  Spiritual light makes us happy and free.  So why do we want to feel cut off from that light even for a moment?  Criticizing doesn’t actually change the environment or people around us.  It doesn’t heal.  What is actually needed is a change in our own thinking.  And creative solutions will then appear.  Practice the humility needed to bring about that change today which results in healing yourself, others and countless situations.

Condemnation

A child of God is never condemned.  God loves each of us.  It is not in our nature to condemn because it is not in our nature to believe in something more powerful than Love – than God or Good.  The activity of the Divine is always bringing transformation, renewal and healing.  It reveals who we each are as whole and complete.  Therefore we are never condemned. 

Comparison

Comparing impedes our progress and hides our true purpose.  God’s diversity is so vital.  No two men, women or children are the same.  We are as the snowflakes – each one unique.  So one person’s life expression is not going to look the same as another.  We are all expressing divinity in a unique way.  Denying our creativity, uniqueness and perfection is like trying to deny an aspect of God that needs to be expressed.  Love and cherish the unique qualities and ideas you have.  Don’t think with jealousy, envy or coveting what another person has.  Love you because of who God made you to be – special, priceless, invaluable.  Trust me – you will be much happier and productive when being the “real” you. 

Complaint

Ah, complaints.  They’re so easy to do.  There is a line from a hymn which says, “Our gratitude is riches, complaint is poverty” (Christian Science Hynnal, 249).  Wow.  That really shows complaining in it’s true light.  Complaining cuts us off from seeing the goodness and abundance and Love each moment.  And that is why complaint is poverty.  Gratitude is an acknowledgement of the good, Love and kindness present in this moment.  Take a moment to look around you.  See all the beauty, good, protection and care coming from God and feel that gratitude in your hearts.  Now, don’t you feel rich?! 🙂

 

I know it can be hard resisting the 4 C’s; but making a conscious choice of the thoughts you are going to continue to think – allow to dwell in your consciousness – will open you up to so many possibilities.  It will open you up to goodness, inspiration, love, and joy – progress in your life, relationships and future. Like attracts like. Having this spiritual consciousness will attract that which is spiritual, eternal and precious in your experience.

Enjoy this day!  Consider sharing, in the comment section, experiences of how you overcame 1 or more of the 4 C’s and what it felt like for you.  You can help inspire others to do the same.

Praying for Our Representatives and World

Published on by lindseybiggs2 Comments

 

 

On the evening when I read about Gabrielle Giffords being shot, I felt compelled to pray.  At first I wasn’t sure how to pray.  I knew I didn’t want to pray about specific human circumstances, so I started to think about God as Love.  And I instantly got a sense and a vision in my mind of Love being all – filling all space, the only Creator and manifested as Creation.  In this image all is happy, healthy and peaceful because all there is is Love.

 

Why is this image important?  If Love is all there is, then there is no hate.  If Love is all, then there is no cause of anything that is unlike Love.  Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of the universal science — Christian Science, teaches that sin and the sinner are both unreal.  (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures p. 472)  God’s creation is entirely good, spiritual, loving, happy and eternal.  Where, then, is the sinner?  Where then is the source and cause for the incident?  No where.  And as this healing takes place in our thought, there is also healing and transformation in the physical.

 

In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Yancey illustrates how necessary grace and forgiveness are in our personal and nation-wide experience.  When a situation is redeemed or healed in our heart and thought, we can go on with new views, unity, and work for progress and blessings for everyone.  He depicted many nations who are in conflict today based on challenges centuries ago.  Many people today don’t even know why their nation is fighting, it’s simply because they always have.  He labels this as “ungrace”.  I love this term “ungrace” because it makes things so clear to me — if it’s not grace we are thinking and expressing, then it’s ungrace.  What a help this is in being proactive about healing our world and individual thoughts and hearts.

 

Eddy states, in her compilation of Miscellaneous Writings, “A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God.” (p. 354)

 

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about the Stanford University studies on the correlation between health and forgiveness.  I see it this way: we are a window for God’s light and love; if the window is filled with dirt – resentment, hate, revenge, fear – then we experience as much of this substantial, healing light which is the source of all health, happiness, and peace.

 

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22 NIV)  This healing spirit of Truth and Love has profound physical effects and certainly leads to transformation of mind, body, soul and the world.

 

 

For an additional article on this incident check out: “She does not have that permission from me” by John D. Clague.

 

Original Good

Published on by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

I listened to a great audio chat on spirituality.com Tuesday  (“What is True Manhood?” by David Stevens, CSB) that referred to the Adam and Eve story as the story of original good.

I love this idea because it shows the inherent goodness of man and woman.  Man and woman were created good, in God’s own image and likeness.  To me, the story of Adam and Eve describes the nature of the serpent – that which tries to entice our thought into believing we aren’t the spiritual, beloved children of God.  It might say that God isn’t our creator, so therefore God isn’t going to take care of us.

What a lie is this.  The entire burden of thinking we have to care for ourselves can be lifted off when we realize that God is our divine, loving parent, our Father-Mother.  It is God’s job to supply us with all that we need – to eat, to be clothed, to express our purpose, and even the proper functioning of our bodies.  And God does do this.

Mary Baker Eddy, a Christian healer and teacher (1821-1910), wrote, “Is civilization only a higher form of idolatry, that man should bow down to a flesh-brush, to flannels, to baths, diet, exercise, and air?”[i]

Jesus said, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”[ii]

This points us to God, the source of all goodness.  We are each the beloved child of God.  And abundant goodness, harmony, happiness, purpose and health are the rights of our being and existence.  And there isn’t a being or existence that doesn’t include these attributes, since God is the one and only creator.

All the good that God includes, we include, too, as His reflection.  We have this spiritually, within our relationship, our oneness to God.  When we try to obtain these things materially, we discover they aren’t lasting and are fleeting.

Keeping our eye on God, we cannot be enticed by the serpent (or suggestions in our consciousness).  We find original good and only good to be all there is and all that we can experience.

[i] Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 174

[ii] Holy Bible, King James Version, Matthew 6:31