Click to view Lifting your Eyes to the Hills: Psalm 121 Where are you looking these days? Upwards or downwards?
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Thirty-six years ago, I had surgery at VGH by Dr. Murray Morrison in a successful operation that allowed me to speak again and go back preaching after being off for a year. My GP thought that I would never preach again, and he would have been correct, except for having had this surgery on May 25th 1982. They cut the left laryngeal nerve of the left vocal chord, which stopped the adducting/shutting of that chord. As the right chord still overadducted/overshut, it balanced out. After my surgery, my voice was free of the spasms, but was initially much quieter and more breathy.
After careful research, prayer, and reflection, I went ahead with the botox treatment at VGH (Vancouver General Hospital). It took about 5 minutes! The botox treatment by Dr. Murray Morrison allowed a fine-tuning of the benefits of my previous 1982 surgery. The botox was injected into both laryngeal nerves, thereby loosening the vocal chord shutting (adducting) on both sides. When I told people that I had a botox treatment, some people assumed that I was worried about middle-age wrinkles! But in fact botox is primarily a medical therapy to deal with a range of dystonias, including vocal chord spasming.
I am so grateful to God for advances in modern medical science that help people like myself in such practical ways. I am so grateful to God for people like you reading this article, many of whom I know have been praying for me. I have had several people specifically pray: “Ed Hird will not be silenced”. I am very happy with this new medical step. It is so exciting to be able to speak freely without being cut off in mid-sentence. Thank God that prayer and medicine can be best friends.
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
When I was brutally attacked as a teenager by a gang member, I turned to martial arts in a secret desire for both self-defense and revenge. Fighting made me feel strong. I had no idea that prayer might turn out to be a more powerful weapon. Within a year, I came to know Jesus Christ on a personal basis, and lost the desire to get even. A few years later, I discovered that this bully had gone after someone larger than him who had kicked this bully’s teeth in and twisted a broken beer bottle in his face. Hearing that story taught me that violence always breeds violence. It was better to forgive because there is always ‘a faster gunfighter just waiting around the corner.’ Even with that realization, it still took me twenty years before I finally parted company with martial arts.
have changed, the big thing was that I had changed from the inside out. I developed a new love and concern for people that I used to avoid and even look down on. Instead of resenting life, I began to wake up looking forward to the next adventure that was ahead of me.
This hasn’t happened by accident. It is the fruit of forty years of weekly prayer by the North Shore clergy, first at Hillside Baptist, then at Valley Church, and now at Sutherland Church. By praying together on the second Wednesday of each month, God has been teaching the North Shore pastors how much we need each other. North Shore Clergy have been learning that they are too busy not to pray. By focusing on Jesus Christ, they have been rediscovering that we are on the same team. Denominations are second. Jesus is first.Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Newsweek, show that spouses who can pray together report greater degrees of marital satisfaction and greater sexual intimacy. One study showed that while up to 1 in 2 marriages break up, only 1 in 20 marriages break up where both of the couple regularly attend church. More significantly, the study showed that only 1 in 200 couples break up where both couples go to church regularly and pray together on a regular basis. It is encouraging to see research confirm the historic belief that “the family that prays together stays together.” Prayer, it seems, really changes things.Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Work as if you were to live 100 years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.” Many of us are very dedicated and enjoy our line of work despite its intermittent frustrations. On the North Shore where I live, many have put in numerous years of preparation for our life work, either at University or some other institute. As a result, we see ourselves as responsible hard-working citizens who pay our own way and earn our own bread.
as children either at home or public school to say “Give us today our daily bread.” The value of such a prayer is that it reminds us that receiving a gift is just as important as earning a reward. If we are very intelligent, it is ultimately a gift that we never earned. If we are very artistic, it is very much a gift.
A few years ago, the Associated Press released a study done by an agricultural school in Iowa. It reported that production of 100 bushels of corn from one acre of land in addition to the many hours of the farmer’s labour, required 4,000,000 pounds of water, 6,800 pounds of oxygen, 5,200 pounds of carbon, 160 pounds of nitrogen, 125 pounds of potassium, 75 pounds of yellow sulphur, and other elements too numerous to list, and, in addition to these things, which no human being can produce, rain and sunshine at the right time are critical. Human beings have no control over these things. It was estimated, the report said, that only 5% of the produce of a farm can be attributed to human efforts.Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.life is a gift
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