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Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit

Tag Archives: personal relationship


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Our first Deep Cove Crier article

Christmas for Families

By the Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird

Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News December, 1988

As a child, the most exciting time of year for me was Christmas time. Naturally presents decorated in beautiful green and red satin paper were what I looked forward to. My brother and I would carefully count the presents under the tree to see who had more! Obviously, we thought, the other person had more. And then! Christmas Day the biggest, most expensive present was the one we liked the best. Now, of course, I realize that it really is the thought that counts and not the price tag.

Decorating for Christmas was always a wonderful time in our house. First we would go buy a real tree at the tree lot, set it up in the window, and start decorating. Not only did we decorate the tree but my dad also put miniature lights around this huge mirror and set up the angels dancing around the candle chimes. My little brother’s eyes would glow when we turned off the normal lighting and just left the Christmas lights on in the living room. What a beautiful sight!

As a child, I loved the presents, the lights, the turkey, and the tinsels, but I couldn’t understand why my mom would try to spoil a good holiday by trying to drag me to church. To me, that was going a little far! As I grew older, the delight of Christmas faded bit by bit, year by year. I wondered what was wrong, and decided that the problem must be that my parents weren’t spending as much money on me as before In fact, my presents cost them far more than I would have imagined. Eventually I became cynical about Christmas and wrote it off as commercial exploitation.

At age 17, I met some friends who had a joy and inner peace that really attracted me to them, Christmas still excited them. I asked them: “Why?” They told me they were excited about a child in a manger. At age 17, I too came to know that child. I made a manger for Him in my heart. Once again Christmas stirred within me “Peace on Earth, Good will to Men” Once again I could sing “Joy to the World” and really mean it. Our Christmas prayer  is that all those reading this article feel the peace of that little baby lying in the manger.

          Merry Christmas!

The Rev. Dr. Ed and Janice Hird, BMus. (BSW, MDiv, DMin)

-award-winning author of the book Battle for the Soul of Canada

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”

12bdf6ff-3021-4e73-bccd-bc919398d1a0-7068-0000031133e7b4d9Sandy 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.

Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…

A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.

Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?

Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.

If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or  kindle.

-Click to check out our marriage book For Better For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship on Amazon. You can even read the first two chapters for free to see if the book speaks to you.

-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form.  Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.

In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook. It is also posted on Amazon UK (paperback and ebook), Amazon France (paperback and ebook), and Amazon Germany (paperback and ebook).

Restoring Health is also available online on Barnes and Noble in both paperback and Nook/ebook form.  Nook gives a sample of the book to read online.

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca 

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.


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Bill Good, Hockey, and the New Birth

 By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird 

 

Bill Good is undeniably one of the most, if not the most, popular Radio Talk Show hosts in BC.  I was privileged to be interviewed by Bill Good on CKNW*, and to find out what makes Bill tick.  What I have discovered is that one of the reasons Bill Good has a weekly listening audience of 256,000 people is that he listens deeply and very respectfully.

While waiting to be interviewed by Bill on the issue of Marriage and the Federal Government, I heard him passionately and extensively expound on the tragic demise of NHL Hockey.

When my turn came, I said the following to Bill: “I believe that Canada has two main core institutions.  One of those is hockey and the other one is marriage.  Hockey is in serious trouble.  Why dismantle our second core institution?”

Bill Good responded by saying: “ Now I am a serious hockey fan, but aren’t you minimizing the importance or the significance of this issue when you relate marriage to hockey?”

To which I responded:  “Not if you talk to my sons.  Quite frankly they are passionate. There is a passion about hockey that is greater than most people’s passion for marriage.  I am committed to marriage. Quite frankly our nation has lost the meaning and theology of marriage.  And the look-alike substitutions are crippling it.”

We chatted all over the map after that.  But I was eventually given an opportunity to talk about how Jesus affirmed the historic Jewish view of marriage.  Jesus, quoting from Genesis Chapter 2, said: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh”  Jesus then added his own insight by saying in Matthew 19:6: “What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.”

I then said to Bill Good: “I used to think that marriage was just a piece of paper. I was very secular. I skied on Sunday (mornings) on Mount Seymour.”

Bill Good’s openness and inquisitiveness was so remarkable that I am including a portion of the actual transcript in this article:

Bill Good: So you found religion?

Ed: Yes, I met Jesus on a personal basis, and when I met him, I started to read the Bible.  I had never read the bible before because I was a good Anglican.

Bill Good: How did you meet him? Were you skiing?

Ed:  I met him through High School.  I had friends who were happier than I was. They had joy, and I said to them: “Why are you smiling?”  They said: “Come watch a movie, and I realized that a relationship with Jesus Christ could fill me up.  So I took that chance and it made all the difference.

Bill Good:  Does that mean that you are born again?

Ed Hird:  Well, I was asked that question by (the TV Host) Laurier Lapierre: “Was I born again?” And I said: “What does that mean?” It means that you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  It’s the new birth.  It means that you’ve gone from death to life.  It means that you have said ‘yes’ to Jesus.  Yes, I’m born again.  It’s called the new birth. It’s a negative(…)People think it’s an American term.

Bill Good: No, I don’t. I don’t think that it’s a negative term.  And I’ve known other people who claim to be born again.  So I’m curious about what that process is, what it means.  I’m not negative about it.  I’m curious.

Ed: Well, all it means is you’re turning, as we say in baptism: turning from sin, from self-centeredness and turning to Christ, and making him your Lord.  You’re basically opening your heart.  He’s knocking at the door and you’re opening your heart.

Looking back on the interview, I am most grateful for the openness of Bill Good to allow me to share with his listening audience what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  He could have cut me off at any moment, and switched the subject.  My prayer for those reading this article is that all of us may show that same quality of deep listening and respect to one another particularly as we struggle with vital issues like hockey, marriage, and the new birth.

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin

-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book Battle for the Soul of Canada

P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”

12bdf6ff-3021-4e73-bccd-bc919398d1a0-7068-0000031133e7b4d9Sandy 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.

Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…

A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.

Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?

Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.

If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or  kindle.

-Click to check out our marriage book For Better For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship on Amazon. You can even read the first two chapters for free to see if the book speaks to you.

-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form.  Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.

In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook. It is also posted on Amazon UK (paperback and ebook), Amazon France (paperback and ebook), and Amazon Germany (paperback and ebook).

Restoring Health is also available online on Barnes and Noble in both paperback and Nook/ebook form.  Nook gives a sample of the book to read online.

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca 

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca


To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.


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T.G.I.F.

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

I vividly remember my father coming home from work on Fridays, and calling out ‘TGIF!!’  Often such announcements would be followed by our whole family going out to celebrate at Nat Bailey’s White Spot restaurant.  The White Spot, like A&W, used to be famous for its tradition of eating dinner in one’s car.  No self-respecting Vancouverite would dream of eating fish and chips anywhere else.

TGIF was also a pressure that I experienced as an older teenager: a pressure to make my Friday nights very exciting and sensational.  If I wasn’t experiencing an adrenaline rush on Friday night, I would feel guilty as if I had failed the invisible TGIF law of the universe.

More recently, I have discovered another meaning to TGIF. TGIF also means facing our fears, facing our anxieties, facing our grief.  Friday is a symbol of the ending of the week and also the ending of life.  Friday is both an ending and a new beginning, a dying and a potential rising.  Very few of us want to face our own personal mortality.  Yet our fears of dying are actually our fears of living.

TGIF also makes me think of the most important Friday in the year: Good Friday.  Thank God It’s (Good) Friday!  Many of us avoid Good Friday like the plague, because like a plague, Good Friday reminds us of death, of pain, and of our own personal mortality.  Sometimes we wonder: what in the world is Good about Good Friday?  What’s so good about someone going through the worst torture and most agonizing death ever invented?

Many of us are tempted to switch TGIF to TGIS: Thank God It’s Sunday (Easter Sunday in particular).  Everybody loves Easter: bunnies, chocolate, eggs, bonnets, lilies, flower crosses, and joyful singing.  Everybody loves victory and resurrection and new life.  No wonder every church is packed with visitors on Resurrection Sunday.  But very few of us love Good Friday.  Good Friday just seems too morbid, too deadly, too bloody.  It just seems too hard to say TGIF about Good Friday.

I remember as a boy when I first watched a movie about Good Friday.  I was struck by the hatred of the soldiers towards Jesus, the brutality that he endured, the whippings and the nails driven in his hands and feet.  It all seemed so unfair, so unnecessary.  What in the world was good about such a Good Friday?  I wanted to drag Jesus down from the cross and save him from his agony.  I knew that he had the power to call a legion of angels to save him.  Yet he didn’t.  I felt very disappointed in Jesus.  My other hero Superman always got away when the green Kryptonite was about to kill him.  But Jesus let me down and ‘wimped out’ by dying on me.  For years, Easter made no sense to me, because I thought it was about remembering a dead Jesus.  I had no idea that Jesus was alive and well, and just waiting to change my life.

As a teenager, I became convinced that there was no life after death, and that nothing awaited me but extinction and returning to dust.  I began to fear the power of death and the meaninglessness and emptiness of life.  I even began to secretly wonder if life itself was worth living.  TGIF began to lose its effect on me.

One day in Grade 12, I met some fellow students who seemed different: happier, more peaceful, more focused in their life.  They had a joy that seemed to bubble over.  I knew that whatever they had, I wanted it too.  So I asked them what made them ‘tick’.  They said with a smile that their secret was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  They told me that Jesus had broken the power of death on the Cross, that he had taken my sin and guilt on Good Friday, and rose to new life on Resurrection Sunday.  They told me that I could live forever if I would turn from my self-centeredness and let Jesus become the centre of my life.

I was hungry and curious.  So I ‘opened the door of my life’ and let Jesus come in.  It felt like rivers of liquid love filling me from the inside out.  I experienced joy in a whole new way.  I felt whole and peaceful in an unexpected way.  Most importantly, I lost my fear of death.  I knew that my life had meaning and purpose because of Jesus taking my place on Good Friday 2000 years ago.  TGIF!

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin

-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book Battle for the Soul of Canada

P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”

12bdf6ff-3021-4e73-bccd-bc919398d1a0-7068-0000031133e7b4d9Sandy 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.

Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…

A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.

Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?

Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.

If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or  kindle.

-Click to check out our marriage book For Better For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship on Amazon. You can even read the first two chapters for free to see if the book speaks to you.

-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form.  Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.

In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook. It is also posted on Amazon UK (paperback and ebook), Amazon France (paperback and ebook), and Amazon Germany (paperback and ebook).

Restoring Health is also available online on Barnes and Noble in both paperback and Nook/ebook form.  Nook gives a sample of the book to read online.

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca 

Indigo also offers the paperback and the Kobo ebook version.  You can also obtain it through ITunes as an IBook.

-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca 


To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.