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Norman Cousins was diagnosed as having an incurable disease. He was bedridden & the doctors gave him no hope at all. So he decided on his own treatment. His family got a movie projector & rented all the Charlie Chaplin & Abbott & Costello movies that they could find - movies where you just sit back & laugh because they are genuinely funny.
He ran one movie after another, & the more he watched the more he laughed. The more he laughed, the better he felt. First thing you know, the doctors could find no evidence of the incurable disease.
Last week, on the editorial page of the Valley Morning Star, Paul Harvey stated that for the last 10 years Norman Cousins has been on the staff of the UCLA School of Medicine & is pioneering a new medical discipline: "pyschoneuro-immunology."
The article states, "Carefully controlled experiments conducted by Cousins & his associates demonstrate that you - just by controlling your mind set - can alter your temperature, your blood pressure & your blood chemistry in a matter of minutes."
It goes on to say, "There is now evidence that cancer patients - liberated from depression - can actually activate the anti-cancer capability of the immune system. ’The human body,’ contends Cousins, ’is far more robust than people have been led to believe. A strong will to live, along with the other positive emotions - faith, love, purpose, determination, humor - boosts disease-fighting immune cells.’"
So the proverb is true. If you’re joyful in your heart, then that is good medicine. But if you’re not joyful, if your spirit is broken, then it dries up your bones. You become old & tired, & a person no one wants to be around.
THE HEALING POWER OF LAUGHTER
Norman Cousins tells of being hospitalized with a rare, crippling disease. When he was diagnosed as incurable, Cousins checked out of the hospital. Aware of the harmful effects that negative emotions can have on the body, Cousins reasoned the reverse was true. So he borrowed a movie projector and prescribed his own treatment, consisting of Marx Brothers films and old "Candid Camera" reruns.
It didn’t take long for him to discover that 10 minutes of laughter provided two hours of pain free sleep. Amazingly, his debilitating disease was eventually reversed. After the account of his victory appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cousins received more than 3000 letters from appreciative physicians throughout the world.
(From a sermon by Donnie De Loney, 3 Facts About Attitude, 2/4/2010)
GRANDPA AND THE PEACH
"Four-year-old Jason was visiting his grandparents. Grandpa was in his study intently reading. Jason walked in carrying a peach, said something Grandpa didn't catch, and handed the peach to him.
"Thinking his wife had sent him a snack, Grandpa took it and ate it. Just as he swallowed the last bite, Jason, with lip quivering, said, 'But, Pap, I didn't want you to eat it. I just wanted you to get the worm out'"
(Edward K. Rowell & Leadership Journal, 1001 Quotes, Illustrations & Humorous Stories for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Baker Books: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1996, 1997), 435. From a sermon by Eric Lenhart, Seeds in the Good Soil, 8/13/2010)
COMFORTERS
When I Was Diagnosed With Cancer:
My first friend came and expressed his shock by saying,
"I can’t believe that you have cancer.
I always thought you were so active and healthy."
He left and I felt alienated and somehow very different.
My second friend came and brought me information
about different treatments being used for cancer. He said,
"Whatever you do, don’t take chemotherapy. It’s a poison!"
He left and I felt scared and confused.
My third friend came and tried to answer my "whys?"
with the statement,
"Perhaps God is disciplining you for some sin in your life?"
He left and I felt guilty.
My fourth friend came and told me,
"If your faith is just great enough God will heal you."
He left and I felt my faith must be inadequate.
My fifth friend came and told me to remember that,
"All things work together for good."
He left and I felt angry.
My sixth friend never came at all.
Sermon Central Staff
HOPE IS THE DREAM OF A SOUL
When a member of my congregation, 18-year-old Heidi, was thrown from a car back in May and suffered a head injury, it was a real miracle that she recovered and was soon in rehab at Crystus Santa Rosa. She was learning to walk again through rehab and therapy when a young 16-year-old girl named Ashley was brought to Crystus for rehab. She had suffered a similar injury in an accident and she wasn’t talking or walking.
When Heidi heard about Ashley’s condition, she asked her mother to wheel her in to Ashley’s room. They asked Ashley’s parents if Heidi could speak to her, and her parents stood watching as the wheeled Heidi to Ashley’s bedside. At her bedside, she stood up with every ounce of her own strength and then said to Ashley, "When I came here I wasn’t talking or walking either."
What Heidi did, I believe is give Ashley, and her parents hope! Heidi planted a seed of hope into their lives! Before long, Heidi and Ashley were making laps around the hallway together!
A saying, quoted as a French Proverb, is "Hope is the dream of a soul awake!"
(http://thinkexist.com/quotations/hope/2.html. From a sermon by Scott Bradford, Prophecy: A Root of Hope! 11/30/2010)
Sermon Central Staff
TO BE NEEDED
Stu Weber, in his book Tender Warrior, includes an article written by a woman. She writes:
One day the doorbell rang and there stood my beloved brother. It was a delightful surprise. His work as an executive of an international petroleum company keeps him out of the country most of the time, so his visits are rare, unexpected and usually really brief.
It seemed as if he'd just arrived when after an hour, he got up to say good-bye. I felt tears sliding down my cheeks. He asked why I was crying. Hesitating, I said, "Because I simply don't want you to go." He gave me a surprised look. He went to the phone and left a message for the pilot of his company's plane.
We had a wonderful forty-eight hours together. But I suffered a nagging feeling that my selfishness had caused him great inconvenience because I had told him I needed him.
Some time later my brother received an important award for his contributions to the oil industry. A reporter asked him at the time, "Is this the greatest honor that you've received?"
"No," he said, "my sister gave me my greatest honor the day she cried because she didn't want me to leave. That's the only time in my life anyone ever cried because they didn't want me to leave. It was then that I discovered the most precious gift one human being can ever bestow on another is to let him know he is really needed."
Many years ago I attended Kiwanis and I heard Brad Miller. Mr. Miller was the Assistant District Attorney for Bob Macy in OKC. He spoke about gangs. He believed the cause for gangs was not an absent father or wanting money in drugs. He believed the cause for gangs was the need for young men to be respected, valued, and important.
God made us needy. You need sleep. You need food. You need a friend. Seventy percent of Americans say they are lonely. Genesis 2 says that is not good.
(From a sermon by Ed Sasnett, Friends, 8/11/2011)
HUMOROUS DEFINITIONS
Definitions matter. Do you know what these words mean?
ABDICATE: To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
ADULT: A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle.
ANTIQUE: An item your grandparents bought, your parents got rid of, and you’re buying again.
AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tries to do.
BALDERDASH: A rapidly receding hairline.
BATHROOM: A room used by the entire family, believed by all except Mom to be self-cleaning.
COFFEE: A person who is coughed upon.
DERANGE: Where de buffalo roam.
EYEDROPPER: A clumsy ophthalmologist.
EXPERIENCE: The name men give to their mistakes.
FEEDBACK: The inevitable result when the baby doesn’t appreciate the strained carrots.
GROCERY LIST: What you spend half an hour writing, then forget to take with you to the store.
HINDSIGHT: What one experiences from changing too many diapers.
INDEPENDENT: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.
MISTY: How golfers create divots.
OVERSTUFFED RECLINER: Mom’s nickname for Dad.
OW: The first word spoken by children with older siblings.
POLYGON: A dead parrot.
RELIEF: What trees do in the spring.
SELFISH: What the owner of a seafood store does.
SHOW OFF: A child who is more talented than yours.
TOP BUNK: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman pajamas.
VEGETARIAN: Old Indian word for bad hunter.
(From a sermon by Steven Simala Grant, Faith, Hope and Love? Mother’s Day, 5/15/2012)
An angel appeared at a faculty meeting and told the dean that in return for his unselfish service, he will be rewarded with his choice of wealth, wisdom, or beauty. Without hesitating, the dean selects wisdom. "It is done!" the angel said, and then disappeared into a cloud of smoke. All of the other members of the faculty stared at the dean with amazement. Finally one of them whis...
Bill Hybels recalls a time when Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian was speaking for a leadership conference at Willow Creek Community Church. He writes about it like this… “Dr. Bilezikian said there’s life-changing fellowship in biblically functioning community. That was a far cry from the childhood experience of a lot of his audience! The only kind of fellowship that many of his listeners had witnessed revolved around the fifteen or twenty minutes after the service when the men would stand around the church patio and ask each other superficial questions.
‘So how’s it going at work Jake,’ one of them would ask.
‘Fine, Phil. Say, you driving a new pickup?’
‘Used,’ Phil would reply. ‘What do you have going this week?’
‘Not much.’
‘Well, great fellowshipping with you, Jake.’
‘Same here.’
That was about it. They’d (find their wives who) were having similar conversations, and go home until next week.
But the Bible says true fellowship has the power to revolutionize lives. Masks come off, conversations get deep, hearts get vulnerable, lives are shared, accountability is invited, and tenderness flows. People really do become like brothers and sisters. They shoulder each other’s burdens - and unfortunately, that’s something that few of the people in that audience had experienced while growing up in church.
In many churches it just didn’t seem legal to tell anyone you were having a problem. Families that sat in the same pew for years would suddenly disappear, because the husband and wife were in turmoil over marriage problems. Instead of coming to the church for help and prayer and support, they fled the other way, because they didn’t feel the freedom to say, ‘We love Jesus, but we’re not doing very well. Our lives feel like they’re unraveling. We need some help!’
The implicit understanding was that you shouldn’t have a problem, and if you did you’d better not talk about it around the church.
I learned that lesson well. When I got old enough to stand on the church patio after services, someone w...
