{"id":745,"date":"2009-03-06T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/open4life.wordpress.com\/?p=29"},"modified":"2009-03-06T01:00:48","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T09:00:48","slug":"the-universe-keeps-you-in-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/2009\/03\/06\/the-universe-keeps-you-in-check\/","title":{"rendered":"The Universe has a way to keep you in check."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know if my mind is shaping my Universe or if my Universe is shaping my mind. This has always been a source of debate amongst philosopher&#8217;s and theologians alike.<em><br \/><\/em><br \/><em><strong>Case in point: The Power of Prayer.<br \/><\/strong><\/em><br \/>I had a very challenging event one week last year.<\/p>\n<p>After watching a movie Sunday night, a Family member was wracked by severe pains. (9 out of 10 on the pain chart) This was so bad that any communication aside from tears was unlikely.<\/p>\n<p>I insisted on an ER visit and for once she listened. We were on our way within a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p>After many years of being away from this person I was (and still am) convinced that we have a long road yet to travel together. I admittedly felt betrayed by fate\/God, when the event began. I had doubt, and thought that the path that was chosen was playing with me or I was being tested or schooled for something I had done or some lesson I had failed to learn.<\/p>\n<p>In that moment I had to decide to let those thoughts go and focused on healing, happiness and love for this person.<\/p>\n<p>I admit it. I was worried, unsure and very sympathetic to the pain. With pain this bad I was sure that there had to be something major wrong. The possibility of surgery or worse ran though my mind. I &#8220;knew&#8221; <strong>I had no power here. <\/strong>My wishes were not enough. I did what most any concerned family member and christian would do. <strong>I prayed.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At first I prayed simply, for the doctors to not find any problem and for the pain to subside. I prayed silently and when alone I prayed aloud. But somehow I &#8220;knew&#8221; that<strong> I would be heard.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As usual My Universe always rings true as God is always listening. I received EXACTLY what I asked for. After many tests and hours at the ER, the doctor and staff could find no cause for the pain. They brought out the big guns for pain management <em>(morphine &#8211; can we say &#8220;loopy&#8221;) <\/em>and suggested a follow-up as soon as we could get our regular doctor on the phone.<\/p>\n<p>With the immediate fear of imminent danger to life lifted for the moment I began working on the follow-up. After sending my new patient to bed, I continued my regiment of prayer and good wishes as I attempted to get the doctor on the phone.<\/p>\n<p>Within a half hour I had spoken to a nurse who had the doctor on the line and made the appointment. The nurse was working on a specialist appointment as well. Within an hour we had the appointment with the specialist and were on our way in to see them.<\/p>\n<p>By this time my prayer had changed a bit. I wanted the pain to go away and the tests to be over, but I desperately desired to know what was causing this problem and how to prevent it from becoming a bigger issue.<\/p>\n<p>Again my God was listening and the Universe obeyed. The specialist was able to identify the problem with\u00a0 few additional tests. The problem, although painful to experience, was a functioning &#8220;housekeeping&#8221; process, ie. the body was repairing itself. The body was removing a foreign object from the system and would handle the cleanup. Within a few days, the doctor told us, the pain would subside as the body continued to repair itself. The specialist doctor recommended simple bed rest Motrin and a follow-up in a week or two.<\/p>\n<p>Later, with a few references from a friend and a call to a doctor friend of mine, I found that had this not happened, this object could have continued to grow and become a much larger problem that would have required surgery and so on.<\/p>\n<p>All that being said and done, when we got back to the car, I fell apart. I was just so grateful that the whole thing had turned out exactly as I had asked.<\/p>\n<p>In the end I was sincerely grateful and thanked God for the ending to this scenario, and ending it well.<\/p>\n<p>So here is the discussion point I was trying to get to in the first place. (but it takes me two days to tell a story)&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are these daily &#8220;miracles&#8221; a product of our prayers and wishes. Does God (or the PTB) watch out for us?<br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Are we actually shaping our world and reality in this way?<br \/><\/strong> OR<br \/><strong>Are we merely attributing the good <em>coincidental<\/em> results in our lives to these affirmations and prayers so that we can feel like we have some modicum of control and feel that something is watching over us?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Me? I used to have a large issue with giving control over to God and finding myself subject to the authority of another being. Now, <em><strong>I will take grace, power and faith<\/strong><\/em> over chance any day of the week.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think???<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thank you for reading and for comments&#8230;<br \/>&#8211; Be Yourself, Be Well, and Be Loved,<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know if my mind is shaping my Universe or if my Universe is shaping my mind. This has always been a source of debate amongst philosopher&#8217;s and theologians alike.Case in point: The Power of Prayer.I had a very challenging event one week last year. After watching a movie Sunday night, a Family member [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12,16,17],"tags":[8,11,13,14,15],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choice","category-life","category-philosophy","category-religion","tag-8","tag-hai","tag-linkedin","tag-meta","tag-myspace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/man-skilz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}