"The 2008 Indians finished up the season at 81-81 and in third place in the AL Central, largely due to a substantial number of injuries that eventually led them to trade away C.C. Sabathia to the Brewers. While injuries were a significant problem, there were several positive aspects to the Indians' 2008 season, most notably the resurgence of Cliff Lee in the rotation, as well as the continued development of Jhonny Peralta and Kelly Shoppach, who saw much of the time at catcher in the absence of Victor Martinez. The outlook for 2009 is mixed, as the Indians need bounceback years from Travis Hafner and Martinez in order to be successful, but with how wide open the AL Central could be, they still do have a shot at taking the division, though a wildcard berth is probably out of the question as that looks to come from the AL East next year.
C Victor Martinez - Martinez saw action in only 73 games last year and put up a less-than-stellar line of .278/.337/.365 during that time. Martinez is supposedly healthy to begin the year, and should be able to return to form in 2009, assuming that he has no lasting ill-effects from the previous season. When healthy, Martinez is one of the top offensive catchers in the game, usually good for batting around .300 and hitting 20 home runs a season. He is still only 30 years old and probably has another 3-4 years before he starts to decline, so look for him to enjoy a solid offensive season in 2009. Defensively, he is below-average, and his throwing problems have been well-documented. The Indians need his bat to be effective in order for him to have any value to the team, as Kelly Shoppach is a far better defensive catcher who showed great improvement at the plate last year. Nevertheless, look for Martinez to get most of the time behind the dish this year, unless injury derails him again.
1B Ryan Garko - Garko has been the full-time 1B for the Indians for the last two seasons, and while he doesn't possess prototypical power skills, he is a slightly above-average offensive player. His OPS dipped to .750 in 2008, largely due to a 20 point drop in his BABIP from his career norms and also due to a drop in his HR/FB that should normalize in 2009. Look for an OPS around .800 for him in 2009 and going forward, as that looks to be right around where his career line should end up. Defensively, Garko has good hands, but doesn't have particularly good range. He'll help out his other infielders, but won't make a ton of plays otherwise. Garko is pretty much league-average across the board, which certainly is something that a lot of teams would like to have, and he will be a solid contributor to the Indians in 2009.
2B Asdrubal Cabrera - Cabrera's true value probably lies closer to his 2007 than his 2008, where his OPS dropped to .713 from .775. Cabrera's BABIP fell by 30 points in 2008, so look for some bounceback there, as well as for him to continue to show improved plate discipline, as he showed an improved walk rate last season. Power will probably never be a big part of Cabrera's game, but as long as he gets on base at a clip around .350, he should have plenty of value to Cleveland, who has plenty of big hitters in their lineup to drive him in. Defensively, Cabrera is a bit above average, with solid range and quick hands capable of turning the double play. Look for him to show an improved offensive game over 2008, but don't expect him to blossom into a feared hitter anytime soon.
3B Mark DeRosa - The departure of Casey Blake last season was supposed to open the door for highly-touted Andy Marte to become the third-baseman of the future for the Indians. With Marte's continued struggles, it now appears that the Indians will turn to DeRosa in order to solidify their infield for the upcoming season. DeRosa is coming off two very solid season with the Cubs, in particular his 2008, where he posted an OPS of .857. DeRosa's numbers are unlikely to be quite that good going forward, but look for him to post an OPS of around .800 in 2009, as his power numbers for last year were built on an HR/FB that was significantly above his career average. Defensively, is flexible and can see time at 2B as well as 3B, but he is a very capable 3B who has a solid arm and should provide stability for the Indians there in 2009.
SS Jhonny Peralta - After a tremendous first full season in 2005, Peralta regressed in 2006, but showed improvement over the next couple of years, finally getting back to being the player that the Indians thought they had when he first came up. He posted an OPS of .801 last year, hitting 23 home runs while batting .276. Peralta's game offensively relies mostly on his ability to generate extra-base hits, as strikeouts have always been a problem for him and will probably prevent him from consistently getting his average in the .280 range or above. Even so, his power still makes him a solid offensive player. Defensively, Peralta is pretty average, with solid range and a strong enough arm. Look for him to post an OPS of between .775-.825 next season, as he should settle into this range for the rest of his career.
LF Ben Francisco - 2008 was Francisco's first full year with the Indians, and he posted a solid line of .266/.332/.438 over the course of 447 ABs. What can you expect in 2009? Probably more of the same, with a little improvement. Francisco should hit between 14-18 home runs in a normal year and probably will post a bit higher batting average and OBP, but his ceiling looks to be as a player who posts an OPS of around .800 in a given year. Defensively, he has average speed but takes good lines towards balls, allowing him to get to a couple that he probably shouldn't. He did have 12 outfield assists last year, so his arm is certainly strong enough to help out as well. Francisco is another one of Cleveland's new generation of players, and look for him to contribute as a solid corner OF in 2009.
CF Grady Sizemore - Sizemore is a star and arguably the best centerfielder in the majors at this point. A typical Sizemore line at this point is .280/.370/.500. He combines great patience, the ability to drive the ball to the gaps, home run power, and speed into a package that is almost the prototypical centerfielder. Defensively, he is well above-average, with good range and an arm that is average. We can toss around plenty of superlatives, but Sizemore is a perennial All-Star who should win an MVP before the end of his career, assuming that his teams are competitive. Look for him to put up another superb 2009 and continue to show he is one of the premier players in the game.
RF Shin-Soo Choo - Choo took over in RF for the second half of 2009 and posted tremendous numbers, with a combined line of .309/.397/.549. Choo's BABIP has always been on the high side, so the .373 that he posted there isn't as shocking as you would initially think. What was a bit unusual was his spike in power, as his HR/FB was 16.1%, which he almost certainly will be unable to maintain in 2009. Look for a line in the .280/.370/.450 range, which would still be superb for him in his second year. Defensively, Choo has slightly below average range, partly due to some poor jumps that he can get on balls from time to time. His arm is adequate, though nothing particularly special. In any case, his offensive ability should be able to carry him, as he should be a valuable member of the Indians squad in 2009.
DH Travis Hafner - Hafner had about as bad of a season as you could possibly have in 2008, with the possible exception of Andruw Jones. He posted an OPS+ of 65 after being above 165 for 2004-2006, and was injured much of the season, playing in only 57 games. Hafner's 2007 numbers had shown some decline, as he hit only 24 home runs and batted .266, but this was partially due to a BABIP that was almost 30 points below his career average. His awful 2008 can be attributed mostly to injury, on the other hand. So what can you expect out of him in 2009? Assuming he is healthy, look for him to bounce back to a level slightly above his 2007 performance, perhaps in the 25-30 home run range while batting around .280. He still has a solid approach at the plate and should put up an OPS in the high-.800s when back in good health. If he turns out to still have health issues, look for the Indians to be aggressive in promoting Matt LaPorta, who could be the successor to Hafner if they decide he is not adequate defensively.
SP Cliff Lee - After what could be described as a disastrous 2007 season, Lee bounced back in 2008 to be one of the top starters in the American League, posting a 22-3 record with a 2.54 ERA en route to winning the AL Cy Young. While at first it might look like Lee has turned a corner, it is doubtful that he will repeat the success that he had in 2008, though he should still be a very solid ace for the Indians. Why the regression? For one, his HR/FB dropped to 5.1%, nearly half of what it has been over the course of his career. His BB/9 also dropped nearly in half, which he will most likely not be able to maintain, leading to a bit of slippage as well. In the end, look for him to post an ERA in the mid-3s with a K/9 of around 6-6.5. He's certainly going to be a very good top-end starter, but 2008 is most likely going to be a career year for Lee.
SP Fausto Carmona - Carmona had a subpar season in 2008 that was derailed by injury and failed to capitalize on the momentum of his 2007 season. He posted an ERA of 5.44, giving up 126 hits in 120 innings while striking out only 58. The drop in his K-rate and return of his control problems were the prime causes of his struggles, his phenomenal sinker still kept the ball in play and on the ground. Carmona's 2007 might turn out to be the best year he has, as his walk rate spiked up to 5.52 BB/9 last season, which is certainly a bad trend to keep in mind. Look for an ERA in the mid-4s this season from him as he looks to get back on the right path and hopefully avoid the troubles of last season.
SP Aaron Laffey - Laffey is another groundball pitcher for the Indians, who is a solid #3 starter for them. He posted an ERA of 4.23 in 93.2 innings last season while seeing a significant amount of time in AAA as well. Laffey's stuff is average, but he commands it well and keeps that ball down, which helps minimize the damage that hitters can do against him. He's never going to be an ace for a team, but he certainly can help out in the middle of a rotation. Look for him to continue to be a solid starter in 2009, posting an ERA in the mid-4s while eating innings for the Indians.
SP Jeremy Sowers - Sowers probably wasn't as bad as he looked in 2008, but he certainly isn't going to be a top-end starter either. He projects as a #4/5 guy with below-average stuff but solid command who can keep hitters off-balance. In 2008, he was 4-9 with a 5.58 ERA, giving up 141 hits in 121 innings while striking out 64. Sowers did have some trouble with the home run in 2008, giving up 18, which worked out to a rate of 1.34 per nine innings, which certainly isn't what you want from a starting pitcher. That number should trend downward a bit in 2009, as his HR/FB should come back to normal. In any case, look for him to post an ERA in the high-4s to low-5s and be a back-end starter for the Indians.
SP Anthony Reyes - Reyes came over from the Cardinals in the middle of 2008 and posted a combined record of 4-2 with a 2.56 ERA in 49 innings. In the long run, don't expect Reyes to be quite that good again. Reyes profiles as a pitcher who can eventually be a #3 starter, possibly a #2 if everything goes well for him. Reyes K/9 dipped to 4.59 in 2008, which is well below the range of 6-6.5 that he should sit in. 2009 should be a big year for his development, as he has a shot to make the Indians rotation out of spring training, though he will face competition from other starters, such as the recently-acquired Carl Pavano.
CL Kerry Wood - The Indians signed Wood to be their closer for 2009 after he had a very good 2008 for the Cubs finishing out games. He racked up 34 saves while posting a 3.26 ERA in 66 innings while striking out 84. This was the first time that Wood had pitched more than 50 innings in a season since 2005, so he obviously has some durability concerns that will continue to linger, simply because of his history. Still, when healthy, he has shown that he still possesses the great stuff that made him a dominant starter, and had good makeup for the closer's role. Health will always be something to monitor with Wood, but look for him to have a solid 2009 for the Indians if he continues to stay off the DL."
Monday, 7 May 2018
Saturday, 5 May 2018
Employee Retention - How to Keep Your Top Talent With the Right Mix of Programs
"The top question on the minds of HR Executives is how to keep employees engaged and morale high in these economic times as reported by HR Executive magazine in August 2010. Before then, there were several publications and white papers on the subject of retention of top talent who they expect to jump ship after the recession. Credible research from multiple sources and our experience working with clients indicate no one solution will work for all companies or industries, every company have its mix of programs that would lead to high employee engagement, job satisfaction and retain top performers.
The first part of this article will review some of the inputs required for enhancing employee engagement, job satisfaction and for retaining top talents. The second part of the article will reveal the ten top things to do that would retain your top talents.
In a recent published survey (Workers in the mood to jump ship), Peter Martin reported that, 71 per cent of workers were unhappy with their current jobs and only 29 per cent were happy. The Hay Group also found similar trends with 33 per cent of Australian employees looking to switch jobs, 22 per cent in Europe and 16 percent in the United States.
In a survey of 4,803 employees and 2,778 managers, a third of workers said they would likely look for new jobs in greener pastures as the economy improves. When asked what is motivating them to seek greener pastures, a third indicated that they were dissatisfied with their pay and quarter of them want better work / life balance and 27 per cent are looking for better opportunities to advance their career.
Another recent survey of employers found that replacing an employee would cost between 50 to 150 percent of an employee's salary.
These findings should obviously sound alarm bells to employers around the world. Companies that fail to take the necessary steps to implement effective engagement, recognition and retention programs during these tough economic times may be in for a mass exodus of their top talents.
Some of the clients of HR Assets Solutions Inc. a Toronto based human resources consulting asked this question as well. How to retain top performers after the recession ends. To address their fears and to provide creditable solution based on their industry specific experience the consulting company asked the question at the forum of ""Focus"" in April 2010. This generated several comments and solutions from around the world. These concerns were partly supported by evidence from The Conference Board report published in January 2010 that U.S. job satisfaction was at its lowest in two decades. This revelation from the U.S. job satisfaction survey was the first in a series of signs that led to significant downward trend in employee engagement and morale.
The May 2010 edition of the Harvard Business Review feature article ""How To Keep Your Top Talent"" by Jean Martin and Conrad Schmidt, identified six mistakes companies are doing in the management of their high potential employees.
Here are some of the solutions offered for increasing job satisfaction and retaining top talent as summarized from the HR Assets Solutions Inc. ""Focus"" forum and enquires:
How To Increase Job Satisfaction And Retain Top Talent After The Economy Bounce Back To The New Normal
Compensation stood high on the list of suggestions from industry experts outside the ""Focus"" forum. When asked what would retain every employee, the first thing every employer should do is to ensure that they are paying employees fairly and to ensure there is internal pay equity and transparency.
Don't over work or under work employees was another response add to the compensation response. Over working employees could lead to burnouts that may be irreparable for even top performers. When that happens, some employees would be doing only what is required to remain employed or resort to ""presenteeism"" on the job without being productive.
Although most companies are experiencing the effects of the recession, some HR thought leaders did not hesitate to ask for bonuses for high and average performers if they are adding to the bottom line. This they defended as a powerful motivation and retention tool in a recession when others are cutting back.
Provide promotion opportunities when available to high performers was another suggestion, however a note of caution was sounded not to promote high performers or stars to their level of incompetence. This being said, it means that not all employees require promotion into leadership positions or taking on greater responsibilities in other areas even with increase compensation.
Communicating regularly with employees about career advancement prospects available to them in the company was another important suggestion made. Other forums confirm the importance of regular communication to enhance employee engagement and retention in the long term. Communicating to employees the next steps in their career ladder or career paths was cited as one of the critical strategies for retention. It is therefore not surprising when the HR Executive magazine reported that sixty-three percent of respondents to their August 2010 survey ""said that, to boost employee retention over the next year, they plan to increase employee communication. That outpaced the common best practices such as training and development (55 percent)..."".
The design and maintenance of a credible performance appraisal system, which is tied to performance objectives of the company, will create a performance-based culture that attract and retain top performers. This can only happen when a company has great managers to facilitate employee performance. As widely acknowledged, employees usually leave bad managers not the company. Giving meaningful feedback on a regular basis with clear goals and expectations from a credible performance appraisal tool retains top performers in any environment.
Linking pay to performance is a great motivator and good way to retain talents and improve job satisfaction. However, this can only happen if the company has in place a performance management system that is integrated with its talent management and development process.
Providing an ""employee total value package"" that is comparable to that of the highest players in the industry is another great retention tool. The employee total value package may include competitive salary, bonus, leadership development program, career advancement opportunities (mentioned earlier) and planning tools, flexible work life balance programs, more paid vacation, well designed and implemented employee recognition programs. These are some of the things suggested to keep engagement and morale high and ultimately to retain top talent.
Having a ""welcoming culture"" or the ""right culture"" where employees are recognized for their contributions and supported to succeed through mentoring and coaching is one of the sure ways of retaining key employees. Recently a top employee who left a reputable company told us that her incompetent manager and the ""culture of fear"" and uncertainty around frequent company restructuring made her leave for a more welcoming environment. Building strong teams with shared purpose and viable goals helps with retention especially when employees see the workplace as their ""second home"".
Opportunities for work-life balance are another requirement that attract employees of all generations. The high levels of stress of the modern workplace where employees informally work around the clock especially in knowledge-based economics have made work life balance an important requirement for knowledge workers.
Employees don't just want to be doing their part to generate profits they are better engaged when they are involved in the decision-making process and are shown how they contribute to the big picture. This connection builds strong commitment to the short and long-term goals of the organization and logically leads to employee retention.
A well-designed and implemented leadership development pipeline that is transparent with tools for employees to manage their career through mentoring from senior leaders and managers is what most employees in the course of our practice told us they want to see. Paying particular attention to the needs of high performers and future leaders through a credible succession planning process is another sure way for a company to retain top performers for future leadership roles.
Rewards and recognition for exceptional performance using a well-designed program as describe in my article ""How to Design Rewards and Recognition Programs That Improve Employee Engagement and Retain Talent"", published in September 2010. These types of programs attract and retain top performers.
Finally empowering top performers by expanding on their scope of responsibilities with care and allowing those who can be trusted to make decision is a job satisfier.
Employee Engagement Is A Key Ingredient For Retention - How To Drive Up Employee Engagement
There are different definitions for the term ""employee engagement"". There are at least three general perspectives on employee engagement. Some even attempt to equate it to job satisfaction. Others see engagement as motivation and still others refer to it as the level of commitment to an organization. However, without the productivity component these definitions do not appear to describe the concept.
A review of the literature on engagement suggests that it is associated with job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. Employee engagement results are linked closely to four major outcomes: ""(1) improved employee mental health; (2) increased retention; (3) lowered absenteeism; and (4) improved performance"" (Canadian HR Reporter & WarrenShepell, 2006).
Gerard Seijts and Dan Crim (2006) in their article published in the Ivey Business Journal as ""What engages employees the most or, The Ten C's of employee engagement"" provided an in-depth description:
An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work.... Engaged employees care about the future of the company and are willing to invest the discretionary effort - exceeding duty's call to see that the organization succeeds.... [T]here is widespread agreement among academics and practitioners that engaged employees are those who are emotionally connected to the organization and cognitively vigilant.
Recent survey findings from the Gallup, a leading research firm indicates that highly engaged organizations have 2.6 times the earning per share growth rate of their lower performing competitors in the same industry. These findings among others provide a strong business case for driving up employee engagement index and to retaining top performers.
This leads to the premise, how then do we increase engagement in the short and long term. There are several things an organization can do to increase employee engagement. A good place to start is to try measuring engagement and benchmark scores against close peers.
In 2006, Canadian HR Reporter (published by Carswell) and WarrenShepell (now Shepell-fgi) published a major case study titled ""How Much and How Important?"" that identified nine dimensions that affect engagement positively and indicated ways to improve employee engagement. The nine dimensions they identified are clarity and feedback, connection to the big picture, empowerment, fair compensation, employee career development, health attachments, meaningful work, pleasant work environment and reasonable work demands. These nine dimensions are similar in many respects to the suggestions offered by the ""HR Forum"" contributors to HR Assets Solutions Inc.
A review of these findings suggests that to increase employee engagement, satisfaction and retention, organizations must do the following:
Provide employees with the opportunity to grow and develop in the organization
Give employees meaningful feedback regularly based on credible performance appraisal system administered by qualified managers.
Empower employees through rewards and recognition that is perceived as fair and equitable
Provide employees with information on how their jobs fit in with short and long term goals
Ten Top Ways To Retain Top Talent
After series of research and through successful application, HR Assets Solutions Inc. has been implementing these practices with clients:
Provide career advancement opportunities through integration of performance management, talent management and succession planning tools
Build a welcoming work environment that is stimulating, challenging, respectful and stress free to ensure your top talents or star hires operate in an environment where they are supported to succeed
Promote internal mobility for top performers, and assign roles based on aspirations and ability
Provide consistent recognition of performance in different forms using a well designed reward and recognition program linked to organizational objectives
Communicate regularly about employee programs, policies, opportunities for growth and job security
Provide differentiated but equitable and fair compensation and benefits
Help employees with career advancement through training, coaching and mentoring
Implement a well designed flexible work arrangements (and include telecommuting for knowledge workers) based on organizational needs
Provide non-financial incentives (perks)
Demonstrate to employees that their organization is financially stable with growth potential "
The first part of this article will review some of the inputs required for enhancing employee engagement, job satisfaction and for retaining top talents. The second part of the article will reveal the ten top things to do that would retain your top talents.
In a recent published survey (Workers in the mood to jump ship), Peter Martin reported that, 71 per cent of workers were unhappy with their current jobs and only 29 per cent were happy. The Hay Group also found similar trends with 33 per cent of Australian employees looking to switch jobs, 22 per cent in Europe and 16 percent in the United States.
In a survey of 4,803 employees and 2,778 managers, a third of workers said they would likely look for new jobs in greener pastures as the economy improves. When asked what is motivating them to seek greener pastures, a third indicated that they were dissatisfied with their pay and quarter of them want better work / life balance and 27 per cent are looking for better opportunities to advance their career.
Another recent survey of employers found that replacing an employee would cost between 50 to 150 percent of an employee's salary.
These findings should obviously sound alarm bells to employers around the world. Companies that fail to take the necessary steps to implement effective engagement, recognition and retention programs during these tough economic times may be in for a mass exodus of their top talents.
Some of the clients of HR Assets Solutions Inc. a Toronto based human resources consulting asked this question as well. How to retain top performers after the recession ends. To address their fears and to provide creditable solution based on their industry specific experience the consulting company asked the question at the forum of ""Focus"" in April 2010. This generated several comments and solutions from around the world. These concerns were partly supported by evidence from The Conference Board report published in January 2010 that U.S. job satisfaction was at its lowest in two decades. This revelation from the U.S. job satisfaction survey was the first in a series of signs that led to significant downward trend in employee engagement and morale.
The May 2010 edition of the Harvard Business Review feature article ""How To Keep Your Top Talent"" by Jean Martin and Conrad Schmidt, identified six mistakes companies are doing in the management of their high potential employees.
Here are some of the solutions offered for increasing job satisfaction and retaining top talent as summarized from the HR Assets Solutions Inc. ""Focus"" forum and enquires:
How To Increase Job Satisfaction And Retain Top Talent After The Economy Bounce Back To The New Normal
Compensation stood high on the list of suggestions from industry experts outside the ""Focus"" forum. When asked what would retain every employee, the first thing every employer should do is to ensure that they are paying employees fairly and to ensure there is internal pay equity and transparency.
Don't over work or under work employees was another response add to the compensation response. Over working employees could lead to burnouts that may be irreparable for even top performers. When that happens, some employees would be doing only what is required to remain employed or resort to ""presenteeism"" on the job without being productive.
Although most companies are experiencing the effects of the recession, some HR thought leaders did not hesitate to ask for bonuses for high and average performers if they are adding to the bottom line. This they defended as a powerful motivation and retention tool in a recession when others are cutting back.
Provide promotion opportunities when available to high performers was another suggestion, however a note of caution was sounded not to promote high performers or stars to their level of incompetence. This being said, it means that not all employees require promotion into leadership positions or taking on greater responsibilities in other areas even with increase compensation.
Communicating regularly with employees about career advancement prospects available to them in the company was another important suggestion made. Other forums confirm the importance of regular communication to enhance employee engagement and retention in the long term. Communicating to employees the next steps in their career ladder or career paths was cited as one of the critical strategies for retention. It is therefore not surprising when the HR Executive magazine reported that sixty-three percent of respondents to their August 2010 survey ""said that, to boost employee retention over the next year, they plan to increase employee communication. That outpaced the common best practices such as training and development (55 percent)..."".
The design and maintenance of a credible performance appraisal system, which is tied to performance objectives of the company, will create a performance-based culture that attract and retain top performers. This can only happen when a company has great managers to facilitate employee performance. As widely acknowledged, employees usually leave bad managers not the company. Giving meaningful feedback on a regular basis with clear goals and expectations from a credible performance appraisal tool retains top performers in any environment.
Linking pay to performance is a great motivator and good way to retain talents and improve job satisfaction. However, this can only happen if the company has in place a performance management system that is integrated with its talent management and development process.
Providing an ""employee total value package"" that is comparable to that of the highest players in the industry is another great retention tool. The employee total value package may include competitive salary, bonus, leadership development program, career advancement opportunities (mentioned earlier) and planning tools, flexible work life balance programs, more paid vacation, well designed and implemented employee recognition programs. These are some of the things suggested to keep engagement and morale high and ultimately to retain top talent.
Having a ""welcoming culture"" or the ""right culture"" where employees are recognized for their contributions and supported to succeed through mentoring and coaching is one of the sure ways of retaining key employees. Recently a top employee who left a reputable company told us that her incompetent manager and the ""culture of fear"" and uncertainty around frequent company restructuring made her leave for a more welcoming environment. Building strong teams with shared purpose and viable goals helps with retention especially when employees see the workplace as their ""second home"".
Opportunities for work-life balance are another requirement that attract employees of all generations. The high levels of stress of the modern workplace where employees informally work around the clock especially in knowledge-based economics have made work life balance an important requirement for knowledge workers.
Employees don't just want to be doing their part to generate profits they are better engaged when they are involved in the decision-making process and are shown how they contribute to the big picture. This connection builds strong commitment to the short and long-term goals of the organization and logically leads to employee retention.
A well-designed and implemented leadership development pipeline that is transparent with tools for employees to manage their career through mentoring from senior leaders and managers is what most employees in the course of our practice told us they want to see. Paying particular attention to the needs of high performers and future leaders through a credible succession planning process is another sure way for a company to retain top performers for future leadership roles.
Rewards and recognition for exceptional performance using a well-designed program as describe in my article ""How to Design Rewards and Recognition Programs That Improve Employee Engagement and Retain Talent"", published in September 2010. These types of programs attract and retain top performers.
Finally empowering top performers by expanding on their scope of responsibilities with care and allowing those who can be trusted to make decision is a job satisfier.
Employee Engagement Is A Key Ingredient For Retention - How To Drive Up Employee Engagement
There are different definitions for the term ""employee engagement"". There are at least three general perspectives on employee engagement. Some even attempt to equate it to job satisfaction. Others see engagement as motivation and still others refer to it as the level of commitment to an organization. However, without the productivity component these definitions do not appear to describe the concept.
A review of the literature on engagement suggests that it is associated with job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. Employee engagement results are linked closely to four major outcomes: ""(1) improved employee mental health; (2) increased retention; (3) lowered absenteeism; and (4) improved performance"" (Canadian HR Reporter & WarrenShepell, 2006).
Gerard Seijts and Dan Crim (2006) in their article published in the Ivey Business Journal as ""What engages employees the most or, The Ten C's of employee engagement"" provided an in-depth description:
An engaged employee is a person who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work.... Engaged employees care about the future of the company and are willing to invest the discretionary effort - exceeding duty's call to see that the organization succeeds.... [T]here is widespread agreement among academics and practitioners that engaged employees are those who are emotionally connected to the organization and cognitively vigilant.
Recent survey findings from the Gallup, a leading research firm indicates that highly engaged organizations have 2.6 times the earning per share growth rate of their lower performing competitors in the same industry. These findings among others provide a strong business case for driving up employee engagement index and to retaining top performers.
This leads to the premise, how then do we increase engagement in the short and long term. There are several things an organization can do to increase employee engagement. A good place to start is to try measuring engagement and benchmark scores against close peers.
In 2006, Canadian HR Reporter (published by Carswell) and WarrenShepell (now Shepell-fgi) published a major case study titled ""How Much and How Important?"" that identified nine dimensions that affect engagement positively and indicated ways to improve employee engagement. The nine dimensions they identified are clarity and feedback, connection to the big picture, empowerment, fair compensation, employee career development, health attachments, meaningful work, pleasant work environment and reasonable work demands. These nine dimensions are similar in many respects to the suggestions offered by the ""HR Forum"" contributors to HR Assets Solutions Inc.
A review of these findings suggests that to increase employee engagement, satisfaction and retention, organizations must do the following:
Provide employees with the opportunity to grow and develop in the organization
Give employees meaningful feedback regularly based on credible performance appraisal system administered by qualified managers.
Empower employees through rewards and recognition that is perceived as fair and equitable
Provide employees with information on how their jobs fit in with short and long term goals
Ten Top Ways To Retain Top Talent
After series of research and through successful application, HR Assets Solutions Inc. has been implementing these practices with clients:
Provide career advancement opportunities through integration of performance management, talent management and succession planning tools
Build a welcoming work environment that is stimulating, challenging, respectful and stress free to ensure your top talents or star hires operate in an environment where they are supported to succeed
Promote internal mobility for top performers, and assign roles based on aspirations and ability
Provide consistent recognition of performance in different forms using a well designed reward and recognition program linked to organizational objectives
Communicate regularly about employee programs, policies, opportunities for growth and job security
Provide differentiated but equitable and fair compensation and benefits
Help employees with career advancement through training, coaching and mentoring
Implement a well designed flexible work arrangements (and include telecommuting for knowledge workers) based on organizational needs
Provide non-financial incentives (perks)
Demonstrate to employees that their organization is financially stable with growth potential "
The Transforming Power of Bible Meditation
"The subject of Bible meditation and its powerful positive benefits, which largely has to do with the changing of our minds to God's Will, ways and purpose, is of utmost importance if we are going to experience and live in the blessings of God. So let us now take a look in God's Word, the Bible, and see who God says we are in Christ Jesus, what God says we are in Christ Jesus and what God says is ours in Christ Jesus.
There are so many Scriptures concerning these things but we will examine three of them along these lines and how to meditate upon them.
Meditation in the Word of God is vital to Christian growth and development. The Word of God admonishes us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:18, King James Version of the Bible) To grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we must feed upon the Word of God, getting an understanding of the Word and changing the way we think to line up with God's Word, and then put it into practice in our daily lives. There is no other way.
God's Holy Written Word, the Bible, is the greatest source of inspiration, motivation, information and truth that exist. It will give rest, peace, stability and refreshment to our weary souls and healing and health to our flesh if we read it daily and learn how to meditate in its precious promises. Yes, that is right, there is healing in the Word of God. (The Bible)
We should be feeding upon His Word, often. And through meditation we can feed upon His life-changing Word every moment of every day. You may not be able to read every moment of everyday. You have other things to do. You may not be able to study every moment. You may have other things to do. But you can meditate in His Word every moment of everyday, even while you do other things. If you can worry all the time (and you know that is possible), then you can meditate all the time, because worry is simply meditation upon fearful thoughts. Bible meditation is thinking based upon what God says, instead of what society says. God's Word admonishes us to meditate in His Word day and night. That means meditate all the time.
Meditation in God's Word, if properly taught and learned, can be done all the time. The Word of God can be going through your mind constantly and consistently, until it controls your thought life. When our minds are so filled and flooded with God's Eternal Word concerning how to live and walk as believers in Jesus Christ, that it controls what we think, the way we think and how we think, and so fills our imagination that we are absorbed in it and can see and picture ourselves saying His Words and doing His Words, we will live the God kind of life with little or no effort.
I know that many of us have yet to really understand what I am about to say, but I really encourage you to muse, ponder and think upon the following statement until it becomes alive in you, until the Blessed Holy Spirit is able to reveal and unveil its essence and reality to your heart, in your spirit:
God's Word is the place of His supernatural power. It is filled with God Himself because it is His Word. His Words are spiritual seeds of wisdom which when planted into the heart, through constant meditation and speaking, grows up in the every life and character of the person in and from the ground of whose heart it springs forth, and produces such as essence of Christ likeness that the believer literally is flooded with the very life and love of God and therefore walks in the power and glory of the presence of God, even in tangible ways.
Meditation in God's Word changes the way that we think, therefore the way that we speak, therefore the way that we act, therefore the way that we treat others, therefore the results and experiences that we have in this journey of life.
Let us look then, at three passages of Scriptures and learn how to meditate in them to feed upon the truth and be transformed by their life-giving essence.
The first Scripture is found in the Book of 2 Corinthians. Let us feast upon this verse of Scripture so that God's truth can come alive in us and thereby set us free from the past, releasing us to live anew in the present, with glorious hope and optimism for the future.
2 Corinthians 5:17-18
""Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all these things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.""
Let us now meditate upon these verses that the Holy Spirit may illumine them to our hearts, teaching our spirits and altering our thoughts to give us a new self-image of ourselves according to God's view of ourselves rather than the world's view of ourselves.
As we muse and ponder upon these two verses, let us not be in a hurry. The very first word in these verses stands out. It makes us wonder. It is the word, ""therefore"". As we think upon this word it becomes evident that we must go back up in this chapter and find out what the therefore is there for. So let us begin our reading from 2 Corinthians 5: 14-16.
""For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.""
Now this explains the therefore for us. Because of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, because of His great love for us, because of our response to His love, because we have made to decision to live for Jesus now, and because we made Him our Lord, therefore, we are now in Christ. Think upon that. We are in Christ. Say it softly to yourself: I am in Christ. I am in Him now. I am a part of Him, a part of His body, the church. I am a part of Him as the branch is a part of the Vine. He is the Vine and I am a branch in Him. Ponder this truth for a few minutes. Say it again and again to yourself: I am in Christ Jesus. I am no longer alone. I am in Him. He is in me. We are connected. We are in each other. I am in Christ and He is in me.
Now that we have seen and settled the matter, even as the Word has already settled it, that we are in Christ, let us look at who we are in Him. The verse goes on to say, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Oh my. Muse upon this. Say it, mutter it to yourself, I am in Christ Jesus. I am a new creature. I am new. Now think about the word new. You are new. Say that, I am new. Think about this. You have started life all over again. You are new. The old you is gone, gone, gone. You are new. Your past sins are gone. Your past failures are gone. Your past hurts and wounds are gone. They are gone. You are new. Say that again: I am new.
You can stop feeling guilty for sins you did in the past. That old you is dead and gone. You are new. New. What about the past hate you had for people who may have harmed you in the past? The, you, that was hurt is gone and with it, the hurt that they caused that old you and the hate that old you had for them as well. You are new. And the new creature (creation) that you have become is filled with life, the life of God. The life of God is the love of God for God is love. Therefore you are a new creation, a love creation, filled with God's love. This means you can love the people that the old you hated. You are new.
Look at that first statement in verse eighteen: And all these things are of God. All what things? All the new things that we have become in Christ. All these new things in the new creation are of God. This means that the new you and the new me has God's life and nature. Again, His nature is Love. So we are full of love, God's love. This brings to mind, Romans 5:5. God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. We are full of love. Say that: I am full of love, God's love. In Christ, I am a new creation, a new person, a love creation, a love person. As a love person, filled with God's love, I can love anybody. My Lord Jesus commands me to love everybody. His commandment to me is to love people as He loved me. So, in obedience to Him I choose to love everyone. I'm new and the new me does not want to hate anyone. The new me is a love me and the new me in Christ loves everyone.
One of the components of love is forgiveness. Therefore the new me in Christ does not hold a grudge. The new me loves, therefore the new me forgives all who try to hurt or offend me. Now whisper it to yourself over and over again until you hear it: I am a new person in Christ Jesus. I am a love person in Christ. I am a forgiving person in Christ Jesus. My past is gone and should be forgotten. My past failures are gone. The old me who was a failure is gone. The new me in Christ Jesus is not a failure. God made me new. I am new.
Now visualize yourself as new in Christ. See yourself brand new. See yourself as new love creation or person, who has no hurt, no unforgiveness, no failure. Can you see you as a new person, a loving person, a person who holds no grudges, a whole person, a clean person, a forgiving person? If you have trouble seeing yourself this way, then go back and repeat the above confessions until your mental view of yourself changes to match what God says about you. When His image of you becomes alive in your spirit and becomes a stronghold in your mind and thinking, it will transform your behavior.
You will begin to act like a new person, a love person, a forgiving person, a person whose sins are gone, a person who is in Christ, because that is who you now are. Feed on these truths until they become alive in you. Then believe and practice acting like you are a new person, a love person, a forgiving person in Christ, because this is who you, the real you, the new you, that you have become.
Let us meditate upon another passage from God's Word concerning who we are and what we have in Christ. Keep in mind that we are doing this so that we may change the way we think. In thinking different, we will speak different and act or live different. Our minds are must in the process of change. Our spirits are not the problem. Our spirits are reborn, born again, born from above, born in Christ Jesus. But if we don't change our minds to think as this new creature or new person that we have become, we will never be able to live in the newness of life. Therefore it is vital that we deal with our thought life, the way we think, about ourselves and even about other people.
Let us now meditate Ephesians 2:10
""For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.""
Let us look at this passage from the Amplified Bible before we begin to meditate upon it.
Ephesians 2:10 (Amplified Bible)
""For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].""
Oh my, this particular verse of Scripture is so filled with life, so full of good truths that we should take our time and muse upon it.
Firstly, we are God's workmanship, His own handiwork. We are recreated of God. We are born of Him. Oh wow. We are born of the Almighty God, the Creator of the universe. This reminds me of John 1.
John 1: 12-13
""But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.""
Say it: I am born of Almighty God. I am born of Him. I am His child. I am His creation, His recreation. Not only so, but I am His handiwork. As the potter makes the clay into a vessel of beauty and usefulness, even so God has recreated me and made me into a vessel of beauty and usefulness. Say it under your breath: I am born of God. I am born of God. I am His handiwork.
Notice again that we have been recreated in Christ Jesus. Say it aloud: I am in Christ Jesus. I am bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. I am connected to the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a branch in the Vine. I am in Christ Jesus now.
Now look at the next statement in this verse of Scripture: I am God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Wow. Muse with me upon this marvelous truth. We have been recreated in Christ for a purpose a Heavenly Purpose. And that purpose is to do good works, to do the works which God had set in our destiny from the foundation of the world. This means that we are not an accident. We are not here by happenstance. We are by God's Divine Design. We are recreated in Christ Jesus so that we may fulfill God's Will. The Amplified Bible says we are recreated in Christ Jesus so that we can live the good life, which God had predetermined for us. The good life. Say that to yourself five times: God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. Now say it aloud. I am recreated in Christ Jesus to live the good life.
What is the good life? Jesus said that He came so that we could have life and have it more abundantly. The Amplified Bible renders that phrase,
""I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows.)"" John 10:10b, Amplified Bible.
Repeat that to yourself: God wants me to have and enjoy life. I am supposed to enjoy life, the good life that He has predestined for me. The good life belongs to me. I am in Christ Jesus.
Wow. Just pause and think about this for a moment. God set some good things in your destiny before the foundation of the world. Before you were even conceived the first time, He had you on His Mind. You were in His thoughts before you were a thought in your parents, grandparents or even great grandparents minds. God made a wonderful, life-altering, beautiful plan for you to live the good life, to experience and enjoy life, abundant life, to the full, until it overflows. Then He made sure that you heard the Good News of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ so that you could receive Him, be born from above, recreated in Christ, and enabled by His Spirit to have and enjoy life, real life, God's kind of life.
So if I am not enjoying life, I am missing out on God's best for me. I am missing out on the fullness of His Will. What is the good life that He has predestined for me? It involves me experiencing the richness of His grace that He has provided for me in Christ. It involves all of the blessings that He has blessed me with, in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:3)
Now read through the entire Book of Ephesians at least three to four times and mark every verse that shows what you and I have inherited in Christ Jesus. These spiritual blessings, understood, received and experienced, helps us to enjoy that good life which Almighty God had predestined or set in our destiny from the foundation of the world. There are so many of these blessings which we have inherited in Christ, that it would take an entire book on its own to elaborate upon them all. But I believe you can see how awesome this particular verse of Scripture is. And I trust that you are getting a better understanding of meditating in God's Holy Word, how to do it and gain knowledge and wisdom, as well as the power His Word has to change the way you think, thereby change the way you talk and thereby change the way you live.
God has designed that we live the good life. Sickness is not a path of the good life, is it? Living in poverty is not what we would consider a good life either. Neither is living the good life, a life filled with misery, depression and regret, would we?
These are not a part of what God had envisioned for us, when He prepared the path to the good life for us. According to the Word of God, the good life is a life of healing, health, prosperity, well-being, love, peace and joy. This is what our Wonderful and Loving Heavenly Father has provided for us, His children. And, to top it off, we shall have the great pleasure and awesome delight of spending eternity in His very Presence. Oh glory to Almighty God our Father.
Let us look at and meditate one more verse from God's Word and practice meditating on it as to our standing in Christ Jesus. It is a familiar verse of Scripture. Yet I believe that as we meditate upon it we shall be enlightened and our thinking shall be changed even more and come in line with God.
Philippians 4:13
""I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.""
As we prepare to meditate, mutter this verse to yourself over and over, at the least, three to five times. Remember that muttering God's Word is one of the definitions of Bible Meditation. Now before we muse upon this powerful truth from God's Word, let us refer to the Amplified Bible's translation of Philippians 4:13.
Philippians 4:13 (Amplified Bible)
""I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].
Oh my beloved in Christ Jesus. Meditate upon this marvelous truth from God's Word and it will release you from fear, doubt and inferiority.
Firstly note and mutter the words, I can do. I can do. This reveals that I have the ability to do. This shows that I am able to do. This tells me that I am good for something. I have some worth and value. I can accomplish things that are noteworthy, wholesome and good. I can do. Away with thoughts of inefficiency and inability. Away with thoughts of fear and doubt, which try to tell me that if I attempt to do something, I would always fail. The devil is a liar. I am good for something. I have worth and value. I can do. I can do. I can do.
Now what can I do? I can do all things.
We must not just meditate upon the words all things because it is obvious that we cannot do all things. God never made us to do all things. He gifted us for various things, but not all things. So, keeping these words in line with the rest of the passage and indeed within the context of the entire Book of Philippians, where it is written, is a must.
Therefore, looking at the all things that this verse of Scripture is speaking of, from the context of the passage and the entire Book, it says I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. So, the all things that I can do are dependent upon the all things that Christ strengthens me to do. So my dependency to do the all things which Christ strengthens me to do should be upon the Christ Who strengthens me to do the things, for apart from and without Him I can do nothing. (John 5:5)
But for what purpose does Christ strengthen me? What, all things, does He strengthen me and thus empower me to do? From reading the verses before verse thirteen, I can see that He strengthens me to handle situations and circumstances in His wisdom and ability. I am empowered therefore to face challenges and win. I need not fear challenges for they are opportunities in disguise. These situations which I face moves me to look to Him Who strengthens me, to show me what to do, how to do it, when to do it, where to do it, who to talk to and find favor with, who not to trust, and take an impartation of His power ability and energy to remedy the situation or withstand the storm.
I therefore know that no matter the challenge, I am a victor in Christ Jesus, for He is enabling me to meet it and defeat it as more than a conqueror, to His glory. Praise the Lord.
When reading the entire Book of Philippians and therefore seeing Philippians 4:13 from the entire Book perspective, I can see that the apostle Paul was speaking of his standing before Almighty God as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was saying that he was enabled by Christ to carry out his calling and purpose from God, going through every difficulty, conquering every situation and staying focus upon what God called him to do.
Seeing that this is what the Blessed Holy Spirit was saying through the apostle Paul in this verse of Scripture, I then understand that He is letting me know that I, likewise have a call from God, a purpose for what I have been chosen, a path which I am supposed to take. And God is letting me know that this path has its share of challenges, its obstacles, its times of temptations and snares, set by the adversary, to try to turn me away from my call and break my focus from the path He has given me to walk.
God is not hiding anything from me. He is letting me know that when and as I submit to His Call upon my life, I must not think that it will all come easy, with no setbacks, with no giants to challenge me. But He is also letting me know that through Christ, I can defeat each giant, weather each storm and conquer every obstacle and fulfill His Will for my life and finish my course with joy.
How can I do this? What do I have at my disposal? Some of these giants I face can sometimes look pretty big. But I can conquer them through Christ which strengthens me. Through Christ. Meditate upon these seemingly simple, but yet powerful words with me. Through Christ. The reason I can overcome each obstacle is because of these two words, through Christ.
I am not alone. I am never alone. Christ is with me. He has promised that He will never leave me, nor forsake me. (Hebrews 13:5) He has promised that as I fulfill God's Will for my life, He will be with me to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20) So, I am never alone. I am not facing my challenges alone. I am not in the situation alone. I have Somebody with me. I have Somebody in me. And greater is He Who is in me, than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)
In Jesus Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So I have at my disposal all of the wisdom and knowledge I will ever need to deal with the storms of life that come my way. I can handle them, because He is with me, giving me of His wisdom and empowerment to be the master of each challenge. Therefore these obstacles are really opportunities in disguise, for leaning upon the Greater One, I overcome each one and God gets the glory. (Praise the Lord)
How am I overcoming each challenge? Through Christ which strengthens me. But what does the word Christ mean? According to James Strong's Concordance of the Bible, Christ comes from the Greek word, Christos. It means, The Anointed One. So Jesus is the Anointed One. And I am thus enabled to do all I am supposed to do, to God's glory, through drawing my strength from His Anointing, which is His power to be effective and get results.
As you can see, through meditating upon this passage from God's Word, we can, by the enlightenment of the Blessed Holy Spirit, go on and on and on and understand more and more. It is loaded with revelation.
But we must stop here and move on with our lessons on how to grow and develop spiritually for there are several more keys we must examine, a few more areas that we must discuss.
It was my goal, as we mused upon these three passages of Scriptures from God's Word, to show you, in a more practical way how meditation in the Word is done, so that you may personally avail yourself to it and thereby be blessed by its various benefits, one of which is changing the way you think, therefore altering the way you speak and the manner in which you behave, and therefore, changing the experiences that you have, to enjoy the fruit of the life God has provided for you and I in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."
There are so many Scriptures concerning these things but we will examine three of them along these lines and how to meditate upon them.
Meditation in the Word of God is vital to Christian growth and development. The Word of God admonishes us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 3:18, King James Version of the Bible) To grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we must feed upon the Word of God, getting an understanding of the Word and changing the way we think to line up with God's Word, and then put it into practice in our daily lives. There is no other way.
God's Holy Written Word, the Bible, is the greatest source of inspiration, motivation, information and truth that exist. It will give rest, peace, stability and refreshment to our weary souls and healing and health to our flesh if we read it daily and learn how to meditate in its precious promises. Yes, that is right, there is healing in the Word of God. (The Bible)
We should be feeding upon His Word, often. And through meditation we can feed upon His life-changing Word every moment of every day. You may not be able to read every moment of everyday. You have other things to do. You may not be able to study every moment. You may have other things to do. But you can meditate in His Word every moment of everyday, even while you do other things. If you can worry all the time (and you know that is possible), then you can meditate all the time, because worry is simply meditation upon fearful thoughts. Bible meditation is thinking based upon what God says, instead of what society says. God's Word admonishes us to meditate in His Word day and night. That means meditate all the time.
Meditation in God's Word, if properly taught and learned, can be done all the time. The Word of God can be going through your mind constantly and consistently, until it controls your thought life. When our minds are so filled and flooded with God's Eternal Word concerning how to live and walk as believers in Jesus Christ, that it controls what we think, the way we think and how we think, and so fills our imagination that we are absorbed in it and can see and picture ourselves saying His Words and doing His Words, we will live the God kind of life with little or no effort.
I know that many of us have yet to really understand what I am about to say, but I really encourage you to muse, ponder and think upon the following statement until it becomes alive in you, until the Blessed Holy Spirit is able to reveal and unveil its essence and reality to your heart, in your spirit:
God's Word is the place of His supernatural power. It is filled with God Himself because it is His Word. His Words are spiritual seeds of wisdom which when planted into the heart, through constant meditation and speaking, grows up in the every life and character of the person in and from the ground of whose heart it springs forth, and produces such as essence of Christ likeness that the believer literally is flooded with the very life and love of God and therefore walks in the power and glory of the presence of God, even in tangible ways.
Meditation in God's Word changes the way that we think, therefore the way that we speak, therefore the way that we act, therefore the way that we treat others, therefore the results and experiences that we have in this journey of life.
Let us look then, at three passages of Scriptures and learn how to meditate in them to feed upon the truth and be transformed by their life-giving essence.
The first Scripture is found in the Book of 2 Corinthians. Let us feast upon this verse of Scripture so that God's truth can come alive in us and thereby set us free from the past, releasing us to live anew in the present, with glorious hope and optimism for the future.
2 Corinthians 5:17-18
""Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all these things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.""
Let us now meditate upon these verses that the Holy Spirit may illumine them to our hearts, teaching our spirits and altering our thoughts to give us a new self-image of ourselves according to God's view of ourselves rather than the world's view of ourselves.
As we muse and ponder upon these two verses, let us not be in a hurry. The very first word in these verses stands out. It makes us wonder. It is the word, ""therefore"". As we think upon this word it becomes evident that we must go back up in this chapter and find out what the therefore is there for. So let us begin our reading from 2 Corinthians 5: 14-16.
""For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.""
Now this explains the therefore for us. Because of what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, because of His great love for us, because of our response to His love, because we have made to decision to live for Jesus now, and because we made Him our Lord, therefore, we are now in Christ. Think upon that. We are in Christ. Say it softly to yourself: I am in Christ. I am in Him now. I am a part of Him, a part of His body, the church. I am a part of Him as the branch is a part of the Vine. He is the Vine and I am a branch in Him. Ponder this truth for a few minutes. Say it again and again to yourself: I am in Christ Jesus. I am no longer alone. I am in Him. He is in me. We are connected. We are in each other. I am in Christ and He is in me.
Now that we have seen and settled the matter, even as the Word has already settled it, that we are in Christ, let us look at who we are in Him. The verse goes on to say, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Oh my. Muse upon this. Say it, mutter it to yourself, I am in Christ Jesus. I am a new creature. I am new. Now think about the word new. You are new. Say that, I am new. Think about this. You have started life all over again. You are new. The old you is gone, gone, gone. You are new. Your past sins are gone. Your past failures are gone. Your past hurts and wounds are gone. They are gone. You are new. Say that again: I am new.
You can stop feeling guilty for sins you did in the past. That old you is dead and gone. You are new. New. What about the past hate you had for people who may have harmed you in the past? The, you, that was hurt is gone and with it, the hurt that they caused that old you and the hate that old you had for them as well. You are new. And the new creature (creation) that you have become is filled with life, the life of God. The life of God is the love of God for God is love. Therefore you are a new creation, a love creation, filled with God's love. This means you can love the people that the old you hated. You are new.
Look at that first statement in verse eighteen: And all these things are of God. All what things? All the new things that we have become in Christ. All these new things in the new creation are of God. This means that the new you and the new me has God's life and nature. Again, His nature is Love. So we are full of love, God's love. This brings to mind, Romans 5:5. God's love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. We are full of love. Say that: I am full of love, God's love. In Christ, I am a new creation, a new person, a love creation, a love person. As a love person, filled with God's love, I can love anybody. My Lord Jesus commands me to love everybody. His commandment to me is to love people as He loved me. So, in obedience to Him I choose to love everyone. I'm new and the new me does not want to hate anyone. The new me is a love me and the new me in Christ loves everyone.
One of the components of love is forgiveness. Therefore the new me in Christ does not hold a grudge. The new me loves, therefore the new me forgives all who try to hurt or offend me. Now whisper it to yourself over and over again until you hear it: I am a new person in Christ Jesus. I am a love person in Christ. I am a forgiving person in Christ Jesus. My past is gone and should be forgotten. My past failures are gone. The old me who was a failure is gone. The new me in Christ Jesus is not a failure. God made me new. I am new.
Now visualize yourself as new in Christ. See yourself brand new. See yourself as new love creation or person, who has no hurt, no unforgiveness, no failure. Can you see you as a new person, a loving person, a person who holds no grudges, a whole person, a clean person, a forgiving person? If you have trouble seeing yourself this way, then go back and repeat the above confessions until your mental view of yourself changes to match what God says about you. When His image of you becomes alive in your spirit and becomes a stronghold in your mind and thinking, it will transform your behavior.
You will begin to act like a new person, a love person, a forgiving person, a person whose sins are gone, a person who is in Christ, because that is who you now are. Feed on these truths until they become alive in you. Then believe and practice acting like you are a new person, a love person, a forgiving person in Christ, because this is who you, the real you, the new you, that you have become.
Let us meditate upon another passage from God's Word concerning who we are and what we have in Christ. Keep in mind that we are doing this so that we may change the way we think. In thinking different, we will speak different and act or live different. Our minds are must in the process of change. Our spirits are not the problem. Our spirits are reborn, born again, born from above, born in Christ Jesus. But if we don't change our minds to think as this new creature or new person that we have become, we will never be able to live in the newness of life. Therefore it is vital that we deal with our thought life, the way we think, about ourselves and even about other people.
Let us now meditate Ephesians 2:10
""For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.""
Let us look at this passage from the Amplified Bible before we begin to meditate upon it.
Ephesians 2:10 (Amplified Bible)
""For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].""
Oh my, this particular verse of Scripture is so filled with life, so full of good truths that we should take our time and muse upon it.
Firstly, we are God's workmanship, His own handiwork. We are recreated of God. We are born of Him. Oh wow. We are born of the Almighty God, the Creator of the universe. This reminds me of John 1.
John 1: 12-13
""But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.""
Say it: I am born of Almighty God. I am born of Him. I am His child. I am His creation, His recreation. Not only so, but I am His handiwork. As the potter makes the clay into a vessel of beauty and usefulness, even so God has recreated me and made me into a vessel of beauty and usefulness. Say it under your breath: I am born of God. I am born of God. I am His handiwork.
Notice again that we have been recreated in Christ Jesus. Say it aloud: I am in Christ Jesus. I am bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. I am connected to the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a branch in the Vine. I am in Christ Jesus now.
Now look at the next statement in this verse of Scripture: I am God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Wow. Muse with me upon this marvelous truth. We have been recreated in Christ for a purpose a Heavenly Purpose. And that purpose is to do good works, to do the works which God had set in our destiny from the foundation of the world. This means that we are not an accident. We are not here by happenstance. We are by God's Divine Design. We are recreated in Christ Jesus so that we may fulfill God's Will. The Amplified Bible says we are recreated in Christ Jesus so that we can live the good life, which God had predetermined for us. The good life. Say that to yourself five times: God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. God recreated me in Christ Jesus to live the good life. Now say it aloud. I am recreated in Christ Jesus to live the good life.
What is the good life? Jesus said that He came so that we could have life and have it more abundantly. The Amplified Bible renders that phrase,
""I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows.)"" John 10:10b, Amplified Bible.
Repeat that to yourself: God wants me to have and enjoy life. I am supposed to enjoy life, the good life that He has predestined for me. The good life belongs to me. I am in Christ Jesus.
Wow. Just pause and think about this for a moment. God set some good things in your destiny before the foundation of the world. Before you were even conceived the first time, He had you on His Mind. You were in His thoughts before you were a thought in your parents, grandparents or even great grandparents minds. God made a wonderful, life-altering, beautiful plan for you to live the good life, to experience and enjoy life, abundant life, to the full, until it overflows. Then He made sure that you heard the Good News of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ so that you could receive Him, be born from above, recreated in Christ, and enabled by His Spirit to have and enjoy life, real life, God's kind of life.
So if I am not enjoying life, I am missing out on God's best for me. I am missing out on the fullness of His Will. What is the good life that He has predestined for me? It involves me experiencing the richness of His grace that He has provided for me in Christ. It involves all of the blessings that He has blessed me with, in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:3)
Now read through the entire Book of Ephesians at least three to four times and mark every verse that shows what you and I have inherited in Christ Jesus. These spiritual blessings, understood, received and experienced, helps us to enjoy that good life which Almighty God had predestined or set in our destiny from the foundation of the world. There are so many of these blessings which we have inherited in Christ, that it would take an entire book on its own to elaborate upon them all. But I believe you can see how awesome this particular verse of Scripture is. And I trust that you are getting a better understanding of meditating in God's Holy Word, how to do it and gain knowledge and wisdom, as well as the power His Word has to change the way you think, thereby change the way you talk and thereby change the way you live.
God has designed that we live the good life. Sickness is not a path of the good life, is it? Living in poverty is not what we would consider a good life either. Neither is living the good life, a life filled with misery, depression and regret, would we?
These are not a part of what God had envisioned for us, when He prepared the path to the good life for us. According to the Word of God, the good life is a life of healing, health, prosperity, well-being, love, peace and joy. This is what our Wonderful and Loving Heavenly Father has provided for us, His children. And, to top it off, we shall have the great pleasure and awesome delight of spending eternity in His very Presence. Oh glory to Almighty God our Father.
Let us look at and meditate one more verse from God's Word and practice meditating on it as to our standing in Christ Jesus. It is a familiar verse of Scripture. Yet I believe that as we meditate upon it we shall be enlightened and our thinking shall be changed even more and come in line with God.
Philippians 4:13
""I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.""
As we prepare to meditate, mutter this verse to yourself over and over, at the least, three to five times. Remember that muttering God's Word is one of the definitions of Bible Meditation. Now before we muse upon this powerful truth from God's Word, let us refer to the Amplified Bible's translation of Philippians 4:13.
Philippians 4:13 (Amplified Bible)
""I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].
Oh my beloved in Christ Jesus. Meditate upon this marvelous truth from God's Word and it will release you from fear, doubt and inferiority.
Firstly note and mutter the words, I can do. I can do. This reveals that I have the ability to do. This shows that I am able to do. This tells me that I am good for something. I have some worth and value. I can accomplish things that are noteworthy, wholesome and good. I can do. Away with thoughts of inefficiency and inability. Away with thoughts of fear and doubt, which try to tell me that if I attempt to do something, I would always fail. The devil is a liar. I am good for something. I have worth and value. I can do. I can do. I can do.
Now what can I do? I can do all things.
We must not just meditate upon the words all things because it is obvious that we cannot do all things. God never made us to do all things. He gifted us for various things, but not all things. So, keeping these words in line with the rest of the passage and indeed within the context of the entire Book of Philippians, where it is written, is a must.
Therefore, looking at the all things that this verse of Scripture is speaking of, from the context of the passage and the entire Book, it says I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. So, the all things that I can do are dependent upon the all things that Christ strengthens me to do. So my dependency to do the all things which Christ strengthens me to do should be upon the Christ Who strengthens me to do the things, for apart from and without Him I can do nothing. (John 5:5)
But for what purpose does Christ strengthen me? What, all things, does He strengthen me and thus empower me to do? From reading the verses before verse thirteen, I can see that He strengthens me to handle situations and circumstances in His wisdom and ability. I am empowered therefore to face challenges and win. I need not fear challenges for they are opportunities in disguise. These situations which I face moves me to look to Him Who strengthens me, to show me what to do, how to do it, when to do it, where to do it, who to talk to and find favor with, who not to trust, and take an impartation of His power ability and energy to remedy the situation or withstand the storm.
I therefore know that no matter the challenge, I am a victor in Christ Jesus, for He is enabling me to meet it and defeat it as more than a conqueror, to His glory. Praise the Lord.
When reading the entire Book of Philippians and therefore seeing Philippians 4:13 from the entire Book perspective, I can see that the apostle Paul was speaking of his standing before Almighty God as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was saying that he was enabled by Christ to carry out his calling and purpose from God, going through every difficulty, conquering every situation and staying focus upon what God called him to do.
Seeing that this is what the Blessed Holy Spirit was saying through the apostle Paul in this verse of Scripture, I then understand that He is letting me know that I, likewise have a call from God, a purpose for what I have been chosen, a path which I am supposed to take. And God is letting me know that this path has its share of challenges, its obstacles, its times of temptations and snares, set by the adversary, to try to turn me away from my call and break my focus from the path He has given me to walk.
God is not hiding anything from me. He is letting me know that when and as I submit to His Call upon my life, I must not think that it will all come easy, with no setbacks, with no giants to challenge me. But He is also letting me know that through Christ, I can defeat each giant, weather each storm and conquer every obstacle and fulfill His Will for my life and finish my course with joy.
How can I do this? What do I have at my disposal? Some of these giants I face can sometimes look pretty big. But I can conquer them through Christ which strengthens me. Through Christ. Meditate upon these seemingly simple, but yet powerful words with me. Through Christ. The reason I can overcome each obstacle is because of these two words, through Christ.
I am not alone. I am never alone. Christ is with me. He has promised that He will never leave me, nor forsake me. (Hebrews 13:5) He has promised that as I fulfill God's Will for my life, He will be with me to the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20) So, I am never alone. I am not facing my challenges alone. I am not in the situation alone. I have Somebody with me. I have Somebody in me. And greater is He Who is in me, than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)
In Jesus Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So I have at my disposal all of the wisdom and knowledge I will ever need to deal with the storms of life that come my way. I can handle them, because He is with me, giving me of His wisdom and empowerment to be the master of each challenge. Therefore these obstacles are really opportunities in disguise, for leaning upon the Greater One, I overcome each one and God gets the glory. (Praise the Lord)
How am I overcoming each challenge? Through Christ which strengthens me. But what does the word Christ mean? According to James Strong's Concordance of the Bible, Christ comes from the Greek word, Christos. It means, The Anointed One. So Jesus is the Anointed One. And I am thus enabled to do all I am supposed to do, to God's glory, through drawing my strength from His Anointing, which is His power to be effective and get results.
As you can see, through meditating upon this passage from God's Word, we can, by the enlightenment of the Blessed Holy Spirit, go on and on and on and understand more and more. It is loaded with revelation.
But we must stop here and move on with our lessons on how to grow and develop spiritually for there are several more keys we must examine, a few more areas that we must discuss.
It was my goal, as we mused upon these three passages of Scriptures from God's Word, to show you, in a more practical way how meditation in the Word is done, so that you may personally avail yourself to it and thereby be blessed by its various benefits, one of which is changing the way you think, therefore altering the way you speak and the manner in which you behave, and therefore, changing the experiences that you have, to enjoy the fruit of the life God has provided for you and I in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Growing Your Own Survival First Aid Kit
"There are a number of herbs, roots and trees that are very useful for various ailments. Having your own supply of certain medicinal herbs can heal you, and even save your life.
Cayenne Pepper
The first herb I will discuss is cayenne pepper. Did you know that cayenne is easy to grow, and can be made into a tincture? Tinctures can preserve the herb and extend the shelf life and potency for several years. If you made tinctures of your home grown cayenne you would be able to have a handy source to store in your herbal first aid kit. Cayenne is one of the most important and versatile herbs. It is good for the circulatory system, digestion, and helps clot wounds, and can stop bleeding internally and externally. It can even stop a heart attack in progress. The famous herbal doctors of the early 1900's used cayenne to treat heart patients, and even treat a heart attack. The heart needs nourishment and cayenne provides these nutrients for the heart.
The recommended dose for someone having a heart attack is to take one tsp. of powdered cayenne and mix it into a cup of hot water and drink this mixture every 15 minutes until the attack subsides, and medical treatment becomes available. The tincture can also be used in hot water the same way. It would be wise to carry cayenne capsules or tincture where ever you go in case someone has a heart attack. Always be prepared.
Comfrey
Comfrey is a cell proliferator and speeds healing. It is easy to grow, just plant in a well-watered spot in the sun. Soon you will see the large fuzzy leaves start to come up. You can pick the leaves directly and wrap on a sprain, cut or wound. I like to make tinctures out of the root, which I then make into oils and lotions. Comfrey root is very useful when made into a cream by mixing and warming, olive oil, and coconut oil together, then adding some of the tincture. Keep mixing because it likes to separate. Only warm to the melting point. Cool then store in small glass jar. It can then be applied to rashes, bites, and any kind of skin irritation. It heals skin better than anything I have seen including prescription crèmes. It would be well suited for burns also.
Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera is that wonderful cactus looking plant that can be grown in your garden or a pot on your porch. It is perfect to have on hand for burns, sunburn, bruises, bug bites, and anything that burns or irritates the skin. Just cut off one of the long fleshy leaves, wash it, cut it right down the center and scoop out the gel and put it directly on the irritated skin. Aloe can be applied anywhere on the body. It is very soothing for delicate tissues. It has anti-bacterial properties so will also work on wounds. This is one plant to always have on hand.
Ginger Root
Ginger root is one of my favorite healing roots. You can get big plump organic ginger root from Hawaii at a good health food store. Take the root and break it into pieces and plant the sections that look like they have one or two bumpy nodes on them. It will then shoot up green leaves and the roots will grow into bigger clumps. This will ensure you will have your own continual supply of ginger. Ginger is good for stomach issues. If you suffer from nausea, gas, or bloating, ginger tea is a soothing remedy that works pretty quickly. Take a piece of root about the size of half of your thumb and cut off the tough skin. Then cut it up into pieces and simmer it in water for about 15 minutes. Strain the tea into a cup and add honey or stevia, and drink it down... your stomach woes will improve in a very short time. It can also be simmered in orange juice for a cold remedy. Ginger is an anti-inflammatory root. It is good for combating any kind of inflammatory disorder, which means it is good for your heart, arteries, arthritis, etc. This is a very important item to have as part of your survival remedies.
Garlic
Garlic is one of the most valuable and versatile foods on the planet. Garlic belongs to the Allium family of vegetables which also includes onions, chives, shallots and leeks. Today garlic is a widely recognized health enhancing supplement. Garlic promotes the well-being of the heart and immune systems with antioxidant properties and helps maintain healthy blood circulation. One of garlic's most potent health benefits includes the ability to enhance the body's immune cell activity. The active component in garlic is the sulfur compound called allicin. Allicin is the chemical produced when garlic is chopped, chewed, or bruised. Allicin is quite powerful as an antibiotic and a potent agent that helps the body to inhibit the ability of germs to grow and reproduce. In fact, it's said that 1 milligram of allicin has a potency of 15 standard units of penicillin. There are now over 12 studies published around the world that confirm that garlic can reduce cholesterol. Garlic is known to stimulate T-lymphocyte and macrophage action, promote interleukin-1 levels, and support natural killer cells. Strong activity of these key cells promotes healthy immune system function, and strengthens the body's defenses.
Garlic has germanium in it. Germanium is an anti-cancer agent, and garlic has more of it than any other herb. In lab tests, mice fed garlic showed no cancer development, whereas mice that weren't fed garlic showed at least some. In fact, garlic has been shown to retard tumor growth in human subjects in some parts of the world. Another benefit of garlic is it helps regulate the body's blood pressure. So whether you have problems with low or high blood pressure, garlic can help equalize it. Garlic helps strengthen your body's defenses against allergies; helps loosen plaque from the artery walls; helps regulate your blood sugar levels; and is the best choice for killing and expelling parasites such as pin worms from the human body. In addition to all these health benefits, garlic is packed with vitamins and nutrients. Which include protein, potassium, Vitamins A, B, B2 and C, Calcium, and Zinc and many others. Be aware that Garlic and onions are toxic to cats and dogs. Garlic can thin the blood similar to the effect of aspirin. Drinking lemon juice or eating a few slices of lemon will stop bad garlic breath.
Garlic for your Health
Today, we know garlic is a perfect herb for creating and maintaining overall health, but it also has many lesser known, but powerful qualities. For example, many people don't know that it's a naturally powerful antibiotic. This natural antibiotic is effective against toxic bacteria, viruses, and fungus. It's available in pills, capsules, liquid and actual raw cloves, garlic is one of the most popular herbs around. Garlic helps platelet stickiness or aggregation to help reduce blood coagulation, and promote heart health. The antioxidant properties of garlic help scavenge harmful free radicals, which can damage LDL {bad} cholesterol in the blood stream. Garlic also promotes increased bile production to help reduce levels of fat in the liver. Garlic pills also help ward off coughs and colds.
Garlic and Your Heart
The positive effect of garlic on your circulatory system is extremely well documented and it has been proved to:
Lower blood pressure, Decrease platelet aggregation, Lower serum triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol (the bad type) levels, Increase serum HDL-cholesterol (the good type) and fibrinolysis (the process through which the body breaks up blood clots.) Plus it stimulates the production of nitric oxide in the lining of blood vessel walls, a substance that helps them to relax. As a result of these beneficial actions garlic helps to prevent arteriosclerosis and thereby reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke. Two or three cloves a day have cut the risk of subsequent heart attacks in half in heart patients. One reason for these beneficial effects may be garlic's ability to reduce the amount of free radicals in the bloodstream. Its positive effect on the circulatory system improves blood flow throughout the body so has the ability for higher male libido and can help with E.D.
Garlic and Cancer
Current research has shown that a number of readily available foods such as garlic and onions that make up a healthy diet, actually have a major impact on cancer prevention. The protective effect of garlic seems to be greater than that of onions, even though eating onions has been shown to reduce the risk of stomach cancer. These cancer fighting foods seem to have the ability to interfere with the development of cancerous tumors.
This remarkable bulb now tops the American National Cancer Institute's list of potential cancer-preventative foods. It contains multiple anticancer compounds and antioxidants, more than 30 at the last count, which such powerful compounds as quercetin, diallyl sulphide, allin and ajoene. These have the ability to block cancer causing agents such as nitrosamine and aflatoxin which have been specifically linked to stomach, lung, and liver cancer. Garlic's ajoene and allicin have also been shown to retard cancer cells as a type of natural chemotherapy. Garlic has been used to help prevent colon cancer when eaten frequently in your weekly diet.
If you burn or over cook meat it can produce carcinogenic (cancer producing) chemicals and research has recently discovered that when meat is cooked with garlic this effect is limited. The ten best groups of anti-cancer foods include: berries and citrus fruits, cruciferous vegetables, garlic and onions, green tea, omega 3 essential fatty acids, olive oil, tomatoes, soy products, red wine and dark chocolate.
Garlic for your immune system
Not surprisingly the presence of all these antioxidants in garlic have a very positive effect on the immune system in general and can therefore protect the body against all types of bacterial and viral attacks. Research has recently even shown it to have an inhibiting effect on MSRA which is currently reeking such havoc in U.K. hospitals.
Garlic also acts as a good cold medication, decongestant and expectorant. It is a surprisingly good source of vitamins C, B6 and the minerals selenium and manganese all of which have long been associated with immune system boosting as well as other benefits.
Garlic-Promotes Weight Control
Allicin is the most potent substance found in garlic and this has been shown to not only lower blood pressure insulin and triglyceride levels in laboratory animals fed a sugar rich diet, but also to prevent weight gain.
A study published in the American Journal of Hypertension reported that animals who developed high insulin levels, high blood pressure, and high triglycerides were given either allicin or served as a control. Although all of the animals consumed the same amount of food, weight rose only in the control group whereas the animals who were being supplemented with allicin maintained stable weight or a slight decrease was actually noticed. The researchers concluded that allicin may be of practical value for weight control.
Garlic Home Remedies
Garlic is an invaluable medicine for asthma, hoarseness, coughs, difficulty of breathing, and most other disorders of the lungs, being of particular virtue in chronic bronchitis, on account of its powers of promoting expectoration.
An older remedy for asthma, that was most popular, is a syrup of Garlic, made by boiling the garlic bulbs till soft and adding an equal quantity of vinegar to the water in which they have been boiled, and then sugared and boiled down to a syrup. The syrup is then poured over the boiled garlic bulbs, which have been allowed to dry meanwhile, and kept in a jar. Each morning a bulb or two should be taken, with a spoonful of the syrup.
For ear infections: Wrap a small piece of garlic in some tissue, and insert it into the ear. Leave it there overnight if possible. Pain is almost immediately removed and the infection tends to start clearing up overnight.
For scratchy throats: Put a small slice of garlic in your mouth and suck on it for 10-15 minutes. You can put it between your teeth and cheek or chew it up it little if you can stand it, get the juice from the garlic slice. This juice slides down your throat and removes the pain. Garlic can heal the pain caused by insect bites. The juice of fresh garlic mixed with salt can be applied to bruises, sprains and ringworms. At the first sign of a cold, chop up 4 cloves of raw garlic and eat or use it as a garnish in soups etc.
You can cut raw garlic and rub the cut edge on the tooth and gums a couple of times a day to stop toothache. Take fresh garlic cloves and crush them, apply to warts until they disappear. Crush a clove or two onto a dessert spoon then add olive oil and down the hatch. You get the benefits of raw garlic with none of the breath issues. Garlic to clear sinuses. Melt some butter and add minced garlic cloves, spread on toast and eat. Garlic for herpes. Take a garlic clove and cut in half. Eat one half and take the other half and rub into the affected areas (may sting a little). Adding lysine to your daily vitamins is a great amino acid that the body does not produce but it needs, and its for skin regeneration and tissue damage. This can actually slow down and prevent an outbreak just as effective as Valtrex which is very costly.
Use raw garlic juice on rashes and bug bites, it stops the itching immediately. 8 to 10 of garlic juice mixed with 2 TBLS of honey four times a day cures a persistent cough. Garlic for tonsillitis, Peel a clove of garlic and cut them in half lengthwise. Boil for a couple of minutes in about 1.5 cup water and add a pinch of salt, teaspoon of butter, a pinch of pepper and sprinkle with nutmeg. Cut a garlic clove into small pieces. Swallow them all in one go with a little water to cure bloating, stomach cramps and constipation. 10 drops of garlic juice with 2 teaspoon of honey cures asthma.
Moringa Tree
Now I will tell you about one of the most amazing trees I have heard of. The Moringa Tree is native to Northern India. It has been known there in eastern medicine to have over 300 healing properties in the leaves. Ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilizations used the pleasant tasting seeds for making perfume and protecting their skin. For thousands of years, this amazing tree has slowly spread to other tropical lands, going west to the horn of Africa and east to the Philippines. Today the seeds have been carried by hand to many countries around the world.
Moringa is one of the most health enhancing plants that has ever been discovered. It can be grown in the warmer areas of the United States, or indoors in the colder areas, so you can have your own bountiful supply of the leaves, flowers, and pods each having their own medicinal properties. Here is a list of some of the amazing uses from the moringa tree: water purification, leaf juice as antibiotic, poultice for skin heals cuts, scrapes, sores, and rashes, builds immune system, dried leaves heal gastric ulcers, leaves can lower blood sugar levels, leaves promote relaxation and sleep, leaves have a stabilizing effect on blood pressure, and can treat anxiety.
Leaves are used as a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, colitis, used as diuretic, for gonorrhea, for poultice used on glandular swelling, for skin antiseptic, leaves are used in India to treat fevers, bronchitis, eye and ear infections, scurvy and inflammation of mucus membranes, also used to kill intestinal worms, it can increase woman's milk production, flowers can cure inflammations, muscle diseases, tumors, and enlargement of the spleen CAUTION: DO NOT USE FLOWERS IF PREGNANT!
Flowers for eye wash, treat hysteria DO NOT USE IF PREGNANT!
There are uses for the roots, but at this time these remedies need more research for internal use. They help people in third world countries, grow food and fight malnutrition... Moringa leaves are full of vitamins and amino acids. It would be beneficial to have dried leaves on hand in a survival situation to keep healthy. The leaves can be eaten fresh, or dried and made into a powder which can be put into capsules.
Those are some great starters for your herbal first aid collection, and all are pretty easy to obtain."
Cayenne Pepper
The first herb I will discuss is cayenne pepper. Did you know that cayenne is easy to grow, and can be made into a tincture? Tinctures can preserve the herb and extend the shelf life and potency for several years. If you made tinctures of your home grown cayenne you would be able to have a handy source to store in your herbal first aid kit. Cayenne is one of the most important and versatile herbs. It is good for the circulatory system, digestion, and helps clot wounds, and can stop bleeding internally and externally. It can even stop a heart attack in progress. The famous herbal doctors of the early 1900's used cayenne to treat heart patients, and even treat a heart attack. The heart needs nourishment and cayenne provides these nutrients for the heart.
The recommended dose for someone having a heart attack is to take one tsp. of powdered cayenne and mix it into a cup of hot water and drink this mixture every 15 minutes until the attack subsides, and medical treatment becomes available. The tincture can also be used in hot water the same way. It would be wise to carry cayenne capsules or tincture where ever you go in case someone has a heart attack. Always be prepared.
Comfrey
Comfrey is a cell proliferator and speeds healing. It is easy to grow, just plant in a well-watered spot in the sun. Soon you will see the large fuzzy leaves start to come up. You can pick the leaves directly and wrap on a sprain, cut or wound. I like to make tinctures out of the root, which I then make into oils and lotions. Comfrey root is very useful when made into a cream by mixing and warming, olive oil, and coconut oil together, then adding some of the tincture. Keep mixing because it likes to separate. Only warm to the melting point. Cool then store in small glass jar. It can then be applied to rashes, bites, and any kind of skin irritation. It heals skin better than anything I have seen including prescription crèmes. It would be well suited for burns also.
Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera is that wonderful cactus looking plant that can be grown in your garden or a pot on your porch. It is perfect to have on hand for burns, sunburn, bruises, bug bites, and anything that burns or irritates the skin. Just cut off one of the long fleshy leaves, wash it, cut it right down the center and scoop out the gel and put it directly on the irritated skin. Aloe can be applied anywhere on the body. It is very soothing for delicate tissues. It has anti-bacterial properties so will also work on wounds. This is one plant to always have on hand.
Ginger Root
Ginger root is one of my favorite healing roots. You can get big plump organic ginger root from Hawaii at a good health food store. Take the root and break it into pieces and plant the sections that look like they have one or two bumpy nodes on them. It will then shoot up green leaves and the roots will grow into bigger clumps. This will ensure you will have your own continual supply of ginger. Ginger is good for stomach issues. If you suffer from nausea, gas, or bloating, ginger tea is a soothing remedy that works pretty quickly. Take a piece of root about the size of half of your thumb and cut off the tough skin. Then cut it up into pieces and simmer it in water for about 15 minutes. Strain the tea into a cup and add honey or stevia, and drink it down... your stomach woes will improve in a very short time. It can also be simmered in orange juice for a cold remedy. Ginger is an anti-inflammatory root. It is good for combating any kind of inflammatory disorder, which means it is good for your heart, arteries, arthritis, etc. This is a very important item to have as part of your survival remedies.
Garlic
Garlic is one of the most valuable and versatile foods on the planet. Garlic belongs to the Allium family of vegetables which also includes onions, chives, shallots and leeks. Today garlic is a widely recognized health enhancing supplement. Garlic promotes the well-being of the heart and immune systems with antioxidant properties and helps maintain healthy blood circulation. One of garlic's most potent health benefits includes the ability to enhance the body's immune cell activity. The active component in garlic is the sulfur compound called allicin. Allicin is the chemical produced when garlic is chopped, chewed, or bruised. Allicin is quite powerful as an antibiotic and a potent agent that helps the body to inhibit the ability of germs to grow and reproduce. In fact, it's said that 1 milligram of allicin has a potency of 15 standard units of penicillin. There are now over 12 studies published around the world that confirm that garlic can reduce cholesterol. Garlic is known to stimulate T-lymphocyte and macrophage action, promote interleukin-1 levels, and support natural killer cells. Strong activity of these key cells promotes healthy immune system function, and strengthens the body's defenses.
Garlic has germanium in it. Germanium is an anti-cancer agent, and garlic has more of it than any other herb. In lab tests, mice fed garlic showed no cancer development, whereas mice that weren't fed garlic showed at least some. In fact, garlic has been shown to retard tumor growth in human subjects in some parts of the world. Another benefit of garlic is it helps regulate the body's blood pressure. So whether you have problems with low or high blood pressure, garlic can help equalize it. Garlic helps strengthen your body's defenses against allergies; helps loosen plaque from the artery walls; helps regulate your blood sugar levels; and is the best choice for killing and expelling parasites such as pin worms from the human body. In addition to all these health benefits, garlic is packed with vitamins and nutrients. Which include protein, potassium, Vitamins A, B, B2 and C, Calcium, and Zinc and many others. Be aware that Garlic and onions are toxic to cats and dogs. Garlic can thin the blood similar to the effect of aspirin. Drinking lemon juice or eating a few slices of lemon will stop bad garlic breath.
Garlic for your Health
Today, we know garlic is a perfect herb for creating and maintaining overall health, but it also has many lesser known, but powerful qualities. For example, many people don't know that it's a naturally powerful antibiotic. This natural antibiotic is effective against toxic bacteria, viruses, and fungus. It's available in pills, capsules, liquid and actual raw cloves, garlic is one of the most popular herbs around. Garlic helps platelet stickiness or aggregation to help reduce blood coagulation, and promote heart health. The antioxidant properties of garlic help scavenge harmful free radicals, which can damage LDL {bad} cholesterol in the blood stream. Garlic also promotes increased bile production to help reduce levels of fat in the liver. Garlic pills also help ward off coughs and colds.
Garlic and Your Heart
The positive effect of garlic on your circulatory system is extremely well documented and it has been proved to:
Lower blood pressure, Decrease platelet aggregation, Lower serum triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol (the bad type) levels, Increase serum HDL-cholesterol (the good type) and fibrinolysis (the process through which the body breaks up blood clots.) Plus it stimulates the production of nitric oxide in the lining of blood vessel walls, a substance that helps them to relax. As a result of these beneficial actions garlic helps to prevent arteriosclerosis and thereby reduces the risk of heart attack or stroke. Two or three cloves a day have cut the risk of subsequent heart attacks in half in heart patients. One reason for these beneficial effects may be garlic's ability to reduce the amount of free radicals in the bloodstream. Its positive effect on the circulatory system improves blood flow throughout the body so has the ability for higher male libido and can help with E.D.
Garlic and Cancer
Current research has shown that a number of readily available foods such as garlic and onions that make up a healthy diet, actually have a major impact on cancer prevention. The protective effect of garlic seems to be greater than that of onions, even though eating onions has been shown to reduce the risk of stomach cancer. These cancer fighting foods seem to have the ability to interfere with the development of cancerous tumors.
This remarkable bulb now tops the American National Cancer Institute's list of potential cancer-preventative foods. It contains multiple anticancer compounds and antioxidants, more than 30 at the last count, which such powerful compounds as quercetin, diallyl sulphide, allin and ajoene. These have the ability to block cancer causing agents such as nitrosamine and aflatoxin which have been specifically linked to stomach, lung, and liver cancer. Garlic's ajoene and allicin have also been shown to retard cancer cells as a type of natural chemotherapy. Garlic has been used to help prevent colon cancer when eaten frequently in your weekly diet.
If you burn or over cook meat it can produce carcinogenic (cancer producing) chemicals and research has recently discovered that when meat is cooked with garlic this effect is limited. The ten best groups of anti-cancer foods include: berries and citrus fruits, cruciferous vegetables, garlic and onions, green tea, omega 3 essential fatty acids, olive oil, tomatoes, soy products, red wine and dark chocolate.
Garlic for your immune system
Not surprisingly the presence of all these antioxidants in garlic have a very positive effect on the immune system in general and can therefore protect the body against all types of bacterial and viral attacks. Research has recently even shown it to have an inhibiting effect on MSRA which is currently reeking such havoc in U.K. hospitals.
Garlic also acts as a good cold medication, decongestant and expectorant. It is a surprisingly good source of vitamins C, B6 and the minerals selenium and manganese all of which have long been associated with immune system boosting as well as other benefits.
Garlic-Promotes Weight Control
Allicin is the most potent substance found in garlic and this has been shown to not only lower blood pressure insulin and triglyceride levels in laboratory animals fed a sugar rich diet, but also to prevent weight gain.
A study published in the American Journal of Hypertension reported that animals who developed high insulin levels, high blood pressure, and high triglycerides were given either allicin or served as a control. Although all of the animals consumed the same amount of food, weight rose only in the control group whereas the animals who were being supplemented with allicin maintained stable weight or a slight decrease was actually noticed. The researchers concluded that allicin may be of practical value for weight control.
Garlic Home Remedies
Garlic is an invaluable medicine for asthma, hoarseness, coughs, difficulty of breathing, and most other disorders of the lungs, being of particular virtue in chronic bronchitis, on account of its powers of promoting expectoration.
An older remedy for asthma, that was most popular, is a syrup of Garlic, made by boiling the garlic bulbs till soft and adding an equal quantity of vinegar to the water in which they have been boiled, and then sugared and boiled down to a syrup. The syrup is then poured over the boiled garlic bulbs, which have been allowed to dry meanwhile, and kept in a jar. Each morning a bulb or two should be taken, with a spoonful of the syrup.
For ear infections: Wrap a small piece of garlic in some tissue, and insert it into the ear. Leave it there overnight if possible. Pain is almost immediately removed and the infection tends to start clearing up overnight.
For scratchy throats: Put a small slice of garlic in your mouth and suck on it for 10-15 minutes. You can put it between your teeth and cheek or chew it up it little if you can stand it, get the juice from the garlic slice. This juice slides down your throat and removes the pain. Garlic can heal the pain caused by insect bites. The juice of fresh garlic mixed with salt can be applied to bruises, sprains and ringworms. At the first sign of a cold, chop up 4 cloves of raw garlic and eat or use it as a garnish in soups etc.
You can cut raw garlic and rub the cut edge on the tooth and gums a couple of times a day to stop toothache. Take fresh garlic cloves and crush them, apply to warts until they disappear. Crush a clove or two onto a dessert spoon then add olive oil and down the hatch. You get the benefits of raw garlic with none of the breath issues. Garlic to clear sinuses. Melt some butter and add minced garlic cloves, spread on toast and eat. Garlic for herpes. Take a garlic clove and cut in half. Eat one half and take the other half and rub into the affected areas (may sting a little). Adding lysine to your daily vitamins is a great amino acid that the body does not produce but it needs, and its for skin regeneration and tissue damage. This can actually slow down and prevent an outbreak just as effective as Valtrex which is very costly.
Use raw garlic juice on rashes and bug bites, it stops the itching immediately. 8 to 10 of garlic juice mixed with 2 TBLS of honey four times a day cures a persistent cough. Garlic for tonsillitis, Peel a clove of garlic and cut them in half lengthwise. Boil for a couple of minutes in about 1.5 cup water and add a pinch of salt, teaspoon of butter, a pinch of pepper and sprinkle with nutmeg. Cut a garlic clove into small pieces. Swallow them all in one go with a little water to cure bloating, stomach cramps and constipation. 10 drops of garlic juice with 2 teaspoon of honey cures asthma.
Moringa Tree
Now I will tell you about one of the most amazing trees I have heard of. The Moringa Tree is native to Northern India. It has been known there in eastern medicine to have over 300 healing properties in the leaves. Ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilizations used the pleasant tasting seeds for making perfume and protecting their skin. For thousands of years, this amazing tree has slowly spread to other tropical lands, going west to the horn of Africa and east to the Philippines. Today the seeds have been carried by hand to many countries around the world.
Moringa is one of the most health enhancing plants that has ever been discovered. It can be grown in the warmer areas of the United States, or indoors in the colder areas, so you can have your own bountiful supply of the leaves, flowers, and pods each having their own medicinal properties. Here is a list of some of the amazing uses from the moringa tree: water purification, leaf juice as antibiotic, poultice for skin heals cuts, scrapes, sores, and rashes, builds immune system, dried leaves heal gastric ulcers, leaves can lower blood sugar levels, leaves promote relaxation and sleep, leaves have a stabilizing effect on blood pressure, and can treat anxiety.
Leaves are used as a remedy for diarrhea, dysentery, colitis, used as diuretic, for gonorrhea, for poultice used on glandular swelling, for skin antiseptic, leaves are used in India to treat fevers, bronchitis, eye and ear infections, scurvy and inflammation of mucus membranes, also used to kill intestinal worms, it can increase woman's milk production, flowers can cure inflammations, muscle diseases, tumors, and enlargement of the spleen CAUTION: DO NOT USE FLOWERS IF PREGNANT!
Flowers for eye wash, treat hysteria DO NOT USE IF PREGNANT!
There are uses for the roots, but at this time these remedies need more research for internal use. They help people in third world countries, grow food and fight malnutrition... Moringa leaves are full of vitamins and amino acids. It would be beneficial to have dried leaves on hand in a survival situation to keep healthy. The leaves can be eaten fresh, or dried and made into a powder which can be put into capsules.
Those are some great starters for your herbal first aid collection, and all are pretty easy to obtain."
Pain and Sickness Are Death in Slow Motion
"Do you remember the TV show called ""The Six Million Dollar Man""? The 1970's show was about an astronaut who had bio-implants that gave him super-human type powers! Little did I realize that one day my husband would receive computerized implants!
In April 2004 I brought home my own bionic man!
My husband had received a diagnosis of ""severe spinal cord injury with a spinal tear"" and was told to sit still and rest for 1-2 years. Given a 5-pound weight limit and no hope for recovery, the doctors loaded him up with Oxycontin, Percocet, Morphine, and a few other heavy-duty painkillers - all at levels normally reserved for the terminally ill - and wished us good luck.
His final surgery for the year was an experiment to implant an electronic neurostimulator from the top of his back and down to his hip. Neurostimulators were becoming common in those days but no one had yet successfully implanted the apparatus into the region of the thoracic spine, we were told.
The theory is, you shoot controlled electric currents into the spinal cord to shut off the pain. Cauterizing local nerves also served to help shut off the pain, theoretically. The computerized battery was designed to control the current on both sides of the spine and could be dialed up or down by the patient.
The neurostimulator was to become yet another failed experiment that would forever impact our lives.
Making our way down the 401 from Bakersfield to California my husband went into out-patient surgery (yes, out-patient!) to have his back opened up and wires implanted along his spine, from top to bottom. In the middle, near the source of the injury, a junction box was installed that served to conduct electricity to the wires. Into his hip was implanted a computerized battery that was operated by a control unit with all kinds of fancy buttons.
Arriving in the recovery room, the doctor passed a box to me and told me to read the instructions, while a nurse handed out a yellow sheet of paper with standard surgical recovery procedures and then told me to bring my pickup to the front door.
This was the 9th surgical procedure, so I just did what I was told.
With the nurse's help I lifted my husband out of the wheelchair and propped him up in the passenger seat, very droopy from anesthetic. I hit the 401 and we returned to Bakersfield.
At home I opened up the box and curiously inspected a gray control panel with a lot of buttons... similar to a PlayStation controller. What in the world? I asked my heavily sedated husband, ""Did anyone show you how to use this thing?"" Blurry eyed, he said he didn't remember a thing.
Okay... if all else fails, read the instructions. Needless to say, it was all Greek to me. So we played with it. Controlling the electricity levels, he would have sensations of electricity alternatively jolting through his legs and out his feet... or hands... or even certain personal parts.
It was a bit odd, as I discovered I could make my husband hop, skip, and dance!
We finally resorted to going in to see a specialist, where a company representative arrived to teach us how to use the control unit. Hooking Randy up to his computer, he began properly programming the control panel. Using his computer mouse to determine the appropriate places to shoot electricity, my husband performed like a puppet for the technician. Click the mouse and my husband's hand jumped. Click the mouse again and his feet reacted. Click the mouse again and my husband was yelling, ""You're making me wet my pants!""
There were times when so much electricity would shoot through his feet that it was like he was disco dancing. It was fun for a few months, but then body fluids filled the battery and shorted out the whole system! Determined to beat the system, we elected for more surgery. This time they tweaked the junction box, excavated the battery from the back of his hip, drained it out, and then re-implanted it into the front of his abdomen. Fuzzy from surgery, the technician tested the electronics and, satisfied with Randy's responses, flew back to Colorado!
I pulled my pickup truck to the hospital, grabbed my dazed husband, and we left for home.... little realizing something was amiss. They forgot to turn on the computer! A week later they flew the technician back and she turned on the power. We finally left California and returned home to the mountains of Northwestern Montana.
Randy was still using a wheelchair, but it wasn't working very well on the rocky ground. I'd see his empty wheelchair and then rush to go find him, hoping he hadn't fallen down anyplace too hard to get him out of. I ordered two canes for him and he began dragging himself around the farm for short distances. But it was like having a 200-pound toddler to watch!
Randy was not one to sit for more than a few minutes. One day I lost track of him only to discover him limping out of the woods, totally drenched in sweat, the sweat of pure terror! In a drug-induced daze he had wandered too far out and had met up with fresh grizzly bear tracks and the sounds of a very large animal in the brush. One cane has broken in half and the other was severely bent out of shape. It's amazing he got out of the woods in time!
The neurostimulator was too delicate for antics like that, and it broke shortly after that incident. By then our cobra insurance had run out and for the next two years we had no medical intervention except for appointments with the local physician, a country doctor, who said he could do nothing for Randy's back except prescribe drugs.
There seemed to be no end to pain and suffering in sight!
Without the neurostimulator, Randy's pain level shot up to the moon and we again experienced tortured nights of screams and groans. Sleep deprivation, the constant crises, and knowing that apart from a miracle our lives would never recover was like a dark cloud enveloping us day in and day out.
Living with a ""bionic man"" was so appropriate because all along Randy had been treated by his employers as little more than a machine... so much so, that my husband had begun to believe it and act like it! His significance and identity came directly from his work and how well he could out-perform most other men. But as anyone knows, who lives with an addict, especially an addict with ADHD, a former bull-rider, bull-fighter, and Motocross racer, wild-lands firefighter, assistant fire chief, logger, rodeo clown, and basically anything 'on the edge'... it's a setup for emotional disaster!
Unfortunately, when life gets that tough, we often blame the loved ones in our most intimate relationships.
The movie, ""8 Seconds"" is one of the best stories about this dynamic, especially in the life of a bull rider, that I've ever seen. It's a great story and really helps me to understand my husband!
Many marriages cannot withstand the stress of chronic pain without some sort of medical and psychological intervention.
Randy and I had lost everything and our grief had yet to be processed. When you're living on adrenaline for years how do you stop and rest? When you've lost your health coverage how do you afford medical or psychological intervention? When all you know is work, how do you change?
Even at church there seemed to be few solutions.
People loved us and cared about us, but they just didn't understand! Randy would come home from a back surgery, such as the implantation of the neurostimulator with dozens of staples up and down his spine, and the very same church leaders who prayed for him during the surgery would come up and slap his back, welcoming him back to church that week! It was crazy. I felt like I had to be his bodyguard but I so often trusted people to 'know' what was happening, when in reality many people hide from things they cannot understand or control... it scares them.
If you know someone in your family, or if you have been in severe chronic pain or disease, you probably understand the need of people around you for you to be 'normal' and if you're like Randy, you probably suck it up and wear a mask for as long as you can. Then, when you come home, you rip off the mask and let out all the pain... and if you're like me, you are probably the nearest shock-absorber.
Without resting and taking your troubles to God, how can you address the tremendous grief and the pain of loss?
The best we could do, and what turned out to be the very best solution of all, was to find every bit of Beauty, Truth, Humor, and Joy we could every day.
We continued to dream and to pursue BIG dreams. I learned to unleash my creativity and pursue time for ME. Taking walks in the wilderness were a big way for me to tap into God's peace. There was a looping mountain road behind our house that went UP the mountain on a fairly good incline. I would carry my heavy load of worries and troubles with me, beating out my pain with a fast clip up the mountain path. Near the top there was a slight dip in the road where a very careful middle-aged woman could sit down and rest for a minute. Then I would stand up high on this ridge overlooking our home and also the entire valley... a place where one could see with eyes like an eagle's for many miles.
This was a sacred space - a place I only went with a very serious type of prayer in mind.
Shouting aloud, crying, and with the grace to ask for all of Heaven to be my witness, I made promises and vows to God that I would never give up. In fact, I prayed more dangerous prayers and asked God to send us to the most hurting, to the most broken... to do with our lives WHATEVER He wanted.
Then, having laid down my heavy load, I would skip and sing back down the mountain and pick up my work once again. Many times before I hit the end of the path I would have a clear idea of the next step. It was on one such day that I immediately entered the house and found my ideal business. I joined a team of like-minded people and, in the company of these great people, I began to thrive. Personal development was at the forefront of our learning curve while at the same time we honed our business skills.
I entered into personal coaching with Dani Johnson, of A Call to Freedom, Int'l, and within a year my sales pipeline was kicking out fairly well. For the first time in a long time, I could take my mind off of the constant crises and pain and focus in a positive direction.
My soul was healing and the numbness that I had used to protect my heart from all the pain and constant crisis began to melt.
As soon as my own healing began, something in my husband cracked and in his own pain he began getting very angry. Years later he would apologize for those days, saying, ""Sue, you didn't do anything wrong. I was just afraid if you got too strong and independent that you would leave me.""
His worst fear was that I would leave him, and in his broken condition, who would take care of him? Despite constant assurance that I was for him and not against him, the pain was having its way and my freedom to pursue business was tested in every which way. Nevertheless, he was very much for me... it was just this inner battle he had to deal with every day.
In Steven Pressfield's book, ""The Art of War,"" he defines resistance as anything within you that will kick in to sabotage your efforts at anything having to do with the work you were created to accomplish in this world.
We must be ruthless with such an enemy and the best way to defeat it is to move in the opposite spirit, to do what does NOT come naturally.
As we beat back the resistance within us and begin to blossom and flow in our God-given identity and destiny, it automatically triggers those around us to panic. For when they see us having success battling our own demons, it lays a responsibility on them to slay their own fears... At that point in time, for me to move forward meant leaving Randy behind (emotionally and spiritually). And sometimes, when a person is not ready to grow and mature, it's best for us to keep moving onward and upward. At first glance it seems pitiless. When in reality, it's the only way we can help save another person's life. We must first be healthy and strong enough ourselves!
We have to save ourselves, first, and then we can show by our example the way for others to follow and help them along from there.
Nevertheless, our lives were about to shift once again in ways that would forever change us. A brochure for a healing conference arrived in the mail and we signed up for it that very day! A few weeks later were traveling to British Columbia with one goal in mind: the complete healing of Randy's spine. It was our only hope!
Randy had made a vow and he sealed it by not bringing enough pain medication to last the weekend. He told me, ""If God doesn't heal me then you can just put me in the ground!"" The first day was really great but no healing. The second day was wonderful but just as Randy got in front of the speaker to receive prayer, they had to close down the service and empty the building! The third day was discouraging and Randy began to lose hope. It took about a half dozen of us to push him to the front to receive prayer. John Arnott was the speaker and he didn't care about speaking so much as he wanted those in chronic pain - specifically those who had been in chronic pain for many years - to come to the front.
We finally pushed and tugged Randy forward. Later he confided that he wasn't certain which fear was the greatest... that he would be healed or that he wouldn't be healed! After all, a lot of people go to healing conferences and they don't get healed. And really, when you see people fall down and claim to be healed, are they really healed or is it a bunch of emotionalism and hype, or worse? We were about to find out.
The actual moment of healing was recorded on tape and then produced into a DVD called ""Miracles, the Randy McKenzie Story"". I was there watching but my husband was so short I couldn't see anything with all the people in front of me. Then suddenly John Arnott was asking if anyone had come with Randy and for that someone to please come up front. Randy was stretching and bending, doing things that would normally have sliced the muscles and tissues in his back, with all the wires. My husband was crying and then suddenly he picked me up in his arms and began twirling me around!
He always told me that when God healed him, the first thing he would do is pick me up in his arms, and he kept his promise!
From somewhere to my right a voice was saying, ""Honey, you've got your husband back!""
The whole world fell away as Randy and I just held each other, until the voice spoke again and said, ""Well, I think we'll just let them have their own private moment here!"" I peeked out from having buried my head in Randy's shoulder and John Arnott was handing me a microphone. Oh dear! I just said the first thing that came to my head, because it was the sum total of all Randy and I had been praying about over the years.
And that's when our lives changed, irreversibly, once again. Not only had God removed my husband's pain but when we put hands on his back he could feel our hands, whereas before they had cauterized so many nerves that his back had become numb. As if that weren't enough, Randy had run out of pain meds and could not have taken any if he had wanted to... this was literally his last chance.
He slept for the first time that night - all night long! And never once suffered a symptom of withdrawal.
His doctor, during follow up after the conference, told him he should have died simply from going cold turkey off those prescriptions!
I don't know what shocked us more: the injury or the healing. I think the healing. And that's when the conference leaders sent a film crew to our house and began filming a drama/documentary in our living room and local area. We really didn't want to be part of the movie and had no idea why anyone would want to film an ordinary family who lived in the wilderness and had made pretty much every mistake known to man. But a little ways up the mountain, in a sacred space, where the host of Heaven had been witness, some prayers echoed down to me, ""We'll go wherever you want us to go. We just want to touch the lives of the most hurt, the most broken, the most needy...."" So we said yes and just trusted God.
I want to share what I feel is the most important lesson of this story: Steven Pressfield, in ""The Art of War,"" nails it on the head.
Some quotes from Steven Pressfield:
Our job: ""Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.""
Our greatest fear: ""Fear that we will succeed... we fear discovering we are more than we think we are.... We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them.""
Steven shares an illustration demonstrating the power of our choices over the human spirit. When, our of fear (or Resistance), we choose to limit or diminish ourselves, to that extent our human spirit is diminished. What results can take forms such as cancer, auto-immune diseases, being accident-prone, and a number of other maladies both physical and psychological.
When a person overcomes Resistance and slays the giants of their own personal fears, many times the physical or emotional form of the weakness goes into remission or disappears.
I don't know what happened to Randy when the pain disappeared (miracles are mysteries), taking with it all addictions to pain medications, but I do have a sense of what happened when the third and most debilitating injury occurred. Through a lifetime of performance mentality, expressed as workaholism, Randy endured one broken relationship after another.
With a broken heart he was limping through life and despite his great physical strength and determination, the buried dreams, identity, and destiny were simply an expression of his buried spirit... and the death-defying accidents (the petroleum-coke accident being only one of the three accidents/miracles) were physical expressions of the inner working of death in his innermost being. I believe, as Steven Pressfield advocates, that Randy's innermost being was being issued a challenge to ""Wake Up""!
His walk to the front of the church symbolized his willingness to awaken and to arise. The man praying, John Arnott, was simply an instrument being used by a loving Father in Heaven, to assist the broken man to rise up and to receive the good gifts his Father wanted to give him.
Pain and sickness are simply death in slow motion. Accidents and injuries and suicide attempts are just more obvious and quicker expressions of the same malady.
Do you know of someone who is sick much of the time, accident-prone, or depressed? We cannot give health evaluations or advice, but in a world where sickness and disease are on the rise in a 1st World Country such as the USA, it seems wise for us to become detectives and search our own hearts for any places where we have given up our dreams, where we have settled for less, where we have put on masks and tried to please other people, or anyplace where we feel stuck.
There is a master plan, a thread that weaves our lives together and knits us into wholeness. We see the bottom side, all threads crisscrossing each other and looking like a chaotic mess. But God sees the topside and skillfully and masterfully weaves each thread, even the dark threads, in our lives in such a way that we each have the potential and abundant resources to fulfill our destinies.
What do you enjoy most doing? If you could do anything in the world today, or be anywhere in the world, with anyone in the world... who would you be with, where would you be, and doing what? If it's not where you currently are or doing what you are doing now, what steps can you take to make a course correction?
We can't change ourselves or anyone else. We can only make one decision at a time, one prayer at a time, and get rid of anything that would stand in the way or create resistance. We don't battle against people - they are not our problem. We battle against Resistance, our fears. I wish I could stand here and tell you that our battles are over and done with. In some ways, they are only just beginning! Little did we realize that our greatest battles were just around the corner!"
In April 2004 I brought home my own bionic man!
My husband had received a diagnosis of ""severe spinal cord injury with a spinal tear"" and was told to sit still and rest for 1-2 years. Given a 5-pound weight limit and no hope for recovery, the doctors loaded him up with Oxycontin, Percocet, Morphine, and a few other heavy-duty painkillers - all at levels normally reserved for the terminally ill - and wished us good luck.
His final surgery for the year was an experiment to implant an electronic neurostimulator from the top of his back and down to his hip. Neurostimulators were becoming common in those days but no one had yet successfully implanted the apparatus into the region of the thoracic spine, we were told.
The theory is, you shoot controlled electric currents into the spinal cord to shut off the pain. Cauterizing local nerves also served to help shut off the pain, theoretically. The computerized battery was designed to control the current on both sides of the spine and could be dialed up or down by the patient.
The neurostimulator was to become yet another failed experiment that would forever impact our lives.
Making our way down the 401 from Bakersfield to California my husband went into out-patient surgery (yes, out-patient!) to have his back opened up and wires implanted along his spine, from top to bottom. In the middle, near the source of the injury, a junction box was installed that served to conduct electricity to the wires. Into his hip was implanted a computerized battery that was operated by a control unit with all kinds of fancy buttons.
Arriving in the recovery room, the doctor passed a box to me and told me to read the instructions, while a nurse handed out a yellow sheet of paper with standard surgical recovery procedures and then told me to bring my pickup to the front door.
This was the 9th surgical procedure, so I just did what I was told.
With the nurse's help I lifted my husband out of the wheelchair and propped him up in the passenger seat, very droopy from anesthetic. I hit the 401 and we returned to Bakersfield.
At home I opened up the box and curiously inspected a gray control panel with a lot of buttons... similar to a PlayStation controller. What in the world? I asked my heavily sedated husband, ""Did anyone show you how to use this thing?"" Blurry eyed, he said he didn't remember a thing.
Okay... if all else fails, read the instructions. Needless to say, it was all Greek to me. So we played with it. Controlling the electricity levels, he would have sensations of electricity alternatively jolting through his legs and out his feet... or hands... or even certain personal parts.
It was a bit odd, as I discovered I could make my husband hop, skip, and dance!
We finally resorted to going in to see a specialist, where a company representative arrived to teach us how to use the control unit. Hooking Randy up to his computer, he began properly programming the control panel. Using his computer mouse to determine the appropriate places to shoot electricity, my husband performed like a puppet for the technician. Click the mouse and my husband's hand jumped. Click the mouse again and his feet reacted. Click the mouse again and my husband was yelling, ""You're making me wet my pants!""
There were times when so much electricity would shoot through his feet that it was like he was disco dancing. It was fun for a few months, but then body fluids filled the battery and shorted out the whole system! Determined to beat the system, we elected for more surgery. This time they tweaked the junction box, excavated the battery from the back of his hip, drained it out, and then re-implanted it into the front of his abdomen. Fuzzy from surgery, the technician tested the electronics and, satisfied with Randy's responses, flew back to Colorado!
I pulled my pickup truck to the hospital, grabbed my dazed husband, and we left for home.... little realizing something was amiss. They forgot to turn on the computer! A week later they flew the technician back and she turned on the power. We finally left California and returned home to the mountains of Northwestern Montana.
Randy was still using a wheelchair, but it wasn't working very well on the rocky ground. I'd see his empty wheelchair and then rush to go find him, hoping he hadn't fallen down anyplace too hard to get him out of. I ordered two canes for him and he began dragging himself around the farm for short distances. But it was like having a 200-pound toddler to watch!
Randy was not one to sit for more than a few minutes. One day I lost track of him only to discover him limping out of the woods, totally drenched in sweat, the sweat of pure terror! In a drug-induced daze he had wandered too far out and had met up with fresh grizzly bear tracks and the sounds of a very large animal in the brush. One cane has broken in half and the other was severely bent out of shape. It's amazing he got out of the woods in time!
The neurostimulator was too delicate for antics like that, and it broke shortly after that incident. By then our cobra insurance had run out and for the next two years we had no medical intervention except for appointments with the local physician, a country doctor, who said he could do nothing for Randy's back except prescribe drugs.
There seemed to be no end to pain and suffering in sight!
Without the neurostimulator, Randy's pain level shot up to the moon and we again experienced tortured nights of screams and groans. Sleep deprivation, the constant crises, and knowing that apart from a miracle our lives would never recover was like a dark cloud enveloping us day in and day out.
Living with a ""bionic man"" was so appropriate because all along Randy had been treated by his employers as little more than a machine... so much so, that my husband had begun to believe it and act like it! His significance and identity came directly from his work and how well he could out-perform most other men. But as anyone knows, who lives with an addict, especially an addict with ADHD, a former bull-rider, bull-fighter, and Motocross racer, wild-lands firefighter, assistant fire chief, logger, rodeo clown, and basically anything 'on the edge'... it's a setup for emotional disaster!
Unfortunately, when life gets that tough, we often blame the loved ones in our most intimate relationships.
The movie, ""8 Seconds"" is one of the best stories about this dynamic, especially in the life of a bull rider, that I've ever seen. It's a great story and really helps me to understand my husband!
Many marriages cannot withstand the stress of chronic pain without some sort of medical and psychological intervention.
Randy and I had lost everything and our grief had yet to be processed. When you're living on adrenaline for years how do you stop and rest? When you've lost your health coverage how do you afford medical or psychological intervention? When all you know is work, how do you change?
Even at church there seemed to be few solutions.
People loved us and cared about us, but they just didn't understand! Randy would come home from a back surgery, such as the implantation of the neurostimulator with dozens of staples up and down his spine, and the very same church leaders who prayed for him during the surgery would come up and slap his back, welcoming him back to church that week! It was crazy. I felt like I had to be his bodyguard but I so often trusted people to 'know' what was happening, when in reality many people hide from things they cannot understand or control... it scares them.
If you know someone in your family, or if you have been in severe chronic pain or disease, you probably understand the need of people around you for you to be 'normal' and if you're like Randy, you probably suck it up and wear a mask for as long as you can. Then, when you come home, you rip off the mask and let out all the pain... and if you're like me, you are probably the nearest shock-absorber.
Without resting and taking your troubles to God, how can you address the tremendous grief and the pain of loss?
The best we could do, and what turned out to be the very best solution of all, was to find every bit of Beauty, Truth, Humor, and Joy we could every day.
We continued to dream and to pursue BIG dreams. I learned to unleash my creativity and pursue time for ME. Taking walks in the wilderness were a big way for me to tap into God's peace. There was a looping mountain road behind our house that went UP the mountain on a fairly good incline. I would carry my heavy load of worries and troubles with me, beating out my pain with a fast clip up the mountain path. Near the top there was a slight dip in the road where a very careful middle-aged woman could sit down and rest for a minute. Then I would stand up high on this ridge overlooking our home and also the entire valley... a place where one could see with eyes like an eagle's for many miles.
This was a sacred space - a place I only went with a very serious type of prayer in mind.
Shouting aloud, crying, and with the grace to ask for all of Heaven to be my witness, I made promises and vows to God that I would never give up. In fact, I prayed more dangerous prayers and asked God to send us to the most hurting, to the most broken... to do with our lives WHATEVER He wanted.
Then, having laid down my heavy load, I would skip and sing back down the mountain and pick up my work once again. Many times before I hit the end of the path I would have a clear idea of the next step. It was on one such day that I immediately entered the house and found my ideal business. I joined a team of like-minded people and, in the company of these great people, I began to thrive. Personal development was at the forefront of our learning curve while at the same time we honed our business skills.
I entered into personal coaching with Dani Johnson, of A Call to Freedom, Int'l, and within a year my sales pipeline was kicking out fairly well. For the first time in a long time, I could take my mind off of the constant crises and pain and focus in a positive direction.
My soul was healing and the numbness that I had used to protect my heart from all the pain and constant crisis began to melt.
As soon as my own healing began, something in my husband cracked and in his own pain he began getting very angry. Years later he would apologize for those days, saying, ""Sue, you didn't do anything wrong. I was just afraid if you got too strong and independent that you would leave me.""
His worst fear was that I would leave him, and in his broken condition, who would take care of him? Despite constant assurance that I was for him and not against him, the pain was having its way and my freedom to pursue business was tested in every which way. Nevertheless, he was very much for me... it was just this inner battle he had to deal with every day.
In Steven Pressfield's book, ""The Art of War,"" he defines resistance as anything within you that will kick in to sabotage your efforts at anything having to do with the work you were created to accomplish in this world.
We must be ruthless with such an enemy and the best way to defeat it is to move in the opposite spirit, to do what does NOT come naturally.
As we beat back the resistance within us and begin to blossom and flow in our God-given identity and destiny, it automatically triggers those around us to panic. For when they see us having success battling our own demons, it lays a responsibility on them to slay their own fears... At that point in time, for me to move forward meant leaving Randy behind (emotionally and spiritually). And sometimes, when a person is not ready to grow and mature, it's best for us to keep moving onward and upward. At first glance it seems pitiless. When in reality, it's the only way we can help save another person's life. We must first be healthy and strong enough ourselves!
We have to save ourselves, first, and then we can show by our example the way for others to follow and help them along from there.
Nevertheless, our lives were about to shift once again in ways that would forever change us. A brochure for a healing conference arrived in the mail and we signed up for it that very day! A few weeks later were traveling to British Columbia with one goal in mind: the complete healing of Randy's spine. It was our only hope!
Randy had made a vow and he sealed it by not bringing enough pain medication to last the weekend. He told me, ""If God doesn't heal me then you can just put me in the ground!"" The first day was really great but no healing. The second day was wonderful but just as Randy got in front of the speaker to receive prayer, they had to close down the service and empty the building! The third day was discouraging and Randy began to lose hope. It took about a half dozen of us to push him to the front to receive prayer. John Arnott was the speaker and he didn't care about speaking so much as he wanted those in chronic pain - specifically those who had been in chronic pain for many years - to come to the front.
We finally pushed and tugged Randy forward. Later he confided that he wasn't certain which fear was the greatest... that he would be healed or that he wouldn't be healed! After all, a lot of people go to healing conferences and they don't get healed. And really, when you see people fall down and claim to be healed, are they really healed or is it a bunch of emotionalism and hype, or worse? We were about to find out.
The actual moment of healing was recorded on tape and then produced into a DVD called ""Miracles, the Randy McKenzie Story"". I was there watching but my husband was so short I couldn't see anything with all the people in front of me. Then suddenly John Arnott was asking if anyone had come with Randy and for that someone to please come up front. Randy was stretching and bending, doing things that would normally have sliced the muscles and tissues in his back, with all the wires. My husband was crying and then suddenly he picked me up in his arms and began twirling me around!
He always told me that when God healed him, the first thing he would do is pick me up in his arms, and he kept his promise!
From somewhere to my right a voice was saying, ""Honey, you've got your husband back!""
The whole world fell away as Randy and I just held each other, until the voice spoke again and said, ""Well, I think we'll just let them have their own private moment here!"" I peeked out from having buried my head in Randy's shoulder and John Arnott was handing me a microphone. Oh dear! I just said the first thing that came to my head, because it was the sum total of all Randy and I had been praying about over the years.
And that's when our lives changed, irreversibly, once again. Not only had God removed my husband's pain but when we put hands on his back he could feel our hands, whereas before they had cauterized so many nerves that his back had become numb. As if that weren't enough, Randy had run out of pain meds and could not have taken any if he had wanted to... this was literally his last chance.
He slept for the first time that night - all night long! And never once suffered a symptom of withdrawal.
His doctor, during follow up after the conference, told him he should have died simply from going cold turkey off those prescriptions!
I don't know what shocked us more: the injury or the healing. I think the healing. And that's when the conference leaders sent a film crew to our house and began filming a drama/documentary in our living room and local area. We really didn't want to be part of the movie and had no idea why anyone would want to film an ordinary family who lived in the wilderness and had made pretty much every mistake known to man. But a little ways up the mountain, in a sacred space, where the host of Heaven had been witness, some prayers echoed down to me, ""We'll go wherever you want us to go. We just want to touch the lives of the most hurt, the most broken, the most needy...."" So we said yes and just trusted God.
I want to share what I feel is the most important lesson of this story: Steven Pressfield, in ""The Art of War,"" nails it on the head.
Some quotes from Steven Pressfield:
Our job: ""Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.""
Our greatest fear: ""Fear that we will succeed... we fear discovering we are more than we think we are.... We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them.""
Steven shares an illustration demonstrating the power of our choices over the human spirit. When, our of fear (or Resistance), we choose to limit or diminish ourselves, to that extent our human spirit is diminished. What results can take forms such as cancer, auto-immune diseases, being accident-prone, and a number of other maladies both physical and psychological.
When a person overcomes Resistance and slays the giants of their own personal fears, many times the physical or emotional form of the weakness goes into remission or disappears.
I don't know what happened to Randy when the pain disappeared (miracles are mysteries), taking with it all addictions to pain medications, but I do have a sense of what happened when the third and most debilitating injury occurred. Through a lifetime of performance mentality, expressed as workaholism, Randy endured one broken relationship after another.
With a broken heart he was limping through life and despite his great physical strength and determination, the buried dreams, identity, and destiny were simply an expression of his buried spirit... and the death-defying accidents (the petroleum-coke accident being only one of the three accidents/miracles) were physical expressions of the inner working of death in his innermost being. I believe, as Steven Pressfield advocates, that Randy's innermost being was being issued a challenge to ""Wake Up""!
His walk to the front of the church symbolized his willingness to awaken and to arise. The man praying, John Arnott, was simply an instrument being used by a loving Father in Heaven, to assist the broken man to rise up and to receive the good gifts his Father wanted to give him.
Pain and sickness are simply death in slow motion. Accidents and injuries and suicide attempts are just more obvious and quicker expressions of the same malady.
Do you know of someone who is sick much of the time, accident-prone, or depressed? We cannot give health evaluations or advice, but in a world where sickness and disease are on the rise in a 1st World Country such as the USA, it seems wise for us to become detectives and search our own hearts for any places where we have given up our dreams, where we have settled for less, where we have put on masks and tried to please other people, or anyplace where we feel stuck.
There is a master plan, a thread that weaves our lives together and knits us into wholeness. We see the bottom side, all threads crisscrossing each other and looking like a chaotic mess. But God sees the topside and skillfully and masterfully weaves each thread, even the dark threads, in our lives in such a way that we each have the potential and abundant resources to fulfill our destinies.
What do you enjoy most doing? If you could do anything in the world today, or be anywhere in the world, with anyone in the world... who would you be with, where would you be, and doing what? If it's not where you currently are or doing what you are doing now, what steps can you take to make a course correction?
We can't change ourselves or anyone else. We can only make one decision at a time, one prayer at a time, and get rid of anything that would stand in the way or create resistance. We don't battle against people - they are not our problem. We battle against Resistance, our fears. I wish I could stand here and tell you that our battles are over and done with. In some ways, they are only just beginning! Little did we realize that our greatest battles were just around the corner!"
Skipping DHLPP Vaccinations This Year - What's the Big Deal?
"How does a vaccination for dogs work? In simplest terms, a vaccination stimulates the dog's immune system to protect itself against disease. When the antigen or infectious agent enters the dog's body, it is recognized as foreign and antibodies are produced to bind to it and destroy it. Even though the invader is gone, the cells that manufactured the antibodies ""remember"" it and will respond more quickly the next time the same agent is confronted.
Rabies (valid from 1 or 3 years, depending on vaccine) Rabies vaccination of dogs is required by government laws in the United States. Normally the one year vaccine is given to puppies. Once the dog is adult (around 1 y.o. depending on the breed) he can take a 3 year Rabies vaccine.
DHLPP (stands for Distemper, Hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Parvovirus and Parainfluenza)
Each of the disease conditions for DHLPP vaccine are broken out as follows:
Distemper (Annual Vaccination) A contagious and incurable viral disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system. Airborne inhalants are the primary cause of transmission. It's also shed from the infected animal through bodily fluids (watery discharge from eyes and nose), especially respiratory secretions. Contact with urine or fecal material of infected dogs can also result in infection. Boarding facilities used by infected dogs can harbor the canine distemper virus.
More than 50% of the adult dogs that contract the disease, die from it. Among puppies, the death rate from distemper often reaches 80%. Even if a dog doesn't die from the disease, its health may be permanently impaired. It can leave a dog's nervous system irreparably damaged, along with its sense of smell, hearing or sight. Partial or total paralysis is not uncommon, and other diseases, particularly pneumonia, frequently strike dogs already weakened by a distemper infection.
The signs of Distemper are not always noticeable. For this reason, treatment may be delayed or neglected. Frequently it may look like a severe cold with fever, congestion, nasal and eye discharge or discharge from other body openings, weight loss, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, sudden viciousness or lethargy, abnormal lumps, limping, difficulty getting up or lying down, excessive head shaking, scratching, licking any part of the body, difficult, abnormal or uncontrolled waste elimination, dandruff and loss of hair, open sores, ragged or dull coat, foul breath or excessive tartar deposits on teeth.
Hepatitis (Annual Vaccination) - Also called Adenovirus 1 or abbreviated as CAV-1 or A1 Infectious canine hepatitis is an acute liver infection in dogs caused by canine adenovirus. The virus is spread in the feces, urine, blood, saliva and nasal discharge of infected dogs. The virus can be passed through the urine for periods of up to one year. Dogs of any age are susceptible to the disease. Mortality is about 10% and about 25% of the survivors develop a temporary corneal opacity (hepatitis blue eye). Annual vaccination with a modified live virus will give permanent prevention. The causative agent, an adenovirus, is not infectious to humans.
It is contracted through the mouth or nose, where it replicates in the tonsils. The virus then infects the liver and kidneys. The incubation period is 4 to 7 days. Symptoms include fever, depression, loss of appetite, coughing, and a tender abdomen. Corneal edema and signs of liver disease such as jaundice, vomiting and hepatic encephalopathy may occur. Severe causes will develop bleeding disorders which can cause hematomas to form in the mouth.
Death can occur secondary to this or the liver disease. However, most dogs recover after a brief illness, although chronic corneal edema and kidney lesions may persist. The disease can be confused with canine parvovirus because both will cause a low white blood cell count and bloody diarrhea in young, unvaccinated dogs.
Leptospirosis (Annual Vaccination) Leptospirosis is transmitted by the urine of an infected animal, and is contagious as long as it is still moist. Rats, mice and voles are important primary hosts, but a wide range of other mammals are also able to carry and transmit the disease. Dogs and humans become infected by leptospires (an infectious bacteria) when abraded skin, eyes or mucous membranes come into contact with infected urine, blood, food, soil or water that has been contaminated by infected animal urine. Also when dogs lick the urine of an infected animal off the grass or soil, or drink from an infected puddle.
There has been reports of ""house dogs"" contracting leptospirosis apparently from licking the urine of infected mice that entered the house. Leptospirosis is also transmitted by the semen of infected animals. In humans, though rarely, it may happen mostly with veterinarians, slaughter house workers, farmers and sewer workers. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, vomiting, and may include jaundice, red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and/or rash. In humans complications include meningitis, respiratory distress and renal interstitial tubular necrosis, which results in renal failure and often liver failure. Cardiovascular problems are also possible. Because of wide range of symptoms the infection is often wrongly diagnosed.
Parvovirus (Annual Vaccination) Canine Parvovirus is a contagious virus affecting dogs. The disease is highly infectious and is spread from dog to dog by physical contact and contact with feces. Most dogs (more than 80%) will show no symptoms of illness within 3 to 10 days. Symptoms include lethargy, vomiting fever and diarrhea (usually bloody). After a dog is infected, there is no cure, but dogs usually recover from the viral infection and symptoms with five days with aggressive treatment. However, diarrhea and vomiting result in dehydration and secondary infection can set in, causing death even in treated dogs. Risk factors for severe disease include young age, a stressful environment, and concurrent infections with bacteria, parasites, and canine coronavirus.
Due to dehydration, the dog's electrolyte balance is destroyed. Because of destruction of the normal intestinal lining, blood and protein leak into the intestines leading to anemia and loss of protein, and endotoxins escape into the bloodstream, causing endotoxemia. The white blood cell level drops, further weakening the dog. Any or all of these factors can lead to shock and death. Survival rates depends on how quickly it is diagnosed and how aggressive the treatment is.
Direct contact with infected feces is not necessary for the disease to spread: viral particles on shoes, clothing, hair, and so on are all that is needed for the transmission. The disease is extremely hardy and has been found to be present in feces or other organic material (eg. soil) even after a year including extremely cold and hot temperatures. The only household disinfectant that kills the virus is a mixture of bleach and water, 1 part bleach and 30 parts of water. A dog that successfully recovers from Parvovirus is still contagious for up to 2 months. Neighbors and family members with dogs should be notified of infected animal so that they can ensure that their dogs are vaccinated and tested.
Parainfluenza, Bordetella, Adenovirus 2 (CAV-2), Kennel Cough (6 to 12 months vaccine protection) Parainfluenza, Adenovirus type 2, Bordetella and Distemper, are all members of the Kennel Cough complex. Kennel Cough is a highly contagious disease. It is known mostly as tracheobronchitis, Bordetella or Kennel Cough. It can be picked up by rabbits, guinea pigs, cats and dogs. It's not contagious to humans though it is closely related to Bordetella pertussis, the agent of Whooping Cough. Among dogs it's fairly contagious depending on stress level, vaccination status, and exposure to minor viruses. It causes inflammation of the upper respiratory system. It can be caused by viral infections such as canine distemper, adenovirus, parainfluenza virus, canine respiratory coronavirus or bacterial infections such as Bordetella bronchiseptica. It is so named because the infection can spread quickly among dogs, such as in the close quarters of a Kennel.
Both viral and bacterial causes of kennel cough are spread through the air by infected dogs sneezing and coughing. It can also spread through contact with contaminated surfaces and through direct contact. It is highly contagious. Exposure occurs in environments where there are other dogs in proximity, such as kennels, dog shows, and groomers. Symptoms begin usually 3 to 5 days after exposure.
It is a serious condition in very young puppies, especially those with a recent shipping history (i.e. pet store puppies) are especially prone to severe cases of infectious tracheobronchitis (frequently progressing to pneumonia). Symptoms can include a harsh, dry hacking/coughing, retching, sneezing, snorting or gagging; in response to light pressing of the trachea or after excitement or exercise. The presence of a fever varies from case to case. The disease can last from 10-20 days. Diagnosis is made by seeing these symptoms and having a history of exposure.
Vets recommend keeping all dogs current on Bordetella vaccinations as you never know when they be in an unexpected situation.
Adenovirus Type 2 serum also immunizes against Adenovirus Type 1, the agent of infectious hepatitis. Vaccination options: intranasal spray or injectable (a good choice for aggressive dogs who may bite if their muzzle is approached).
Corona (Optional annual vaccination) Coronavirus is a virus of the family Coronaviridae that causes a highly contagious intestinal disease. Canine coronavirus was originally thought to cause serious gastrointestinal disease, but now most cases are considered to be very mild or without symptoms. A more serious complication of canine coronavirus occurs when the dog is also infected with canine parvovirus. Coronavirus infection makes it more susceptible to parvovirus infection. This causes a much more severe disease than either virus can separately. However, fatal intestinal disease associated with canine coronavirus without the presence of canine parvovirus is still occasionally reported.
The signs of Coronavirus are similar to parvovirus, so the initial diagnostic tests will likely include a parvo test. The incubation period is only one to three days. The disease is highly contagious and is spread through the feces of infected dogs, which usually shed the virus for six to nine days, but sometimes for 6 months following infection.
Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, and anorexia. Treatment only requires medication for diarrhea, but more severely affected dogs may require intravenous fluids for dehydration. Fatalities are rare. The virus is destroyed by most available disinfectants. There is a vaccine available, and it is usually given to puppies, which are more susceptible to canine coronavirus, and to dogs that have a high risk of exposure such as show dogs.
Recently, a second type of canine coronavirus has been shown to cause respiratory disease in dogs. Dogs that recovered from Coronavirus develop some immunity, but the duration of immunity is unknown. Strict sanitation is required, especially if the household contains more than one dog. All animal waste should be disposed of daily, and feeding and watering utensils should be properly sanitized.
Lyme (Optional annual vaccination) Lyme disease is caused by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is passed to dogs through a bite from the deer tick. The tick must remain attached to the animal's skin for at least one day before the bacteria can be transmitted. Quick removal of the tick will also help prevent Lyme disease. Unfortunately, these ticks are very small and easily can go unnoticed. The ticks, called Ixodes or deer ticks, generally are found in specific regions of the United States, where Lyme disease is endemic, such as the northeastern states, the upper Mississippi region, California, and certain southern states.
Without treatment, Lyme disease causes problems in many parts of the dog's body, including the heart, kidneys and joints. On rare occasions, it can lead to neurological disorders. Symptoms are high fever, swollen lymph nodes, lameness, loss of appetite, heart disease, inflamed joints, and kidney disease. Disorders of the nervous system, while uncommon, may occur as well.
To Vaccinate or not vaccinate - that is the question.
There is lack of scientific proof on this matter. When pet vaccinations began to take place, they were only recommendations - not based on scientific evidence. Because of for example a parvo virus epidemic in 1970 that killed thousands of dogs, mass vaccination against the disease was administered in the United States.
In 1988, rabies vaccination started to be mandatory for cats. In 1991, researchers noticed the increased number of tumors in cats. Soon, veterinary professionals began to suspect vaccination risks in various autoimmune diseases. They noticed that, in some animals, vaccines were stimulating the animal's immune system against his or her own tissues, leading to potentially fatal diseases, such as auto-immune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) in dogs. They suspected vaccine reaction was causing chronic conditions such as thyroid disease, allergy, arthritis and seizures in cats and dogs. But in 1995 the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association concluded that there was ""little scientific documentation that backs up label claims for annual administration of most vaccines"", and that the only vaccine tested routinely for duration is the rabies vaccine. Also, they suggested that some vaccines should be given annually, but others only every few years would be sufficient because of potential risks associated with them.
Some Vets prefer to vaccinate only when necessary. They give annual titers, or tests, to check the level of antibodies (disease fighting cells) in the blood, and only then it can be determined if booster vaccinations are necessary. Since vaccinations were recommended by the USDA for many decades, it made opinions very controversial.
Many Vets still believe that it's too early to change the usual vaccination procedure. They believe that until more is known about the immunity conferred to some vaccines, it's best to take the conservative approach. They emphasize that annual vaccinations have been effective in decimating the incidence of former potentially lethal viral diseases such as canine distemper, hepatitis and parvo virus. They claim that while the vaccination issue is a complicated one, non vaccination is a major error. In most cases, the threat to animals health from non vaccination is much greater than the usual vaccinations. The diseases are real, severe and common.
This debate could be settled by more research and information. But while vaccine companies are under no legal obligation to demonstrate duration of immunity, that question may remain unanswered for some time. And there are claims that the problem lies in financial and political issues. A study would have to be made in which viruses would be given to inoculated animals over a period of 5 to 10 years. These animals would have to be kept in a controlled environment for these tests and only drug companies have this kind of money. Some say that for the drug companies, the decision is based on priorities: either more products or immunity studies. Not both."
Rabies (valid from 1 or 3 years, depending on vaccine) Rabies vaccination of dogs is required by government laws in the United States. Normally the one year vaccine is given to puppies. Once the dog is adult (around 1 y.o. depending on the breed) he can take a 3 year Rabies vaccine.
DHLPP (stands for Distemper, Hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Parvovirus and Parainfluenza)
Each of the disease conditions for DHLPP vaccine are broken out as follows:
Distemper (Annual Vaccination) A contagious and incurable viral disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system. Airborne inhalants are the primary cause of transmission. It's also shed from the infected animal through bodily fluids (watery discharge from eyes and nose), especially respiratory secretions. Contact with urine or fecal material of infected dogs can also result in infection. Boarding facilities used by infected dogs can harbor the canine distemper virus.
More than 50% of the adult dogs that contract the disease, die from it. Among puppies, the death rate from distemper often reaches 80%. Even if a dog doesn't die from the disease, its health may be permanently impaired. It can leave a dog's nervous system irreparably damaged, along with its sense of smell, hearing or sight. Partial or total paralysis is not uncommon, and other diseases, particularly pneumonia, frequently strike dogs already weakened by a distemper infection.
The signs of Distemper are not always noticeable. For this reason, treatment may be delayed or neglected. Frequently it may look like a severe cold with fever, congestion, nasal and eye discharge or discharge from other body openings, weight loss, coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, sudden viciousness or lethargy, abnormal lumps, limping, difficulty getting up or lying down, excessive head shaking, scratching, licking any part of the body, difficult, abnormal or uncontrolled waste elimination, dandruff and loss of hair, open sores, ragged or dull coat, foul breath or excessive tartar deposits on teeth.
Hepatitis (Annual Vaccination) - Also called Adenovirus 1 or abbreviated as CAV-1 or A1 Infectious canine hepatitis is an acute liver infection in dogs caused by canine adenovirus. The virus is spread in the feces, urine, blood, saliva and nasal discharge of infected dogs. The virus can be passed through the urine for periods of up to one year. Dogs of any age are susceptible to the disease. Mortality is about 10% and about 25% of the survivors develop a temporary corneal opacity (hepatitis blue eye). Annual vaccination with a modified live virus will give permanent prevention. The causative agent, an adenovirus, is not infectious to humans.
It is contracted through the mouth or nose, where it replicates in the tonsils. The virus then infects the liver and kidneys. The incubation period is 4 to 7 days. Symptoms include fever, depression, loss of appetite, coughing, and a tender abdomen. Corneal edema and signs of liver disease such as jaundice, vomiting and hepatic encephalopathy may occur. Severe causes will develop bleeding disorders which can cause hematomas to form in the mouth.
Death can occur secondary to this or the liver disease. However, most dogs recover after a brief illness, although chronic corneal edema and kidney lesions may persist. The disease can be confused with canine parvovirus because both will cause a low white blood cell count and bloody diarrhea in young, unvaccinated dogs.
Leptospirosis (Annual Vaccination) Leptospirosis is transmitted by the urine of an infected animal, and is contagious as long as it is still moist. Rats, mice and voles are important primary hosts, but a wide range of other mammals are also able to carry and transmit the disease. Dogs and humans become infected by leptospires (an infectious bacteria) when abraded skin, eyes or mucous membranes come into contact with infected urine, blood, food, soil or water that has been contaminated by infected animal urine. Also when dogs lick the urine of an infected animal off the grass or soil, or drink from an infected puddle.
There has been reports of ""house dogs"" contracting leptospirosis apparently from licking the urine of infected mice that entered the house. Leptospirosis is also transmitted by the semen of infected animals. In humans, though rarely, it may happen mostly with veterinarians, slaughter house workers, farmers and sewer workers. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, vomiting, and may include jaundice, red eyes, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and/or rash. In humans complications include meningitis, respiratory distress and renal interstitial tubular necrosis, which results in renal failure and often liver failure. Cardiovascular problems are also possible. Because of wide range of symptoms the infection is often wrongly diagnosed.
Parvovirus (Annual Vaccination) Canine Parvovirus is a contagious virus affecting dogs. The disease is highly infectious and is spread from dog to dog by physical contact and contact with feces. Most dogs (more than 80%) will show no symptoms of illness within 3 to 10 days. Symptoms include lethargy, vomiting fever and diarrhea (usually bloody). After a dog is infected, there is no cure, but dogs usually recover from the viral infection and symptoms with five days with aggressive treatment. However, diarrhea and vomiting result in dehydration and secondary infection can set in, causing death even in treated dogs. Risk factors for severe disease include young age, a stressful environment, and concurrent infections with bacteria, parasites, and canine coronavirus.
Due to dehydration, the dog's electrolyte balance is destroyed. Because of destruction of the normal intestinal lining, blood and protein leak into the intestines leading to anemia and loss of protein, and endotoxins escape into the bloodstream, causing endotoxemia. The white blood cell level drops, further weakening the dog. Any or all of these factors can lead to shock and death. Survival rates depends on how quickly it is diagnosed and how aggressive the treatment is.
Direct contact with infected feces is not necessary for the disease to spread: viral particles on shoes, clothing, hair, and so on are all that is needed for the transmission. The disease is extremely hardy and has been found to be present in feces or other organic material (eg. soil) even after a year including extremely cold and hot temperatures. The only household disinfectant that kills the virus is a mixture of bleach and water, 1 part bleach and 30 parts of water. A dog that successfully recovers from Parvovirus is still contagious for up to 2 months. Neighbors and family members with dogs should be notified of infected animal so that they can ensure that their dogs are vaccinated and tested.
Parainfluenza, Bordetella, Adenovirus 2 (CAV-2), Kennel Cough (6 to 12 months vaccine protection) Parainfluenza, Adenovirus type 2, Bordetella and Distemper, are all members of the Kennel Cough complex. Kennel Cough is a highly contagious disease. It is known mostly as tracheobronchitis, Bordetella or Kennel Cough. It can be picked up by rabbits, guinea pigs, cats and dogs. It's not contagious to humans though it is closely related to Bordetella pertussis, the agent of Whooping Cough. Among dogs it's fairly contagious depending on stress level, vaccination status, and exposure to minor viruses. It causes inflammation of the upper respiratory system. It can be caused by viral infections such as canine distemper, adenovirus, parainfluenza virus, canine respiratory coronavirus or bacterial infections such as Bordetella bronchiseptica. It is so named because the infection can spread quickly among dogs, such as in the close quarters of a Kennel.
Both viral and bacterial causes of kennel cough are spread through the air by infected dogs sneezing and coughing. It can also spread through contact with contaminated surfaces and through direct contact. It is highly contagious. Exposure occurs in environments where there are other dogs in proximity, such as kennels, dog shows, and groomers. Symptoms begin usually 3 to 5 days after exposure.
It is a serious condition in very young puppies, especially those with a recent shipping history (i.e. pet store puppies) are especially prone to severe cases of infectious tracheobronchitis (frequently progressing to pneumonia). Symptoms can include a harsh, dry hacking/coughing, retching, sneezing, snorting or gagging; in response to light pressing of the trachea or after excitement or exercise. The presence of a fever varies from case to case. The disease can last from 10-20 days. Diagnosis is made by seeing these symptoms and having a history of exposure.
Vets recommend keeping all dogs current on Bordetella vaccinations as you never know when they be in an unexpected situation.
Adenovirus Type 2 serum also immunizes against Adenovirus Type 1, the agent of infectious hepatitis. Vaccination options: intranasal spray or injectable (a good choice for aggressive dogs who may bite if their muzzle is approached).
Corona (Optional annual vaccination) Coronavirus is a virus of the family Coronaviridae that causes a highly contagious intestinal disease. Canine coronavirus was originally thought to cause serious gastrointestinal disease, but now most cases are considered to be very mild or without symptoms. A more serious complication of canine coronavirus occurs when the dog is also infected with canine parvovirus. Coronavirus infection makes it more susceptible to parvovirus infection. This causes a much more severe disease than either virus can separately. However, fatal intestinal disease associated with canine coronavirus without the presence of canine parvovirus is still occasionally reported.
The signs of Coronavirus are similar to parvovirus, so the initial diagnostic tests will likely include a parvo test. The incubation period is only one to three days. The disease is highly contagious and is spread through the feces of infected dogs, which usually shed the virus for six to nine days, but sometimes for 6 months following infection.
Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, and anorexia. Treatment only requires medication for diarrhea, but more severely affected dogs may require intravenous fluids for dehydration. Fatalities are rare. The virus is destroyed by most available disinfectants. There is a vaccine available, and it is usually given to puppies, which are more susceptible to canine coronavirus, and to dogs that have a high risk of exposure such as show dogs.
Recently, a second type of canine coronavirus has been shown to cause respiratory disease in dogs. Dogs that recovered from Coronavirus develop some immunity, but the duration of immunity is unknown. Strict sanitation is required, especially if the household contains more than one dog. All animal waste should be disposed of daily, and feeding and watering utensils should be properly sanitized.
Lyme (Optional annual vaccination) Lyme disease is caused by bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi, which is passed to dogs through a bite from the deer tick. The tick must remain attached to the animal's skin for at least one day before the bacteria can be transmitted. Quick removal of the tick will also help prevent Lyme disease. Unfortunately, these ticks are very small and easily can go unnoticed. The ticks, called Ixodes or deer ticks, generally are found in specific regions of the United States, where Lyme disease is endemic, such as the northeastern states, the upper Mississippi region, California, and certain southern states.
Without treatment, Lyme disease causes problems in many parts of the dog's body, including the heart, kidneys and joints. On rare occasions, it can lead to neurological disorders. Symptoms are high fever, swollen lymph nodes, lameness, loss of appetite, heart disease, inflamed joints, and kidney disease. Disorders of the nervous system, while uncommon, may occur as well.
To Vaccinate or not vaccinate - that is the question.
There is lack of scientific proof on this matter. When pet vaccinations began to take place, they were only recommendations - not based on scientific evidence. Because of for example a parvo virus epidemic in 1970 that killed thousands of dogs, mass vaccination against the disease was administered in the United States.
In 1988, rabies vaccination started to be mandatory for cats. In 1991, researchers noticed the increased number of tumors in cats. Soon, veterinary professionals began to suspect vaccination risks in various autoimmune diseases. They noticed that, in some animals, vaccines were stimulating the animal's immune system against his or her own tissues, leading to potentially fatal diseases, such as auto-immune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) in dogs. They suspected vaccine reaction was causing chronic conditions such as thyroid disease, allergy, arthritis and seizures in cats and dogs. But in 1995 the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association concluded that there was ""little scientific documentation that backs up label claims for annual administration of most vaccines"", and that the only vaccine tested routinely for duration is the rabies vaccine. Also, they suggested that some vaccines should be given annually, but others only every few years would be sufficient because of potential risks associated with them.
Some Vets prefer to vaccinate only when necessary. They give annual titers, or tests, to check the level of antibodies (disease fighting cells) in the blood, and only then it can be determined if booster vaccinations are necessary. Since vaccinations were recommended by the USDA for many decades, it made opinions very controversial.
Many Vets still believe that it's too early to change the usual vaccination procedure. They believe that until more is known about the immunity conferred to some vaccines, it's best to take the conservative approach. They emphasize that annual vaccinations have been effective in decimating the incidence of former potentially lethal viral diseases such as canine distemper, hepatitis and parvo virus. They claim that while the vaccination issue is a complicated one, non vaccination is a major error. In most cases, the threat to animals health from non vaccination is much greater than the usual vaccinations. The diseases are real, severe and common.
This debate could be settled by more research and information. But while vaccine companies are under no legal obligation to demonstrate duration of immunity, that question may remain unanswered for some time. And there are claims that the problem lies in financial and political issues. A study would have to be made in which viruses would be given to inoculated animals over a period of 5 to 10 years. These animals would have to be kept in a controlled environment for these tests and only drug companies have this kind of money. Some say that for the drug companies, the decision is based on priorities: either more products or immunity studies. Not both."
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