Mastering the life Balancing act

Fear can throw us completely off balance. In times of trouble, such as the global economic crisis, fear of the future can send us into depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior. We are pleased to share a series of outstanding videos on how we can use our faith to face and ultimately overcome our fears.

Free From Fear - Deep Faith for Dark Valleys

This video opens with a hilarious clip that mimics the Blair Witch Project. The following discussion, however, is truly profound. This link will take you to a discussion page on the video. We will share other videos in the future on how to use faith to balance our fears.

This is a true story, told by my friend, Becky:

"This morning at 8:00 I was driving the kids to school. We saw the neighborhood flock of wild turkeys in the middle of the street. Two of them ran onto the sidewalk at our approach. But the third was lying completely lifeless in the middle of the road. And the fourth was standing tenaciously by his side pecking and prodding him. He refused to move for our car (Yes, i did swerve around him!). We were all so sad to see this dead turkey and his friend next to him. But then the "dead" turkey jumped up and the two of them followed their friends onto the sidewalk and up the hill.
Was this a 'Divine Turkey Easter?' Either that or turkeys like to play dead. I can just hear the conversation:

Turkey 1: 'Get up you stupid Turkey! This is no time to lie down. That car is going to flatten you like a boneless turkey TV dinner! If you get me flattened too I'm never speaking to you again!'
Turkey 2 (after my van swerves and misses them): 'Ha! I told you she would move for us. You owe me $5! And did you see the look on her face just now? She really thought I was dead! Priceless!'
Turkeys 3 and 4: 'Just keep trotting and pretend you don't know those two fools...'

Either God has one weird sense of humor or I need another cup of coffee!"

I'm convinced God has a sense of humor. And a sense of timing that seeks to throw us off. How else do you explain a turkey reenacting the resurrection? I mean, it's not even the right animal/holiday combination; and it's the middle of Lent, for God's sake. We aren't supposed to be witnessing resurrections. Certainly God is aware of that!

And what about this woman who dares to tell us such an outrageous story? Who is she to be speaking of God and resurrection in this manner? Imagine the looks that Mary Magdalene must have gotten when she told her unlikely story on that first Easter morning. "He is risen!" Yeah, right... Her friends, I suspect were skeptical, to say the least.

What God moments do we miss, because we are not willing to believe that the holy is actually in our midst?


Amy Sluss is an author and a health & health care consultant. A registered nurse by trade, she knows that active consumers are the real solution to our health care crisis. She teaches individuals and businesses how to leverage this knowledge to become healthier and to control health care costs. Check out her website, chartyourhealth.com

Over the past year, few of us have escaped the staggering losses in the stock market, real estate and global markets. If it hasn't directly affected our own families, it has affected our expanded families, our neighbors or our co-workers. We've witnessed families lose half their net worth, retirees watch their nest-eggs disappear, parents see their childrens' college funds dwindle. In the US, with 10% unemployment approaching, this is likely to get worse.  

KEEPING PERSPECTIVE
How does one keep a perspective on life during difficult times such as these? The answer may be observing what those who far less than we do.  My family, for the past 10 years, has been involved actively with a non-profit called Opportunity International.  OI has been a way for each of us to learn more about global poverty and just how far ABOVE the global poverty line we Americans live.

As it turns out, nearly 3 Billion people on this earth live on $2 or less per day, and half of those on <$1 day.  If you visit these people, as I have done with my daughters, you note three basic things:

1. They are hard-working and diligent
2. They actually can appear to be happier than the average American.  

WHAT PRICE HAPPINESS?
How can it be that children living in dirt shacks with little more than a stick and ball to play with are seemingly more content than children in the US?  One hypothesis: the poor learn to work with what God's given them and feel blessed by what is given to them. Their expectations are low and they learn to appreciate what they have.

By contrast, we tend to forget how much we have. The collapse of the financial markets underscores this. We focus on the loss of money and property, but perhaps forget that we still have much more than most of the rest of the world.

Will we be any less happy with less money? Sure, if we tell ourselves that we have suffered a loss.  If we focus on what's truly important -- our health, the roof over our heads, the family that loves us, the friends that care about us - then the financial market melt-down takes on a very different meaning. It can serve as a reminder of just how fortunate we are.