Faith and the brain

Are these two things separate, or do they co-exist?

Many people give things up for Lent. As foster and adoptive parents, we give up so many things, that one friend said we should DO something for ourselves, instead of giving up yet another thing.

I made my “resolution” to read something faith based every day until Easter. I’m hoping it will put me in a better mood come Easter Sunday.

I am just finishing up “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant. I highly recommend this book if you have not read it. It is a wonderful story (fiction) about Dinah, who was the only daughter of Jacob. Dinah actually existed, but the mention of her in Genesis is very minimal. The book focuses on the bonding relationship of he women of the tribe which would eventually become Israel.

I only have a few pages to go, so I was looking for a new book today. I came across “Every Thought Captive: Battling the Toxic Beliefs That Separate Us from the Life We Crave” by Jerusha Clark. I thought it sounded interesting, but I wasn’t too sure about it. I decided to read a page or two to see if it interested me. When I read the first line of the book, I knew I needed to buy it.

“In 2003, thanks to the groundbreaking work of Dr. Daniel Amen, I actually saw how my brain works.”

Why would that sentence make me buy this book? If you don’t know Dr. Amen’s work, you should check it out. He is a highly renowned doctor in the “brain” field. He has worked with many special needs kids to help parents determine what mental illnesses they might be dealing with.

Julie over on the Parenting Special Kids blog could go into great detail about it. She is extremely knowledgeable.

You can visit Dr. Amen’s site to get all the detailed, and accurate, information that I would butcher if I tried to explain it.

If there was money in my budget, Sammy would certainly be scanned, and most likely Hannah as well.

I figured if there was a book that combined my faith based beliefs with information from one of the leading doctors in SPECT imaging, I had to read it.

Here is the description from the back of the book:

What’s on your mind today? Your significant other, or your lack thereof? The flippant comment someone made? Your image in the mirror or someone else’s recent weight loss? Are you wondering what tomorrow will look like, or why yesterday turned out the way it did?

As thoughts like these float through our minds, we often allow ourselves to believe poisonous lies like:
• ‘I’m not good enough;’
• ‘What others think about me defines who I am;’
• ‘I am what I accomplish.’

These thoughts, and others like them, hijack our minds and separate us from the life Jesus died to give us. Christ declares, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). In order to be set free from the devastating misconceptions that infiltrate our thinking, we must know and live out the truth. Grabbing hold of the life we crave starts with taking our minds captive to what is true.

In Every Thought Captive, Jerusha Clark explores the deepest recesses of the feminine mind and examines the sources of our insecurities, unholy desires, and anxieties. Drawing from other women’s and her own experiences, Clark shares insights from God’s Word that provide a road map to victory over toxic beliefs.

Maybe if I can grasp these thoughts for myself, I can help my children as well. If nothing else, maybe I’ll have some spiritual growth.

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