Life

Hope, healing and happiness

Shakespeare wrote: The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Some people sink, some swim, some soar.

Some people find peace, joy and faith in life, often out of despair and hopelessness. Some people are healed from serious illnesses and afflictions. Some believe they have an experience of God that changes their lives forever.

Some people pursue happiness via wealth, or love, or pleasure. Some find it, some don’t. And psychologists can tell us why.

You can find all this, and more, in Life. Be encouraged by what others have found and experienced. Find renewed hope. Be challenged to try something new, to think differently.

Index

• Healing stories: finding hope and healing
• Faith and health: how faith assists health
• Atheist to christian: stories of people whose life changed dramatically
• Changed lives: people “find God” and that makes all the difference
• Unusual spiritual experiences
• Making sense of life and self
• Happiness
• Seventy years in the making: my spiritual journey

• Help – where to get help if you need it.

Healing stories: finding hope and healing

People ask God for healing, often in quite desperate situations, and sometimes they receive the healing they ask for. These stories are generally well-documented.

• Dying doctor recovers after prayer – a doctor cannot be revived after a heart attack – until his wife prays for him.
• Heart-starting action – an emergency room at a hospital, a man cannot be revived and is pronounced dead – and then a respected heart surgeon prays for a miracle.
• Remarkable healing reported in medical journal – a 16 year old boy lived since birth with a serious medical condition that couldn’t be resolved by medical interventions, but was immediately healed after prayer.
• Addicts healed by prayer – thousands of long term addicts, unable to escape their addictions and criminal past using conventional methods, receive healing and painless withdrawal after praying to Jesus.
• Ten healings – a medical researcher reviews the evidence for miraculous healings.
• Healings at Lourdes – a review of the evidence for miraculous healings.
• More healing miracles – reports from around the world.
• Does God heal and speak today? – a doctor and a social anthropologist investigate and document miraculous healings.

Faith and health: how faith assists health

Faith in God, or attendance at religious events, has been shown many times to be linked to better mental, emotional and physical health. Prayer seems to lead, at least sometimes, to better health and even complete healing of major illnesses.

• Faith and wellbeing – are they related?
• Medicine and religion studies – A summary of the many medical studies.
• Can prayer assist healing? – what we can learn from medical studies
• Intercessory prayer and healing – a summary of 26 medical studies
• Healing of sight and hearing – a well documented study of healing of sight and hearing after prayer.

Atheist to christian: stories of people whose life changed dramatically

Statistics show that many people brought up in one belief system, whether it be religious or atheist, change their beliefs at least once in their lifetime. I have collected stories of atheists converting to christianity, and you can find a number of them here.

• Two atheist professors – two Professors of English take different journeys to find God.
• The things we do for love: three atheists convert – three atheists fall in love with christians, and convert – but what happens next?
• Converted by evidence – two atheists look at the facts and decide that the evidence for christianity stands up best. They both convert as a result.
• A life-changing coincidence – how God engineered a significant coincidence that put two lives back on track.
• “The implications of my atheism were incompatible with almost every value I held dear” – an academic and secular humanist struggles to explain her ethical values – and decides that only christianity could explain it.
• A novelist and his unusual odyssey – a journey through atheism, environmental activism, Buddhism, wicca and Christianity.
• More atheists convert – 5 people who converted from strong disbelief to christianity at ages 20 to 62.
• A slow year’s journey into light – one by one, an atheist obtains answers to some important questions.
• An atheist legacy? – the troubled life of a man brought up an atheist but who converted to catholicism as an adult.

Changed lives: people “find God” and that makes all the difference

Not everyone’s life goes according to plan, and some people find that life takes them into dark places. Sometimes these people find that God comes to them in their weakness and disillusion, and somehow heals them, gives them hope and lifts them up, and their lives take on meaning again.

• Anna McGahan – an actor’s path from poor body image to peace, through the unexpected intervention of a loving God. And then out of belief to doubting God.
• Conversion stories – people come to believe in God in many different ways.
• A young Muslim intellectual changes course He thought he knew every argument, and it took three years of study, a vision and three dreams to change his mind.
• Philosophy is not enough – a young university student finds her life turned upside down when a dear friend dies peacefully.
• It lasts! – a young woman finds a new life after an abusive relationship.
• “I still keep to Jesus this night” – an addict & Hong Kong triad gang member finds unexpected help.
• Fall in love and fall apart? – a story with a happy ending after a relationship breaks down.

Unusual spiritual experiences

Some people seem to have experiences that go beyond the normal life we all know. They have visions, dreams or deep mystical experiences. But are they genuine experiences of the divine? Or are they the product of suggestible minds? Or even urban myths?

• Visions of Jesus? – stories of people whose lives have been changed by a vision of Jesus, and an analysis of whether the visions could be real.
• Mystical experiences – some people experience something that deeply affects them.
• Near death experiences (NDEs) – after experiencing cardiac arrest, some people have an experience of leaving their body and visiting an other-worldly realm.
• Do angels really exist? – many people say they have been helped by an angel. Are they all imagining things, or is there some reality behind the stories?

Making sense of life and self

Where do we find purpose and meaning? Is it in pleasure, having a good time? Or is it in leaving the world a better place? How can we live better and with greater purpose?

• What is the meaning of life? – how can secular people find important purpose in life to match the purpose provided by religious belief?
• The benefits of forgiveness – it is easy to get angry when we are not treated well, but it is better for us if we forgive.
• Certainty and uncertainty – can we resolve doubt and feel certain about life, or must we learn to live with uncertainty?
• Meaning, beliefs and happiness – we seem to be made to need meaning and purpose to be happy, but our beliefs can help or hinder.

Happiness

We all want to be happy, but we don’t always know what’s good for us, and we often seek happiness where it can’t be found. But psychologists can show us how to increase the happiness and wellbeing in our lives.

• Simple keys to a happier life – what really makes us happy, and what doesn’t
• What makes people happy – an expanded explanation of what makes people happy
• Happiness references – check it out for yourself.
• Materialism and happiness – there is a connection.
• Pleasure and happiness – do sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll make us happier?
• Love, relationships and happiness – an important part of being happy.
• Meaning, beliefs and happiness – some of the most important things for a fulfilled life.
• Positive psychology – what this branch of psychology can do for you.

Seventy years in the making: my spiritual journey

What leads an (allegedly) otherwise intelligent person to start a website like this? How did I go from Aussie boy to old man? How come I’m still a christian, more than seventy-five years after I was conceived? What has life taught me?

This is my story (if anyone’s interested); I guess you could call it my spiritual journey.