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Are we really grateful for sustaining grace?

Vaneetha Rendall Risner contracted polio as a child, and had 21 surgeries by the time she was 13 years old.

Years later, after having married and had children, she was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome, and has suffered excruciatingly since then.

She’s also written beautifully and honestly about that suffering in a book, The Scars that Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering.

In one chapter, Risner writes about “sustaining grace.” You know, that common phrase we deploy in our group prayers. We pretend that’s all we really want, “sustaining grace,” because of course, we’re too spiritual to pray for outright healing.

We all ask God for sustaining grace, but as she points out — are we thankful for it, or do we just actually complain about it?

In the book, Risner tells about a conversation with a friend.

“[Her friend said] ‘Everyone loves the grace that delivers us. But the Israelites, like us, were dissatisfied with daily manna. We all complain about the grace that merely sustains us’.

We all complain about sustaining grace. The truth of it hit me hard….were my prayers for deliverance answered with the gift of sustenance? Do I not see that this was an answer, too?

It’s a tremendous and convicting point.

We don’t really think of sustaining grace as grace, at all, do we? Especially, as depressed and suffering people.

Sustaining grace doesn’t feel sweet like grace is supposed to, it doesn’t seem undeserved, as grace is. In fact, we actually feel entitled to the daily sustaining grace of manna.

If we feel entitled to it, we will never see it as grace. We will only see it as God withholding grace. Sustaining Grace suddenly becomes God’s Withdrawal of Grace.

But the truth is that sustaining grace is still grace and our failure to recognize it doesn’t change its quality.

So are you, am I really grateful for sustaining grace? Not delivering grace, but grace that feels dismal, grace that doesn’t seem graceful?

June 12, 2019

Worries over new ketamine-like drug for depression

written by Christian Heinze

NBC reports on a pretty shoddy FDA approval process for Janssen’s new, trailblazing drug for treating depression — Spravato.

Spravato is a nasal-spray that uses esketamine, which is a cousin of ketamine.

NBC News notes that Janssen didn’t even provide safety information for drug use beyond 60 weeks (!), and seemed to ignore the fact that 3 users committed suicide during trials, compared to 0 in the placebo groups.

Dr. Jess Fiedorowicz, director of the Mood Disorders Center at the University of Iowa and a member of the FDA advisory committee that reviewed the drug, described its benefit as “almost certainly exaggerated” after hearing the evidence.
Fiedorowicz said he expected at least a split decision by the committee. “And then it went strongly in favor, which surprised me,” he said in an interview.
Esketamine’s trajectory to approval shows — step by step — how drugmakers can take advantage of shortcuts in the FDA process with the agency’s blessing and maneuver through safety and efficacy reviews to bring a lucrative drug to market.

As the article notes, the drug is a windfall for Janssen. They’re charging $4,700 for the first month of treatment.

June 11, 2019

Paul Miller on cynicism

written by Christian Heinze

A lot of Christians with depression can easily slip into cynicism — both towards the world and God.

In his good book on prayer, Paul Miller explains why cynicism is so damaging to our spiritual life.

“Cynicism and defeated weariness have this in common: They both question the active goodness of God on our behalf…. Satan’s first recorded words are cynical. He tells Adam and Eve, ‘For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.’.” Satan is suggesting that God’s motives are cynical.”

….Both the child and the cynic walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The cynic focuses on the darkness; the child focuses on the Shepherd.”

Later, Miller quotes a Cuban writer, Yoanni Sanchez, who writes of the younger generation: “Our defining characteristic is cynicism. But that’s a double-edged sword. It protects you from crushing disappointment, but it paralyzes you from doing anything. “

By the way, I don’t think we should chuck our cynicism.

We’d never come to Christ if we weren’t cynical about the world. Its failed promises, the fact it can never give us exactly what we want.

G.K. Chesterton wrote that behind every cynic is a romantic idealist, and we’re all romantic idealists until we’re not. Some of us lose it in childhood, some of us a bit later.

But at some point, we all grow cynical. That’s good. We can only embrace God’s promises when we give up on the world’s.

The problem is when we grow cynical towards God himself (I’ve been there, and still, often drift into that grey and weary land). That’s the cynicism we need to fight, but I know it’s so hard because after a lifetime of the world failing us, it’s hard to put faith in something else — no matter how otherworldly it is.

But that’s what all this is about, our Christian walk. Becoming a child, again, to God as savior, while remaining very grown up and cynical about the world as savior.

June 5, 2019

“So there is”

written by Christian Heinze

August 13, 2018

Spurgeon Monday

written by Christian Heinze

I’ve been enjoying Charles Spurgeon’s underrated Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith so much that we might as well start a regular feature called “Spurgeon Monday.”

If you’ve never read this devotional, think about this — do you like his “Morning and Evening” and wish we’d gotten a “Morning, Afternoon, and Evening?”

Consider this the afternoon.

Spurgeon, from August 10’s entry:

“All my changes come from him who never changes.

If I had grown rich, I should have seen his hand in it, and I should have praised him; let me equally see his hand if I am made poor, and let me as heartily praise him. When we go down in the world, it is of the Lord, and so we may take it patiently; when we rise in the world, it is of the Lord, and we may accept it thankfully.

In any case, the Lord hath done it, and it is well.”

August 13, 2018

STUDY: Is this part of your brain responsible for your pessimism?

written by Christian Heinze

Ever wonder why some people don’t even want to sit on a motorcycle with the engine turned off, while others are willing to break their family’s hearts and destroy everything good in life just to go on something fast without doors because “it feels cool.”

Well, it might come down to your caudate nucleus, which is a part of your brain involved in emotional decision-making.

In a study on animals (published in the journal Neuron), researchers found that they could manipulate pessimism and risk-reward calculations by stimulating the caudate nucleus.

The researchers gave the animals a reward and an unpleasant stimulus, and gauged how big a reward it would take for them to accept the unpleasant stimulus. Cost-benefit stuff.

At some point, the unpleasant stimulus accompanying the reward got bad enough that the animals would refuse the reward.

Now, when the researchers messed with the caudate nucleus, they found that the animals started to focus less on the reward and more on the unpleasant stimulus — even though the reward and stimulus were exactly the same as before.

So now, the animals refused to go after the reward because they were so focused on the unpleasant stimulus. Their “cost-benefit calculation became skewed, and the animals began to avoid combinations that they previously would have accepted.”

MIT News:

Graybiel is now working with psychiatrists at McLean Hospital to study patients who suffer from depression and anxiety, to see if their brains show abnormal activity in the neocortex and caudate nucleus during approach-avoidance decision-making. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have shown abnormal activity in two regions of the medial prefrontal cortex that connect with the caudate nucleus.

As the authors note, people who are depressed, anxious, and/or have OCD, are much more likely to think about potential negative outcomes of a situation than positive outcomes.

The anxiety and OCD components here are easy to see. It’s commonly pointed out that, in those with anxiety disorders, “life becomes small.”

True – if the animals in the study are passing up on all the rewards because of fear, well, what is life? There are no rewards, only dread.

I’m not exactly sure, though, how depression fits into all of this.

When I’m anxious, this study has the ring of truth. I’ll gladly give up a selfie with a cobra. Or a selfie with a flash on, because — you know — could the bright lights flashing at my eye provoke the onset of macular degeneration?

But when I’m depressed, I’m actually much more likely to take a selfiie with the cobra, because I don’t really care what happens with my life.

So to me, this study has a lot more to say about our anxiety and OCD than our depression.

So the question is — how do we manipulate the caudate nucleus in humans to enrich our lives again?

Your move, Eli Lilly.

[Photo: Pexels]

August 10, 2018

Frontiers of schizophrenia: Fighting hallucinations with hallucinations

written by Christian Heinze

The Montreal Gazette writes about a new, fascinating technique for treating schizophrenic hallucinations — virtual reality.

Basically, a patient will tell a researcher what their hallucination looks and sounds like, and the researcher will create a virtual reality, avatar doppleganger.

So if a patient sees a horrifying image and hears scary words, the researcher will try to recreate that image and words.

Once the avatar is created, the patient — when not hallucinating — will learn how to talk back to the avatar and cultivate greater awareness of how the avatar is attacking him.

Initial results are encouraging for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is funding a six year study, comparing this particular method with CBT (a recent study, I should note, suggests CBT isn’t helpful for schizophrenia).

It’s important to note that medications are still more effective at treating hallucinations and voices, leading to complete remission in many cases. But some patients can’t tolerate the medicine.

The Gazette’s story is anchored by a compelling story from a patient who’s had to deal with it.

The Montreal Gazette:

They popped up out of nowhere, telling Richard Breton how he was nothing, nothing but a bad father, a nasty husband, and had no friends because he was disgusting.

For 30 years the debilitating voices and hallucinations came 15 times a day. His head reverberated with voices shouting the worst scenarios: “The car driving down the road is going to swerve on the sidewalk and smash into you. A bomb will explode, or someone armed with a gun is going to shoot everyone,” he recalled.

Breton, 53, said he’d have done anything to make the demon voices leave him alone. Anything, that is, except increase the anti-psychotic medication prescribed for schizophrenia because the side effects were insufferable. He couldn’t work. It robbed him of energy, motivation and libido. He could barely manage to eat and wash himself, and he trembled, spending the better part of each day in a zombie-like, drug-induced daze.

But today that period of Breton’s life is long over. Breton has returned to school and has been working for two years, and he’s remarried. Also, his doctors reduced the antipsychotic medication to a minimum. Breton says his turnaround is not due to any wonder drug but to a new treatment that fights hallucinations with hallucinations.”=

Me, here.

My heart, and the heart of every Christian, should go out to those afflicted by this disease.

There are still huge swaths of the church that would misinterpret these types of symptoms as “demonic” when, in reality, they can mostly be explained by auditory processing problems in the brain — basically, you are hearing your own voice when you hear “other voices” and the terrible things they’re telling you about yourself? That’s actually your own voice and negativity, but because of the auditory processing problems, you interpret them as someone else’s.

Here’s more on that:

Essentially, the brains of hallucinating patients acted as though they were experiencing a “real” auditory experience. Their brains were generating the “voices or sounds” and they were “hearing” the sounds at the same time! Somehow the patients never made the connection that they were hearing their own voice. The patients believed that the voices were coming from someone else.

…..The actual problem, for the psychology majors in the audience, which was discovered, was an anatomical error within the fiber bundle that connects speech-generating areas in the frontal lobe with auditory cortex in the temporoparietal lobe. Essentially, if you do not know with certainty that you are speaking then you will assume that the voices are talking TO you. Sadly, and sometimes tragically, due to the underlying paranoia that these patients also experience, the voices instruct the patients to do disagreeable tasks.

Imagine the heartbreak of Christians living with schizophrenia who are told that they must “rebuke the devil” to get rid of the voices, or counter this disease with Scripture, when in reality, medical treatment can bring these awful symptoms into remission.

August 8, 2018

The most stressed workers: Women who rely on tips for wages

written by Christian Heinze

A huge new study in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds that women in the service industry whose income is significantly affected by tips are more likely to suffer from poor mental health than workers in any other industry.

The WSJ highlights some of the reasons:

First, women in the service industry (e.g. waitresses) are at the whim of customers. They can never be sure whether the customer will like them and tip well. So it’s hard to relax and say, “Well, at least I’ll make X this week.” Uncertainty is a big risk factor for anxiety. One famous study showed that people would rather be electrically shocked now than wait for a possible shock later. Uncertainty is worse than a shock that might never come.

Second, shift life significantly raises the risk of depression and anxiety. Humans need routine, stability, and the ability to sleep at night (not the day), due to the circadian rhythm and how disruptions can wreak havoc on our mental health.

Third to get more tips, servers have to be constantly bubbly and happy. The dissonance of that is especially difficult if you’re not feeling particularly bubbly and happy. Thus, it’s more likely to exacerbate existing depression.

Fourth, women are much more likely to be sexually harassed than men, and particularly in these industries. Sexual harassment has been linked to increased depression and anxiety.

And fifth, customers have much higher expectations of female servers than male servers. A separate study showed customers demand more of female servers than male servers, and were consistently tipped less for the same perceived customer service.

So Christians, we should tip generously, regardless of the quality of service. In our American mindset, so many people say, “Well, I don’t want to reward bad service,” as if we have a moral duty for “just remuneration.”

Christians never have a moral duty for “just remuneration” because the whole basis of our salvation is Christ’s showing mercy on the really really really bad servers we are.

We’ll be judged by the same standard we judge others, and do we want Christ to treat us for our bad service to him the way we treat servers for bad service?

We have no idea how difficult it is for anyone in life, and if we can afford to tip generously, we should. It’s eternally more important to show Christ than to “show them” for waiting around for that glass of water we desperately need to have a good meal.

This is their life. Their well-being. For us, it’s just a meal. And an opportunity to be loving.

August 6, 2018

Do low levels of acetyl-L-carnitine explain your depression?

written by Christian Heinze

A remarkable new study suggests that individuals with severe, treatment-resistant depression have significantly reduced levels of the molecule, acetyl-L-carnitine.

Prompting the question — will raising those levels help? We don’t yet know whether it’s correlation or causation.

Animal studies have already shown the link.

For example, depressed rodents are much more likely to have low levels of acetyl-L-carnitine, and raising their levels via supplementation restored normal behavior in days.

How?

Animal studies by Carla Nasca, a postdoctoral scholar in McEwen’s lab, suggest that acetyl-L-carnitine, a crucial mediator of fat metabolism and energy production throughout the body, plays a special role in the brain, where it works at least in part by preventing the excessive firing of excitatory nerve cells in brain regions called the hippocampus and frontal cortex.

But what about humans?

Well, the new study looked at both moderate and severely depressed patients and found that their levels of acetyl-L-carnitine were substantially lower than the populace, at large.

And the more depressed the individual, the lower their level of acetyl-L-carnitine and the less likely antidepressants helped.

Acetyl-L-carnitine levels were especially low in patients whose depression began in childhood, or who had a history of child abuse, poverty, or neglect.

The next question is obvious — will raising acetyl-L-carnitine levels help treat depression?

Well, we know that it seems to in animal studies, but there are very few studies on humans. However, a 2014 study showed that, within the study population, acetyl-L-carnitine supplementation worked as well as some major antidepressants, with fewer side effects.

The implications are enormous. Imagine a simple supplement helping treat your depression vs. high-powered antidepressants.

You can already buy acetyl-L-carnitine supplements, and there’s evidence that they can be useful for a host of medical conditions, including peripheral neuropathy and, possibly, dementia. As with most supplements, the limited studies are incredibly encouraging, but finding funding is difficult.

And remember, please be careful when considering the supplements. They are not regulated by the FDA, you really have to do your homework on getting the right one, and you can never be exactly sure what’s in it.

Also, please consider this warning from WebMd for those with a history of seizures.

“An increase in the number or seriousness of seizures has been reported in people with a history of seizures who have used L-carnitine by mouth or by IV (intravenously). Since L-carnitine is related to acetyl-L-carnitine, there is a concern that this might also occur with acetyl-L-carnitine. If you have ever had a seizure, don’t take acetyl-L-carnitine.”

(Read WebMD on acetyl-L-carnitine for side effects, uses, doses etc).

Nevertheless, keep in mind that the potential side effects of antidepressants are also significant, and all evidence suggests acetyl-L-carnitine is much better tolerated, with fewer adverse events.

If you’re interested, talk to your doctor.

August 3, 2018

“Exceedingly precious”: How a shepherd sees his sheep

written by Christian Heinze

Phillip Keller, a former shepherd, writing in his book “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23.”

“I recall quite clearly how in my first venture with sheep, the question of paying a price of my ewes was so terribly important.

They belonged to me only by virute of the fact that I paid hard cash for them. It was money earned by the blood and sweat and tears drawn from my own body during the desperate grinding years of the Depression.

And when I bought that first small flock, I was buying them literally with my own body which had been laid down with this day in mind.

Because of this, I felt in a special way they were in very truth a part of me and I a part of them.

There was an intimate identity involved which, though not apparent on the surface to the casual observer, nonetheless made those thirty ewes exceedingly precious to me.

But the day I bought them I also realized that this was but the first stage in a long, lasting endeavor in which from then on, I would, as their owner, have to continually lay down my life for them if they were to flourish and prosper…. Christ chooses us, buys us, calls us by name, makes us his own, and delights in caring for us.

It is this last aspect which is really the third reason why we are under obligation to recognize his ownership of us. He literally lays himself out for us continually.”

July 31, 2018

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