Fighting Sleep for My Life

A little girl submitted a question to me: How can you stay up late and still wake up early? Initially, I didn’t know how to respond. But, the answer is simple; it’s because I want to get up. The more I thought about this, I began to consider the child’s lifestyle. She sleeps A LOT; and when she is not sleeping, she seems to be lying around doing nothing. This phenomenon confuses me; as a child I wanted to get out of bed as soon as my eyes opened. Sleep was my bitter opponent because I fought him for my life. I LITERALLY FOUGHT SLEEP FOR MY LIFE. I didn’t want to stop living and I guess I still have a little of that fight left in me. I look forward to the opportunity to wake up, open my eyes, stand on my feet, and live in love every day of my life.

Israel Houghton says in one of his songs, “morning isn’t necessarily what has an ‘a.m.’ on it, morning happens when you wake up.” One definition of wake up is to return to an awareness of one's environment, existence, sensations, and thoughts. God created a beautiful world full of places to go, people to see, and things to do. Waking up brings me to an attitude of eagerness to open my eyes.

Opening one’s eyes represents an opportunity to process the environment Once I open my eyes I become enthusiastic about the opportunity to involve myself in God’s gift of life on this planet. Ephesians 5:8-14 says:

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

This verse gives a whole new meaning to rise and shine. Every day gives me a new chance to reflect God onto my friends, family, and lost souls. The mistakes of my past lay behind me as I move forward toward the purpose God created me for! This moves me to stand on my feet and take action to effect the environment at will, which should line up with His will that we love Him and others. I look forward to loving better than I did yesterday and I can’t do that until I stand on my feet.

While I sleep, life waits for me with a bevy of activities and experiences available; but if I never wake up, then I cannot partake. I never need a special reason to open my eyes, stand up, and prepare for the day because God wrote my purpose and life entices my senses. I know what I can do every day (go to the park, visit friends, help the needy, etc…) and as much I know God prepared and propels me to do exceedingly abundantly above anything I can ever ask or think.

Nas says that, he “never sleep[s]; cause sleep is the cousin of death” and Aerosmith sings, “I don't want to close my eyes, I don't want to fall asleep cause I'd miss you babe, and I don't want to miss a thing". While people need a certain amount of sleep each day for sustenance, extended rest, like too much of anything, kills you; in that slow death you miss everything that life has to offer. Sleep robs us of the opportunity to process, appreciate, and effect our environment. In other words, it eats away at our purpose and I plan to fight that villain for my life, until the end!

Promise Kept: a dialogue on healthcare reform and its effect on women

Election time represents an exciting time for politics; candidates remain in our faces bludgeoning us with promises, but how often do any of the voters reflect on and evaluate the fulfillment ratio of those promises? I must admit, I usually fail to keep a detailed list of promises to measure the success rate of the elected officials but one promise that rang out in the last presidential election was that of “free health care for everyone”. Proponents and opponents continue to hold on to their reasoning throughout the process. On March 23, 2010, the President signed the health care overhaul bill, and of course, Of course people sit on each side of the fence on this issue. Let’s focus on the current state of coverage for women, potential changes for women due to the new legislation, and opinions about health care reform on both sides of the table.

As a single female part-time employee, this pledge of “free health care for all” sparked a sense of hope within me. My companies only provided insurance for full-time employees and finding decent cost-effective coverage proved itself a difficult task. Furthermore, insurance research revealed a discriminatory modus operandi toward women across America. Insurance companies charged women premiums of up to 48% more than male counterparts on the individual market, refused coverage for such "pre-existing conditions" as pregnancy, having had a C-section, or being the victim of domestic violence! The research was appalling; consequently when President Barack Obama took office, I looked forward to this “free health care” nearly a year and a half into his term the administration took steps toward fulfilling this agreement.

Personally it seems to answer a long-awaited dream for the American public, specifically women. Actually, administration outlined the key benefits of the legislation which will impact women particularly. Women will see both immediate and long-term effects due to this new law. In the short-term, the high risk pool will provide access to women previously denied health coverage due to preexisting conditions. Within the next 5 years the legislation will force a ban of this so-called “high –risk” pool. Around the same time, this health reform will make it illegal for insurers to charge women more than men for the same health care coverage. Health plans will also include coverage of maternity services in their essential benefits package. This all sounds excellent to me; it seems to cover women in any life stage; while some people agree that this represents an overdue change, many people argue against the new legislation.

Opponents believe that by signing this bill, President Obama takes a long sustained power of the state to govern its people by allowing the federal government to regulate health care. Additionally, these opponents believe that this bill opens the door for abuse and overwhelming government spending. Proponents believe the reform is a change whose time is pass due; free healthcare will promote prevention driving down the cost of health care and increasing the quality of service.

Though the bill is now “law” the country continues to come to terms with this change “free health care for all” vs. the solitary the constitution guarantees. As people like me breathe a sigh of relief government continues to hash out the details. At the least this seems to be a promise an official actually kept and if it fails, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Dare To Dream

Lakewood August 15, 2010

Marcos Witt

"I dare you to walk on the water"

Matthew 14:25-29

"If Peter lived in 2010, he'd be a Texan!"

"Dare to dream it."
Peter saw Jesus do it and thought that he could do it too!
If you could dream then you can do it.

E.g. Martin Luther King Jr. & Joel Osteen

When you stand up in the boat, it's going to make people nervous because things are going to start shaking.
John: the beloved...Probably thinking why does he think he gets to do the special thing, I'm the special one. But in response, you say you deserve to dream and do special things too, even if you aren't KNOWN as the "special one".
Matthew:
Judas: Treasury...Probably thinking, one less person= one less person to support financially. Sometimes people will cheer you on for the wrong reason. But it doesn't matter why they are cheering, you go out there and get it done.

"Dare to Ask"
James 4:2...have not because you ask not...
Matthew 7:7...ask for what you need..

"Dare to Risk It"
2 Corinthians 5:7...
It's NOT just the thought that counts when God speaks.
Don't just sit there and row in a boat:
Self-Pity
Excuses
Low Self- Esteem
Bad Attitude
Whining

-- Sent from JRochelle's Palm Pre

Distant Cousins: health care and immigration reform

Recently, Arizona embraced the spotlight on the subject of immigration proposing and passing a controversial law to fight illegal immigration; law now requires police stopping motorists for routine infractions to check their immigration status due to “reasonable suspicion” of unlawful entry. Many view this law as a victory in the fight over illegal immigration. The convoluted topic of immigration reforms introduces several issues. Proponents view immigrants as an obtrusive abuse of civil liberties; arguing that the introduction of new citizens increases disease, crime, taxes due to welfare or health burdens, and crowding. In this article, I intend on focusing on health burdens.

Immigrants represent an often uninsured and underinsured portion of the population and tax payers take on the expenditure of their medical care straining the financial stability of the health care industry. They use emergency services forsaking preventative medical care, burdening the hospitals with advanced and costly medical procedures. The estimated tab left by these illegal immigrants' medical care in many states ranges well above $1 million up to as much as $4 billion a year. Delivery of babies to illegal alien mothers represents a large and frequent cost to taxpayers. And until recently, in most states these babies automatically became U.S. citizens. Consequently, in addition to an illegal expenditure by the mother, illegal immigrants legally received health care benefits.

These staggering numbers burden doctors and impeded medical care to actual citizens. Consequently, a comprehensive health care reform should include a restructuring of health coverage. This of course introduces an ethical dilemma: how can any doctor refuse care to a legitimately sick person? In reality they should not be put in this position, and by remaining negligent on immigrant emigration the government places a burden on tax payers and hospitals.

The health care reform bill doesn’t seem to outline a cure to this problem. Arizona seems to be on the right track; identify illegal immigrants and remove the burden. This will put citizens in the front of the line toward receiving the care they need. Not only will the number of patients decrease, but practitioners will be available to distribute the funds more proportionately.