Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Dr. Geraldine Przybylko. So what do I do? I basically is a servant of God who goes and looks after health for the whole division. Our elections, we've got elections next week and so all the roles will be re elected next week but for the time being I'm still the health strategy leader for the Seventh Day Adventist Church and also the executive director for Elia Wellness. So just in the last month or so in June, we actually went to Papua New Guinea. Now this is almost like a second home for me and I know one of our members at Parramatta Central actually said to Daniel, he goes, oh, it's like she's got a home over there. But yes, this is like the fourth time I've been to Papua New guinea this year and I've got one more trip later on in December. But I work with Pacific Adventist University and we decided to actually run the first ever Les 7 Day Wellness Retreat at the Pacific Adventist University. So here we are, we were doing the test for them. It was seven days from 6:30 or 7:00am in the morning all the way to 9:00pm for seven days. Right. It was an intensive, we wanted to show them what lifestyle medicine was looking at, a whole person health approach. And I was really blessed because I had cedarval had actually closed down their operation in New South Wales to actually come and help me. There were six of them. They came on a mission trip and they helped me and they were doing all the treatments each day. We started with devotion, we had breakfast, we started with devotion. You know we, we went through, we did exercises. No, this is not exodus. They're not bowing down to any animals. They were doing some stretches and back exercises and pull push ups there on the floor and then Ciudad Val actually helped us with all the treatments as well. And many of them had never had a massage before in their life. And so they were having hot and cold treatment, hydrotherapy, Russian wraps, et cetera. And they were also learning how to do cooking, healthy cooking. And they ate plant based meals for three meals a day for seven days. And they actually helped us prepare some of the food as well. And so that was grade two using their own local ingredients. So it was a real blessing for seven days. And you know what, I just went back there again. So that was in June, at the end of June, at the end of July, I went back there four weeks later and we had the lifestyle medicine symposium there at the School of Health Science. And here's the Secretary of Health there. This is Professor Laurie, the one giving the bag. And we had a great time there teaching them about whole person health, lifestyle medicine. And I had Dr. Andrea Matthews from the Elia Lifestyle Medicine center come along and also Dr. Melanie Renfrew from Avondale University. And it was a real blessing. And there we had some people actually sharing their testimonies because it's not about just doing the seven day program, it's also about, well, are you still continuing on with the program afterwards and are you still getting the benefits? And so the lady there who doesn't have the microphone, she actually lost eight, sorry, let me see, eight kilos in the seven days. Okay. She's the head of the cafeteria and she's also of support services. And she actually got up and actually shared that she had from in one month had lost 14 kilos. Praise the Lord. This is God's health message, right? And so she's so excited that she's changing the menu at the cafeteria for all the 1200 plus students they have. And so they have gone now to a total plant based menu over there. And it's really exciting. And the lady with the microphone is Professor Lallen and she is the second to the vice chancellor. And and she changed her life. You know what? She shared the story about when she was going to school and she saw some people, white people, licking a stick and she didn't know what it was. And so she was sharing how she was. She goes, I want what? They're happy. They look so happy. And so there she was, she got some money, she went to the shop and she said, I wonder what those people are having. And so she bought two because she's very caring. One for her, one for her friend and she didn't know what they were. So she sat on the bus with the ice creams and she's on the bus for a couple of hours and she's got a white shirt and what do you think her white shirt looked like? Brown, chocolate on one side, pink on the other side. And she didn't get much to eat. But that started her journey with processed foods. And she actually said that since the seven day wellness retreat she has not had besides like soy milk, etc. No processed foods for the month. And she's lost weight, her diabetes has gone down and it's just been really really exciting. This lady here, she actually is Dino Pucky and she's a counselor. Also done her master's in mental health. And she shared how when she came she was stressed out. And she told me I'm not going to be able to come to the whole program. But before I started the program I said to them, hey, you are privileged because this is the first ever 34 people in the whole of P and G that's ever done anything like this, so you need to stay. So she came up to me and she said, okay, I'm going to try and change some of my appointments around. But she stayed for the whole time and she said that when I started I had my stress level. We got them to do the DAS Depression Anxiety Stress Scale and it was at the highest level but at the end of the program it had gone down to two. And she said, I did not realize, even though I'm a counselor and I'm a mental health professional trauma specialist, I didn't realize that this but have such an impact. And so today I'm talking to you about mental health and we have about, if you look at the statistics, 970 million people in the world have mental health. And 50% of all lifetime mental health illnesses begin at what age? 14 years of age. And 75% by age 24, we see that 25% of people. So there's been a 25% increase in mental health issues since COVID and 5 million Australians have a mental or behavioral condition. This is not like something very rare. This is now common in society. And so I would like to in my role to be able to take away this negative state stigma about mental health. Because you know what? Almost one in two people even in this room were experiencing a mental health issue in their lifetime. Okay, 45%. So let's have a look at this. When we look at work, there's about 60% of the population are at work. And from that approximately 15% of working age adults actually have a mental health disorder. Now 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety. And do you know how much that costs? US$1 trillion per year. Is mental health an issue? Absolutely. Globally, when I listen to my colleagues in the different parts of the world, they too are also experience experiencing this. So it's crucial that we have mental health training, we have community programs in mental health to help us to understand mental health and also be able to cope in difficult times. So mental health is more than the absence of disease, of mental health, absence of mental illness. It includes Emotional, psychological and social well being. And traditionally the focus has been on treating the mental health disorders. But now there's been a movement and we thank Professor Martin Seligman who has helped to actually change the focus from negative states of mental health to actually looking at positive states of mental health. Because why only look at the negative and the deficits? Why not look at what does it take to flourish? Why don't we look at what does it take to have great mental health and focus more on that? And so when we look at this prevention and promotion of mental well being, they're really important. They're equally as important. And we find now that when we see that early intervention leads to actually better outcomes, actually prevention is really the best medicine. Would you agree with. So maybe in this room, not everybody's experienced a mental health disorder like depression or anxiety, but we've all, I would say majority of us, if not all of us, have actually experienced low mood. Okay. And so we see that our thoughts impact the way we feel and the way you feel actually impacts your thoughts. So if you're feeling low, we tend to be self critical. Does that ever feel familiar? I can see some heads nodding here. And so what tends to happen when we're feeling low? We're not in our happy state, we're not feeling up or at the opposite side. We start to look at everything that's not going so well and that actually can even impact not only your home, but your work, but also the church. Rather than looking at how we can edify the church, we're looking at everything that's not right with the church or what's right at work or what's right at home. And when you start looking at negative things, it spirals. And so giving your example here that you know, a thought might be, say, maybe something happened at work. Maybe your, I was going to say my husband wasn't my husband. Maybe your boss was not happy with something that you did or you didn't get the right outcome that you wanted. And so then what happens? You start having this self talk and it's like nothing ever goes right for me. And sometimes people might even feel like they're a failure. But what does this do? It actually leads us to emotions of low mood and sadness. And from here it can have physical sensations like low energy, lack of appetite, or increased appetite. And this can result to withdrawing from home, from work, from friends, from church even. And we start investing, stop investing in ourselves. And if we don't intervene, then this will just spiral down. Now if you're feeling low, how many of you want to feel like doing exercise? Put your hand up if you like doing exercise when you feel low. Oh, the hands went down, okay, but this is the thing. When we feel low, this is the time that we need to exercise because this results when we don't, we don't get the endorphins that we need and so that we desperately need to lift our mood and help to break the cycle. So what tends to happen is that you have urges to do something, something that you shouldn't do, you shouldn't eat, you shouldn't do. And so, for example, like unhealthy eating or you're staying up late at night and then you can't get up early enough to go to work. It becomes a cycle. So here we can see in the diagram here, external events influence internal states. The mood drops. Sometimes people can even get to a stage of feeling hopeless. And then they start thinking, what is the point? Nothing I do is going to matter anyway. Is that a healthy state? No. And then it goes in. And is that true? Right? Nothing you do is going to make a difference. Is that true? But we start to believe these types of things and so given and then we start giving into urges and we start to withdraw. Nothing changes. We go in this cycle and this is when we can continue to spiral down. So the goal really is to become aware of this, aware that we sometimes go into low mood. You know, it's normal to have some low mood, don't get me wrong. But if it continues and continues day after day, week after week, we need to get help and we need to seek professional help. Awareness is key in breaking the cycle. And finding ways to manage low mood involves reflecting on the way we respond to things. Often the things that work best in the long run are not quick fixes. Is that right? And if you stop doing the good things, if you stop exercising, then it's just going to go back. That's why it's quite lifestyle medicine, right? It's like when you're having the pill for a particular condition. If you stop having the medication, you can regress. So questions that can be helpful to reflect on are really what thoughts are running through your head at the time? It's never going to work. This always happens to me. These are actually absolutes. And if I had more time, I'd talk to you about thought biases that many times we can have. But what are you feeling at the present time? Are you feeling tired? Are you feeling stressed? Is that the reason why you have this low mood, is there something that's happening at home or at work? And then how was I looking after myself before I felt this way way? Was I taking care of myself? Was I getting enough sleep? And is this an emotional or physical state? Is it because of an unmet need? And a really important question is, is this a pattern? Has this happened before? Is it happening again and again? Do I need to seek help? So when I look at all of these things and in the research that I've done over time, you know, I've, you know, we put together the seven dimensions of wellness. It's already out there in the literature. We've just tailored it to ourselves to work for us here. But you know, we've got the seven dimensions of wellness, the physically energized, which is looking at your diet, your exercise, your sleep, socially connected, vocationally enriched, spiritually empowered, intellectually engaged, and then also having environmentally attuned and emotionally thriving. Let me just look at some of the aspects. I'm going to go through each one. So spiritually empowered. I know we say we trust God, but do we really trust God? It's easy to trust God in the good times, but what about when you're feeling low? What about when you go into depression? What about when your job is on the line? Are you still trusting God? Faith and spirituality are vital to many people's mental well being. And research shows that spiritual practices such as prayer, worship and reflection can reduce anxiety and depression and increase life satisfaction. Anchoring in faith provides hope, peace and a strong sense of identity, especially in difficult situations. I love this verse. You will keep him in perfect peace. Peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts you. You know, in this research paper, it's a media analysis here, systematic review, media analysis, which media analysis means just pulling together research on a particular topic from different studies. And here they had 102 studies with over almost 80,000 people. And what they found with people with higher levels, high religious and spiritual levels, had a lower prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as reporting greater life satisfaction and psychological well being, better social relationships and a more definite meaning and purpose in life. And we've also seen a lot of studies also in younger ages as well and young adults where this also also is true. We look at Jesus. He faced immense mental and spiritual attack in the wilderness by quoting Scripture. He countered lies with truth, showing that God's word renews the mind and strengthens the resolve against negative influences. If I was to ask you, how many Bible verses did you memorize this week, what would you say? What about this month? What about in a year? One day we may not have the Bible or the app. We need to put the scripture in our mind that no matter where we are at, when something negative comes into our minds, we can replace. We can respond with a Bible verse that gives us hope, the other one is nourish to flourish. What we eat directly impacts how we feel. Whole food diets rich in vegetables and fruits and omega 3s can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. And it's found to be linked to healthy aging as well. You know, Daniel's commitment, this is Daniel, not my husband, but Daniel in the Bible. But to a plant based diet resulted in physical and mental vitality and higher intakes of trans fat, sodium, sweetened beverages, red and processed meats, or both were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms. So what does your plate look like most of the time? In the Elia plate that we have here, it's about half the plate having vegetables and fruit with more lean to the vegetables. We have grains, we have legumes and we have whole grains with plant based milks and healthy fats. So this is an interesting one. Rest to be your best. You know, I would have to say here, and my husband knows this rest is not something that I do a lot like in terms of I've always had a lot of energy and even when I was young I didn't know the knowledge that I have now today. And I was young, I was immature and when people go, man, you know, how do you stay up late and you're first at work, how does that work? And I said, oh, oh, don't worry, I said, you can sleep when you die, right? But then I think God has a sense of humor. Next thing you know, I've gone from business into health and I start learning all these things and I realize that you actually need sleep for so many things. Memory, mood, emotional regulation. And so in our fast paced world, sleep is undervalued. Is that true? And I haven't cracked it yet. But sleep and rest are not luxuries, they're essential for thriving. Research shows that chronic sleep deprivation actually impairs mental function and emotional regulation. And you just have to think about it. If you haven't had a good sleep, do you get a little bit grumpy the next day? Yeah, sometimes, or a bit short, etc. So God has embedded rest into creation with the Sabbath. And I praise God that we do have the Sabbath where we can stop and be reminded to Stop, reflect, renew and connect. And Jesus also withdrew even when there were crowds, right? So he also withdrew to rest even when there were crowds around him because he knew the importance, importance of spending time in rest. But also connection with the Father and embracing regular rhythms of sleep, rest and Sabbath help guard our mental health and reconnects us with his purpose. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but you can see here this is the physiology of sleep. But you know, we have four to six cycles per night roughly of 90 minutes each. Sleep is an active and dynamic process composed of several repeating stages. And you can see there that you've got the non rapid eye movement sleep. You can see that there you've got the N1 light sleep. The N2 is the deeper sleep and then it goes into the deep sleep where you have the rapid eye movement is when it goes into the dreaming stage. And I have to say that I love to dream, I dream all the time. But it's interesting is because years ago I remember I could go into a dream and then I'd wake up because something's happened in the dream and I could think something differently. I could go into the dream and I'd change the course of my dream. And so it's quite exciting, you know, going to sleep. But I don't tend to do that so much these days. But look, this is really interesting about and how it can impact so many parts of your life. The circadian rhythm regulates the sleep wake cycle via the melatonin. And it's very, very important here. And then we've got move to thrive. So we all know that exercise is good for us. We know that it helps us with physical health, but it also helps us with brain health. And so we see that exercise boosts our mood and also also neuroplasticity, which is where the brain's ability to change and adapt by forming new neuro connections throughout life. It boosts mood, it lowers stress hormones and reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms. Actually exercise is probably the most underrated antidepressant. Yeah, the most underrated antidepressant. And so let's have a look at this here. So we talked about, Daniel was the, I was going to say bus driver, but it's not. We've got a seven seater but you know, we just came back from snowing and we actually cut our ski trip short so that I could do the city to surf because we're raising funds for Elia Wellness. And so we went there and I know the night before I stayed at My sister's house, and she lives in Paddington. And it was. And we were saying, God, please marry today. So it won't rain so much the next day. And you know what? He did hold his promise. It was bucketing down. I don't think I slept. Alana and I just kept moving around in the bed, looking at each other because it was so loud. The rain pouring down from my sister's. This bedroom. You can see the Centerpoint Tower. And I could just hear the rain coming down. And so I said to Alana, hopefully it won't be too bad tomorrow. And so the next day, we got up early, and we go there and meet our friends there, and it's just a little bit drizzling, et cetera. And my sister said, now you need to bring a poncho. I'm like, oh, who needs a poncho? We don't need a poncho. Well, you can see here I'm wearing a poncho because it was raining and it was cold and it was freezing. And Alana was saying to me, mom, I'm so cold. So I'm having to, like, go like this with her in there. But you know what? It was good for our mental resilience as well, and building that up, because, you know, we did it last year, and we enjoyed it so much, and then this year, we did it. And when the rain starts to bucket down, and I. You know what? I had. I actually said to my sister, I don't need the poncho. I took it off and I gave it to her, but she thankfully held my poncho and her poncho, okay. And so then the rain starts coming down. I go, hey, can you just give me my poncho again? I put it on. I put it on, and we went all the way. And it was interesting because at about, you know, it was raining, it was so miserable, my sister said to me, you know what? I think I'm just going to catch a taxi home. I said, ali, you can't do that. He said, oh, you know, I'm feeling so well after having this thing this morning. And I said, well, if you really want to, but I'm still going to go because I'm raising funds, so I have to finish the race. And she said, okay. So she looked it up. It was one $9 to get home, get a taxi. And she looked at me, and she goes, you know what? I think I'll continue with you. So we did. We did, and we had a great time. And I tell you what. When we finished, it was so great. And there was my faithful husband. He got the car, he put it there and all of us were like drowned rats, you know, walking, the seven of us into the six of us into the car and then we got some warmth and you know, I didn't wear the right shoes. I want to thank Dr. Andrew Pennington too, because he was there too and others and he helped us to raise funds. You know, he was smart, he got, he. He actually went in the early team and so he went in and yes, it was a bit rainy for the two kilometres, but we had rain for about 8km. So I said next year we've got to book in earlier. But this is something interesting here on cardiorespiratory fitness. It actually protects the brain by improving cerebral blood flow and reduces inflammation and also enhances neuroplasticity. So you know what's interesting is this study actually found that exercising at higher intensities has been shown to be superior in, to improve the cardiorespiratory fitness. And so in studies now they've seen that, you know, like we can walk, you know, in Papua New guinea they walk like this. And I have this joke because whenever I do a talk there, I would do this. And that's how they walk there. And I was wondering why do you walk so slow? It's because it's hot. And so I started to realize that it's hot and when you walk really far you start sweating and then I look red and then they laughing at me. But here you see, studies now are showing that if you do 30 minutes per week of higher intensity, so say like 85% of your maximum heart rate. So you can have short conversation but you can't sing. So if you do that 30 minutes, even if it's broken up onto different days, it's actually better for your cardio respiratory fitness than walking longer. So if you like to walk, then walk up hills and that will actually help you to improve and increase your heart rate. But what they have found is that it leads to about 40% risk reduction from all cause mortality and 30 to 40% reduced risk of developing or dying dementia. Very interesting, isn't it? And so even if you walk for longer minutes, it may not have the same impact as walking doing it shorter at higher intensities. And I love this study. This study is in the world psychiatry and it's a meta review, so it's even better than a meta analysis. But anyway, not getting to too much detail but of the lifestyle factors in the Prevention and treatment of mental health disorders. And they had 45 studies and what they found was that it moderately exercise, moderately large benefits from exercise in adults with depressive disorders were found and that poor sleep significantly increases the risk of clinical depression or depressive symptoms. And healthy dietary patterns are associated with a significant reduced risk of depressive symptoms. And now they're even discovering that smoking actually is linked to bipolar and some other diseases. But here, you see here, the ones with the more solid lines has got the most, the higher grades of research. But you're seeing that exercise, healthy diets, not smoking and sleeping well with good quality actually helps in adhd, anxiety, depression, bipolar and psychotic disorders. And so this is great to be in this really world. Psychiatry is a very high journal in this space and it's great to see that they're recognising this and doing research in this area. But when I look at Caleb, you know, at age 85, he's declared he was as strong as in his youth, ready to claim God's promises. His active lifestyle, faith and optimistic mindset sustain both his physical strength but also his mental strength. And Caleb's examples demonstrate that purposeful living, physical stewardship and trust in God can actually preserve vitality and clarity of mind, empowering us to complete our God given mission that God has given us even in our later years. And I love how he says I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me. My next one is about thinking God's way. How heavy is the brain? Anyone know how heavy the brain is? Yeah, it's about 3 pounds or just about 1.3 kilos on average, depending if it's a male or female, et cetera. There's 100 billion neurons that's going through there, 500 trillion synapses, and it's going at about 482 kilometers per hour. We truly have an amazing intelligent designer. So how many thoughts do we have per day? Now I'm sure if I was to ask my husband, he'd probably say I might have a few more thoughts than him each day because my mind's always whizzing around. But on average we have about 70,000 thoughts per day. So that's a lot of time for us to have negative thoughts. And it's important for us to learn how to turn them into positive thoughts. And at times, as I've mentioned before, we need to seek professional help. And I see this as a strength, not a weakness. Cognitive framing, reframing is identifying harmful thinking and replacing it with positive ones. It's important also to reevaluate an individual's experience as well. And this process can reduce stress, it can lift the mood and improve resilience. And by shifting our perspective to God's promises as we've made memorize Bible verses, we train our minds to focus on hope and gratitude, reshaping emotional thoughts, responses to challenges and fostering a healthy, stable and Christ centered mental outlook. It takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. But when we constantly think of something negative, what is the blessing I can take from this? What is God trying to teach me through this situation? When I think about David, he often began his psalms in emotional turmoil but ended it in praise. He confronted his feelings honestly using scripture based self talk and anchored his hope in God's faithfulness. This pattern demonstrates biblical cognitive reframing, allowing pain, speaking truth, but choosing faith which transformed his outlook, renewed his mind and strengthened his heart during seasons of deep personal adversity where his life was under threat. And you know, we look at an example, we why are you cast down O my soul? I mean, is he happy here? Absolutely not. And why are you disquieted within me, hoping God for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. So yes, he recognized his feelings but he didn't stay there and he didn't dwell in that place place. He praised God. And as he continued to praise God, he lifted up his spirit. When we think about socially connected, I think about nurturing for eternity. It's about relationships. Did you know that 40 to 80% of health and wellness can be directly or indirectly related to our social factors? Healthy bonds reduce loneliness. We now know that there's increased mortality risk of 26% because of loneliness. And positive relationships shape thought patterns. And that's the reason why Waitara is an Elia wellness hub as well. So that we can connect with the community, we can lift up our members, lift up the community and improve health outcomes because God has designed us for connection. So where you have like in the United Kingdom, a minister for loneliness, we want to be able to have wellness hubs. We've got 147 wellness hubs right across Australia and New Zealand. By building social connections with the community because two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor for if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him. When I think of Paul's partnership with Barnabas, it modeled the power of uplifting relationships. Their mutual encouragement Helped them face persecution and kept them focused on mission and research. Research supports that meaningful social ties protect us against depression and boost resilience. And it says here they strengthened the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and we too need to be connecting with one another's and strengthening one another's faith. When I think about vocationally enriched, there's many things we could talk about, but I'm looking at served with purpose. When we align work and service with our God given purpose, we can protect our mental health and foster fulfillment. Purpose driven work is linked to greater job satisfaction and it doesn't matter what what the job is if we can link it to a higher purpose. Viewing our work as service reframes challenges as opportunities for growth and also for contribution. As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Why do I have a Bible verse for each of these areas is because yes, science is catching up with what God has given us in the Word of God. When I looked at this study here about volunteering, there's a lot of information there, but what I just wanted to share with you if you look up here is that what they found in this umbrella review is that they found that volunteering actually had strong evidence for helping with depression, life satisfaction, positive effect, self esteem, pride, empowerment, self efficacy, social support and community connectedness and even mortality. And so it's important for us to volunteer and many of you are volunteering. Even the Women's Health Week tomorrow is also volunteering to be able to connect with the community and be able to teach them new things so that we can all flourish together. When I think about Nehemiah's leadership in rebuilding Jerusalem's Wall was deeply vocational. He had purpose. His alignment was with God's call and it gave him the focus and the resilience to overcome discouragement and overcome threats. As we look at these things here, I'm just going to go back into here. The intellectually engaged, we talk about the renewed mind. This is neuroplasticity. As I mentioned before, what they have found now is that research shows activating prefrontal cortex strengthens the ability to improve stress resilience and cognitive clarity. We see that behavior interventions now such as cbt, cognitive behavioral therapy and targeted cognitive training has been shown the ability to modulate the synaptic plasticity and help us with neuroplasticity. So when I look at the number seven, the last one here is environmentally in tuned. It's about Reviving in nature. How good does it feel when you walk along the beach? Does it feel good? Or you walk in a park or you walk in the greens? We love living in Westpennier Hills because you can see all the trees around us. But it helps us and even decluttering to reduce stress, which my husband likes to remind me about. And also the natural light that boosts us as well. We see that it's important for us to care for creation honours God. And just as I go into this, in summary here is that this is just showing a whole person health approach to looking at how we can renew the mind. Because when we incorporate all of these seven dimensions, we flourish in life and that's what God really wants for us. Let me ask you, have you ever heard of Anita Alvarez? Has anyone heard of her? Well, she was. It was June 2022 and she was at the world championships in Budapest. She was an American artistic swimmer with Mexican roots and was performing a flawless routine. Now I'm not sure if any of you can do this move in the water, but when she was, her performance had ended. She did not come up for air. She had lost consciousness. Her body floated for a few seconds and then it began to sink slowly all the way to the bottom of the pool. The audience didn't know. They were still clapping for her because she did this flawless. She did this perfect routine. And neither did the judges. The judges didn't realize as well. The audience continued to clap and shout and whistle. And here she was. She had fallen to the bottom of the pool. But her coach knew her. Her coach knew how long it took her to do her routine and knew when she was going to come back up. And she knew that something was wrong. And so what did she do? She dived into the water, clothes and all. She went into her. She swam to her and she picked her up. And this story left me thinking. Who knows you well enough to notice when you're not okay, even when you're smiling? Who would dive in for you without hesitation when you no longer have the strength to come up for air? And more importantly, would you be that person or someone else? Are you and I present enough in our loved ones lives and our church family's lives that we know when they are starting to sink? Or we one of the spectators that are clapping on the side realizing, not realizing that they are sinking in this life. We all need someone who doesn't just see us but truly notices us. Someone who knows when we're about to give up. Someone that knows that we need that pep talk to keep us going and someone who has the courage to jump in and save us, just as Christ saved you and I. How many of you want to put one of these seven dimensions strategies into your life this week, but also be someone that notices someone else answer. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you Lord that you are the one that renews our mind and transforms our life. Lord, we praise you Lord. Lord that we can always come to you. And Lord, we pray that we will notice others in need as well. In Jesus name, Amen. This message will was made available by the Waitara Seventh Day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit waitarachurch.org au it's been our pleasure bringing you this program today here on 3 ABN Australia Radio.
