You're just not feeling well; not up to par. So you make an appointment to see a doctor. Finally, after a week the big day arrives. After a lengthy wait in the "waiting" room, you're ushered into his presence.

"What seems to be the problem," he asks gravely? You explain, "I'm having difficulty sleeping." A little prodding reveals that you're troubled about (fill in the blank: _________work, money, marital, lack of energy, depression, anxiety) problems.

After ten minutes he scribbles something on his Rx pad. "This is a prescription for an antidepressant. Have it filled and make a follow-up appointment in two weeks," he instructs.

You're hopeful. A pill that will lift the cloud of gloom. But there are a few things the doctor didn't have time to tell you in your allotted ten minutes. We'll fill in the gap.

• While emotional maladies are real, they are not physically diagnosable. There are no objective tests to either confirm or deny your symptoms whether real, imagined or deceptive. Nor is there any drug that can treat mental disorders. Drugs only mask the symptoms.

• Paradoxically, the side effects of a prescribed drug may be more disturbing than your original complaint.

• The FDA approval of a drug is based upon a one or two-month study that is designed, paid for, and supervised by the drug's manufacturer. The long-term consequences of drugs that have been on the market for only a few years are unknown. Okay, so you'll chance it. Congratulations! You're the lab rat, or would you prefer guinea pig for discovering its long-term consequences.

• The FDA estimates that less than 1 percent of all serious events are ever reported. Read the severe side effects on the package insert. For every one you read, there are 99 others not reported.

• Beware the black rectangle. If the package insert has side effects bordered by a black margin, that is the most severe warning that the FDA can issue. There are thirty-four black box warnings for antidepressants alone. The FDA warning, in part reads: "Patients started on antidepressant therapy should be observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality [sic.], or unusual changes in behavior." Plainly speaking, it can drive to drink or death.

• Side effects can be severe and irreversible. These include movement problems such as tremor, stiff muscles, slow movement, akathisia (chronic restlessness), dystonia (uncontrollable muscle spasms and contractions), and tardive dyskinesia (uncontrollable movements of the lips, tongue, jaw, and eyes). Try going to the supermarket with one of these.

• Two weeks later it's time for your follow-up visit. You tell the doctor about the adverse drug effects. He will then either change the dosage, switch drugs, or most probably, add another drug to alleviate the side effects of the first drug. Welcome aboard the drug merry-go-round.

• For some psychotropic drugs, addiction could be formed in weeks. If you try to break this addiction, you may experience severe withdrawal symptoms.

• Lithium is Mr. Right. Well, maybe not. You assumed that a lack of this mineral caused your chronic emotional distress. You assumed wrong. No test can demonstrate a deficiency of lithium, nor is there a nutritional need for lithium. It's snake oil, with a different name.

However, treatments are available that cost nothing and have as their only side effect good health. But first my black box warning: Never change the dosage of any drug or worse yet abandon it; that can be life-threatening.

Okay, here's the Do List:

(1) If the alarm clock wakes you up, you're not getting enough sleep. Insufficient rest will undermine every effective action. And junk foods? Don't even think about it.

(2) A plant-based diet. Do your food shopping on the extreme left (vegetables and fruits) and right (dairy) of the supermarket. Save the boxed and bagged foods for your pet.

(3) Exerciser. A brisk walk, jogging or bicycling is excellent. So are resistance exercises. Bodily movement is especially vital for lymphatic circulation which is pumped by muscular contractions.

(4) Lastly, the most celebrated healers of all, a peaceful mind, family and friends, and time.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins, New Milford, PA

Recently in Scranton, Jeff Sessions, serving as Attorney General, cited Romans 13 to defend the Administration. This is a servile and antidemocratic quote that had the Founders heeded it, we would never have gotten Independence. (Interesting how they didn't cite Romans when Obama was in charge. Note also that he failed to emphasize 13:10.)

But now that he's cited the Scriptures, this opens the door to citing other Scriptural passages to condemn that same Administration and all who support it. (From KJV) Observe:

1) On their immigration policies: Leviticus 19:33-34.

2) On their policies that harm the poor: Proverbs 14:31, 28:27, 29:7; Deuteronomy 15:7.

3) On their policies that benefit the rich: Proverbs 22:16, Psalm 73:12.

4) On their pro-rich tax cut: Ecclesiastes 13:6.

5) On their propensity to lie: Proverbs 6:16-19, 12:22; Psalm 31:18.

6) On the narcissism of the leader: Romans 12:3, Proverbs 16:5,18; 18:12.

7) For worshipers of the leader: Proverbs 28:4.

8) On their backwards-looking tendency: Ecclesiastes 7:10.

9) On their hatred of liberals: Proverbs 11:25, Isaiah 32:7-8.

10) For dismissers of the Mueller probe: Proverbs 18:13, Psalm 10:2.

11) Advice for GOP voters: Proverbs 3:31, 4:27; Philippians 4:5.

Things are very wrong right now, but there's hope for the future-- Psalm 9:18 for one thing. Of course, I'm guilty of violating Proverbs 23:19.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck, Rushville, PA

There are many facts which are ignored when a pro-abortion person speaks. One is that there is no difference between a prenatal child and a child of 2 years (or any age) except for maturation. Just as there is no difference in the humanity of a person of any age. God-fearing people must remember that God knew us as He "knit us together in our mother's womb". A person who claims that the pro-life cause has not delivered has never seen the yearly March for Life in protest of Roe/wade in Washington, DC and many other locations in our country. Thousands upon thousands of younger and younger students and families from all over our nation, and even outside our nation march in the terrible cold, happily assuring us who have grown too old that theirs is the Pro-Life generation. This is not a political issue – it is a human rights issue.

We appreciated President Trump's and Vice President Pence's support this year as we continue to pray our nation will stop lifting her arm in support of killing babies, as Germans lifted theirs for Hitler in his madness. You have not seen the dozens and dozens of women who mount the platforms for speakers at the march with signs declaring that they regret their abortions. You have not seen the numerous men who mount the platform with signs stating they regret the death of their child. In America alone, 440,658 babies have lost their life this year to abortion - 19,258,703 world wide. God fearing people are beginning to see they have been duped. The money made killing babies and selling baby body parts continues to buy people's souls. Some people are just too blind to see the truth or too proud to examine reality.

Every day people wake up to realize they have not solved their problem – they have killed their baby. They are welcomed by the pro-live cause with love and understanding. Dr. Nathanson killed over 60,000 babies before he saw the live, precious baby in a sonogram. He and Norma Leah McCorvey Nelson, the original plaintiff of Roe v Wade who woke up to reality and never had the abortion – had the baby and worked her whole life trying to reveal the lie of Roe V Wade. They have both died now and I praise God they did not have to pay for their mistakes before God. No – there are no crocodile tears on our side of this issue, except for the loss of all the gifts (cures for disease, wars avoided, great leaders who teach us to love, forgive and the reality that life is eternal and all will be judged) some of those babies were given that are lost.

Sincerely,

Annette Corrigan, Jackson Township

In addition to Bob Scroggins' letter to the Editor regarding Six Impossibilities, there are more. Let us start with Albert Einstein's quote, "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed." The conservation of energy is an absolute law: energy can only change form. You burn a match, the matchstick reduces to ash and the heat goes off into the air. It only changes form.

Furthermore, another extraordinary Impossibility is that energy always was and always will be. Many of us say the same about our Creator. One has to wonder. Is our universe our Creator? After all, for me, it takes intelligence to make intelligence. We come from our universe. Now think about this, energy must have been intelligent and is still intelligent. We are intelligent, thus we in fact come from nothing. It is A=B and B=C, thus A=C equation. We are made of intelligent energy along with matter. However, science will say that I am far reaching that the universe is a living entity: science will say we evolved to be intelligent. Wow, from nothing!

This leads to the Impossibility for us to believe the mere construction of our bodies with all the complexities: DNA, sperm meeting egg to form a human has no blue-print and we are not created by our Creator. Think about this: a nothing without a direction to form a universe, and then us, does not exist. It's impossible for me to believe. Here on Earth we have blueprints for everything; cars, houses, bridges. Here on Earth we have maps to give us direction. Yet we are to believe from no planning and from no direction a universe come to be with intelligent creatures.

There was no energy, no light, electromagnetic waves (radio, TV, microwaves) before the big bang. This can only mean there was nothing, or there was never a nothing.

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed leads to another impossibility - there is no such thing as perpetual motion. However, the universe is a perfect example of this. On Earth, gravity and friction slow things down - to make an item such as a ball stop when thrown. This is not happening in our universe. It is expanding, not slowing down and it continues to grow.

By definition hypothetical motion is the hypothetical continuous operation of a mechanism without the introduction of energy from an external source, known as perpetual motion of the first kind. A device demonstrating this would violate the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

Where did our universe get its energy? I believe the impossibility it was always there and always will be - as well as OUR CREATOR.

Sincerely,

Larry Gary, Gibson, PA