"That's why you're standing here looking at this"
Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith is an internal medicine physician practicing in Alabama and an award-winning author. One of her books, ” Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity” offers ground-breaking insight on the seven types of rest.
What is interesting is how this book has been publicised by media channels such as CNN, NBC and magazines. As a backstory, Saundra recently gave this testimony at a Transform Our World conference:
I had a dream. We were on a route and I was surrounded by water and also many people who were just overwhelmed. And I'm standing in this raft with Jesus, and I said, "Do something." And he says, "I did. That's why you're standing here with me." I woke up and I thought, "Okay, that was bizarre. I'm just going to keep doing my medical practice." I already felt like I was doing a lot. I had a medical practice where we have a prayer room. We were doing a lot of things I thought.
I kept having this dream in different forms. The next one, it was a team of people out running a race, and they were they are perishing on the side, just dropping off in the middle of their race. And again, I said, "Jesus do something." And he says "That's why you're standing here looking at this."
What ended up happening was something inside of me changed. I started to notice that there was something going on in healthcare where we were popping pills at things that needed to be touched deeper. I couldn't see how can I, one person, had any effect on such a problem that seems to be so huge. And all I kept hearing was, "Just start with you. You're dealing with the same problem. You're overwhelmed. You're burned out. Figure out in my Word how you can start healing, then just take that to those around you."
And that's where it began and then that turned into a book. When I wrote the book, I initially thought I'm writing this book for Christians, because I talk about Jesus in the book. But what I didn't expect was for the secular population to be those people that were drowning, and that they were so desperate that they were okay to to look at a book that even talked about Jesus.
I got an invitation from the Government Health Department to be one of their wellness speakers to talk about burnout based on a Christian living book. I knew that in this Government setting, and also at Ted Talks, both of these organisations specifically said, "You cannot talk about the spiritual."
However the spiritual is one of the seven types of rest that I felt Holy Spirit have given me. Through my pastor and Transform Our World, I learned that the church is called to disciple people in a biblical principle, out into the world, not just in church. And so I took two opportunities with TED talks, and with the Government. And what I didn't realise is that God was about to blow the doors off everything that I knew was possible.
When 2020 happened, I was speaking and doing a lot of different things in person and then, due to the pandemic, everything went online. I started getting invitations from places like Qatar healthcare asking me to come teach these principles to them, or, or Australia or Hong Kong. I thought, "Okay, I'm sitting here at this zoom meeting with these people. I'm in their house, their virtual house, I can invite Holy Spirit into this virtual house." And I started to pray into those moments. I have even some Muslim organisations come back and say things like, "We don't know what it is. But there's a there's a peace that follows when you come in."
It's been amazing to watch God do what he does. It has opened up doors I would have never imagined. This information based on Isaiah 30v15, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." That message is now being promoted by CNN, promoted by places like TED talks, promoted in big organisations. And what I really love about it most is that over 250,000 people now have taken the assessment related to that book, and all of them are directed back to a biblical principle that can actually help save them in every area of their life.
Watch this 9 minute TEDx talk by Saundra about her book:
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