Jar of Clay

2 Cor. 4:7-9 KJV “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair: Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

ESV 7 “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

While I prefer the KJVersion many find the ESV an easier read. That’s okay with me because I’m a fragile jar of clay spilling out the word. It is not mine to shape and twist for easier reading it is mine to pour out of my earthly vessel.

Many people fear the Word, the Light, the Love that God showers on the world. I find in this physical world that people embrace hate easier than they do love. Love makes people vulnerable. Love is an open wound and touching love brings forth pain. Like salt on a wound, your pain becomes visible to the world. Hiding behind hate and anger is so much easier.

So here I am, an open wound. I have a disease that has people curling up in fear, writhing in pain, losing all sense of self. This illness leaves many alone in a struggle with the only thing in their faces is fear.

Fear tried to afflict me in the earliest of days. I quickly turned to Light and Love and the entire perspective changed for me; I may have been struck down but I was not destroyed! I know quite a few friends asked where my strength comes from and I have to be honest, from the Holy Spirit residing in me, there can be no other place in me to hold such a magnitude of passion except this jar of clay.

Fear was strewn outside the vessel trying to shatter the fragility of the jar but I could not, I would not allow the hardened clay to be tapped by fear. I will not break because someone thinks they know what is better for me. I will defend my honor and hold fast the truth that is a vine climbing inside of me.

A Puritan they say, well praise be, if you think of that as an insult you’d be wrong, if you see the purity in me, you’d be right. A puritan, I’m honored. 
Puritan defined - a person who is strict in moral or religious matters, often excessively so.

I may be an excessive moral person, a strict spiritual person but I am not a religious person, but I like that about me. It surely doesn’t make me any better than you. I am not above anyone. I am a sinner who, if God doesn’t chastise me, I will correct myself. I’ve walked the rigid path, my bare feet scarred by the stones, glass penetrated me and I bled, but I am now healed and I want the world to know of this healing. Is that wrong in wanting to share the Light of the road less taken?

While a doctor tries to use fear, a browser tries to use dominance, people try to use doubt, God uses me to pour out all that’s in this vessel. I’m okay with that, I feel I have a purpose and it isn’t in the materialistic society. I have a Spirit filled with love and everything that entails. I share the love. Judge if you want, I’m okay with that too, if you have a problem with love then you need some deep thinking sessions to see what is missing in you.

I could say the weight of an illness is on my shoulders but no instead I feel the weight of the Lord pressing in on me to spill out all He has shown me. I’m a basin full of living water just waiting for someone to dip their fingers into, to wash their face. I want to share all that the Lord has shared with me. Is that wrong? Is that moral high ground?  

Though some look down on me trying hard to ignore the Light I bring to the table, I see you and it makes me love you all the more. I will not break, I will not shatter, I will not be swayed or inhibited by persecution. I will rise above this disease and look at it from afar, it will be buried in the chasm of my healing cells never to be seen of again.

My hope for the world is that more and more people will be brazen enough to step up to the plate and not be shamed for spreading the Word. But can I give you some advice? Don’t share the Word then turn around and shew forth hate, it kind of gives off a mixed message. There is no confusion where God is concerned. 

Onward Christian 

Rom. 10:17 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

MONOPOLY!

Job 40:20 "Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play."

MONOPOLY

Deut. 33:27 “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.”

This was going to be one of my Gateway to Health continuing series on STRENGTH. I got sidetracked because of my Google browser.

Gateway to Health: Strength
Through all of this soul searching, I realized another thing that makes me different from a lot of people. It isn’t just my intense love of the Holy Spirit within me, it is my strength to get through trials. Since I found out I have this disease my strength has grown to immeasurable heights. I know when I was younger my sister always deemed me ‘the strong one’. I never felt strong but she said I handled things differently than everyone else.

When I looked at this disease and the statistics in getting it, supposedly 90% was caused by stress. I don’t know how accurate that statistic is because it seems Google is waging a war against the holistic healing facts that I found one year ago. Genetics only make up three percent, and a chronic growing fungus like my psoriasis is another percentage. Add them all together and you have the Big C! Now do people with none of these ‘symptoms’ get the C? I don’t know, they’ve had to get these statistics from somewhere.

It wasn’t until about fifteen years ago when I started taking my writing to new heights with my first computer did I decide to get my story out to the world via the intranet. I didn’t care if it was in book format and no one read my words or a blog or another format, I was working on cleaning out the impervious closet.

I literally had access to thousands of outlets to post the heartfelt pain that I had suffered over my lifetime. My poetry writings in my notebooks made the long journey with me when I left home. I transferred some of my favorite poems to the newfound Word documents and the world now became mine to conquer; the new avenue was full of traffic.

Poetry was my healing outlet as a child. I could write my pain in journals and no one would be the wiser. No one would know that the walls of my closet were black because they assumed it was yellow and sunshiny bright inside my head; that is how God protected me. He allowed me to barrel over the waterfalls of life, with the sunbeams in front of me and rainbows behind me. I didn’t feel I was hiding my pain but apparently, I hid traumatic events in my writing.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t feel I was hiding the trauma. Through my writing, I was healing myself and when looked at, it appeared I was strong because I showed no sign of weakness but here I am with an illness that was awakened by the dark closet I had closed to the outside world all those years. How this transferred into the disease of a lifetime I may never know the true facts of the matter. I’m not here dissecting my pain I’m here to show you that strength wins out in the end.

Strength momentarily halted. Read on…

Since January first the ever-popular search engine Google has shifted. For a year I’ve been searching through page after page on cancer, the healing protocols, the holistic avenues I need to take. It was my understanding that your search engine ‘follows you’ and will then send like-minded pages to the front end of your searching. Holistic healing, natural herbal remedies being my most searched have now turned a sour negative note. I don’t know why but I won’t let it stress me as it is trying to do just that. Example? This link is just one example. Last year I found numerous pages that pointed to stress as the cause of this disease, but this morning as in recent weeks, I had to dig through numerous Psych central and the like pages! Page 1 listed pages that contradicted everything I saw last year pointing TO stress being the cause. This year stress is basically laughed at on page 1.

The Truth About Cancer and similar pages used to be the first pages that showed up, but it has mysteriously gone from my page one searches on EVERYTHING. It’s not doing a good job of following me, and now everything is from science this, scientific that. Where in the world did these pages come from? Now Google has its own agenda??? And people wonder why I don’t trust this superhighway? It is becoming like the rest of the outside world, unpredictable and untrustworthy with its own politically governed agenda.

Strength and monopoly merge…

I think there lay one of my biggest strengths that I was never a part of this mega mind of technology. I had a washing machine but clothes were always line dried. I cooked in an oven, reheated on the stovetop. I had no desire to be a part of the threads of the web. I got snared and tangled in it fifteen years ago and life has never been the same. Some say technology is for the better, and granted in some aspects it is, I like being able to dry my clothes in a dryer now. Life is now about speeding down the highway, closed are the bookstores and shining high are fast food joints, coffee shops, and toxicity! That’s the new world! Even the medical world has quick fixes; drugs, slice dice and radiate. Great!  Life for me has changed forever.

So if you see fewer links to my alternative holistic healing process it is because I need to find a new search engine that isn’t politically motivated or monetarily funded by the pharmaceutical corporations or the richest search engine in the world. Like cancer, the internet is one big business. I thought I was being over paranoid but no, here it is in black and white. 

My strength continues in LISTENING and OBEYING my Lord before any other entity on the planet! What a tangled web the earthlings have woven is an understatement! This is not a democracy or a republic, this is a manipulative game of Monopoly and some of us were sent to jail without a trial.

2 John 1:8 “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”

Gateway to Health: Spirituality

 John 4:24 KJV “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Some people are defined by the religion they practice whether Catholic, Methodist, Baptist etc., the list goes on and on. I like to think I am defined by my spirituality, not a religion.

A healthy spirit is needed to get through the muck and mire that life deals you. Just as a healthy body gets you through illnesses attacking you and an unhealthy body has your immune system putting you on notice that, guess what, you’re not healthy.

One might ask how to obtain a healthy spirit and I can honestly wholeheartedly say, this is one thing on earth you can’t get with the almighty dollar. You can’t tithe and donate your way into a healthy spirit, you can’t buy candles or stones and think your way into a healthy spirit, you can’t get a vaccination against the evil spirits lurking the wild; a healthy spirit needs to be tended from within every second of every living day. Hard work but not impossible.

I’ve heard people call me a ‘Jesus freak’, a ‘bible thumper’ and even ‘a hypocrite’ all because I nurture my spirit in ways maybe no one else does. I like to think we’re all the same but just as this disease that has taken up a home in my body is unique to my body, no two believers are the same. We are all unique in our own way.

When you attend church, are you there to worship God or are you there to see who else is attending? Do you look at the shabby clothes one is wearing and compare the suit and tie guy to him? Are your eyes fixed on the extremely short skirt that Mildred is wearing compared to your ankle length skirt? Or are you there to praise and worship God?

Read this story and let me know if you fit in here. 

I realize I don’t fit in anywhere. I am a homeless person among onlookers. I am a leper among the unscathed. I am a fellow sinner among men. I am Spirit-filled to the end. My spirit is full of God and that is why I don’t fit in. I love all that He created, I love my fellow man even the ones who don’t seem to be wanting or in need of love, I love them anyway. My spirit is full because of LOVE. God is my breath in the morning, my lunch in the afternoon, a delectable filling dinner, and my companion at bedtime.

2 Cor. 6:17-18 “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

We cannot all be the same, God never intended us to be that way, we’re unique. When we are filled with the Spirit we sometimes look the same and are like magnets drawn to one another but we soon realize while we are like-minded we are all different on different paths, different roads, different purposes and different completion. God wanted us different but united by one thing… by our love!

We become children of God when we drink in His Holy Spirit. One can be an avid reader of the Bible, attend church weekly, wear the garments of being a Christian but still not be filled with His Spirit.

Deut. 30:1, 6, 19-20 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Did you read that? Obey His voice, cling to Him, He is your LIFE and the length of your days. This is no small fete. He’s not asking you to passively get to know Him, He’s asking you to LOVE, LISTEN, and OBEY! He is the only one who gets to choose whether you live or die. So many humans are riddled with selfishness that we don’t quite comprehend this. We cannot hold fast to the materials of this world, the food, the books, the clothes or the money, it is not ours to cling to and if you say, “I worked for it!” Yes, you did but let me ask, when God calls you home, are you going to take your money with you and tell Him how you can’t leave it behind because ‘you earned it’?

Our spirit doesn’t know money. Money is of the materialistic physical realm. God is not money, God is Spirit! Spirituality is a connection, a relationship with God IN you not God outside of you. Meaning, God is not bits and pieces of the religious you. That is the physical you and what you’ve shaped in this physical world. That is your way of trying to connect to the Spirit of God. Remember what I said earlier, God is love? The Spirit of God is already in you and your free will allows a choice to stray from Him, embrace Him, or become ONE with Him. When your spirit is so full of LOVE that breathing hate is no longer a part of your being, you are becoming one with the Spirit of God.

You become one with everything living and breathing. Your soul opens to nature and all the natural beatings of the rhythms of the sound of the earth. The vibrations awaken in you a sight of God that you formerly never saw because you were too busy with the physical aspects of loving your Father. Spirituality is the meditations of the soul connecting with the Higher being dwelling within you that has now been awakened, God.

Matt. 22:37-40 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Until you live and breathe these commandments, you have not soulfully or spiritually connected to the Holy Spirit. God is LOVE! Once you connect to the Father-board, boot up your system, you will feel the love course through your veins; for all those around you, your enemy, for those you formerly hated, and for those you disagree with. LOVE becomes your new way of living a spirit-filled life. You will now find yourself full of the Spirit

This is what God intended when He created us. He wanted us to be so full of love the world couldn’t view the hate. Instead what’s happened is the world is so full of hate it can no longer see the love. Sure we go to church, view people, see the steeple, hear a message but how many times in a week do you carry the message home with you, and actually LIVE the message of LOVE? Well, let me just say if more people carried the word, the world would not be the train wreck we have in front of us. You’ll find spirituality underneath the rubble.

Jer. 1:16 “And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.

May the Word of the Lord bless you all! 

Quotation Saturday ~ Faith

Luke 21:19 “In your patience possess ye your souls.” 

ENDURANCE

“I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.” 
― Stephen Fry

“Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.” 
― Haruki Murakami

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.” 
― Orson F. Whitney

“If you're serious about sanctification, you can expect to experience heart-wrenching moments that try your faith, your endurance, and your patience.” 
― Sheri Dew

PATIENCE

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” 
― Paulo Coelho

Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.” 
― Elisabeth Elliot

“Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can - working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all too-prevalent condition called "center of the universe" syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role.” 
― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

HOPE

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 
― Howard Zinn

“It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It all works out in the end. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers.” 
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” 
― Thomas Merton

FAITH

“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” 
― Patrick Overton

“We never know when our last day on earth will be. So, love with full sincerity, believe with true faith and hope with all of your might. Better to have lived in truth and discovered life, than to have lived half-heartedly and died long before you ever ceased breathing. ” 
― Cristina Marrero

“All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.” 
― Martin Luther

“You are where you need to be. Just take a deep breath.” 
― Lana Parrilla

Rom. 5:3-4 “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

Gateway to Health: Meditation

John 15:5, 7, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing … If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (NIV)

Gateway to Health: Meditation

I’ve covered a lot of ground with my Gateway to Health series. While I weave in my illness, it is not the central focus as last year. I was finding my feet for the year and needed to throw the journey out for my spiritual family who is standing behind me with their support. Their support means everything to me as I heal. I’ve shown you how your diet and change all leads to healing not only for me fighting the Big C but for you who might be fighting another form of illness.

Here’s a simple thought for you; if you’re overwhelmed by stress you will NOT lose any weight no matter how hard you try changing your diet and lifestyle. Stress hormones have a nasty habit of programming the body to store fat, especially around your beltline.

According to the statistics floating around out there on the web, chronic stress is the root cause of 90% of your disease and weight gain. Stressing and worry cause us to blindly eat, turning to sweets or alcohol to try and soothe what is in our overactive minds. Anxiety robs our attention from all of the good energy that we used trying to change and makes it so by the end of our busy day that we have nothing left to motivate us into continuing our healthy eating habits.

There is some good news people, you can unleash years of stress with meditation and restore some semblance of peace to the body you overwork with a kaleidoscope of thoughts. Relaxation of the mind will allow you a better nights sleep and essentially allow you to be strong enough to face the changes you're trying so hard to implement into the new you as you embark on the Gateway to Your Health! Meditation has helped me throughout my life and has been an essential part of my healing this current illness.

Put quite simply, meditation is breathing, releasing and focusing. I assume people hear the word meditation and think that it’s not within their belief system as only Buddhist adhere to meditation. You would be 100% wrong in that assumption!

1 Tim. 4:15 “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.”

Pss. 119: 99 “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”

Meditation is a relaxation technique of the mind. It knows no religion or belief system. It takes practice but as you master stress releasing, you’re guaranteed a new way of thinking, a promising way to fall asleep, a comforting woven blanket of protection when you’re cold. 

People often say they don’t have time to learn meditation. That is so ironic to me because they can find hours upon hours to sit on the computer searching news, spewing hate, being a part of a collective conscience of similar minds achieving nothing of quality in their day, yet they have no time to meditate to de-stress their mind? Ironic.

You have time to read your bible right? You have time, maybe an hour or two to read a book on your Kindle? Find time in your day to just release the stress, relax and breathe. Nothing else. No clouding thoughts allowed into this room. You’re emptying the closet of all the unneeded baggage you have piled up. Slowly cleaning out piece by piece each article that holds your attention during any given day.

In a sitting position, back straight, ears plugged as you close your eyes, listening to the sounds streaming in from your earphones, let the days clutter float away. Visually watch the garbage be carried off. No thoughts of bills or what you’re going to do tomorrow, or what’s for dinner, or worry or stress is going to surface. Nope, all those thoughts are not allowed in here. You are going to think of NOTHING for ten, twenty, thirty and eventually forty-five minutes. When you do this as a daily routine, a relaxing habit you will form and look forward to at the end of your busy exhausting day. 

Life WILL change. You can’t give up because meditation didn’t work the first time. You’re going to push on, days into weeks, weeks into months will have you cherishing this one quiet time in your day. You’ll come home after a long hard day at work, settle into the sounds of nothing and wonder why you haven’t done this for years. 

Rom. 8:5 “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”

If you meditate on the word, a change of your perception will take place as your negative thoughts turn into positive. Your pessimism will be shifted into an optimistic approach to life. If you meditate to music with no lyrics, tones, and beats with no instruments, all are part of a meditative technique. Close your eyes, breathe and focus on nothing but the sound coming through your earbuds. Start a short session of twenty minutes until you have them lasting thirty to forty-five minutes. Find parts of yourself you thought you lost in nothingness.

Ezek. 24:25 “Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,”

Find a balance. There are times to worry, times to over think your plans for the future, politics, crime in your state, the craziness of this country. Meditation time is for YOU not for thoughts, not for worries, they’re gone, if only for that one moment in time. Allow yourself a peace you’ve never known before. Allow the window of your conscience to be clearly seen through, not washed over by dirt and debris that has built up over the years. Free your mind of clutter. I can guarantee, as time goes on (not a day or two of trying) TIME goes on, eventually, when you try to fall asleep at night, you’ll remember taking out that rag during your meditation time. You’ll pull out the Windex and begin cleaning up your thoughts of the day, leading you to some form of rest, and eventually a good nights worth of sleep.

I find a nice warm cup of green tea also helps before bed. Alcohol stimulates the brain activity, tea calms it, sugar awakens the sleep you so strategically misplaced along your lifetime. Eliminate alcohol, regulate your sugar intake, know what causes stimulation and save that for morning time, but the nights, they are yours and yours alone, stress and worry are not permitted.

Take the time to take care of you! Your mind is an essential part of any healing that will ever take place from ANY disease that ails you. If you can’t find peace of mind, plan on being sick for a very long time. THAT will be your life. It’s not a picture I see ever and if I’m diagnosed with an illness, I know my MIND played a big part of bringing it to my doorstep; change the mind, change the outcome, point blank!

Isa. 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”

Lam. 3:21 “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.”

One Year Ago Today

Pss. 30:2 “O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.”

One Year Ago Today

January 25, 2017, was one of the worst days of my life! That was the day I had an appointment with a doctor. I wasn’t told by my GP that she was a breast surgeon. Everything about doctors, to me, is a secretive mysterious puzzle of sorts.

The tests of the day were excruciating, to say the least. I had no say in the matter as to what was going to happen to me that day. I wasn’t given a choice, I was just told by a surgeon, that was only going by what she felt (the lump) that I had cancer and that a string of tests was in order to confirm.

If I was told about the tests doing more harm than good, I would have gone home to cry that instant but instead, I was wheeled from one test to the other. Pressed, prodded and poked in a puddle of tears left behind. 

When I finally returned home from all of the tests, I had to face my son, I had to tell my niece. She is a Reiki specialist and knows her stuff when it comes to holistic healing. She didn’t have one ounce of negativity in her words. She filled me with hope and inspired me to take on the whole team of oncologists and put them in their place. They worked for ME, not the other way around. They were not going to shape my disease in any way! 

You are free to read my last years worth of posts, all documenting this wondrous journey. My plans are to write a book, Beating Cancer on a Budget but as you know, I have to beat this disease before the book will ever see the light of day. But my blog is the (partial) documentation I’ll need to put the book together.

I am going to admit that the diagnosis that came two weeks after the tests were cryptic, to say the least. I was never given a stage of the BC, I was only told what HAD to be done, the chemicals and drugs that would be put into my system via an IV and pills/drugs I would take for ten years, the radiation and cutting of my body that I’d need; not one ounce of positivity. What they didn’t know was that I’m an optimist, in every sense of the word. They could not, as hard as they tried, fill me with fear of the disease that takes millions of lives!

Today’s post is not about the ‘bad news’ I received on this day a year ago. This post is about the BLESSING I received in knowing I, Joni, was given a second chance to turn my life around and change some wrongs and make them RIGHT! I peeked into the window of all the detrimental toxic treatment I had given my body over the years that basically is the cause of this disease. First on the agenda, life-changing protocol for daily living.

In the eyes of the medical profession, this disease cannot be won without their money-grabbing negativity infused treatment. Little do they know, or want to admit, there are thousands of people out here in the world successfully treating themselves with no surgery, zero radiation, and most of all no DRUGS!

After the diagnosis, the year of toxic weight lost, the abundance of pivotal supplements, I am healed! Have I received verification? Of course not, the doctors threw up their hands and disposed of me, moving onto their next victims of the disease.

I say I am healed because I asked my Lord and Savior and we’ve had some long talks over this year, He confirms all I need to know. You don’t need to wish me a happy anniversary because it is not a HAPPY anniversary, this is a day I wish to put behind me in my pile of negative build-up rubble. 

This is the day the Lord has made, I will REJOICE and be glad in it! I will not be sitting behind the screen today, I’m going to go out for awhile and love life. The NEW life I live with God beside me all the way.

All praise and Glory to Him! 

Pss. 118: 24 “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Gateway to Health: The Mind

Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (NIV)

Gateway to Health: The Mind 

Today we’re going to venture into the power of the mind, the weak mind and the powerful mind. Please note, a weak mind does not in any way mean a weak person, it just means you don’t have a powerful mind. There’s nothing wrong with that. I think the mind works in an optimistic or pessimistic flow of thoughts. A powerful minded person is usually an optimist, who sees healing powers whereas a weaker minded person is a pessimist and doesn't necessarily believe the mind holds any power.

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” 
― Marcus Aurelius

I know there’s a scripture that says there is strength in numbers.

Ecc. 4:9 “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour."

Matt 18:20 KJV “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

In context, strength in numbers means people out of context suppose it means THOUGHTS.  Two [thoughts] are better than one.

Where two [positive thoughts] are gathered together…

Think about it. The world would be a much better place if optimism ran rampant in the minds of humans. Such as it is pessimism [is not realism] it is negativism! Doubt and fear are humanistic but fear and doubt are not of God and all He stands for. Being born a pessimist is quite hard to change, just as being an optimist has its hurdles too, but the mind IS a powerful thing to waste.

“Any fear is an illusion. You think something is standing in the way, but nothing is really there. What is there, is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
~ Michael Jordan

The gift of disease can be a blessing to the optimist, devastating to the pessimist. Where I see a time to change, they see a time to give in and give up. Where I, an optimist, see my diagnosis as a positive change, a blessing, to the pessimist they will see a diagnosis as the end of the line, a curse to reckon with.

When I got the diagnosis almost a year ago to the day I asked two oncologists, an M.D. and a P.A a question. If I don’t for one minute believe chemo will work for me, will it work? All four said, “Absolutely NOT!” They all agreed that the mind is very powerful and what I think and believe will shape the outcome.

So when someone (usually pessimists) questions the route I’m taking, I point them directly to my BELIEF that this is healed and the path is already laid out, I’m just following the yellow brick road, so to speak. I obviously have a very strong mind. I sleep eight hours, of good restful sleep, I exercise, eat right and healthy and am an eternal optimist!

The doctors tried to use fear to get me to succumb to their line of treatment. We NEED to slice, dice and radiate you! NOW, we can’t wait, the longer you wait the less chance you have of survival. “Okay. Doc,” I said, “I’ll take my chances with faith.”
Some (pessimist) see this as crazy. Faith doesn’t mean to carry a serious diagnosis like this lightly, is what they think. Then I’ll ask them, just what DOES faith mean to you? 

I read the link from The Truth About Cancer, if you also scrolled to the bottom and read the comments, the one lady says how this is not a gift, it is tiring always looking over your shoulder and hoping. Sad to say, but I don’t feel that all the supplements in the world are going to heal that woman. I read too much negativity from her and she sounds like a pessimist at heart.

If you are a pessimist [realist, whatever you call yourself] there is no easy alternative treatment for you. Go to the doctor, believe your doctor and your doctor will heal you, or at least the drugs you think will can. I am an optimist, I don’t believe for one second a doctor or his drugs can heal me and I have every ounce of faith that my Eternal Healer has already healed me. This does not make me right and you wrong it makes us different, just the way God designed us to be, different.

Pss. 143:5 “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands.”

The mind is very powerful. I believe the nation is in the troubles it is in because of the culmination of negative thinkers, the pessimists of the world. Pessimists, by no fault of their own mind you, but by the very power of negative thinking have shaped the world with their doubt and hate. The collective conscience of society has had a detrimental effect on society as a whole. 

While I see the positive beauty in the world, I see hope filtering through from behind a veil obscured from view, yet the negativity shines in the night as a planetarium; it is full of light in the darkness of the cosmos, not the other way around.

Through my Gateway to Health series, I will try and lead you all onto a lighted path. A healthy mind is ESSENTIAL to healing! Please leave your pessimism at the door I just mopped the floor. If you are not willing to TRY and change (I’m not talking about religion here, I’m talking MIND) then you really don’t want to be here. I’m all about ooey gooey optimism and the power of positive thinking. Granted I live for my Lord, positivity can be had believing in light, love and spirituality.  The choice is yours, not mine, I’ve already made MY choice. 

Next up: Spirituality and Meditation

Poetry Sunday ~ Two Alpha Males

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Gen 4:9 “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?”

Two Alpha Males

Two Alpha males; stiff raised tails 

Evident hate for one another

Circling around with insolent sound

not friend, not father nor brother.

They’ll never know the daily blow

my soul had to take for them.

They’ll never know the pain although

they pool in their self-made phlegm

They think they’ll undo all that’s done

though no one holds the power

to fill my soul in a crumbled soup bowl

in their passive clouded shower.

Their souls misaligned I can’t define

the mismatched ego's they boost.

No one saw the pain; my time in the rain

Abandoned was I to roost.

Will one of them dare to give a care

for the woman they leave behind?

Grieve all alone, no soul of their own

I’ll soon be gone from their mind.

It pains me to say to this very day

the males make the path they take.

No Omega to roam the place called home

their lives a shattered earthquake.

May one day they see the deserted me

while chancing my love with their dance

I’m not impressed with fist thumping chest

Drifting alone I advance.

God be with you both 

Isa. 40:6-8 “The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

Quotation Saturday ~ Patience

 Luke 21:19 “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

I needed these quotes today! I hope you enjoy them, too.

PATIENCE

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.” 
― Orson F. Whitney

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.” 
― Fulton J. Sheen

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” 
― Molière

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” 
― Paulo Coelho

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” 
― Aristotle

Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.” 
― Roy T. Bennett

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing, in the end, can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.” 
― Margaret Atwood

STRENGTH

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.” 
― Christian D. Larson

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone
to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties
arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are
right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end
requires courage." 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

PERSPECTIVE

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” 
― Frances Hodgson Burnett

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” 
― Alphonse Karr

“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,” 
― Amit Ray

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” 
― Albert Camus

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.” 
― Og Mandino

Gateway to Health: Spring Cleaning Your Diet

1 Tim. 3:5 “(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)”

Spring Cleaning Your Diet

I know it’s a little early being January and all, but it is never too early to clean up your health. I know with January first everybody made resolutions to lose weight but do they realize you don’t just stop eating and wait for the pounds to melt off? You need to clean your system out if you want a healthy weight loss that will actually work and last.

By cleaning up, I mean detoxification! You need to meticulously clean out the toxins in your body that have your liver, bladder and other essential organs not responding because of your unhealthy eating.

Tamara St John, who NATURALLY successfully healed her cancer has a great website for the Big C patients and the non-C patients. Allow me to say that not all cancers are the same and thus are not holistically healed the same. We all have to do what works for us!

But if you want to lose weight, it is advisable to do a detox. first. This will help you clean out the mechanisms that keep you going day in and day out. A probiotic will assist you in cleaning out and keep the house kept up. Because once you clean out your system, you don’t want to clog it right back up with toxins and junk.

If you don’t want to go the diet route then it is possible to just clean up your ingested food. You see, you might think that buying ground beef in bulk saves money, or buying really pink ground beef is safe to eat but know your grocer. A lot of times they spray freshness additives (toxic to your cleaned out system) to make the meat stay fresher on the shelf longer.

Some people feel they NEED meat but I can guarantee, it isn’t a NEED it’s a want, I totally get carnivorous amongst us. All I’m saying is buy the least toxic food available to you to keep your system clean and functioning properly. I found some really good recipe sites for you to try out. No, I haven’t made any myself YET, but I am surely going to try. If you absolutely NEED meat, add some. This is a lifelong journey of health for me, not a do and fail option.

Food Revolution 

Wisebread 

Also, find alternatives for your sugar cravings. I use 100% organic maple syrup in my oatmeal and it is delicious instead of stevia or processed sugar. There are so many other ways to a healthy diet. I buy a big organic sweet potato, chop it up put it in a lidded casserole dish. I ‘paint’ the sides and bottom with organic coconut oil first so nothing sticks. I sprinkle, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and a hefty dash of cinnamon, drizzle the maple syrup on top, toss in some FRESH pineapple chunks, cut up an apple also and throw that on top, toss it in the oven (350 degrees) for forty-five minutes! It is better (to me) and just as filling as any meat dish you can throw in your face!

There is a healthy alternative cheese also. It’s not as good as cheddar or processed cheese but I love the creamy grilled cheese sandwich my coconut cheese makes! A diet does not need to be restrictive; it just needs to be tweaked with better for you ingredients.

I know how people are addicted to chocolate too. For some reason, they don’t want to try the healthier raw cacao powder to make their brownies or cookies, but this way they could eat without the guilt of the chocolate being bad for them! I don’t like chocolate but I am tempted to try the raw cacao in a smoothie! 

There are healthy eggs out there, healthy chicken, healthy sausage, and even, yes Benning, a better for you healthy BACON! It isn’t a matter of going on a diet, it is a matter of changing your unhealthy eating to HEALTHY alternatives. I know, I know, no one likes change; not many like healthy either.

If we all became aware of what unhealthy food goes down the tube, we’d surely not be an overweight nation. Fast food restaurants would lose business, restaurants would change the way they cook and offer healthier foods to the patrons.  Papa Johns is testing an organic and gluten-free menu and we’re definitely going to see a rise in awareness of what we’re doing to our bodies. I don’t know how long Papa John’s will stand to the pressure of going organic if the founder was made to quit after comments about the money grubbing NFL and their protest ‘people’.

The crazy world we live in is really weird in not wanting people healthy and opposing anything the people do to better their health! Take the FDA, for example, wanting to ban herbs that they call DRUGS because these freakish people don’t know what they’re doing. I think they all WANT us to die, not thriving and healthy, they want us sick and on drugs! REAL drugs like opioids and oxycontin.

Sadly, you say you don’t want to change. I guess you like going to the doctor and handing them your money month after month? You like the pills they offer yet won’t call yourself a drug addict because they’re legal drugs prescribed by a doctor who has had eight hours of training in nutrition? There are a few doctors out there willing to hear you and listen to your plan of healing and will work WITH you to see you to good health. They are out there but if you come from a small state, don’t count on it, they are out for themselves. Do some research and make your health a priority! How can a manicure/pedicure, getting your hair done, buying ‘stuff’ set precedence over your health? It makes no sense to me. How will you enjoy all the stuff if you’re hospitalized or worse, dead?

Do some spring-cleaning for your health! Not just as a passing fad, not as something you’re thinking about, not just a do and fail trip; make your HEALTH your lifelong journey to survival! Illness shouldn’t be about sickness and the endgame; the surfacing of a disease is about HEALTH and a new way to LIVE!

Gateway to Health: Don't Do Drugs!

Ex. 23: 10 “And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof:”

Gateway to Health: Don’t Do Drugs

With the height of the cold and flu season upon us, everyone is ready to grab the first drug offered if it means the symptoms will be reduced and you won’t feel so bad. Did you ever stop for a minute and think that the pacifier (drugs) is the very reason your illness lasts for two weeks or more?

I’m reminded of the time when I had had teeth pulled and expected antibiotics. EXPECTED! Expected because I didn’t want an infection and pain but the doctor told me he only gives antibiotics when there already IS infection present, there is no other reason FOR antibiotics! I sure wish he was an oncologist! His logic was that our body’s immune system fights infection better than any antibiotic and antibiotics are only for an active infection where the immune system obviously is compromised and not working! 

So if you’re taking drugs for a cold, flu or any other illness, your immune system is not functioning properly. Drugs enter your system and mimic the tiny molecular process so that your system believes that what it is seeing is from you internally. You have tricked the disease into believing that your immune system is working. My next question will be, why would you let a drug do for you what God created your immune system to do for you?

I’ve realized with this disease that is running rampant in me is all because my immune system has stopped working. The cells are in there taking advantage of me allowing the fungus to fester and grow. Like a mold growing on your walls or climbing the trees, you need to know the root cause of the problem before getting rid of the growth. A pacifying treatment is no CURE, it is an obvious mask and your internal system knows when you're trying to trick it!

I find it quite ironic how everyone looks down on drug addicts but because you are ‘prescribed’ legal drugs, everyone is okay with that. My brother is back home addicted to oxycontin because it was legally prescribed to him when he had a back injury many years ago. He’s needed more drugs and he caters to more illegal addictions BECAUSE he was prescribed LEGAL drugs. He is borderline homeless and just waiting to die I guess because he doesn’t want to be healed of his addictions.

No one wants to be taken off their meds. The meds seem to be working so you keep on purchasing them over and over, year after year. Face it, call it what it is, it’s an addiction. You don’t question the medication because, in your mind, you believe it is a medication that is helping you. Well sure it is helping you, the drug is mocking your immune system and the one God gave you has been put on the back burner and has submissively given up on you.

We ALL are fighting a compromised immune system! Some would rather take drugs and others seek out the culprit and aim to heal the immune system that years of damage have caused via herbal remedies. My disease is no different than your disease, its just as a society, my disease has the fear factor clenching its teeth around the mind, body and spirit! Take away the drugs and fear factor, you have a damaged mind, body and soul. 

Why do people turn so easily to a fabricated drug? Is it because they trust a doctor? I believe that is the problem in a nutshell. Yes, I believe doctors are necessary. Yes, I believe they can help us with a detrimental illness but I also believe it is their duty to try everything else BEFORE handing us drugs to become addicted to. They know what they’re doing and they don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong because people 'appear' to be healing from drugs.

I noticed that a lot of people are wising up to the doctors and their machinations and finding alternative treatments to their drug-induced disease. The drugs should be the last resort, not the first go to! Children across the world are being fed these drugs via vaccinations. Vaccinations are NOT mandatory yet, but you better plan to homeschool your child if she or he is not inoculated, the government doesn’t ALLOW non-vaccinated children into THEIR schools!  

Kids are the portal to future illnesses. We pop them with pills and drugs at an early age for minor things and have them relying on pills to heal any affliction. As addicted adults, we don’t take the blame for our child’s addiction because we ourselves are addicted to drugs on one level or another. It’s a vicious cycle and the merry-go-round never stops!

Herbs and oils have been used for centuries! Long before pharmaceutical corporations began running their business, the healing properties were not of synthetic form they were from the earth in a natural state! We as humans have lost sight of these facts via drugs and brainwashing. We believe drugs are good and herbs are bad. Enlighten yourself, read the links I provided.

I don’t see people spraying Round-Up on their food at the dinner table but they willingly secretly ingest the product. Because the toxin cannot be seen, we don’t worry about ingesting the chemical. At every restaurant, fast food or otherwise, you are putting chemicals into your body that your system doesn’t recognize. Your system, liver, bladder, all bodily functions react and begin to shut down and a sickness arises, one that you can’t heal because your immune system is too far gone and you NEED DRUGS.

Why is the organic industry blossoming? Not because of a bunch of health nuts, but because people like you and me are tired of being sick and fed drugs. We’re waking up and taking control of what goes into our systems. We’re not walking blindly into a doctor’s office and taking what he prescribes as truth and fact, we're asking questions! This might hurt his and the pharmaceutical business but you know what that means to you as a paying customer? They’re ramping up the PUSH for you to take MORE drugs and demanding your KIDS need them too!

You might think that all of this thinking came about when I was diagnosed with a disease that the world believes to be the ‘killing-disease’ but do you really think I would have just gone the alternative route because I thought there might be another option to slice, dice and chemo? This decision wasn’t entered into lightly. I’ve always used the doctor as a last resort. I watched what I ate daily, not taking a liking to eating a ton of meat and sugars, I read and I learned. My biggest vice was Pepsi’s, chips and pasta. When this illness surfaced I was still fitting into my size seven jeans so no, I was never an overweight person, I just inhaled the wrong things.

I’ve always believed in God, the earth, and nature. The doctor, for any ailment, depression, anxiety, and basically anything I’ve been hit with was and always will be my last resort, not my first stop and shop go-to business. I believe we hold the power within us to heal ourselves, we just don’t utilize our mind in the aspect to which it was formed and the very reason we exist!

Our secret medicinal strength is in our mind. If you ask an insomniac why they can’t sleep, they’ll tell you, I just can’t stop thinking. In other words, they have no control over relaxing their mind. I wonder if when they are sick and bedridden, do they sleep? If they do, you want to know why? Because their mind KNOWS they need REST and makes sure they get more than they normally would. When they get better, poof, their mind is back in the racing game, all gassed up and ready to go. 

When our society becomes less dependent on drugs, then and only then will you witness a nationwide healing taking place. Otherwise, if you are not willing to change, your diet, your mind, or your way of healing yourself then we will continue to see the downfall of an over-burdened drug addicted society.

Isa. 48:19 “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”

Gateway to Health: HEALTH

Gal. 5:16  “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”

Gateway to Health: HEALTH

Sickness is running rampant. People are carrying colds for weeks not days. The flu is knocking people out and killing some. Vaccinations for the flu are being dished out like candy and yet our nation is still overrun with illness. It’s so bad that medical supplies are running out in some hospitals and you say you still want to continue down your unhealthy path? 

I don’t understand. I’m almost at a loss for words but I won’t allow words to escape me. I’m a writer, not a fictional fantasy writer; I’m an adamant nonfiction writer. I see we’re in short supply! People are too busy with politics (still), Hollywood Happenings, and local crime to be caught up with the HEALTH of the nation, even when people are dropping off like dry skin.

My husband came home Friday asking me to make chicken soup. That’s the signal I need to know he’s coming down with a cold. After reading the (to me) horror stories of people being laid up for weeks on end with a cold or flu kind of scares me when he comes home with an illness. He works in the public atmosphere, breathing in toxic virus’ daily. 

I would tell you what arsenal you need to prevent or minimize your sickness but I feel like you wouldn’t listen to me anyway. Health nuts already know so I don’t need to tell them, I need to tell you, the ones who are getting sick! How many times have you heard about vitamin C over the years, thousands of times more than likely? They have all kinds of pills with zinc, and vitamin c and they leap off the shelves in droves. Notice that no one looks at the ingredients of those pills, they just buy because that’s what’s being shown to work on TV, in the media, and everywhere else. But you were still in bed for weeks weren’t you? 

I don’t take lightly to my fellow man basically killing themselves off. I don’t want to be the only one alive here because I learned how to take care of myself. I go on and on telling people how cans are toxic, plastic is toxic, GMO’s are not good for your body and microwaving plastic is even more toxic. Here is the ‘I need it fast and I need it now’ world, people are losing sight of the simple ways to take care of themselves.

Cans - 

Plastics- 

GMO’s - why they are toxic

Plastics -  why microwaving plastics may or may not be a good idea. 

Now there are links to every single one above to say that none of these things are bad for our food, the environment, or us. You be the judge. You're going to eat whatever you want anyway. Cancer is at an all-time high, pollution is destroying the atmosphere, our animals are being genetically modified, and a chemical toxin one way or another is constantly treating our crops. Sicknesses are lasting longer and pills, shots, vaccines, and addictions are all being brought front and center for you to be aware of, but is anyone doing anything to change the outcome? No, no one. Your government isn't going to save you from disaster. You have to save yourself!

I find it quite ironic when people get sick, (especially my husband) the first thing needed and wanted is Chicken Soup! Why, because it has healing qualities and tastes good. Do you wonder why chicken noodle soup is good for colds? It (should have) an abundance of VEGETABLES! Sure, reach for the vegetables when you’re sick, but reach for them to prevent getting sick? No way!

When purchasing my Vitamin C a couple of months ago, my husband got the wrong one. I needed the Soloray 5000 mg non-acidic powder. He inadvertently got acidic. The Big C patients need non-acidic. I have on hand two bottles of acidic vitamin C (and non-acidic for me)! 5000 mg is no small amount of vitamin C I might add. So a few months ago when he came home with the request of chicken noodle soup, I knew what it was for, a cold was looming. 

“I’ll make the soup if you take this vitamin C.” A bribe that worked and paid off!! His cold lasted less than a week! Now this time, with the fear tactics running rampant on social media and elsewhere, Friday I told him to take the vit. C and I’d make soup. Since his diet has changed dramatically, I do expect him to nip this cold and be out and about in no time. 

I have everyone in the house thinking about his diet intake but they are actually TAKING ACTION to change!! I didn’t say change or else, I let them live the way they want and you know what, they’re not happy with being unhealthy and are taking steps on their own to change! 

I’ve been on the healthy route for almost a year now (Jan. 25, 2017)! And since I have no fat to hold the toxins in my body, I’m hoping this cold he brought into the household will pass over me like the plague unleashed in Egypt. The Blood of the Lamb will protect me! I might get a sore throat or something, maybe a little cough, but I know that by continually eating healthy is paying off for me in more ways than one. 

The sickness scare would not be an issue if people were already healthy. It wouldn’t be newsworthy to report. I think people might like going to the doctor because that is at least one other person who will sympathize with their illness who can pat them on the head and hand them a drug and tell them to come back in six weeks.

I’m not in a state with alternative/integrative doctors that teach you about health and nutrition BEFORE sickness becomes widespread. I live in a state that thrives on GMO’s and demands that their agriculture is as healthy as the organic industry. The doctors are legal drug pusher’s destroying a once beautiful farming state. While the state might look big on the map, it is as small as the 20,000 small-town residents that keep the counties going. The longer I live here, the smaller the state becomes to me. It’s funny to me because I come from a tiny state on the map that has state of the art hospitals all within walking distance! 

While eating and living healthy is your Gateway to Health, you have to begin to change somewhere! While I’m out here striving to stay alive I have to watch as everyone around me is falling ill. It’s not a pretty sight, just as seeing a woman diagnosed with a dire disease, thriving and being vibrant with health must not be a pretty sight to you. Or maybe it is and you wished that you had her spirit, determination, and persistence in maintaining health. You CAN! 

Gateway to Health: Food

Isa. 3:11 "Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him."

Gateway to Health: FOOD!

Can’t means you won’t!

Feed a cold starve a fever. 
Google definition:
“The belief is that eating food may help the body generate warmth during a “cold” and that avoiding food may help it cool down when overheated. But recent medical science says the old saw is wrong. It should be “feed a cold, feed a fever.”  Science-based facts listed here.

A natural way to healing the common cold and flu!

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” ~ Hippocrates

With illness running rampant and the flu in forty-six states leaving people bedridden, you’d think more and more people would be changing their toxic diets into healthy ones to ward off the virus’. Granted when a floating virus is in the air and you breathe in, it is pretty hard to ward off that illness once inside your body.

It’s apparent that not only was my immune system compromised and allowed this Big C to make its stand in my body, but the nation is under attack of the viral community. Doctors offices are filling up in record number as everyone checks in for antibiotics to fend off this illness that has them homebound and bedridden. Flu shots that don’t work are continuously offered, antibiotics handed out like a  candy vending machine, and people so seriously sick, some die.

All of 2017 I aimed people in the ‘changing their diet’ direction to ward off sickness, but did anyone listen to me? Nope, they all succumbed to the holiday indulgences of sugars, food, and people where the virus’ thrive, hence an abundance of people are now sick. So to me, it is apparent, you don’t value your immune system no more than I did, and thus life as we know it becomes altered and all you can do is lay in bed sick and complain.

In my healing process, I have had many traumatic memories flooding back to me that need releasing as I move on. They are all part of the healing process and the only way I actively work to release them is to write about them. One (non-traumatic) memory surfaced yesterday as I was discussing the rarity of my situation and the active change that I’ve embraced. Someone had said, they can’t change, they’ve tried but can’t. 

The memory of a nun in fourth grade pulling me aside saying, “Joni, when you say you CAN’T do it, it means you WON’T!”

Can’t means you Won’t has stuck with me since fourth grade and I’m wondering if when I was diagnosed if that wasn’t front and center in my mind. Can’t change my nasty diet/illness means I won’t. I turned can’t into WILL change! I WILL do everything in my power to take on change. Every time the thought came into my mind, ‘I can’t do that’, I remembered can’t means won’t, and I changed, quite drastically I might add all because of the nun and her statement in fourth grade? Well, thank you, Sister Margaret Mary! 

Oh how I wished I had a branding iron and could burn into to your skin those words, Can’t means Won’t, and every time you think you can’t do something, the mark is there to remind you that you CAN do it!

Maybe it would help if you watched the movie, ‘Yes Man’, with Jim Carey. He goes through life saying no to everything until an old friend sees him and asks if he is still at the same dead-end job he was in thirty years ago. His friend goes on to tell him how HE has changed his life by saying YES to everything. He takes him [Carey] to a convention that changed his life forever.

Then there’s the movie, ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, where the character is the real-life version of a fictional character who is destined to be killed off. He has to change his destiny. That movie resonated with me as a writer.

What does any of this have to do with your health? It has everything to do with saving your life and changing your diet to ward off these viral infections with a stronger immune system. What you eat has everything to do with your damaged immune system. You damaged the poor thing, you’ve let your body down and you WON’T change to save your own life. That is the sad fact of the matter.

I want to help by encouraging you to change. While I’m out here feeling GREAT with a disease that’s killing millions of people you all are in bed throwing Kleenex (or more) at the computer screen telling me to shut up already. I can’t/won't shut up, I want you to live as much as I myself wants to live.

Remember this, doctors stay in business with you sick. If people started getting healthy they’d have no business, they might be forced to learn new things about the health of a patient. I’m going to aim you to Vitamin C. Not a processed pill you pop from your over inflated pharmacy, a 5000 mg powder purchased from a reputable source online. Solaray (non-acidic is my choice) but the acidic will work better for the non-cancer patient.

If your doctor warns you off of vitamin C, think about that, our immune systems can be fixed with vitamin C, why would a doctor tell you NO? I can tell you that once your immune system starts fighting for itself, the less and less medication you will need. A probiotic will get your organs functioning properly because let's face it, if you’re popping pills, are overweight, are fighting sicknesses too many times in a year, you’re damaging your organs along with your immune system. Get them all (organs and immune system) on the same page, BUT, and this is MAJOR, if you WON’T change your diet, none of these supplements will work for you. It was nice knowing you. My heart and love to you.

People think all I eat is grass and they’d be wrong. Since I’m creative with my writing, I am also creative with my cooking. Non-toxic foods taste BETTER than the processed carbohydrates you shovel in, or the GMO meat you fill your bellies with, or even the lovely sugars you kill yourself with.

Take for example two eggs (for me) add more for more mouths to feed. I use the brown farm-raised chicken's eggs. I add an abundance of nutrition to just two scrambled eggs. Different days, different variations so as not to get bored.

2 eggs, scrambled
2 slices of onion finely chopped
slices of red pepper
garlic
I have a bag of organic spinach (I use for salads too) and I take a handful and like wringing out a rag wring the spinach and shred it in my eggs when eggs are almost done and veggies are soft and tender.
Flaxseed tossed in (ample amount, optional)
Green pepper
Mushrooms
Pepper (to your liking)
Cayenne pepper (to your liking)

I just add ingredients to my liking (veggies) until the eggs are merely a speck among the clouds. It’s a delicious dish with (organic) carrot/orange juice by Knudsen, or pomegranate/cranberry, they have very nice selections or the V8 Berry Bliss juice on occasions. They too have a nice variety but read the labels to see if sugar is ADDED and the carbs!

To put it quite simply my salads I make a feast out of by adding more and more colors and variations. My spaghetti is of the gluten-free variety noodles and sometimes I add chicken sausage (along with my peppers and onions and mushrooms). Be creative! When creativity comes alive when you’re cooking, the vegetables are rarely tasted but ingested and fed to your system in abundance! I also use Bertolli Organic tomato and basil spaghetti sauce. I prefer the glass jars over plastics for obvious reasons.

Change is not that hard when the taste is good. I drink purified water or organic juices. Even something as simple as organic oatmeal I make filling and full of fruit! I add raisins, banana or strawberry (or any berry) cinnamon, and use Organic 100% Pure Maple Syrup (to your liking), and I drizzle coconut milk over it (to my liking) along with two slices of toast with Almond Butter. Voila! A meal! And if I get hungry for a snack later, I go right for grapes or chunks of pineapple or baked apple and pineapple with cinnamon and maple syrup! No wonder I’ve lost so much weight. Everything I eat, my body utilizes! 

So when you say you can’t change because (fill in excuse here) you really won’t change because (fill in the blank.) Think about it, change is in your grasp and you won’t do it. It only takes one small step to lead to leaps and bounds but you won’t take that first step out of FEAR of Change, face it. 

God bless you all on your living journey!