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.”

Back In The Saddle

Heb.10:38-39 “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”

Back in The Saddle

On what you deem Easter Sunday, that was the day I celebrated my New Year. Everyone else celebrates his or her New Year on January first but to me, that is just the changing of the calendar; Easter to ME is a pagan holiday whereas Resurrection Sunday is my New Year, the day I celebrate new life, new living, and new breath breathed into my being. That day has been my New Year celebration for about thirty years now.

If ever I was the kind of person to make resolutions, this would be the day I’d commit; after Lent, after fasting and after the Resurrection! But this year has been a forced kind of change, I’m not complaining because to me it just meant a forced change that was needed and welcomed. Granted I didn’t want an illness to force me to change but then again, how else is one to change if they don’t know something needs fixing?

While this illness is all still new to me being only twelve weeks in, I’m healing and visually SEEING the healing taking place. This is why I write so as to share with you my wonderful journey of faith, hope, and promise. Faith leads me where I need to go, it also means I have no need for a backup plan if things were to go south. I DON’T CARRY THAT KIND OF DOUBTFILLED NATURE! Faith is just what it says, 100% trust in my Lord and Savior. Not, what if He falls short? Bite your tongue! My Savior NEVER falls short, thank you very much.

Sunday I had to miss the yearly family get-together; the first time in eight years that we missed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling well I was protecting myself. I did tell hubby he could go and enjoy all the food that would be there along with candy dishes placed all over. I spared myself the torture of watching people gobble unhealthy food down and trying to remain quiet as I what, ate fruit and celery? Then the questions… nope, not going to put myself through that.

Hubby was sweet enough and wanted to stay home with me, so I made him a nice meal of chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy. I had my own dish of noodles that he found at the store that had zero carbs/sugar and made out of yam flour! He works at an awesome store that carries some of the strangest stuff (in a good way) and hubby is always on the lookout for food that I can eat. I actually cried when I saw the noodles because he knows how I miss my spaghetti! Ya gotta love, ‘im! 

Finding meals is difficult since the no carb, no sugar, dairy, processed foods, or GMO meat is allowed in fighting this disease. The things you CAN’T eat outweigh the foods you can eat. And so my meals are basically raw salads, fruit, and vegetables. After the first four weeks of all veggies and fruit, (the first two weeks I didn’t even have fruit) I allowed myself a small amount of vegetarian fed, non-GMO chicken, and eggs. Example: 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast, and a chicken breast topped salad for dinner. He buys two chicken breast per pack, I cut them in half to make four meals out of them. My stomach has shrunk and I don't need a ton of food to sustain me. 

Hubby even found grass fed, non-toxic beef! I made a delicious meatloaf that we all enjoyed because I don’t like beef so I shared but it sure was good tasting a nice meatloaf with REAL beef. Then there is the supplement intake...

Not that I trust WebMD but for those who think I may be taking a toxic level of supplements, put your mind at ease. I'm doing my homework on what my body needs and is lacking.

With this illness, it became OBVIOUS that I am deficient in many vitamins and nutrients. No, the taking of supplements will not cure this disease but the drastic change of my unhealthy eating lifestyle CAN. No disease can live in a clean body. So you clean out the liver, kidney, and colon; it's called detoxifying. You change all the toxins that go in and with success, all the toxins will come out.

I didn’t only change my eating habits and switched to purified water, I changed what goes onto my skin like lavender deodorant, almond soap or aloe vera body wash; what I breathe in, I now use a cleansing diffuser; my exercise, now up to two twenty minute walks a day (weather permitting); also my daily prayer, worship and meditation. Everything changed, not just the foods I ate and the supplements I take. I learned a great deal from The Truth About Cancer. Namely the seven ESSENTIALS to fighting the disease.

Let food be your medicine - healthy eating leads to a healthy body, inside and out
Detox your body - highly important or supplements are useless
Balance your energy - POSITIVE needs to outweigh the negative
Heal any emotional wounds you carry around- stress is detrimental
Biological dentistry – your mouth is the doorway to illnesses.
Herbs (herbal teas included) and vitamins - nutrients your body NEEDS to be sustained. 
TRUE PREVENTION – not what the government feeds you to believe.

You’d be surprised how important sleep (true prevention) that eight hours of it, is to your overall health. Each doctor I went to asked me how much sleep I got and I told them eight hours and they looked puzzled. I could feel them thinking, people really get eight hours of sleep? I do and I can feel the sleep importance with each hour. A good night's rest allows all the supplements and nutrition from the day to work the physical and mental cogs of my body.

With my new year has come an even keel. I don’t want to read any more about this illness, I don’t want to listen, I just want to move forward on this plane of existence to my healing. Yes, I know knowledge is good but I really need to stop all the info and utilize what I’ve learned thus far. It’s balancing my energy where it needs to be placed.

While I appreciate everyone’s thoughtfulness, a girl can only take so much and I just need to breathe. I may be happy go lucky the majority of the time but I have my bad days where I don’t even want to turn on the computer out of fear of what will be pushed on me on any given day. I need positivism, I need prayer, I need love. Without those three things, stick a fork in me, I’m done. 

I keep on keeping on and I’m in this race to the end building my strength daily. With God for me…who can be against me?

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

Going Deeper with God

Isa 33:19 “Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.”

Going Deeper with God

My New Year desktop image is of a sunrise peeking over the horizon. The words on the page are Happy New Year; Go deeper with God this year. I chose this image because every morning I wake and see the sunrise in a new light. This is my hope for this year, that I may see God in a new light also, instead of the same old God that I’ve spent time with in years past.

The same old God, you might ask? Sometimes we get too comfortable with our knowing God and sometimes we need to be shaken out of our comfort zone to see Him in a new light. We go through the motions day after day, read our bible in the same old way, get cozy within our skin and continue on our path of sin because, well we’re comfortable in knowing that we’ll be forgiven. 

This comfort zone should scare many. When you get too comfortable, God usually throws something out there to shake you up a bit, to wake you up and say wait a minute! I found this to be true thirteen years ago when I was too comfortable in my marriage and my relationship with God. So comfortable I allowed myself to be used and abused so much so I became a broken shard of glass seeking anything to save me and put me back together.

My family was consumed with their own lives to worry about lil ol me and God gave me the shake up of my life that would alter who I was and who I was about to become. No, God doesn’t send you a married man but he does witness a broken soul and will bring two broken souls together to become one fixable piece of artwork, His work. 

Pastor Mike said something that struck me. Someone had asked him why God protected her while not protecting others. He said, ‘because you’re a child of God, the other person had nothing to do with Him.’

When we become a child of God, we fall under the protection of a Father, a heavenly Father who will watch over us from above. Just like our dad on earth, we become too comfortable in knowing he’ll take care of us when we get in trouble but when God calls him home, we feel we’re out here on our own depending solely on God to protect us. He is our only resource.

Our mother is the nurturer while our father is the strength we turn to in our time of need. If our father has passed away, we rely on God to be our strength when we need Him. Again, we tend to get too comfortable figuring He’ll bail us out; sin or no sin, He’s got our back. 

With all of the deaths happening recently, it had me thinking, was God protecting those people from all the evil in the world and were they children of God? I don’t know, which gives rise to my second question, are they all basking in the glory of Heaven? Had they gotten so comfortable with their belief in God that they forgot to think of Him in recent months before their death?
This is why we need God daily and not just casual weekly visits to a church. This weekly visit does not absolve you of the daily need to bring Him into your day. We need to go deeper with God and that doesn’t mean memorize scripture verses, post more Godly memes or try to appear to be one with God. Going deeper with God means just that, to know Him deeply, understand His ways, live His truth and be like the Son he sent to die for you. When you get too comfortable, you begin to show signs of straying.

When I see people rambling on with hate in their mouths and conveying negative thoughts I think what that person must be suffering from. Why does he or she hold onto so much hate and ignorance while claiming to love God? I never understood the imbalance that goes on in the world and as * I * go deeper with God, I can see that even He scratches His head watching his kids destroy this beautiful creation.

Even as He placed a warm blanket of protection over me many years ago, I still fall and His fatherly strength picks me up and moves me along the way. As I shuffle forward, I realize I am going deeper with God, in meaning, in understanding, in hope and in faith. 

1 Peter 4:10, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." (NIV)

Balance

James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

Where does balance come from in the Christian life? One doesn’t seek it, nor buy it, and one can’t find it through all the knowledge you put into your system. Balance is achieved. Notice the wheel, how well balanced it is? When there is no balance, the wheel will not roll!

Balance is achieved by having a goal and reaching it, like climbing to the highest mountaintop and looking out at all the glory, you have achieved a goal. Balance is holding onto that goal once it is achieved.

The lack of balance in a Christian’s life will certainly cause a bit of trouble; sleepless nights, worry, stress. When you achieve a balance of all that God has shown you there is only one outcome and that is of pleasurable peace.

Pastor Tim talked about the intellectual Christian. That to ME, is the type of Christian who builds his strength and faith on KNOWLEDGE of the bible. Sometimes he/she can spew scripture down to the book and chapter, sometimes he can find a scripture (via google?) that deals with suffering, pain, need, faith etc. He is the reader/believer I spoke of in my Lent series.

When only the head is involved with Christianity, you lose sight of the balance. I know of many spiritual based faiths that speak of balance also and in the Christian faith it is not much different for the spiritual Christian who has learned to balance his/her faith with the head (knowledge), will (action), heart (a deep passion).

With everything in life, if you just gain knowledge of something, what exactly are you gaining? A big ego? “Yeah, I know this, that and the other thing.” Whoop-de-doodle, you’re knowledgeable.

If you put that knowledge into action with a deep passion, you are balancing the three. The will, the heart and the mind. We do not take up Christianity (just gain knowledge) we are taken UP by Christianity. With our hearts and minds and physical actions we are drawn to be LIKE Christ.

God’s Word is spiritual food. We grow by it, we're seasoned by it, we’re transformed by it. The Holy Spirit uses the word to revive you, restore your spirit and change your heart. You must process the filling of your spirit and OBEY what you are being called to do.

If I want to be used of God, it is important that I fill my mind, my heart, and my life with the Word of God. A practicing Christian has strength to fight the enemy, he is refreshed daily by the wisdom he holds and transformed so that the old person who sat and judged his fellow man, name calls, feeds the fire of satan’s lure, is gone, he is NO MORE, he is transformed.

I see a lot of folk who claim to be Christian sit in some safe corner of the globe reading and believing that no matter how often he/she sins, they’ll be forgiven and taken up to heaven when their time comes. People see them profess Christianity but their actions are far from Christlike giving people the idea that sin is good. “I can just call myself a Christian and God will save me.”

Christianity is a transformation, the balance of the heart, mind and soul. If the outer world doesn’t see the balance in you, and YES, they will see the transformation, they get the idea that Christianity is a false belief system. You have turned people AWAY from God instead of TO God.

You don’t hold the power of transformation in your own hand. All the reading and believing in the world will shape you but it will not transform you. I know you’re tired of me saying this but CHURCH aids in the transformation. Action is going to cause a reaction.

Let me see if I can simplify this. Let’s say you’re hungry. You go to the freezer and find meat. You think to yourself, that sure looks good. (Christianity looks good) You then place the meat in the oven or frying pan and begin to cook it. (This is where you read and believe.) You share this cooked meat with your friends and they all spit it out. It tasted horrible, drab, lifeless. You realize you didn’t marinate and season the meat. You took no action to make this meat a meal.

Marinating the meat is like bathing in the word. You season the meat, you cook the meat, you share the meat with people who presumably are not vegetarians. Sharing the word with unlike minds is like sharing meat with a vegetarian. Church is a place of like-minded people. You will know who and who is not a vegetarian. You have transformed the meat into a solid meal for ALL to partake of, not just the carnivorous meat eaters.

Transformation and balance of the transformed individual allows you to be of a pure mind, spiritually and physically. People with a seasoned just right balance, shake off the snares of the devil. Their strength is in the meal and the deliverance of the meal.

People have eyes to see and if you are not balanced, it shows. It doesn’t help God any if you're unbalanced. The men and women God used WERE sinners but by their transformation, they didn’t dwell in sin because it was a given that they’d be forgiven, they worked earnestly to live a pure life; they were all balanced (seasoned) in the proportion God dished out.

E.S.P of Writing: Part II

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin
***

Have you ever heard of E.S.P.? It is short for Extra Sensory Perception. That’s not telling us a whole lot now is it? To me, I perceive it as an Extra sense. What? we have an extra sense?

Have you ever heard your mother say, “Don’t you have the sense God gave you?” Well maybe your mother didn’t but I’ve heard it a few times in my lifetime, and I always looked back and whispered, “Yes, my sixth one,” and as she would turn her back I know I had a tongue sticking out at her. I was just an ornery child like that.

We at f2k (the FREE Creative Writing Course) have a lesson that deals with the senses. We have the normal five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, but we have also added three more to add to the effect of your writing; time, space, and the unknown.

Eerie isn’t it, the unknown? Not really: As the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour this late afternoon, I wonder if the newly born kittens are dry. Look at that sentence! The sky would be SPACE, late afternoon would be TIME, and a moment of wonder would be the UNKNOWN. It is THAT simple.

And to top it off the sentence is showing not telling. You get the idea here, right? Now try this on for size.

As I walked down the street in the afternoon sun, I wondered where the aroma of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation of finding the noisy outdoor bistro on the corner.

As I walked down the street (space) in the afternoon (time) sun, I wondered (unknown) where the aroma(smell) of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole (touch) to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation (taste) of finding the noisy (sound)outdoor bistro on the corner. (sight)

Notice how those two sentences, a small paragraph, used all eight senses? In our f2k lesson we ask for you to write a paragraph (READ my words, a PARAGRAPH) using the eight senses. Would you believe, it could take four and five paragraphs to use eight senses?
Keep in mind, many in the class are novice writers, but seriously?

Over six hundred people signed up for this free course, and many quit after the first lesson because they found that either, there are too many restrictions (thanks, we don’t allow porn), there are too many guidelines, (yes, when we say 500 words, we don’t mean 648)and this is my favorite, “I am a stiff shirt.” *loud laughter here*

I like kidding around with the rest of them, but really, this is a business I take quite seriously and in all of my eight senses, it tells me that this “stiff shirt” is going places, while the rest of the people continue to try and balance a ball on their nose and ride a tricycle at the same time.

Poetry Sunday~ Balancing Act

Prov. 11:1 A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.

***

Balancing Act

The nation gives rise to quiet pause
ever briefly without a cause
I long to see a solid base
where love and land takes its place.

Faces melt into the sea
blurry eyed for you and me.
No one holds the Truth and Light
it never dawned that it’s their plight.

They claim to honor and believe
in a god with no reprieve.
He’ll mold nicely, into what they form
with every task, through every storm.

I  hear them writhing in sordid pain
entrapped and drowned in the watery bane.
They thought their God would fit right in
to their pitiful wretched sin.

Actions speak louder than anything heard
accept the honorable biblical Word.
Repent, pray, practice, fulfill
The Lord Jesus loves you still!