Perseverance

Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”

Perseverance

Diet and stress are my new high points in life at this moment as I persevere. I’ve deleted umpteen emails that are naggingly telling me what feeds this disease, what wakes up this disease, what to eat and when to eat. I’m now on the information overload of my system. Then this plant based diet got through to me. I took a deep breath and looked it over, not hating what I was seeing.

I want to try this diet but seriously, I’m not out for a diet based on what’s a good diet. I’m looking for sustenance in my health in healing this disease! Everything looks good except the acidic aspects of some of the foods. I just want what's best for my health.

July 25th will be my sixth-month mark since this diagnosis walked into my life like a volcano and erupted shifting everything in its path forcing me to rethink some things in my life, including the food I put into my mouth. I’ve badgered unhealthy eaters; I’ve even tried to twist some arms into change but then I came to an abrupt halt of my own hand pressing on my chest telling me to hold on now, STOP!

I don’t know if this is a bad habit or just a part of who I am but I always find myself worrying about everyone else but myself. Even now with this disease, I’m more concerned with those around me, their feelings, their eating habits, their unhealthy living.

When I say I’m done, I never mean it to be I’m giving up, I mean I’m done with everyone else! I’m done worrying about tiptoeing on their love or non-love. I’m done falling apart when my feelings are hurt. I’m done being something for all and nothing for myself. I can’t make people love me and that’s okay, I love me. I have to realize that I am the most important player in MY game of life. Actually, I am the ONLY player. 

Solitaire, it’s the game I’ve played all my life. Alone. Even with my most recent upset, I keep it to myself because when I share, I’m told what I should do, what I need to do, or I get silence, nothing at all. Yeah, I know it makes it hard to make a comment, but can’t someone just say something simple like, ‘I’m here for you’ and actually be there for me? I hear I’m here for you then don’t hear another word from them for months?

I’ve been wanting to write and post but really I’ve been writing and keeping it to myself because I’m virtually tired. I’m tired of all of the information, I’m tired of defending myself, and I’m tired of having to watch what I say. My son seems to think I have a lot to live for but quite honestly, I don’t see it. I might feel differently in a month or two but right now, I’m exhausted.

I have hope that one day, maybe when I’m gone my family and loved ones will FINALLY read MY blog, MY pains, MY thoughts and realize what they REALLY lost. I’ll tell them I hurt, they didn’t care that I hurt and were partly to blame for my hurt. I can’t be any more honest than that with myself. That is how I’m healing, letting go of the ones hurting me; even if that means the ones closest in my orbit who actually had the chance to love me but chose something else over me. 

Maybe being exhausted is a good thing because I can take the time to put things into perspective, see things from a different vantage point. It’s like looking out and knowing mountains are out there but not seeing them. It’s like driving to the mountains and finally seeing the glorious peaks and knowing the climb is the end game, not just observing beautiful mountains.

When I wake and ask God, what would you have me do for you today and He says rest, I want to give Him a Joni slap and say WHAAAT? But then I remember who He is and bow down and respond, Your will be done. Can I ever rest? Why do I feel like resting is giving up when I know it is just a pause in the machine I’m oiling. I have a little more work to do then…I’m done.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and she isn’t even a real doctor or anything, she’s a PA, a Physicians Assistant. What on earth is she going to do for me except reiterate why I need drugs and go the slice and dice method? That is what they are all programmed to say. I’m reading too much into the visit before I’ve even given the poor woman a chance. If she asks me what I’m doing, I’ll be honest with her and tell her, I’m choosing the way I die.

Don’t read more into that than I offer. I’m just not choosing to go down in a fetal position, in a hospice hooked to wires and drugs. I’m choosing to enjoy the Lord’s bounty of fruits and vegetables, His gifts to us and yet too many overlook because their eye is on the sweet, meaty prize, literally.

What I am doing and all that is left for me to do is prepare for my entry into Heaven and the walk that I look forward to. I seek that mountain with the snow-capped tops. I look toward the ascent to finally being free from the earth and all of the ignorance and disrespect strewed around like confetti on New Year’s Eve. When Jesus descended into hell, I just can’t imagine there is a place lower than this planet. I’m reaching for the summit in the sky…I’ll persevere here then move on to a place where I am truly loved and surrounded by love where ALL is love. I yearn for that. Peace out!

To God Be the Glory…

Pss. 37:37 "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."

Pss. 30:12 "To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever."

The Walls of Nutrition

Prov. 25:28 “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”

The Walls of Nutrition

At the beginning of my diagnosis, the walls of nutrition came crashing down around me, to put it bluntly, I had no nutritional values. I regarded food as sustenance to keep me going through the day. I had my likes of pasta anything, my drinks of choice were three cups of coffee, one Pepsi a day, and lots and lots of water, almost a gallon a day. Water was my primary sustenance.

I loved chicken in boneless or bone-in form, usually baked and not fried. I didn’t care for red meat, rarely ate pork or turkey, was not a big chocolate fan or bacon fan, but I ate those unhealthy products on occasion. So why was I gaining weight and not losing it if I ate so little? Again, very bluntly, because the food and drinks that went into my body were toxic junk, right down to the almost gallon of well-water I drank each day.

Out here in Nebraska, I didn’t think toxic run-off of the farms went into the well-water but I’ve learned that is basically what happens. All those crop dusters in this area spray and spray and when it rains… it has to go somewhere, right?

When I went to Texas fourteen years ago, I weighed a tiny 115. I was always a small waisted woman, but Texas and Nebraska brought into my life unhealthy eating on a magnified level. I never ate healthy back home but I ate more unhealthy foods in these two states. Everyone around me said as you age you gain, so I just assumed, they were right. They ARE WRONG! 
Aging has nothing to do with weight gain. Unhealthy eating has everything to do with weight gain. 

I considered taking a Health Coach course but on my journey of writing a book titled Beating Cancer on a Budget, shelling out thousands of dollars for a course is kind of going against what I’m writing about. Everything I’ve learned these past five months has been FREE and from pretty good trusted sources, Chris Beat Cancer and The Truth About Cancer. Both sites have an overload of nutritional facts that you need if you’re fighting ANY illness, not just the one I’m battling.

You know what else I’ve learned, every 'body' is different and every nutritional diet is different, and every illness is unique to the individual carrying the illness and their diet needs to be as unique and individual too. What works for some might not work for others, take for example beans and legumes, some people have allergies or intolerance of the little beans so your diet needs to be catered to what works for you. Not everything that works for you is going to work for me.

I have a disease that is tackled with poisons like chemo and the slice and dice method but truly what works and has been documented for well over thirty years, some natural treatments as long as ninety years (but we won’t hear about it) is nutritional balance! The different protocols available to us alternative fighters is amazing, to say the least.


The Budwig Protocol - 
The Gerson Therapy - 
The NORI Protocol -  
Paleo Autoimmune Diet - 

You might be fighting heart disease with medication, my mother is fighting type 2 diabetes with medication, my uncles and aunts (now deceased) fought with the chemo, slice and dice method. What I’m getting at is we all have our own choice in the matter. My choice might be different than yours but health is what I’m trying to achieve, I believe you’re looking to sustain life in your unhealthy lifestyle. I’m just not choosing the unhealthy route anymore.

Brick by brick I’m building my nutritional wall back up. I’m not using the rubble of my broken down wall like so many choose to do via drugs and meds. Instead, I’m using new bricks in the form of healthy food, new cement in the form of knowledge, new tools in the form of supplementation. 

I have a carpenter friend who does beautiful work in his line of business. If I asked him if he ever uses the old wood, the old bricks, the old stuff to rebuild something, I’m sure he’d say 96-99% of the time he uses NEW materials and yes some of the time even new tools are needed! 

Now think of your body. Is it wise to use the old methods of treatment when there is so much new material offered in treating illnesses? We are born to die, there is no way around that, some die from heart disease, some depression, some diabetes, and yes some from cancer. We’re all on the same path, with no stamped date of expiration on our butts. Why focus on ways to just keep it going, using the old materials over and over why not try ways for it to be an enjoyable journey in peace and health?

I don’t want to die curled up in the fetal position, begging to be set free from this world. In this alternative choice of mine, I am going to go when God is good and ready. My solid wall of a foundation of faith will stand tall and firm in the end and with the use of all new materials, the balance of life will come to a halt and I’ll fly away in joy, not sorrow, in freedom, not bondage, in peace, not pain.

Let’s face it… our choice of living all boils down to the nutritional walls we build.

Here’s to your health, my friends, to your HEALTH! 

Pss. 122:7 “Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.”

My Realization

Some see an electric pole, I see a cross

2 Sam. 22:40 “For thou hast girded me with strength to battle: them that rose up against me hast thou subdued under me.”

The Realization

Well, I think I’ve discovered the reason for my ‘grumbles’ as some call it. It’s the realization that this is my new life and it isn’t going anywhere soon. Let me ask you, when you walk into a food store what’s the first thing you see? Food, right?  Now look at the food, all of it and think, I can’t have any. That is my new life. This is the source of my grumbles.

My new life consists of expensive foods that I probably shouldn’t even be eating. I’m cautious with every bite and every single purchase and hubby is always on the lookout for something I ‘might’ be able to eat. If it’s a fruit or vegetable, yippee, that’s me, but I’m human, I don’t like every fruit and vegetable on the market. But I'm willing to try those once disliked veggies.

I can’t eat processed food so the majority of boxed, canned and frozen foods are out of the question. The brown eggs hubby buys me are four dollars a dozen (sometimes on sale) and I go through a dozen a week. I go through two bags of seven-dollars-a bag of grapes a week, and strawberries I eat a lot of whether in season or out of season.

This is my reality. This is the realization that if I want to live, I cannot visit a fast food restaurant ever again. I can’t go to the new Dunkin Donuts that just opened up. Visiting a movie house would be as torturous as going food shopping, the aroma alone will eat me alive. Not that we visited any of these places often, but we had a choice. Now, my only choice is live or die. I look at every item on the shelf and painstakingly have to look at the ingredients. No soy, no wheat, that just about leaves me meat and dairy which is not allowed either, so yeah, that leaves cruciferous veggies, fruit (not all), and berries.

If you’re on a diet, you have a choice. You can cheat, you can go off your diet at any time, and honestly, you can look forward to your diet ending and going back to eating all the food you want. I myself, don’t have that choice. Again, my only choice in the matter is live or die! If I cheat, I am cheating myself of life and my willpower is too strong for that. I choose life, plain and simple.

I am not complaining, I am not grumbling, I’m letting you in on the realization that THIS is my new way of life. I do have a choice, I could live or I could die, quite simple choice, no? I choose life. Why grumble, why whine? Because the realization hits you in the face, that THIS is your new way of life! Let’s say you’re driving down the road and a Mack truck is heading straight for you, in that instant, you swerve to miss the head on collision. You chose to live, you chose to live with the realization of what plummeting into the ditch will cause.

I’m out here in the middle of nowhere building my strength. I go to the food store to see just how strong I am and I’m getting better! The first time I went food shopping, I left bawling my eyes out, the second and third time were a little better, but last time we left the food store we had to stop and get gas. Tears overflowed my eyes in silence. The pictures on the outside of the gas station were images of donuts. We sat next to a Buffalo Wild Wings, another new business I never had the chance to try. 

Surrounding me was a Burger King, an Applebee's restaurant where we had our wedding day meal, and then there was Wendy’s where I had my last meal from the outside world. The images and memories just poured in and my eyes reacted, my heart hurt and I cried. This is all a part of my healing too as I see how strong I am each day and just how much this little lady can take. 

Then there were the people hurrying out of the surrounding places with either a drink or food in their hand or lighting a cigarette. There were big people and little people, short people and tall people all with the same choice as me, to live or die, and my crazy mind is thinking that they are choosing a slow death over life. I can sit here and say it’s their life and I don’t care what they do but in all honesty, I DO care. I care very much whether people live or die. I can’t change their choices but I can hear their voices, and not one of them are saying, I WANT TO LIVE! 

You can say that this is me judging people but I say it is me observing people. I do care whether people live or die but it is not my CHOICE on what they choose in life. I, a little late in life, choose to live and this is the realization of my new way of living. 

2 Sam. 22:33  “God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.” 

A Pick-N-Choose World

Ps. 55: 16 “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.”

If you believe what you like in the gospels,
and reject what you don't like,
it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
 ~ St. Augustine

I saw this quote and felt like giving St. Augustine a high-five! This is so true. People have a tendency to pick and choose what they believe and read in the Bible. 

Then I spotted this meme of the Mash TV series.  Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy are talking:

“War isn’t hell, war is war and hell is hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

How you figure Hawkeye?

Easy Father. Tell me, who goes to hell?

Sinners, I believe.

Exactly, there are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies, in fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.” 

This struck me: “Who goes to Hell? Sinners, I believe.”

If we are all sinners, does that mean we are all going to Hell?

Well wait, we’re not all going to hell, right? Because all we have to do is read, believe, sin, and ask for forgiveness over and over again? Right? I got it. I don’t believe it but that is my right also just as you have your right to pick and choose what you believe in the bible and what actions you take LIVING the word of God. 

It seems to me that all this country is wrapped up in is politics, lies, media’s supposed truths, and more sin drowning in their veins. They love riling people up as they sit and judge and point fingers demanding transparency from situations we have no business in knowing. I say that with respect to the DECEASED in the matter and families who are dealing with a horrible death. They don’t want the stories rehashed over and over. They don’t want killers faces again and again in the news. When does the media share the innocent victims lives and plaster their images for all of the world to see? They don’t because NO ONE would SHARE that and feed the click-bait world.

The world bathes in sin yet claim an allegiance to God, any God for that matter, they wrap their belief in sin, let sin seep through their veins and bleed falsehood all in the name of an allegiance to their God?

While everyone is enjoying hating the president of the U.S, I’ve heard him called everything from a liar to a Muslim, to being a part of Islam and it goes on and on. People of the world would so much rather HATE than look deeply in the mirror and see the true them that is reflected back. Lies have been going on since the beginning of time itself and we think we have rights to the truth? Just what truth do you seek? Do you seek truth from politicians? That’s funny. Presidents lied in the past and they’ll lie in the future. Man will lie in his own lie.

The further and further we push God out of our country, the more and more people need to hate. They’re addicted to it, it’s a NEED of theirs to feel in control.

John of the Yahoo comment section wrote: “I am so surprised that the anti-Christ [Trump] is going to use political correctness to take over, I always wondered how he would do it, the bible says he will be a great speaker spewing good things from his mouth, that he will preach peace. Years ago I thought all this religion was nonsense, that there was no way we would ever lose Christianity in this country, or that the teaching of Jesus would stop as Jesus said it would, but now as an old man I am a firm believer, because I see the things of Christianity coming to an end in the name of tolerance, and I am not just talking about the saying of have a merry Christmas or the taking down of the ten commandments, I see an assault by our own government and president, and I have to wonder where all the Christians are at.”

All the Christians are too busy picking and choosing what they believe in. They’re rolling around in a mud bath slinging hate to the world, getting caught up in sin and calling their anger justified by the word of Christ. Allow me to tell you, there is no in between. You can’t be against the Lord one day (full of hate, rage and rants) and be a good looking upstanding Christian the next. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Pick and choose right or wrong, there is no justifiable middle.

I Choose God, You Choose Sin

Phil 1:29 “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;”

I’m targeting this post to all the non-believers who think I chose a fairy tale belief just because ‘some men wrote it thousands of years ago.’ These non-believers are so quick to point out the wrongs with the Bible but are rarely heard exclaiming what is right with the Bible, which makes me think they have either read the bible and didn’t understand it or are just commenting and following what other people have told them, not basing their opinion on any scientific fact or any truth whatsoever.

Here’s the thing, you choose not to believe whereas I choose TO believe. I don’t judge the non-believers but they sure go out of their way to judge Christians for their beliefs. When the non-believer reads something like say, the Noah story where God flooded the earth and had Noah take two of every animal onto the ark; they choose to not believe this testimony. I’ve always been curious too but that’s as far as it went when I was a child but since the advent of computer technology (I had to dig through numerous books at the library before Google) I can dig and find answers more quickly now and have a CHOICE on what I believe. NB’s choose not to dig and just take everything at face value and judge.

Here is one comment on Yahoo that saddened me:

“What would jesus do? well if your jesus cant stop children from being raped in his own house of worship, what good is he? if your jesus is powerful and can do things why didnt he make that shooters gun jam, or have the bullets miss the people that got killed in his church? and if your answer is because of freedom of will and he does not not intervene, then why do people pray to him for help when someone gets really sick or if they survive a car crash they thank "god" for saving them. or when something really good happens they look up in the sky and say 'thank you jesus'. it makes me sick how if something good happens its because of the grace of god, but if something bad happens he didnt help because of freedom of will. christians are delusional.”

2 Thess. 2:11 “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”

I was going to correct all the grammatical errors in that post but it just speaks volumes as to the type of non-believers out there. I HAD to capitalize the first sentence because it drove me nuts but the gist of society is in this person’s voice. THIS is what is wrong with America today! (not grammar Nazi’s)

As we as a nation have turned our backs on God, why do people (non-believers) cry when HE turns His back on humans? You see, I don’t feel in any way shape or form that God has turned his back on us. I don’t feel that because a sick and deranged evil man unleashed gunfire on a church was in any way a time for God to step in and say, “Hey wait a minute, not in MY house!”  Earth is his House too, so why hasn’t he stepped in to wipe us out completely? The same reason He let Adam and Eve live after he commanded them NOT to eat of the tree of life or they would surely die, he had compassion on his creation. Maybe this is God’s compassion on us thinking maybe we’ll see the error of our ways.

Why do people pray to Him when they are sick? Because we KNOW the power and healing of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know? Not only because of the words of man because of the sincere depth of knowing Him personally, yes through his words to us but more importantly Him IN us; there is a difference.

Did God stop satan from offering the fruit to Eve? No, He didn’t and we now live with the repercussions of sin. When I see people rioting, I don’t think, “God, why don’t you stop them?” I more on the lines think, “Satan is in full swing.” When I hear the cries, “Black lives matter.” I think, “ALL LIVES MATTER!” Society is the remnant of satan and we’re living in times where Jesus doesn’t matter because of all the luring satan has done to human beings!

People CHOOSE satan over God, plain and simple. When they choose to rob, they’re not doing it for God; when they choose to kill, maim, torture they are not doing it for the love of God. Just as Eve chose satan and his delicious fruit, we as a human race have chosen what satan has to offer instead of what God has to offer.

When you say I have chosen a fairy tale to believe, you are assuming my life is shaped by a book and by words alone. I’m here to tell you, my life is shaped by God as a Spirit dwelling in me; sure I read the book, the Bible, yes I love the Words in the book but it isn’t who I am and all that has shaped me. I am filled with the Spirit of Christ first and foremost. My God has led me to this juncture in my life and it is to Him I give the Glory, not man and his hate.

I won’t judge you for choosing sin and satan or choosing nothing at all as long as you don’t judge me for choosing God! 

*author's note: I will not capitalize satan!

1 Thess. 2:13 “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

Sin is Sin

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Sin is Sin

I read something interesting this morning, note that it is not mine:

*** I went to church tonight with my family and the pastor said something I think every Christian should hear.

Pastor: Now according to a few passages in the Bible, homosexuality is a sin.

Couple of older males in the audience: Amen!

Pastor: Now wait, I’m not finished.

Pastor: You know what else the bible defines as sin? Divorce!

~ uncomfortable silence ~

Pastor: There are countless passages that talk about how divorce is wrong, and there are consequences to getting a divorce such as a woman should be stoned.

He went on:

Pastor: We choose to overlook the consequences of divorce because time has proven that they are inhumane and cruel.

The bible doesn’t say anything about the consequences of the homosexual lifestyle. Yet we seem to be spearheading a campaign to ruin the lives of people we don’t even know.

Pastor: The bible says we are to love thy neighbor. That’s it. There are no other rules or restrictions to that passage.

So WE as a church family have to support equality with a smile on our face. THAT is the true Christian way. ***

Here lately I see so much hate coming from so-called Christians. I say so-called because while they call themselves Christians they certainly don’t act like a Christian. Posting a scripture here and there does not make you a Christian, attending a church does not make you a Christian. The way you ACT and partake in living Christ-like makes you a Christian.

I saw another post:

***Love Thy Neighbor

Thy homeless neighbor

Thy Muslim neighbor

Thy black neighbor

The gay neighbor

Thy White neighbor

Thy Asian neighbor

Thy Jewish neighbor

The Christian neighbor

Thy Atheist neighbor

Thy disabled neighbor

Thy addicted neighbor ***

I’d like to add to the list, Thy Sinning neighbor. So as much as you despise the homosexual and hate the Muslim, the divorced woman must also repulse you?

Luke 17:25 “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.”

I am a sinner. I have been cohabiting with a man for many of years. My Church just about did away with me because I didn’t bow to their rules. *I* am no different than a homosexual being turned away from a church, or for church goers to deny them/us entry because of their/our lifestyle.

I almost forgot, I’m also divorced! Stone me now! I don’t feel I committed adultery but by marrying this man I have spent thirteen years with, it is considered adultery. My ex husband abandoned his son and me and I found a man/friend who respected and honored me in ways the ex never did, nor would or could. He broke the vows by treating me as an obsession/possession that when he lost me, he never tried to file for a divorce as he said he would. He kept me hanging, wondering and dangling feeling like the most repulsive sinner in the world.

I remain committed to God. The blood of Christ washes away my sin, right? So why would Jesus’ blood not be forgiving to the homosexual? Does he only forgive certain sins, like the man who hates, despises, steals and tells white lies? A lie is a lie and a sin is a sin. You cannot paint your sin a pretty color and say that it is not sin.

My beau and I have decided to get married at a Historical courthouse. Why a courthouse? The church that is built for sinners to come to has turned us away. We are just sinners, so please, stone us now.

I think I will give up on religion for the time being. RELIGION! Not my faith in God and certainly not Jesus Christ. I am empowered by the Word and by the Word I will live, and as a sinner I will die. But Jesus will forgive me, right? "...the kingdom of God is WITHIN you."

Jas. 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

[27] Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Think about this:

 
Luke 17: [33] Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
[34] I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
[35] Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[36] Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[37] And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.