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! 

Moving Right Along...Healing

Luke 9:11 And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.

Moving right along… HEALING

While some might see my alternative treatment actions of this disease of mine as bungee jumping without any bungee cords, I see myself as jumping with a safety net; a net filled with cotton balls no less!

You see, chemotherapy is not safe bungee cord. Chemo is a frayed bungee cord that they hand you after you’ve already paid the enormous jumping fee. Then you find out that the bridge is under construction and could topple mid jump and most assuredly you won’t make it alive. You will have a long arduous life wrought with pain and sicknesses of all kinds, but hey, that’s the price you pay when bungee jumping from the Chemo bridge.

As people struggle to understand my approach, I struggle to understand their soapbox that they stand on and think they know all of the facts because of a couple people who survived with the chemo treatments. I have yet to see a success story unless it was caught early on and they had minimal treatments. They STILL had to change their eating habits and lifestyle or guess what, their frayed cord comes back to haunt them, it stings them for years.

I apparently have been living with this disease for YEARS. The lump didn’t just pop up over night. Nope, it isn’t the size of a pea either! I allowed the lump to grow for a year before I got it checked out because of no health insurance and believe me, it didn’t appear at a moment's notice either. If you believe it did, then you must also believe the earth was brought about by a Big Bang Theory.

Just as the Creator didn’t blink Earth into existence overnight, He took his time and made sure everything was perfect, just perfect. Everything was moving right along until an entity came along with a ‘better idea’ of how to run things. We all see how that turned out, don’t we? We are no longer living in a perfect creation.

Remember, before satan came along the earth was flourishing with herbs and spices, and untainted animals. The atmosphere wasn’t full of toxins. The waters were clean enough to drink and bathe in, and the food was good enough to eat. In those days when people got sick, I can most assure you that what healed them was herbal teas. They tiptoed out in the fields, plucked flowers and leaves and boiled them in water to make a tea to drink in hopes it would heal their beloved sick. 

Through tried and true measures, they found what worked and the results were handed down to their fellow man. Then it happened, again satan felt he knew how to run this machine better than man. Greed came out to play and you see before you the game he spun, the Big Pharma who has pockets deeper than any valley. The laughter is echoed as people die but their pockets are full and their lives are monetarily rich beyond measure. Good job, satan!

Many people are conditioned, or brainwashed into believing everything they are told. Me, I’ve always had a way of finding my own way, walking in faith with one hand in Gods' hand, the other with the truth. God didn’t give me a mask to show off to the people so that everyone falls for a disguised woman. No, he gave me a beauty from the inside that shines for all the world to see.

This illness does not define me. My faith defines the woman I am and people who think THEY have a better way to run this factory we live in won’t mislead me. Mankind is overrun with little satans all thinking they have the right cure for this and that when all along the simplistic approach that God handed us STILL works to this day.

When I was first diagnosed, doctors tried to shatter me to the core, people lashed out telling me what I MUST do, or die! Everyone became the speaker on a podium with their wriggling pointing fingers. They tried to place me in the corner of the ring, where I was left to cower, curled up and in tears. I looked up. Right in front of me was a glorious Light shining. From four corners of the earth, it seemed the Light beckoned me to continue to follow Him. He offered the Way, the Truth and the Life. I rose, took His hand and followed.

John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

While fingers are still pointing, people are still on their podium, and there are those who would just rather burn me at the stake for not following along with THEM and THEIR conformity. I will stand tall and I will stand firm as persecution surrounds me. I WILL walk into the Light with no fear in where it is I am being led. I am moving right along in attaining that perfect world that God created for ALL of us to share.

All praise and Glory to God!

John 14:2  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

The Onion: Peeling Away Layers

1 John 1:5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

The Onion: Peeling Away the Layers

An onion, peeled away, layer by layer unveils a richness of flavor and health benefits; onions are good for you. As I peel away layers of my life, portions I had long forgotten and portions I’ll never forget are resurfacing. Sometimes it takes an earth-shattering diagnosis to make you stand up, take a full inventory of what you’ve stored and what needs to be let go. 

It has only been four months (this coming Wednesday) of my diagnosis that I began peeling away every essence of my being. At first I was distraught and I wanted to surrender to a slow death but instead, God had me rise above; He had me begging for life and only a life on earth with Him would suffice.

I began by peeling away layers of myself with God beside me with a broom and dustpan. He swept away the layers that brought me to this diagnosis and together we walked the healing path. Never alone I walked away from the hindrances that society would have me enslaved to, I parted ways with the negative influences that carried me here and I rose above the toxic world to find the Light of a healing path.

Isa. 18:2 “That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!”

Did you know the 555 ft. Washington Monument construction began in 1848 and six years later had to be stopped for lack of funding? It would be twenty-five years before reconstruction began again. Jesus began his ministry and it wouldn’t be complete for a couple of years but he went out building the world with miracles, His word, and laying down the path we might want to take if we are to finish being constructed in His image.

God began our individual construction the moment our mother and father lay together and produced something of a miracle inside the womb. We are all partakers of the tastes of a miracle if we are living and breathing today. Slowly we deconstructed what God built by poisoning the very building blocks He placed in us to learn, grow and beautify His creation.

We sit here today realizing the onion we are, knowing we need to peel away the years of destruction if we are ever to taste the miracle that we were created to be. Some sit in arrogant denial and feel completed but deep down they know they are far from completion. It’s going to take years to peel away the obstructions, years to rebuild all that was lost, and it will take the rest of our lives to bring forth a message. The message that God planted in us at birth needs to be exposed, expressed, delighted in, honored and respected.

I hate to break the news to you but we were not the beautiful flower seeds we believe ourselves to be. When we see a newborn infant with his or her little pudgy wrinkled up body, we are not looking at a beautiful flower, what we see is the miracle of creation. In all honesty, newborns are funny looking, wriggling little creatures, but the beauty is the breadth of the miracle we witness. 

As the child grows construction comes to a halt as we have to watch our uncompleted work go out into the world and finish what we, God, father, mother began at conception. Either the toxic work of the world takes hold, or the solid foundation that we used as building materials is built upon. Our children too will one day see the layers that need to be peeled away before seeing a completed work of art.

Even the healthiest, fit, faith-based families will need to peel away layers. They are not plucking away beautiful perfect petals of a flower, they are peeling away layers of the onion, the pain, the heartache, the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve of their entire life. The regrets falling to the floor, the resentments being placed on the dustpan, the sin that consumed us tossed in the garbage bin. We are being perfected in Christ with every blemish on our soul. 

When oncologist #2 asked me, quite frankly, “Aren’t you afraid of dying?” A smile washed over my face as I thought of meeting the Lord and said in my most serene, humble voice, “No, not at all.” While he sat perplexed at my response, I knew right then and there where I was heading. I may have a few more layers to peel, but construction of completion is underway.

All praise and Glory to the Creator!

Matt 13: 37-40 “He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.”

Seeing Good In The Bad

2 Sam. 14:17 “Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee.”

Seeing Good in the Bad

I knew today was going to be a different day when I woke while it was still dark outside, put the beloved coffee on, and made my way to let my dog go out back to do her morning business. The ground was wet so I knew we had gotten the much-needed rain overnight.

Sassy had made her way around to the front door so I turned to go in, after seeing a small toad off to the right of the steps, I greeted him with a good morning and proceeded to come in the house. I heard a noise in the darkness.

I had to turn on the light to see what I was encountering hoping beyond all hope it wasn’t the huge snake we’ve seen out in the garden. With the mudroom lit, I see movement on the shoes that are left on the floor. More movement, then an appearance. We have a really big toad, I call Flipit, making his home out in the garden and this morning, he made his way into the house but now he’s stuck behind the shoes. I got a broom and graciously led him to the door to hop back into the garden. To the left of his exit and plopped right there on the top step was the little toad I had previously seen to my right. Maybe big toad was the momma to little toad? No camera in hand so no pics available.

I like to greet the cool outside morning air with a prayer. This morning was no different but I got a treat with the visit of the toad family. I came in the house, poured a cup of coffee and shuffled my way to the computer where I would begin my writing day. 

I’m always leery of opening the internet because of the news I might find glaring at me from behind the screen, begging me to read. Day after day it seems killings, slaughter, murder and death are usually right up front ahead of the headlines. The political garbage gets passed over, just like on facebook if you post political crud, your words fall on deaf ears because I ‘HIDE THIS POST’ and see less and less of what garbage is being spewed out from an angry nation.

I am not pained by the atrocities of the daily news so much so I ignore it. I can’t, I will not allow the shock value to scare me from doing nothing and if you dare say prayer is nothing I will boldly slap you upside the head with the TRUTH about prayer. 

I’ve heard people say that God is ignoring us and this is the farthest thing from the truth. We live in a country founded on God and we the people work to remove Him from the land but it is impossible. Why is it impossible; because God HEARS OUR PRAYER that’s why. 

If we look back in history, we see that our founding fathers loved God. They brought God to this new country and built a land full of believers. So what happened? Well, greed and corruption leaked in and grew, no different than a seed that is planted, it grew and blossomed but the end result wasn’t a beautiful rose, it was a weed of ugliness.

To the non-believer, they would say that that’s all hokey but if they read the Bible they would know from the very first chapter IN the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation the Word states that this is the very thing that would happen. Amid all of the beauty created, weeds of greed and corruption would defile the very beautiful creation and it has to the point of almost total destruction. Have you ever tried to kill the weeds in a garden, only for them to come back full of livelihood and take over? You can try and try but the weeds will pop up somewhere and try to destroy all the beauty.

It’s fact! It’s truth! God tried to give us a moral compass and we planted weeds in that fertile place of mind growth, THAT is why the world is the way it is, we are slowly destroying the beauty. 

Back to the morning news, I was greeted with a small prism of shining beauty in my own neck of the woods in the state of Nebraska. A couple from Texas had purchased a two thousand dollar RV from the corrupted Craigslist only to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska to find they were swindled. I don’t know all that went down but a couple purchased an RV for them, filled it with groceries and all sorts of hospitable products. Cash donations are also pouring in for the couple. 

THIS is the kind of news I like to wake and read. This is what the world is supposed to be about. This is the reason I believe in the Power of Prayer! Yes, in my morning prayer I asked to be greeted by the good in the world through all of the bad. My days are shaped by the good I see, not the bad. I will not, CANNOT ignore the good in the bad. 

Alleluia AMEN! All Glory to God.

The Walking Dead

Rom. 1:10-11 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.
For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;

 

The Walking Dead

Well I caved in due to the pressure my man and son kind of placed on me. Not really pressure but I myself felt like an outcast in my own family because I didn’t watch The Walking Dead when these two hailed it as the next best thing since sliced cheese!

I’m not really into zombie flicks but in my day I did like watching the campy ‘B’ movies of Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead. They were just way out there creepy and well as a kid, I liked creepy. Not so much these days but I will watch them for laughs; and to see how far I’ve come in my likes and dislikes of the movies I watch.

Since I really couldn’t pick out any good movies with no nudity and barely clothed people in it, I tired from the search and I buckled, giving into, “I’ll watch the Walking Dead, season one episode one and we’ll go from there.” Cheers and smiles rang out across the two ‘Dead Heads’ I call them who had told me, “It’s really not that bad of a show.” So I would see for myself.

After the first episode I was hooked, like it was some kind of an addictive drug given me, I was hooked. We watched two more episodes and last night we watched three and tonight we’ll start season two! The first episode had a mild sex scene in it but it was much cleaner than any of the movies I was searching, so the prude in me let it pass and I sunk into the storyline.

Unlike the old zombie movies where it was all about the zombies, this show actually has a story, the Zombie Apocalypse.  The apocalypse happened and there are a few survivors and we follow these folk trying to survive in a zombie-ridden world. Granted there is plenty of gore and head turning moments but the characters have substance. You like them as soon as you are introduced to them. THAT to me is good writing as all of my writing friends will attest to.

The writer in me dissects everything I watch (or read for that matter) and The Walking Dead is no different. Even though the guys have seen all the shows and are anxiously awaiting the new season in October, I am new blood to the show (pun intended).

I’m finding it kind of funny how we three see it differently. Adam likes the death and gore, Steven likes the sci-fi elements, and me… hold on people… I see HOPE! Adam almost chopped my head off for saying that and Steven went silent but I rambled on and on how these people all have hope in finding other survivors, finding the reason this happened, finding a cure if any. The people who’ve died so far gave up; they had no hope that there is anything out there except zombies.

Then came my thwarted analogy: This movie is not much unlike man today. We are living in the zombie apocalypse. *screams and eeks heard*  

“Not EVERYTHING is about God, mom!”

Really? To ME it IS! EVERYTHING is about God!

After watching the episode where the man from the CDC showed the few living wanderers the zombie’s brain, it hit me. He showed an active brain full of color and the zombie’s brain activity was all black, empty, void just for a small red splotch that showed their hunger. When defining Zombie here is the definition:

a. the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose.

b. the supernatural force itself.

To ME and my understanding of it, when a man or boy walks into a theater and KILLS innocent people, for that split moment their brain has gone black, they think and feel nothing, but HUNGER, the hunger for death. When the adrenaline starts to flow back to their brain (if ever) they realize what they’ve done and either commits suicide or claims insanity.

Think of a man who kills his wife and child. Think of the man who chopped his wife’s head off. Think of all (and I mean ALL the killings globally) where killing is at an all time high. The brain has gone blank. For that one moment, they are a zombie.

When I said this to Adam again his response was, “Well, we’re all gonna die.”

I quickly responded, “Not me, honey, I’m promised eternity!” There’s that God referencing again.

Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

You see, some of us can CLEARLY see what is going on. We don’t need police to tell us that they are searching for a REASON why these murderers and evil is running rampant. We don’t NEED to know, we can clearly SEE.

I often think about the stories I’ve read passed down through the centuries of how the people of their times laughed at Copernicus, scoffed at Aristotle, mocked Columbus chuckled at Einstein and the list goes on.

I will be laughed and scoffed at too for my ‘theory’ but rest assured, those that can SEE will have the last laugh. While you sit and wonder why this or that happened, I’m at peace knowing I see it all too clearly. If you’re into quantum physics like I have ALWAYS been interested in, maybe take a look at this discovery, the Discovery of God in scientific terms that I totally understand! I can clearly SEE.

Note: I watched this video AFTER I wrote this post and thought it relevant enough to add to it.

Science has discovered God

May God be with you all!

A comment from Anon: “God has made Himself evident through "what has been made" - ie "creation" or "Nature".

And, what does Science study? Nature.

If "that which is known about God..." could be known by ordinary, non-science-trained individuals (from thousands of years ago) by observing Nature, then why on earth should it be surprising that those "trained and learned scientists", who have the job of observing Nature, should end up proving that Nature could not exist without God?”