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."

Thankful November?

Pss. 100:4 “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

Well, it is pretty amazing that November came around so quick. Seems like just yesterday it was Christmas. Five years ago today there was snow on the ground here, hubby was blind and life in the great state of Nebraska was fairly new to me. After a week long of reminiscing I need to get back on track this week.

I don’t know how man years Thankful November has been going on but I see the ‘challenge’ every year and think it is quite silly for ME, not so much so for the people who need a month reminder to remember what they are Thankful or grateful for.

Rom. 1:21 “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

You see, the challenge should not be a month set aside in November when we have Thanksgiving to celebrate, I think the challenge should be a 365-day event! Wake every day and be grateful for just one thing if not a ton of things, before signing off at night, tell the world what you were thankful for on that given day! 

That my friends is a CHALLENGE! When I wake up in the morning, I thank the Lord for another day to be alive on this planet and when I go to sleep at night I thank the Lord for getting me through the day and I always find one specific thing in my day to thank Him for; prayers answered, a car that runs, the dog that licks my nose, whether simple or big, I’m always thankful. 

Yesterday, besides being thankful for another day, I was thankful for Thankful November. I know there are many non-believers or passive followers of Christ but everyone loves a good challenge and struggling to find one good thing to be grateful for in a day is a challenge many can’t meet or are not up to the task.

While this November is an election year, too many souls are lost in the mire of hate, anger, and a sheepish leading of their life, that they NEED Thankful November to open their eyes to what REALLY matters in life. While I understand everything physical in this life matters (to an extent) I cling to the Spirit of life that feeds my very grateful and humble being.

When this year ends December 31st, I will still have my dignity intact and won’t have to look back at the shame I brought upon myself in the past year. I know, we live in a world that holds no shame for people spreading the hate, who delights in bringing angst to a day, and for some who wallow in the mire of deep-seated evil spread to the world.

At the end of the day I don’t look in the mirror and feel shame, guilt, remorse, pride or arrogance, I see me; the whiny, bratty me that the Lord shaped on a sun-filled morning thankful for another day of life but ready for my eight hours of sleep that I’m BLESSED to have. 

So when another month passes and everyone’s card is full for the 30 days of being thankful in November and I see hashtags like  #Thankful 30, I so wish it said #thankful365, #Thankful2016, #thankfultobealive. Seriously, this is what the world NEEDS!

I’m grateful for a movement that gets the world being thankful for what they have! I’m grateful for a God who loves me unconditionally and blesses me DAILY! I’m thankful for a blog that at the beginning of the year I wanted to end took on new life and meaning and I surpassed 2014 (182 posts) and my goal now is to surpass 2012 (202 posts) just to prove to myself my words mean something to someone and to ME! 

I could go on and on for all that I’m thankful for and my hope in my words is to see people surpass the Thankful November Thirty-day challenge and have it last the entire year possibly the rest of their lives! Finding something to be grateful for even if it is as simple as having another roll of toilet paper on hand when one runs out, being grateful for EVERYTHING changes you!

So light your days being grateful! Spend the month being Thankful… at the end of the year realize… you have more than thirty days of thankfulness to be grateful for! 

God be with each and every one of you to who I am grateful for!

God Bless!

Col. 3:15 “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”

Healing Through Prayer

1 John 2:1-2 (NIV)

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Healing through prayer

The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. It may be just me, but I do not feel an emoticon is righteous and should not be used in the place of prayer, real earnest prayer. I have learned through watching and seeing, feeling and knowing that prayer encourages healing and this is where I’m at, for now.

Who are the ones paying when I don’t pray? The negative influencing people could care less about me or whether they are hurting me or they wouldn’t post what they do and consider the pain they might inflict on people. No, they continue spewing their hatred, flaunting the ego in laughter and using God’s word for their own feel good show. 

When I can’t make it onto facebook and see the prayer requests, the only one paying for my lack of prayer are those in need of prayer and thus satan thinks he is winning the game. As I find healing it is only through prayer that the power of prayer is realized. While satan was wielding his pitchfork and laughing at my seeming demise, I prayed. My God has always been stronger and more powerful and I knew I’d find healing.

I need to stop taking everything people write and post as a personal attack on ME! I need to know that people are human and going to act accordingly in the search for their egos survival for without their ego, they are nothing. To me, they are the Legion referred to in Luke. Men of many faces, hiding in the armpits of satan, wearing the many masks that evil offers.

Luke 8:30 “And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.”

The darkened days are clouded over with an air of mystery as night after night, day after day storms erupt from the sky unleashing damaging lightning, gusting forceful winds, trembling thunder, and torrential rains that leave the newly plowed fields unrecognizable. The sun is hiding behind the darkness waiting to warm the moistened soil just as God is waiting for me to embrace the light that is hiding within me and to override the negative influence with the Glory of Him and Him alone.

While depression will lay dormant I will get on the horse and ride into the sunset that I know is there and it will cradle my thoughts. I will not make light of the darkness that covers my eyes, no I will see the sun lurking behind the cloud waiting to pierce the ground in the light beams that will eventually devour the gray murk of the days.

I don’t use pills to heal my daily pain, I don’t use alcohol to hide behind a storm inside, I don’t abuse food because it serves me no purpose. I won’t go to a doctor who is only there to tell me what I DON’T have wrong with me and can only confirm what IS wrong with me when the tally of the doctor bill reaches the thousands, THEN they’ll find what is wrong and will medicate me for the problem instead of finding HEALING for the problem.

Each day that passes, I will slowly emerge the victor of the storm stronger because the darkness didn’t win, this time, yet again. A flower will unveil one petal at a time. Buds will emerge and the winds will strengthen the stem. I will continue to write, as this is my God-given path that I must pursue. While my immediate family could care less if I write, I know there are people out in the world seeking that one person who is suffering with them and wish to read how they handle such circumstances and maybe THAT is why so many storms take hold of my life so that I can weather them and share my healing with others like me. 

I'll weather this storm and find my healing through earnest prayer. All praise and Glory to God. 

Phil. 4: 6-7 “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”