Easy Button - The Conclusion

So, whatever happened with my search for the Easy Button? I'm sure you're dying to know "the rest of the story." I am too! I don't think there IS an end. But there's definitely a lesson in there somewhere. I've been praying for over a year now that God would "show me great and mighty things I do not know" in regard to my health, our business, and my marriage. If you've read previous posts, you know I have these "333" sightings all the time and use them to remind me of Jeremiah 33:3. Each time I see the triple 3's, I pray that request to God. The past 18 months have been very difficult and very uncomfortable. In my experience, if you keep trusting God through times like these, it usually results in God doing a great work in your life. But I'll admit it: I can be impatient. And God and I have had some pretty heated conversations over the past several months. I even asked HIM about the Easy Button. And here's what He told me:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30

He kept giving me that passage, and I didn't get it at first. But then I changed my outlook and decided to trust that God had a purpose in all of this. I still don't know everything He has planned, but I started to see that he'd been answering my prayers all along. Without the recent seriousness of my health condition, I don't think I would have had the motivation to take charge of my health like I have. After just a few months, I have seen amazing improvements in my body. I believe there are better days ahead. When we moved from our beautiful home, I was hurt and angry. But the house we live in now is within 15 minutes of our clients and my doctors. And we live within a few miles of all the health food stores where I do a lot of my food shopping. We have a much smaller yard and home to take care of. This has taken a huge amount of stress off my husband, who had to drive at least an hour to get home from work every day, to take me to the doctor, and to make a special trip out here to get the food I need from the health food store. If I have an emergency at home, he can get to me in minutes, and he's been getting home earlier each evening.

There have been some other opportunities in the area of our business that have opened up because of our move, although we're still waiting to see how God works this out. And although I still don't have the answers about why we don't seem to have a support system in our lives to help out with the heavy burden my health puts on our lives, I am hopeful that the Lord will give us His divine revelation on practical ways we can lessen that burden on my husband's life. God has blessed me with the opportunity to work with a Christian life coach, and she gave me a great word picture to give me hope in this area. She explained that people often say, "that's the last straw," in referring to that circumstance that causes someone to say like Popeye, "That's all I can stands; I can't stands no more!" But what if we could remove things, one straw at a time - one burden at a time? We don't have to solve all our problems with some big epiphany all at once. Sometimes it's just one little solution at a time. And that sounds do-able to me.

So, although I didn't find a big red button to push, I'm starting to understand that quiet voice that keeps telling me, "Give it to Me; let Me carry that weight for you. Just rest in My loving arms and trust." His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

To Make a Long Story Short...

The past month has been very eventful, and I know it's been a long time since I posted - shame on me! I thought it would be a good idea to give you an update on my life and health. Inquiring minds want to know, apparently. Where to begin? Well...it all began in the spring when a friend of a Facebook friend contacted me and referred me to this website. With all my health issues, the one thing I thought was under control was my thyroid disease. But I soon learned that I, like hundreds of thousands of thyroid patients, was on the wrong medication. I found a doctor in my area who prescribes natural thyroid hormone and also believes in taking elimination of symptoms into consideration when adjusting medication levels, rather than just thyroid lab tests. After 8 consecutive months of gaining up to 10lbs/month, I immediately stopped gaining weight. My new doc also started me on natural progesterone to treat my Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD).

Over the next few months, my doctor continued to monitor my symptoms and my hormone levels, adjusting my medicines accordingly. I almost immediately saw a major reduction in two symptoms I'd been plagued with for years: excessive sweating and severe digestive problems. However, I did develop some new heart symptoms which included an elevated heart rate, chest pain, and sudden drops in my blood pressure that caused me to pass out or fall down. I saw a cardiologist and had several tests done to determine the cause of this. We're still not 100% sure of the cause of these symptoms, and I continue to have episodes with my heart from time to time. I'm told there is nothing wrong with my heart, but that I have another condition that is affecting the functioning of my heart.

In August, a friend and I began following The Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin, which is a way of eating that follows biblical principles concerning food. I lost a few pounds doing this but nothing major. But then, at the urging of my mom, I started watching a television show called "Know the Cause" on the Christian Television Network. The host, Doug Kaufmann, teaches that most diseases actually come from fungus, mold, and mildew rather than bacteria and viruses. He has authored several books on the subject and also has a website: www.knowthecause.com. The more information I heard and saw, the more I believed that this concept made a LOT of sense. I had been urging my doctors for years to find a commonality among all my diagnoses, believing firmly that one person could not have so many separate diseases without them being somehow related. I wanted to "know the cause" instead of just treating the symptoms with drugs, drugs, and more drugs. So I began the Phase One antifungal diet on September 1st.

In the past several weeks I have lost 25 pounds, I have gotten off 4 medications, and I have seen a reduction in the severity and frequency of my heart symptoms and my cataplexy attacks. This is a miracle! For the first time in my adult life I feel like I am getting better! I can see actual tangible evidence of an improvement in my health. That's not to say that I am cured, by any means. I have a LONG way to go before I could ever consider referring to myself as healthy. And there are still serious health issues involving my heart and liver that need to be addressed. But I believe I am on the right path. And that includes continuing to rid my body of mold, mildew, and fungus; getting off as many pharmaceutical drugs as possible, putting only the purest, natural substances into my body - whether it be food, beauty products, cleaning products, etc.; and supplementing with high quality vitamins and nutritional supplements, tailored to my particular conditions and symptoms.

This is absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but I am convinced that I am doing the right thing. And I believe that anyone dealing with a chronic health issue can benefit from the information at Know the Cause and from Doug Kaufmann. Please continue to keep me and my husband in your prayers as this continues to be one of the most difficult times in our lives.

This I can say with 100% assurance, though: God's promises are true, and He is faithful. Take Him up on His offers:

"Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things,which you do not know." Jeremiah 33:3

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him." James 1:5

Join the Club

I've been seeing things...numbers, specifically. I started out seeing the numbers 9-1-1. Yep, I'm serious. Every time I would look at the clock it was 9:11. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but it was happening an unusual number of times to be merely coincidence. Afraid of sounding like a nut, I didn't tell anyone about it. But then my friend shared with me that she had been seeing the numbers 3-3-3 everywhere for a long time. I asked her what she thought it meant, and she said she didn't know, so we looked it up on the internet. Apparently there are several groups of people that see number patterns too. There are all kinds of numerology experts thats see all kinds of deeper meanings in numbers and number patterns. It's the kind of thing that reminds me of my teen years when they would show us videos about how all rock music artists are from the devil, and they would "prove" it by showing how the album art contained all these supposed hidden Satanic symbols. (If you turn the album upside down and look at it during the autumnal equinox, while wearing special glasses, you could "clearly" see that the background was actually a pentagram or goat's head...or maybe both).

After sifting through all the loonies, I did find a group of Christians who all claim to have frequent sightings of 3-3-3. Their answer to this odd phenomemon is to pray. And to specifically pray the promise of Jeremiah 33:3 which says, "Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." So, my friend and I decided that we would join Club 3-3-3. Every time we see the numbers 3-3-3, we will stop and pray that God will show us great and mighty things that we could never know or discover on our own. Call me crazy, but since that day, I stopped seeing 9-1-1 and started seeing 3-3-3. The clock says 3:33, I was in room 333 in the hospital, there were 333 parking spaces left in the garage, and it goes on and on. I've got my husband pointing out "sightings" now. And each time we stop and pray. We ask God to show us great and might things. Things we don't know.

I don't know about you, but there are lots of things I don't know. For example, I don't know why I'm sick all the time and keep getting additional diagnoses for new diseases I supposedly have. I don't know why the treatments that seem to be working for other people with these diseases don't seem to work for me. I don't know which doctor out there will take the time to actually see me as a whole person and not as a symptom. I don't know where I'm going to get the money to keep on paying $50 a visit to see specialist after specialist and $30-$50 to pay for drug after drug that they prescribe. I don't know which doctors to believe and which treatments to accept. I don't know which symptoms are from disease and which are from all the drugs they're giving me. I don't know how I'm going to come up with $15,000 to pay for a surgery my insurance won't cover but all my doctors say I must have. But God knows. So I'm going to keep asking. Every time those numbers jump out at me on the game clock during a Steelers game or the time counter on the CD player. God wants to show me great and mighty things, but I have to first call on him.

There are things you probably don't know. So join the club. Club 3-3-3. And get ready to discover great and mighty things.