Testify

The moment we have all been waiting for....another guest blogger post from my sister, April! Please enjoy and be inspired and encouraged by her message!

I've already written several notes asking for prayer and sharing about how my health isn't doing well... but a LOT has happened in the last 6 months and it's about time I wrote a note TESTIFYING of God's goodness and how my health has been improving:).

**This turned out WAY longer than I intended, I assure you it's a good read:), but if you just want to hear how my health has improved, skip to the last few paragraphs:)

First, I want to share a little background of my journey this past year... I believe it was about this time last year when Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was on TV (I watched it online) every week and it totally inspired me to cook fresh, stay away from processed foods, eat more veggies, etc. I've always had a desire to eat healthy and make things from scratch, but time, money & energy was often an issue and it was just easier to buy a little processed foods here and there. Then in April of last year I visited my Grandma who was recovering from a stroke, she also has diabetes and other health issues. She had just become a vegan like my Aunt (who she lives with), she had lost a ton of weight, was weaning herself off her diabetes medicine and her blood sugar levels had never been better! She had so much more joy and vibrancy for life than I had ever seen her before. While I was there I got to try some interesting vegan food, like vegan chicken breast, etc. I thought eating healthy was cool but being vegan or vegetarian seemed a little much to me at that time, though I loved that my Grandma, who had eaten meat and diary all her life, probably 3 meals a day, was LOVIN' being a vegan and had absolutely NO desire to eat meat... that my friends is nothing short of a miracle, seriously.

A few months later... I hear about the movie Food Inc. and ladies and gentlemen I was in for the SHOCK of my life! I mean I knew our food system wasn't the best, I had heard about hormones in the chicken we eat, pesticides on my veggies, but oh. my. It was SO much worse than I ever thought. (If you haven't seen it, you need to:) This basically thrusted me into buying mostly, if not all, organic foods and doing lots of research and discovering where our food comes from. I had heard several testimonies from different people about how when they switched to all organic foods it made them feel so much better, which needless to say, I was stoked! I did feel somewhat better eating organic, but really after a few months I didn't see the results I was hoping for... and I was starting to get discouraged and wondered why it wasn't make much of a difference.

That's when I decided to purchase the DVD, "Processed People." Which I am SO thankful I did! Processed People came at things from a different angle than Food Inc. which was exactly what I needed to hear. It basically talked more about the type of diet and lifestyle we have in the Western World (esp. in America), and also our horrendous health care system which is really more about "sick care" than it is about teaching us a healthy lifestyle. The doctors interviewed on this Documentary gave example after example of people who have come into their practice with incurable diseases, they taught them healthier ways of eating and living, and they were CURED of these diseases! I want to say it clearly that these were not diet plans, these were lifestyle changes, and most of these patients continued to get healthier and healthier years later as they continued with the diet & lifestyle change. I literally sat their crying, thinking of myself and so many others I know that deal with chronic, incurable diseases... and the best thing the medical field provides is pills for pain and controlling the symptoms, when really our bodies are malnourished and screaming for some REAL food:)! This anger of injustice being done against our bodies (and our environment) burned in my heart, and the Lord really put a resolve in my heart to make changes for myself, as well as bring that change to others & our nation.

The main diet change that Processed People talked about was how we were never made to eat the amount of meat and diary products we do in America, let alone processed and fast foods. If you look at other cultures who eat more of a vegan diet, they live quiet healthy lives till the day they die and suffer with far less degenerative diseases as we do. Let's just say after watching this DVD I was convinced, and I decided that the change that needed to happen was not just switching to organic, but nixing the meat and diary and moving to a vegan diet.

I was NEVER more excited in my LIFE to NOT EAT MEAT! I truly believed that this was one of the biggest changes I needed, and knew I would see the results. I also knew it would not be easy (if you know me well, you know that i <3 meat & diary!), but this was far more important than my cravings, and I felt it was bigger than even just myself. SO, the very end of August of 2010, I set myself on the journey of eating a mostly vegan diet, and I have seen and continue to SEE the RESULTS!!! What's even more interesting is that around this same time my schedule (not intentionally) became more full than it ever had in the last few years since being sick. There were several times that I felt I would crash because of it, since I always had the previous 3 years, but I NEVER did!!!! Crashing for me looks like several things, but the biggest thing is I am forced to lie on the couch all day or maybe up to a week just to recover from pushing myself too hard. The Lord was is so wise to change my diet right before my schedule increased:)!

I am still fighting chronic fatigue and definitely have not been cured YET, but this progress is HUGE. The fact that I don't have to spend most of my time lying on the couch everyday is crazy. The fact that I can participate and enjoy more of life is SO refreshing, and I'm able to do daily activities that most people take for granted. Currently as I write this I haven't even been feeling the best the past few days, but I know I need to testify of this improvement and thank you all so so SO much for your prayers and encouragement while I've been fighting this sickness. The Lord knows I wouldn't of made it this far with out all of you, and especially my roommates who have also embraced a lot of changes as a result and supported me in this change! I <3 you girls!

Maybe partly why I haven't been healed yet was because God didn't just want to heal me of a disease, but He wanted to change my lifestyle and give me a ministry I didn't even know was needed. There's so much more I could say about this journey, but I think this is long enough:):). Excited to continue to walk in this way... and try and bring as many people along as I can!