Thinking, that's All: In Which I Write My Heart Out

All week {um fall long?}, I feel like I've been writing for everyone else.

And that's left me here in these quiet moments too exhausted to write much of what's been on my heart and mind despite there being a flood of thoughts and emotions.

Writing here in this space has been a lot like taking a bucket to an overflowing river, trying to reduce the flooding one bucketful at a time; by the time I get back from emptying one bucket, the river has again spilled beyond its flooded banks and I'm just dipping into a tiny bit of it, carrying it away.

This week, especially, has been one of these overflowing weeks.

I said goodbye to my grandpa just days before he slipped from this side of eternity into the next ... and days before my late father {his son's} birthday, which is always hard because I think of how old he would be and what he's missed with the boys and what my boys have missed of him.

This weekend, we'll say a proper farewell, but I'm positive it won't hold a candle to spending an hour with him Sunday, talking to him, holding his warm hand, praying with him and voicing my appreciation for him while he was still conscious enough to hear and understand and respond.

I grieve for the loss of such a great patriarch; but I find joy in the hope that he's with his Creator ... and my dad and my grandma {his wife} experiencing fullness in the reunions. I give thanks for having had 29 years with him and for having the chance to say so and say goodbye.

I woke up this morning to my eyes washed with streaks of red across the white, and I wished that I didn't wear my heart so visibly on the outside.

It's hard to explain a week like this to the people who read the heart in your eyes, a week so wrapped up and bound in not only my own sticky grief and gratitude but that of others who are hurting or weighed down by the heaviness of life.

Selah.

No one knows exactly what that translates to but its splashed across the pages of the Psalms. Some say it means to give pregnant pause and reflect; others ponder that it means that with an infusion of praise. 

I feel like my life is a Psalm this week.

I've cried out to my God through tears of sadness, praise:

"I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies." 

Psalm 18: 1-3 

And joy.

"You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah." 

Psalm 32

Strange thing is how one can cry tears of grief and yet sing songs of praise all within almost the same breath.

Today was my 90-day check up with my crazy-smart holistic doctor and E's eight-week check up.

Though I knew the report would likely be good because I've been feeling so.much.better these past few weeks especially, I couldn't help but let tears spill onto my cheeks when she told us both my and E's candida infections were cleared up.

After more than a year and a half of both E and I battling that infection and all of the imbalances produced during other less effective treatments and the infection itself, our bodies have been cleared of it.

Cleared. Healed.

All I could say was thank you to her for her help

thank you to God for giving her such insight into the body

and allowing our paths to cross and linger

and

Selah.

Tonight, I'm done carrying buckets of overflow.

I'm just going to wade and cry and sing and praise.

Selah.

Thinking, that's All: Healed

I remember now what it's like to feel mostly normal but the novelty of such a feeling has yet to wear thin.

Because more than remembering what it's like to feel normal, I remember vividly what it's like to feel so very sick.

The kind of sick that doesn't necessarily loudly broadcast itself in exact diagnosis with exact prescription or reveal itself on the face, though those closest to me have breathed sighs of relief at the return of a healthy glow spread across the bridge of my face and cheeks and at the return of curves to my body.

Three short months ago, in addition to digestive distress, candida overgrowth and imbalanced hormones, I was on the fast track to kidney failure and the brink of developing an autoimmune disease, different systems in my body having their communications efforts jumbled and skewed, making it impossible to walk a straight line or break down proteins or convert B vitamins.

See, in my laborious attempts to heal my gut and restore the delicate gut-flora balance, I accidentally threw other delicate parts of my body out of whack; I'd failed to understand that my body is more complex than what I understood -- that it's fine tuned and created to function in the fullness of deep nutrition. That its biochemistry is detailed and specific and that years of treating my body like a simple machine had led to malfunction.

That years of making health be determined by scale number and eating with only calories and taste in mind rather than nutrition and micronutrients couldn't be fixed by a restrictive diet aimed at only bringing one of the obvious imbalances -- the candida in my digestive system -- back into a stasis.

You see, one can't just starve out an invasive opportunist like candida without, too, starving herself, her own body. That's what I didn't know when I began cleansing with The Body Ecology diet. But that's another story for another day.

Today's story is about healing. And how I can claim the miracle of being healed because honestly that's all it can be determined as.

I'd been to quite a few doctors, quite a few specialists and only one had a real grasp on the magnitude of the situation and even then there was more going on than what was easily recognized without getting into the genetics and biochemistry of my specific body.

And that's where grace comes in.

I met Ann at G's preschool; we quickly came to realize we both faced many of the same healthy eating challenges and so it wasn't a surprise when we learned we both saw the same chiropractor. Brief after-school conversations led to snippets of hearing each other's health struggles, but it wasn't until an early summer pool party that we actually had a chance to talk beyond chasing kids out the door.

By then, I knew I'd hit a plateau in healing. My body had detoxed to an extreme, my weight kept plummeting and my period was beginning to be more or a stranger than a monthly guest: it was like I could see the promised land but just couldn't cross over. I was just stuck.

In my crying out to God, I prayed, I pleaded for a miracle -- for Him to send me someone who could see the whole picture, the entirety of His creation or for miraculous healing.

He gave me both.

Ann's friend, who was in bad shape health wise took Ann with her to see a doctor -- a biochemist and trauma surgeon by training who bases her practice on caring for patients who have exhausted every other medical route and treats through integrative nutritional medicine, everything grounded in biochemistry and genetics. Ann then made an appointment for herself and encouraged me to do the same.

It took months to get in, and honestly, I didn't know what to think when I met Kerry -- I mean, she'd basically told me more about my body than any doctor ever had. And the scary thing was she was so spot on about what I was feeling and what my body was and wasn't doing that when she told me my next steps were kidney failure and developing the same auto-immune disease my mother has, I knew she as part of the answer to my prayer for healing.

I'm about to round out 90 days of treatment with Kerry, and the progress my body has made in healing from a deep cellular and biochemical standpoint is quite beautifully amazing.

****

Every week, I have the privilege of sitting down with my senior pastor to hear what's on his mind so I can transfer his thoughts onto our church's blog or our church's facebook page.

It's one of the highlights of my social media job at Immanuel.

Last week, he shared with me his excitement for our annual Thanksgiving service, where our church family members are welcomed and encouraged to take the microphone during the service and voice what they are thankful to God for.

Before we conclude our meeting he asked me if I remembered the story where Jesus healed ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19.

I nod.

"Only one came back to thank Jesus," he'd said. "Only one. Ten were healed, but only one thanked Him ... I once heard that gratitude is only as sincere as the effort we make to express it. The Bible teaches that it's not enough to be grateful in our hearts, that we should be going out of our way to express it."

I scramble to write what he's said, soaking it into my heart.

"It may have been that all ten lepers had gratitude, but Jesus talks about the one who was sincere in his effort to express it -- the one who went out of his way to express it."

The one who came back to say thank you.

****

She's checking me out, reading my body to make sure everything is firing well despite some persistent tenderness just beneath my breastbone.

After she's done, she announces that I have some inflammation in that joint beneath it that's causing the intense soreness.

But that's not the big story -- the big story is that so many of the parts of my body that were struggling to be anywhere close to balance have become either awesomely balanced are at the verge of being in a beautiful homeostasis.

Only small components of my immune system and digestive tract need to come into order along with a reduction in inflammation.

We are worlds away, she says, from where we started.

I sigh audible praise to God and express thanks to Kerry for taking the time to help figure out this amazingly complex body He gave me.

But in my heart, I know my quiet gratitude is not enough.

****
It's early Sunday morning, and we trek into church to both work and celebrate God during the Thanksgiving service.

I'm not planning to go near a microphone during the service.

But we sing loudly, passionately about the 10,000 reasons for our hearts to praise Him, and I'm pretty much jumping out of my chair moments later because a verse has been following me and I can feel it pressing up from my heart and into words and out my lips.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7

I give thanks.

For His word. For His mercy. For His grace. For His healing. For feeling so very close to normal again. For remembering what sickness feels like and the promise of hope that always accompanied it.

And when I come home, I can't help but pour my words of gratitude into black on white, a permanent testament to the His healing hand.

I can't help but come back to Him, go out of my way, to take the gratitude in my heart and let is spill out of my lips in a song of praise. 

My song of thanksgiving, indeed.

Linking with Ann and living a covenant of gratitude. 

Bigger Picture Moments: The Question I don't Know How to Answer

Editor's Note November 2012: If you are looking for information on restoring your digestive system, please know that The Body Ecology Diet helped me, but it didn't completely restore my health. My body actually stalled out on the the diet, and I needed to go off it to heal other parts of my body. You can read about my last steps in healing by clicking here. 

It's the question I don't know how to answer.

When we walk into church and we're greeted by faces familiar with the prayer requests.

Or when I workout at my club after a long stretch of vacation.

In responding to emails

texts

phone calls

greetings.

"How are you?"

And the truth is I know.

But I don't know.

I am better, yes.

But I'm not better.

I'm well.

But I'm not totally well -- totally recovered from the monstrosity of a gut flora imbalance that not only wreaked havoc on my digestive tract but also my mind, my emotions, my vitality, my energy and my sense of mental and even physical, yes, physical balance.

I've healed in so many beautiful ways, and I'm better.

But I'm not.

Yet.

And I keep saying yet.

Because, honestly, I'm still waiting for the restoration, for the full healing to sweep over my body.

And that's funny because I haven't exactly known what it is that's still not right other than something is still not right. I've been walking around not completely sure of what's out of balance other than the obvious smattering of seemingly unrelated physical persistence of feeling slightly off kilter in stance coupled with headaches and food sensitivities and other abnormal but mostly boring and mild annoyances.

Until I wasn't.

Monday afternoon, a little call from my primary care physician with the results of an easy saliva hormone test gives name and precise diagnosis to what I've been long been told is a hormone imbalance of some sort.

The call sent me into a tailspin of memories as we talked about this being both the likely cause of the two miscarriages last fall and the likely cause of all my latest ailments, too.

But it's fixable, he said. There are creams, shots.

I don't want that kind of fix.

I'm not a throw-a-patch-over-the-hole-in-the-tire kind of girl; I'm a find-the-stretch-of-road-where-my-car-ran-over-the-nail kind of fixer who wants to clean up the box that spilled so it doesn't keep happening.

And that's a lot harder because it's not just a matter of finding someone who understands my body in that kind of detail; it's money, time, energy and effort {on repeat}, all of which are resources that have dwindled significantly during these past nine months of focused healing.

I tossed myself into bed Monday evening completely overwhelmed at the thought of starting fresh with this new but actually old health issue and resigned to prayer and reading my Bible when Jesus seemed to ask me the question I've kind of come to dread: the old "how are you?" but in Jesus speak.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burnt out on religion?"

Except, in that moment, I didn't hesitate like I normally do when asked, filtering through what I want to say and what I ought to say and what would be short but complete enough to be honest and genuine.

Instead I just breathed out what I really felt, what I've really been feeling.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. And yes.

"Come to me, and I will give you rest." {Matthew 11:28}

Haven't I come so many times already? I asked.

My morning devotion came to my mind immediately, a barely audible whisper reminder.

"You have not because you ask not." {James 4:2} ... which was followed by "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find." {Matthew 7:7}

And in the stillness of confession, of answering the question to which I'm always struggling to find the perfect reply, I realized that maybe it's not so much about finding the right answer but finding the rest that allows me to say no matter the circumstance

that even though I'm well

but not totally well

 it is well

so very well

with my soul.


Each Thursday we come together to share the harvest of intentional living through sharing a piece of life gleaned: a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week. Link up your gleaned moment this week at Jade's!

Link your moment at Jade's this week!

Bigger Picture Moments: Rocks of Remembrance

I've been standing here at this riverbank, peering into the newness of this lush land, getting ready to cross.

But I can't move just yet because all I've had to mark this journey toward health, to celebrate this gift of healing is a few small stones I've picked up and turned over in my hands again and again with offers of thanks abundant on my lips.

I thought I'd take these small stones with me, thought the clanking in my pocket would act as reminders of the desert sands I've traveled through sickness and anxiety, heart pounding with fears, mind saturated with fog and body aching with exhaustion and discomfort toward freedom and healing.

But I need rocks for this -- not these small, smooth stones, like ones my boys bring in from the backyard, but large landscaping stones, solid and glistening and unmovable.

Though there is still road to be traveled, that which has been tread so far calls for me to stop and pile stones of remembrance here at the place of realization:

that for which I prayed feverently, unabashedly, loudly, that for which I clanked noisy cymbals and clanged on and on like a noisy gong doing rain dances in the middle of this desert beneath the vastness of heavens, has been given. I have been delivered from the desert and satisfied with manna and I now stand before lush green land.

It has been given -- this healing of body and most importantly this healing of spirit and mind and heart. And to mark the time and space in which it has been given is necessary; it's needed so that I can look back and remember the grace, the mercy, the love rained down on thirsty skin.

But more importantly, I need to push rocks of remembrance together, piled high, to not just celebrate the gift  of healing but to make an alter for remembering the goodness of the Giver. 

To remember the gift itself is wonderful and carrying stones in my pocket would have sufficed.

But seeing the Gift Giver Himself revealed requires rocks of remembrance and praise that reflects what my eyes have seen: a tall and towering, strong and solid, a faithful and lasting Almighty Healer, my God.

Editor's Note November 2012: If you are looking for information on restoring and healing your digestive system, please know that The Body Ecology Diet helped me, but it didn't completely restore my health. My body actually stalled out on the the diet, and I needed to go off it to heal other parts of my body. You can read about my last steps in healing by clicking here. 

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week HERE! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Living Healthfully: A Mirage in the Desert

Editor's Note November 2012: If you are looking for information on restoring your digestive system, please know that The Body Ecology Diet helped me, but it didn't completely restore my health. My body actually stalled out on the the diet, and I needed to go off it to heal other parts of my body. You can read about my last steps in healing by clicking here. 

At first it was so very much about arriving at destination deep dish pizza.

If I could just make it to the point of indulgence without suffering from a debilitating stomach ache and nausea in the aftermath of such a feast, I'd have successfully arrived at the end of my super-restrictive dieting. 

My eyes were set on a finish line of Lou Malnati's and a piece of Baklava by my January 2013 birthday. 

But at the start of 15 weeks{!!}on the Body Ecology Diet*, which has been aimed at restoring my inner body ecology and recovering my health from a candida overgrowth in my gut, it's becoming clearer now that the finish line I'd set eyes on was a mirage. 

Not an insanely delusional mirage like that of shack taking the shape of a well in the middle of the desert; it's been much more like that of an actual well taking the shape of an actual well ... but one that bears only still, stagnant water.

The kind of mirage that looked so good and so refreshing in the distance but dips its bucket into bitter, smelly water ... 

That's where I find myself at the completion of 14 weeks of eating only vegetables, eggs, protein, good fats and no sugar; I am approaching the well that looked so promising -- my GI tract having been healed graciously by God, in part through this way of fresh and whole eating -- and finding I could dip my bucket in ... but why would I want to?

As I'm approaching the well, there's some sort of off-stench wafting through the air, a screaming, halting warning to bypass. 

I don't dare drink it because I'm realizing this isn't the finish line. 

Though I couldn't see it until I got nice and close to the well, there's actually this fresh spring-fed river flowing just a few miles beyond it.

And destination deep dish pizza just doesn't hold a candle to fresh, whole foods anymore, to health. 

Instead of craving cheese and crust, I'm finding myself craving the foods that make me feel how the healthiness I've felt while eating what I've considered to be desert manna:

Energized, healthy, light, satisfied. 

I just don't want to lose that. 

Now that my body seems to have overcome a good portion of the gut flora imbalance and defeated a good deal of the bad candida, I only want to grow stronger and stronger.

I don't want to take steps back toward the heaviness, the bloating, the stomach pain, the brain fog, the irritability, the intense cravings; it just doesn't seem worth it for a slice of deep dish anymore. Or a piece of coffee cake on a special morning. Or even an occasional frozen cup of sweet java and cream. 

And taking that step back ward actually seems like it would be a welcoming invitation to have to walk through that desert of painful detoxing again; I don't want to relive the hives, the night-sweats, the chills, the exhaustion, the stomach pain, the anxiety, the tightness in my chest and the weakness in my bones. 

This way of eating, this desert manna diet, isn't just a diet aimed at merely sustaining energy and fixing an impaired digestive system; this way of eating is more a lifestyle geared at healing the whole body.

I believe this is how we were intended to eat -- food grown from the soil, unaltered and whole -- food harvested from growing healthy animals in the wide-open space of pasture. 

I'm trading in the dirty well water for the fresh-running river and praising God for the revelation of a promised land overflowing with honey. 

Because I'm just not willing to settle any more for a mirage being my destination point. 

{It's such a huge praise to bring news of such healing! Though I'm not at 100 percent, by the grace of God I am worlds away from where I began in the beginning of January. 

Would you offer praise on my behalf for his goodness in healing my body? And would you also pray for wisdom and discernment as I very {epicly} slowly add back in some of the whole, fresh foods that have a bit of sugar content during these coming weeks? I'll be doing quite a bit of listening to my body to make sure the candida that remains isn't being fed by the new additions of things like Granny Smith Apples and plain Greek Yogurt.}

*I have been following the Body Ecology Diet along with some additional protocol {and food restrictions from the experts at The Candida Diet forum.

Bigger Picture Moments: For the Worse

It's been hard for him.

These past nine or so months have grown him, too.

I haven't been the only one who feels as though I were stretching outside of my very own skin's capacity.

Though it seems like I've been the one whose been forced-chosen to ungrasp my clenched knuckles from so much, we've both let go of a lot.

Time together as a family, as a couple.

Opportunities and weekends away.

Small pockets of late-night connection as I've slept and he's battled a strong-willed toddler.

Two tiny babies from inside my womb.

And sometimes I feel like he's sort of lost the woman he married while in the thick of all her spontaneity and fun-laced ways, found himself left with someone who has a list of nos that run the trunks of century-old trees ... someone who can't even go out to dinner on a whim anymore because she must first scout out the contents of the menu.

But in the loss, in the for worse of what seems worlds away from the better, roots have been established.

We stood tall through the beautiful times of our engagment and job changes and births of babies, and now, too, we've sunk our roots into firm Soil and weathered storms of illness and loss and grief and anxiety and time spent growing together while being apart.

There's nothing flashy and romantic about the protruding of roots creeping into Solid Ground while the skies rage.

There have been days where we've come together only to utter prayers before tired eyes close, succumbing to sleep. Moments of deep-seated frustration in the boiling over of pots and helplessness in the melting of a crying, shaking body falling into open arms. Exhaustion in digging deep to find more of yourself to give to rambunctious little boys when her arms can't even hold the shovel.

But after the pounding of the rain softens and the thundering of fronts breaking the apart air fade to rumbles in the distance and the whipping of the wind gives way to soft breeze there is a beautiful calm that emerges in seeing that the tree is still standing strong-armed with thick branches and budding green with new life.

There is a growing peace found in the roots of abiding, together.

Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with the beauty in the simple moments of the week.. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
Link up your gleaned moment this week at Alita's! Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Living Healthfully: On More than Makeup

As I lathered the soap, spread tiny bubbles across my hands in the dim light of a chic restaurant bathroom, I glanced in a side-view mirror and I wondered for a second who had met my gaze -- slim curves, flushed cheeks, pinked skin, smiling eyes with only hints of tired in the soft creases. 

I'd thought I was alone.

I almost didn't recognize her -- the reflection of my own softly-lined caramel eyes and dark hair straightened, cascading down my back.

I almost didn't recognize me. 

This afternoon was the first time I've brushed a light shimmer of soft violet across my eyelids, swiped a line of pale charcoal along my lashes -- the first time in almost 12 weeks of a cleansing and rebuilding diet meant to eradicate a candida overgrowth that I felt well enough to wear any kind of makeup.

And, it's true, too, that my hourglass shape looks less defined and much more subtly curvy now than it did nearly three months ago.

But it wasn't just my reshaped frame, the makeup and the fixed hair that made me double take as I rinsed the bubbles under warm water; rather it was my entire day spread out across my relaxed face, my rested body.

I mentally added up moments I'd spent, well, living today, and I realized for the first time in months I couldn't count them all.

All I could do was marvel at the fullness of my day -- one where sleep wasn't at the center of exhausted thoughts and the couch was only something I cleaned beneath instead of something into which I'd melted for more hours than not.

I returned to our table, unsure of when I'd turned the corner into the final lap of this long, narrow journey toward healing my body, my spirit, my mind; I mean, there I was -- out to dinner with my sister and my mother -- at 7 p.m. and my mind was fully engaged in the conversation, my eyes wide awake and body centered comfortably at the table as we enjoyed our dinner and each other all while wearing makeup.

There I was actively living life and enjoying it instead of just wishing I could fully engage.


I've had moments, even hours, like this during during the brief respites of cleansing cycles but not groupings of entire consecutive days.

Well, not until now.

That's not to say there aren't still moments where I'm still not feeling quite up to speed.

And that's not to say all of my symptoms are gone; some still linger.

And that's certainly not to say that while at the restaurant I ordered off the regular menu without giving a list of nos -- sugar, gluten, dairy, vinegar, alcohol, mushrooms -- that made the waitresses head just about spin off her shoulders.

But today loudly sang a song of healing I've spent months feeling like I might never hear.

Today, wrapped heavy in His mercy and covered completely in His healing grace, I saw stretched out before my eyes what seems like a finish line looming in the distance of this cleansing and rebuilding journey.

Today, I logged another mile and made it to a goalpost -- and I wore makeup as I passed.

To God be the Glory.