My Cry

Oh Lord, how desperately I need you. I am so weak without you. I am so broken. I feel lame. I feel so incapable. I am so tired, God. I am tired of this sickness, I am tired of this pain. I have had it with this depression and lack of motivation. I want to be how I used to be! I want to laugh, I want to run, I want to learn, I want to climb trees and eat any fresh healthy foods that I want to. I long to serve you, serve others, and teach. I want to be active. I want to be loving. I want to be full of the things that you are full of, God. I feel so unable. I feel like this sickness is holding me back from you, God. But that is simply not true!
The truth is, I am able. I can be full of all things that you are full of. With the holy spirit, I can be loving and I can be active. The truth is this: Your strength, God, is made PERFECT in my weakness. This means that right now even in the midst of my sickness, you can make me strong. And not only can you make me strong Lord, but because I am so weak and so broken, I am at my strongest because of you. I think this is true, but it just seems so distant at times. I know that is because my heart is distant from your's, Lord. I'm so sorry. I want to be where you are, God. I want to be in your plan, in your will for my life. God, all I want to do is bring you glory, but I feel like all I am doing is failing. I am so sorry. Please help me God. Please, I cant do this alone. I'm sorry for my pride, selfishness, and lack of faith. I want to be with you all the time. Holy Spirit, hear my cry. I need you more than I need water. Please fill me. Fill my soul with joy, love, patience, and self control. Forgive me for my worldliness. I do not desire to be of this world.
I don't know how long I'm going to be sick. I don't know if this diet will work. I don't know what your plan is Lord, but please give me wisdom as to how to get through this. I am so tired. Please fill me up.  .

WAPF Conference 2011

This last weekend (Nov 11th-13th) I attended Weston A. Price's Wise Traditions Conference in Dallas. I cannot even begin to say how much I learned there, and I was also able to find so many resources for information on nutrition and health. I attended a session called Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and learned all about GAPS from the woman who discovered it and created a cure for it. I purchased the book she wrote, and am going to begin her GAPS program soon in order to heal my body from my sickness. I'm very excited to begin. The diet is a bit intimidating, but that is only because it involves a lot of cooking techniques that I have never used before. In the diet I will be making my own yogurt, sour cream, ghee, kefhir (sp.?), and fermented vegetables. I am extremely optimistic about this program, and believe that it can definitely heal my gut. Healing my gut will take away all of my symptoms: bloating, abdominal pain, constipation, food sensitivities, eczema, hair loss (hopefully), brain fog/lack of motivation, and my over all energy level. I'm so excited! It is going to be a long and difficult journey (estimated to take about 2 years), but it is well worth it.
Soon, after I organize the pages and pages of notes I took at the conference and read all of the book and sources I have now, I will be posting information/papers on my blog about different health issues, nutritional issues, and modern day food problems. The things I learned at the conference were extremely eye opening, and I just want to share as much information as I can in order to help/educate people on the truth of our human body's health, and how we can maintain it. The answer is not (usually) in doctor's prescriptions and drug after drug.
Instead of only treating our symptoms with drugs (which are usually doing more harm to our bodies in the long term than they are doing good-taking away our symptoms) , as Western doctors do today, we need to look a little bit deeper into our bodies and find the source of the problem which is causing the negative symptoms. This will result in complete healing. Our bodies are amazing and self-healing. We just need to provide our bodies with the right tools to heal itself... These tools being the food we put into our bodies, sunshine, and exercise. Now I will admit, it can get a bit complicated these days with how many toxins and pathogens we are exposed to, but these things are the roots of the tree - the food we eat, our happiness/emotional state, and exercise.
Can't wait to share more with you guys!

A Heart Update

If you are reading this and for some reason you don't know me that well, you are about to get to know me pretty well. I am a very open person, and if anyone asked me how I was really doing, how my heart was, how my relationship with the Lord was, I would really tell them honestly how I was. What I have written below isn't exactly a happy update, but it is where I have been. Praying things go up from here.    
   My heart towards the Lord? Honestly, it hasn't been too good. I just have not been going to Him for my needs. I have been living a miserable existence I guess, and my lame life has sort of made me hate myself a little. I have such little motivation. I have no idea why. It's very hard to get myself to do anything productive. This is my life every day: wake up late (around noon or later), bathe and moisturize my skin, and then I eat and watch TV for the rest of the day. I really want to change it. Watching TV is how I escape from my reality though. My reality is indeed my problem. I hate my reality. I hate that I am sick, I hate what the sickness has done to my physical appearance, I hate my skin and how it falls off EVERYWHERE I go, and I hate that I disappoint my parents. So I watch TV to escape, and then I hate myself for not doing anything, and I continue to disappoint my parents. It's a vicious cycle, really. 
   I realize I need to love and accept myself and my situation in life. I need to accept that wherever I go, my skin will flake off, and then people will notice and make comments. I need to accept that I am sick, and live in the Lord's will for my life. I need to discover what he has for me in my sickness and glorify him in that. I need to love my appearance and believe that I am beautiful, even though my hair is falling out, my body is often swollen, red, flaking, and bleeding. I need to pursue joy. For some reason though, right now I just don't know how, and because I am not relying on the Lord for the strength to get through this and accomplish all these things, it isn't happening. So it seems hopeless. It is such a battle. I'm not gonna lie, this last week was rough. The self-loathing grew stronger, as did the discouragement and lack of hope. My mom always points out how I fail, and I fail a lot in her eyes, so that only upsets me more and makes me dislike myself more. I don't like disappointing her, but it's all I do. And I'm sure my dad isn't exactly thrilled with how I have been living either. 

Lately I have been doing a bit more grain-free/sugar-free/dairy-free baking! I made a dark chocolate coconut cake for a friend's birthday, some pumpkin spice cakes (didn't get a picture of these... I ate them too quickly), and a German cake with ganache and whipped cream coconut topping. I really enjoyed making them, although i must confess, I still prefer cooking to baking. Baking, well, it is just too exact and precise for me. I am not particular enough to get it right.

Home in S.A.

I have been here a little more than a week now! Yay! It has been good to finally be here. No back and forth from San Marcos to SA, no more moving, no more packing. I'm here. I have definitely not finished unpacking, but that will be finished very soon. I hope.
The only cool thing I have been able to do here is cook more, and even do some baking. However, I have come to find that baking is not as fun as I was thinking it would be. It is such an exact science. I can't experiment. I can't even combine ingredients out of order! So silly. I still enjoy it, but I certainly don't get a recipe right on the first try. If I am ever going to actually bake for a special occasion, I am going to have to practice the dessert about 3 or 4 times prior to the real event just to make sure I get it right.

Here are some photos of things I have cooked and baked this past week.
Fried eggs and bacon - classic but absolutely delicious breakfast.
Lime pepper salmon, cauliflower "rice", portobello mushroom stuffed with spinach and goat cheese.
Dark chocolate coconut macaroons.
Kale chips.
Grain free banana bread.
Pot roast.
Ingredients for and photo of grain/dairy free pancakes.

Dr. Chang

Chinese Acupuncture - Who knows what to think of it? It seems like there are some extremely legitimate acupuncturists who can provide some incredible results, and some lame phonies who don't exactly know what they are doing. Well, it seems I have found a legitimate one, I think. Something he did worked, anyway. I'm not sure if it was the needle poking, the toxin removing, the herbs, the ointment... But wow. Fantastic results. 

I don't normally like to post pictures of what I look like on a bad day after a reaction, but it is necessary to show to see the vast improvement that took place in 24 hours. 

Random little Oddities...

A few strange things that have come about due to my illness:

• A habit of slapping my face obsessively and repetitively - Adopted this habit to keep from scratching itchy skin
• My eyebrows disappearing almost entirely - This one was curious, but I realized that the hairs actually broke off because of the repetitive impacts from my slapping hands
• Eyelashes broken in half and now much shorter than they used to be - Same reason as above
• Nausea and dizzy spells - Can you believe it... Also from slapping my face to much!
• Inability to complete normal, every day tasks such as driving
• Fear of people - I have become very anti-social, perhaps due to insecurities about my physical appearance
• Inability to wear clothing - Unfortunately there are many times when I am forced to wear clothing, and when I am I can only wear loose pants with a strapless top or a long, loose, and strapless dress. Wearing anything on my shoulders nearly kills me.
• Fear of eating food - I have allergic reactions to all foods now, so eating is a much less joyous occasion than it used to be
• Extreme discomfort/itchiness from heat
• Extreme discomfort from cold air blowing on me
• Fear of sleeping in a bed - I have been sleeping on a couch now for a month.  

Moving to San Antonio

Well, so much has already happened this semester! Actually, not that much has happened, but a lot has changed because of a few small problems.

I have been sick with my allergies/gastro-intestinal problems for a while. This particular episode that I am still in started back in November, in fact. I was hoping I would get better by October, because that is the month that clinicals started in nursing school. If I was better by then, then I could stay in school and be graduated by August of 2012. Unfortunately I did not get better, but only worse. I dropped out of nursing school after doing a lot of praying and searching for peace in my situation. One day (a couple weeks ago) after talking with one of my instructors who wanted to me withdraw from the program, I realized that I was going to have to make the decision soon. I made the decision that very night. After much prayer and encouragement from friends on facebook, friends that I went to for advice, and even my parents, I was totally at peace with withdrawing from the nursing program. This was not an easy decision though. I really loved nursing school. I was learning so much. And not only was I enjoying it, but nursing school was part of my plan! Nursing school, graduate in August, marry Jake, work for some time while Jake is in school, Jake graduates... from there plans were a little less concrete, but I had some ideas. All of that is gone now though. I don't know when I'll get better. I don't know if I'll be able to be a nurse. I don't know when I'll get to marry Jake.

So here is the new plan: move to San Antonio to my parents' place, go to some doctors, try and get better. That's it. But I do know that God wants me in San Antonio for some reason. His plans are always better than mine. His plans are greater than the ones I have made up in my head. He is going to use me in San Antonio. I don't know how, what, or why, but that is okay. I don't know when or if I am going to be healed of my sickness, but I know he has something for me in this sickness. He wants me to bring him glory, even in my pain. I will sure try. In my weakness his power is made perfect. I will remember that.

Things I am looking forward to in SA:
Family. Cooking for my parents. Taking care of my parents' chickens (if they get them). Having access to a printer. Devoting my time and energy to getting better. Educating myself through research and reading about things I am interested in, such as natural medicine and healthy living. Focusing my attention on things that I have not had time for in school, such as art and photography.

My Summer Blessing

This summer I worked at an adventure Christian camp called Camp Eagle, and there I was blessed by my own personal cook, who made me an individual meal almost every meal time. Her name is Sarah Longenecker. She is amazing. Here are some photos of food I ate.

Oh, and did I mention that she bought and shipped to me an entire box of cape cod potato chips (the only kind of chip that I can eat now)? The box had like 40 bags in it. And there were 4 different kinds. She is so amazing. The dishes ranged form really creative salads, many sauteed vegetables and meats, and even baked goods like a BROWNIE and one of the best pies I have ever tasted. Keep in mind that I am allergic to wheat, corn, rice, oats, dairy, soy, red meat, many vegetables, and a lot of fruit. She had to juggle all of my allergies, while keeping variety in my diet so that I didn't develop an allergy to everything she made me. Unfortunately I ended up developing allergies to around 10 new foods, so she was always kept on her toes. I was so blessed by her!    

NEW and IMPROVED!

New blog. Don't ask me why. But, I'm kind of glad I got a new blog because I feel it is very appropriate for where I am in my life. Starting a new school! New home in San Marcos! New goals! New life! I'm pumped.