I have one more adventure to share with you. While I realize my testimony will never end until the Lord has me right where He wants me, this particular one I will try to end in this post, as I am sure some of you are jumping for joy! This adventure is what had really prompted my change in eating.
Remember I mentioned the aversion to buying meat, allow me to illuminate. In late May of '09 I had found a lump in my left breast during a routine home exam. Knowing that my biological mother had breast cancer, I make it a point to do examinations. At any rate, I not being one to run to the doctor hesitated. After much prompting, and lovingly getting yelled at by two my closest friends, I finally conceded and made an appointment.
In the beginning of June, on a Tuesday, I went in to see my md. She did a breast exam had she showed quite a bit of concern. She made an appointment for me to be seen by a local radiologist the same day to have a mammogram, and a sonogram. Nothing could be seen in the mammogram due to the density of the breast tissue, but there was great concern with what the sonographer had seen in the image on the machine. The radiologist called me in on Thursday to talk about the results. He wanted me to go to the UNC Breast Cancer Center to see a specialist.
After I went home that day I packed to go to my parents' house. I spent quite a bit of time with the Lord in prayer. I had told Him that I would be okay with whatever the outcome. I was actually a little excited at the thought of this situation being used by the Lord to bring some family and friends to Christ. To me my body is just a physical shell. While I of course want to be a good steward of it, ultimately though it is where my soul spends eternity that is the most important.
I also told the Lord that I would do whatever he required of me to be the most healthy that I could be to serve the kingdom effectively. If cancer was the lot for that season of my life, I wanted to do things His way. I immediately began doing searches on the Internet for diets that would be ideal for cancer patients. I promised Him that I would give up whatever was required. Something I read that was unanimous was that dairy had to go.
I didn't think I could ever give up dairy. I loved milk, cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and sour cream. My favorite food was pizza, and I couldn't imagine having the will to say no to it. Nevertheless I can remember taking my sons out for pizza and ice cream the very next night as a goodbye to dairy products.The following morning I heard a still, small voice tell me specifically, "Sweetie, don't worry, you can do this, I will help you every step of the way. That weekend I went to the grocery store bought dairy free everything.
It was from that point that the Lord allowed me to learn more and more through sources on the Internet, books, and through health conscious friends what it was that I needed to do to keep my body as clean as possible. I stayed up several nights scouring the Internet for trustworthy information. The one detail in common that all of the sites that I visited or videos that I watched had in common was stating that the raw vegan diet was best for anyone who had any type of cancer. I started there, no more animal products, and just raw veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
I found several helpful sites. One in particular that caught my attention was The Renegade Health Show by Kevin and Annmarie Gianni. This down to earth, friendly married couple teaches about the raw food lifestyle. They offer great information, as well as awesome recipes. They have had some wonderful interviews with health experts offering their advice and information as well. I like Kevin and Annmarie because they encourage healthier eating, and implementing raw foods, but they don't put anyone down if they don't eat raw yet, complete raw, which they don't eat 100% raw.
Yet I still felt like even though all of this information was great it was beginning to seem like only people into the New Age movement were offering any advice. I thought surely there must be a believer out there who is into raw food. I wanted direction from a godly persepctive. I'll never forget it, minutes after praying that prayer, I was looking through youtube, and I saw this gentleman, named Paul. He seemed like a nice, regular guy, but he knew all of this "raw food stuff." I decided to go to his blog. I really liked everything he had to say. I thought to myself, if this guy was a believer, he'd be 100% right on target for what I was needing at the time. About 30 seconds later I read Paul talking about Yeshua, his savior. Yes, God is good!
Back to the lump, I'll make what seemed like the longest month of my life short, thank the Lord, I do not have cancer. I did go to the breast cancer center. I was assigned a nurse specialist who walked me through all of my options if it was cancer, and if it wasn't. Basically what I have is a non-cancerous tumor. I have decided not to have it removed. I felt like leaving it in if it wasn't causing me any problems would be less traumatic for my body than having it surgically removed. My nurse said that my decision was perfectly normal, and safe.
So what this all leads me to is once I found that out the news I decided to stay raw vegan for the rest of the summer. I never felt so good in my whole life. I had lost the rest of the extra unhealthy weight hanging around. I had more energy, my skin started to glow so to speak, and my hair regained it's shine. I knew that whole situation was a test of my faith, and was a huge learning and growth experience for me to see what I would really put on the alter and give up for God.
I am not currently raw vegan. In the fall of 2009 I implemented some cooked grains and steamed veggies back into my diet. I eventually brought legumes back in as well. I felt my body needed the heat that the cooked foods provided, and that I cleansed enough over the summer. I think that eating locally is important, and local foods in the colder months are mostly root vegetables which almost all require some cooking. I do try to keep my main source of my diet be raw. I don't keep a calculator around for percentages, but I know that when more of my meals are raw than not, I feel much better.
In January of this year I put eggs back into my diet. I'll eat them hard boiled or poached. Then the newest addition to my diet was raw goats'milk. I also occasionally eat flounder. I don't think I'll ever put meat back into my diet. I don't really want it, and I eliminated two huge problems from taking it out, which were halitosis, and blood in my stool (sorry if that was TMI), but if you have the same issues, try taking meat out for a while. I'm currently putting together a weekly menu for myself. If anyone is interested please post a comment so I know, and I'll put it on the blog.
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