Gut

What Did God Say? Heal Our Children? Are Our Ears Clean?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I wasn’t sure if I could keep the car on the road because I couldn’t see through my tears.

The downpour we were driving through didn’t help, either. “Keep it together. Keep it together. . .” was my mantra until I could get inside, close the door to the world, and let these emotions out.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to drive the car home.

Inside, I collapsed behind a closed door and told my husband the news. His sadness began deep, deep in his soul, in the place where love resides, and found its expression. It was the future we mourned.

A dark cloud had cast a shadow over the future of one of our children. Like a candle in the snow, her joyful little light was sensing wind on the horizon. And the odd pieces of cardboard I found nearby to try to shield her from the wind didn’t look like enough right now.

Heal her, God whispered to me months later.

I was minding my own business, letting my mind wander while in the hot tub.

“Um, what now?” I asked. I sat upright and perked up my ears. “What did you say?”

Silence.

I had heard him. Would I take the next step in faith? Or would I put cotton in my ears and dunk my head under the hot tub, ensuring I could not hear any more of this foolish talk?

They told me this was incurable. Everyone knew that! The best we could hope for was some moderate success with behaviour modification – a few small wins.

And so, which road should I take?

This is where we stumble.

Is that a jewel I just about stepped on along the path of life?

Will we pick it up, inspect it, hold it to the light and find a friend with a hammer to crack it open?

Or will we put it in our pocket to consider later if we remember?

The joys and the sorrows of life arrive, and we hang up our clothes at the end of the day. We forget them there for awhile. When we remember, through foggy memories, that there may be a jewel in our pocket (!), we look again, but it fell out. There are only the singed edges of our pocket to remind us that we were holding a bit of heaven for a while.

But it’s gone now.

What’s for lunch?

And God feels far away, again, even though He just descended from heaven to meet us. We treated His gift like just another stone on the path. Will we catch the next jewel He holds out to us? Will our eyes be open enough to see this time, or will we trample, again, the precious jewel that He offers, His firelight shining in the darkness?

It’s only a sparkle at first.

Time to bow low and fan the flame of His voice in your life, friend?

Come along. Let’s journey together.

Oh. And she was healed, God guiding and then redeeming my pathetic attempts to listen, Him re-directing me and helping me up when discouragement hit. For that is His way.

Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”

“All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.

Jesus said, “Bring them here.” . . . The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand were fed.

The Message

We give Him what we have. It’s all we have but it’s not very much. We work with Him, following His direction so that the miracle can occur.

But that is a story for another time.

It’s also a repetitive story found here and here and in any heart willing to receive what He offers.

Ready for an adventure into the miraculous?

Ten Keystone Habits To Achieve A Healthy Weight And Stay There

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

“Well, that must be nice for you,” they spit at me. (Wait, I know you don’t spit, either. We talked about that in another post. But it ruins the effect, if I don’t keep that part. You can’t expect perfect truth in every blog post.)

Anyway, my mouth was full of chocolate, some of it dripping from the corners of my mouth. “Huh?” I asked.

She continued, “Well, you can obviously eat whatever you want.”

I guessed she was referring to the fact that I am a healthy weight and my mouth was currently full of chocolate – overfull actually.

But what she didn’t see were the habits I (ir)regularly follow behind the scenes.

Here they are.

A caveat before we begin is that I’ve never had professional training as a nutritionist. But I’ve read a ton on the side about food and health. And like a boxer in a ring, who has been fighting her entire life with someone about the same strength as her, I have maintained a healthy weight my entire life.

This didn’t come easy.

I’m still fighting.

(Following God’s direction and a neurologist’s advice, I also prepared the food that healed my kid’s learning disabilities, but that is a discussion for another time).

This is what I do to fight the temptations and the cultural normalcy of food that is anything but normal or healthy.

I made my own point system, and give myself two points daily for each healthy habit completed. One point if I grew in habit development that day.

Here are my top ten habits. The total maximum points in a day is 20 points.

1. Two points for drinking the recommended water allocation in a day.

2. Two points for doing one hour of exercise. Must break a sweat to get two points.

3. Two points for eating a green smoothie in the morning.

4. Two points for having a salad for lunch.

5. Two points for having cut-up veggies and a yummy dip available so these can be snacked on during the day.

6. Two points for eating one plate of food and then waiting 20 minutes before having seconds.

7. Two points for having a cup of chamomile tea with honey and nothing else after dinner.

8. Two points for not eating breakfast till 10:00 am.

9. Two points for having an energy ball (fruit and cheese, or fruit and nuts can be substituted in a pinch) in mid-afternoon.

10. This is my favourite habit and I will explain why when I describe it in a minute. Two points for not having any dessert if today is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

The happy side effect of this habit is that since dessert is allowed on Sunday, we get two points for eating dessert on Sunday! Stuff your face with chocolate on Sunday, let it drip from the corners of your mouth (Why does that happen so often to me?) and watch them bemoan the fact that you’ve never even tried, yet you are a healthy weight.

Ha! The joke’s on them.

Why growing in these habits can eventually become an absolute delight will be discussed next time.

Jesus Guided, Through Food, To Heal A Child’s Diagnoses

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

Like a gentle wind, warm, encircling me, comforting, I heard Him speak. Not unlike a confirmation in the heart. Pay attention, He seemed to whisper. Our physical bodies tell our minds, too, when it is time to run or to fight – eyes dilated, heartbeat pumping, energy surging. Pay attention.

So it is in the spiritual realm.

He spoke as a spiritual whisper as my friend mentioned a diet she had used for her child. The GAPS diet. Her child had symptoms that were completely opposite to our daughter’s. In fact, we weren’t even sure that our daughter had any real symptoms. Wasn’t she just a late bloomer?

Pay attention.

So I bought the book. I bought two books, actually- Gut and Psychology Syndrome which outlines the GAPS diet, and Nourishing Traditions. For many people, these books go together, like two sides of an Oreo cookie. The cream in the middle, the glue, is the person implementing the suggestions in the book.

Me.

Would I look at the pages over tea, and relegate the cookbooks to the back of my shelf, or would I roll up my sleeves and get to work?

I rolled up one sleeve, partway, and implemented a few suggestions. After the tea, the suggestions seemed hard. Too much to change. And why? I relegated the books to the back of the bookshelf where they collected dust for many years. “I tried, God.”

Many years later, the doctors gave us a list of diagnoses they wanted to label our child with. Ouch. A smack in the rear. A wake-up call. Maybe she was going to have a harder time than some other kids doing the regular things of life. Understanding school. Making close friends. Riding a bicycle. Not being racked with random stomach pains.

And the heart of a mother emerged, out of desperation. Pay attention. Heartbeat racing, ready for action, energy surging – how can I help my daughter? Eyes dilating – where do I focus? The heart of a mother, her desire to help her child, is a force to be reckoned with.

Get out of my way.

“All of those diagnoses are listed on the front cover of that book you bought”, that same friend reminded me. Oh yes. Were they? Where were those books anyway?

And so a journey began. A journey with Jesus, Him holding my hand, urging me onward, together, with Him. This time I was ready to hold His hand, to walk in His direction.

Desperation made me humble.

I’m ready now, to try anything.

And today, years later, we have a remarkable story of a child thriving in joy and in physical, mental, and social strengths.

None of the labels stuck to her in ways that were expected, praise be to God.

It turns out that science is increasingly backing up this nudge from the wind of God, too, but that is a discussion for another day.

God, help us to take your hand as You long to lift us from despair concerning the struggles our children encounter. We desperately need your guidance.

Help us to roll up our sleeves, and to do the hard, counter-cultural work that we may need to do, to allow healing food to help some of our children with some of their struggles, we pray.