Natural Healing

After getting a lot of positive feedback and questions on my 5 A Day post, I decided to share our beliefs on healing in a post rather then emailing everyone back.

In the past I've gotten some really critical comments on what we believe, so let me start off by saying that this is our families mindset and beliefs. I am not an expert on natural healing or eating nor do I have all the answers about claiming healing on our lives.

What I am an expert on is my life and my family.

So I hope that you find some of this interesting and that it helps your family, but if you don't agree or believe the same way, please keep your negative comments away.

Our belief on Healing is two-fold.

One side of it is based on healthy eating. The other on the belief that Jesus took all sickness and disease with Him when He died on the Cross.

I'll start with the eating since that one is easier to digest.

For us, it all started about five years ago.
I was having some serious anxiety issues, full on panic attacks out of nowhere, and some "digestive issues" along with them.
Then we found a book that changed everything for us. It's called the The Maker's Diet.It is written by a man who was dying of Crohn's Disease and after grueling treatments didn't work he was told he was out of options. He was sent home to die.
Then his father was contacted by a nutritionist who told him that Jordan was dying because he wasn't eating the diet of the Bible.
He researched the guidelines that God laid out for eating in the Bible, stuck to it religiously, and was healed of his "incurable" disease.

It was amazing to me to see the parallel between the foods God told us not to eat and the medical testing that now proves how bad those same exact foods are for us.

That God is one smart cookie.

Andrew and I were hooked. We went through our cabinets and refrigerator the night we bought the book and threw out all the things that we weren't supposed to be eating.
But then we went to Whole Foods for the first time and spent about $400 on groceries and a million vitamins and quickly realized we would need to pick and choose what we were going to follow!

Honestly, I don't remember a lot of the guidelines. It was detailed, intense, and would be pretty expensive to stick to. But I did learn a ton of things that I could do to better my families heath. The book does an awesome job of giving scripture for the things he says the Bible tells us to eat and an even better job of describing what the bad foods are actually doing to our bodies. In fact, I am about to go find ours and read it again.

Even if you don't make a total lifestyle change, reading this book is worth it for the information. With the few small changes we made; no pork, no shellfish, no partially hydrogenated oils, no high fructose corn syrup, no sodas (and a few more), I am totally over my anxiety issues.
Following these few guidelines actually made making the change easier. Most foods these days, including the "organic" snacks, bars, and other items, have these in them. It actually leaves only a few snack options that aren't whole foods.

I also credit our diet for a large part of why Josie is so healthy.

Two and a half years ago she was born to a drug addicted mother who didn't seek out any prenatal care. She was 4 pounds when she was born. They told us that the family had severe mental issues and there was no information on the birth father.
Fast forward to today and we have the sweetest, most loving (albeit sassy!), and healthy two year old I've ever seen.
We make the same standards for her diet as above only a bit stricter. She gets only organic dairy and mostly organic meats, daily vitamins, whole fruits and veggies.
I was a bit, umm, obsessive, about her not eating white sugar for the first year and a half of her life. That has pretty much gone out the window but I do still limit her sugar. Juice is way watered down (like 1 part juice to 3 parts water) and snacks are more like hummus and veggies then candy and ice cream.
I load her up with things like Wheat Germ and Flax Seed Oil.
I'm glad that I limited her sugar so extremely when she was a baby because now she will only eat a couple bites of something sweet before she's over it.
I get made fun of by my friends for the foods I make Josie eat, but I'm OK with that. She is healthy and happy and after all, she's my daughter so I can feed her however I see fit.

The second part of our belief in Healing is a little harder to explain.

And like I said, I don't claim to understand it 100%, but hey isn't that what faith is about?

Boiled down, we believe that Isaiah 53:5 is proof that Christ took our sickness on the Cross.
Christians believe that Christ died on the Cross for our sins, but if you read the rest of that verse you find that Jesus also died for our diseases. He was reversing the Fall of Man, and that would include sickness.

In our family, Andrew is the Bible Scholar.
I personally have a hard time interpreting and focusing on the text. So most of what I know about Healing I have learned from sermons from Pastors like Andrew Wommack.
When we pray a sickness off us, it isn't much different then when people talk about praying for the sick. We just have a different mindset.

We claim Healing once and only once. The same way we ask to be forgiven once and only once.
From there, we begin to thank God for the Healing that is taking place.

And sometimes believing it is hard.
I think that Healing is even harder in America because we are bombarded by negative information about health all the time. There is always an epidemic on the news and WebMD makes us all sure we are dying from something.

It's a rule in our house that when one of us isn't feeling well, we cannot go online or watch TV. We try not to talk to people about it who don't believe in Healing.
It just helps keep the negative disbelief out of our minds.

We also are big on not speaking death over our house.

The Bible says that there is power in the tongue and that you are either speaking Life or you are speaking Death at all times.

For example, when someone says, "Little Billy has the flu. I hope Josie doesn't get it since we were over there last night. I think they shared a cup!", we simply say, "She won't get sick, she's covered by the blood of Jesus."

Some people are sensitive so we don't say it to them. We just claim it.

We believe that God took All the disease and sickness with him and that we are healed of any problem. That's where we lose people.

We acknowledge that people of extreme faith die of illness. That sometimes, it seems their claiming didn't work. And as I said, I don't have all the answers. I do believe that it has to do with having unbelief.

You know the verse that talks about moving mountains with faith as small as a mustard seed? I believe that you only need a teeny tiny bit of faith, but just a teeny tiny bit of unbelief mixed in there will block that belief. That's why we think its so important not to let our fast technology scare us out of claiming.

See, sounds kinda crazy huh?

We have lost friends over this and a lot of people write us off when we tell them that we don't get sick.

But that's OK with me.

The proof is in the fact that we don't get sick.

And I also want to say that we don't think it's wrong to go to the doctor. We don't think that makes you less faithful or that you don't believe God can heal you. I think medicine can be a good help.
The problem is in when we put our faith in that doctor or medicine instead of God.

We personally try very hard to not use medicine or go to the doctor. That's not to say I didn't end up taking Josie last winter when she had an ear infection or that I didn't go get tested for strep when I was sure I had it a few weeks ago (I didn't).

I am human and I live in a culture that tells me that there is no way to stay well and that I need a doctor to heal me. I give in to that mindset every now and then. But for the most part, we ask and then claim from the very first sign of any illness and leave the rest to God.

People don't usually even try claiming this promise from God until they are in serious medical trouble.

For me, I didn't believe it until we were trying to get pregnant and were told that my fallopian tubes were both blocked and would never be unblocked.

One year full of fasting and not wavering from claiming that healing and the same test came back 100% clear.

Of course God then brought us Josie so we didn't need those clear tubes, but now that we are thinking about trying to conceive I sure am glad God took those blocked tubes on the Cross with him.
I found this great reference that does a much better job then I do at breaking down what it means to believe in Healing and has a TON of verses that back it up.

Maybe even some of you will try this out and find yourself living a whole new kind of Faith.

VERSES:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
- Isaiah 53:4-5

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness;
by his wounds you have been healed.
-1 Peter 2:24

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
– John 14:11-14

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
– James 5:13-18

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
- Mark 16:15-18