The first days of being a herbivore....

  Day Five, Raw Vegan, 6:30 am.I would LOVE a bowl of Cheerio's and milk, and not a green juice. How do I feel? Loads of energy, and bogged down at the same time. Every time you sacrifice a desire for a greater good, you mourn the loss, and are tempted to quit and go back to the comfortable way you were used to, but for me this is more of a spiritual fast of sorts. I desire so much for my husband to have his life back--to see him vital and strong and free of the powerful drugs that mire him down. I desire this so much, and I take seriously the fact that we are bound as one in marriage. As his body heals, I want to offer up those little sufferings (this morning, cereal) as a prayer, an abandonment to God, that I trust my husband will be well again.

  As I stood next to Ryan at the juicer, putting in kale, greens of all colors, fruits, whatever God designed, I saw pouring from the spout the most beautiful colors, the vibrancy of life. Everything we are eating is "raw", or just as it is found in nature. We may chop it or squeeze the juice out of it, but we don't heat it or alter the vital nutrients present in each food. As I blended up a morning smoothie watching that rainbow of nutrients swirl together, I was reminded of what my son Levi innocently said the first time he saw the juicer, "Mommy, it looks like your making medicine." I actually got choked up, and thought, "Well it's God's perfect medicine for Daddy." You know, even if this doesn't heal him, he sure feels a hell of a lot better after only five days, and I am certain that through this fast, whether or not our bodies are transformed, I am sure our spirits will be. After all, there is nothing worse than a broken Spirit; not even a broken body.

The gist of things....

Jennifer, why on earth would you start a blog? Seriously, you have 4 boys, 1 daughter, 1 foster daughter; the last four children happen to be ages 1,2,3 & 4! Are you kidding me, that would be job enough to drive anyone crazy. Your husband own's his own business where you work seasonally, not to mention scouts, church, sports...etc.etc.etc. Over the past week, I have been wracking my brain why I would do this? How can I convince people our story is somehow worth the read, and more important to me, worth sharing with another person. And at the same time convice that very audience I am indeed NOT crazy. Passionate is what I am! Yes Passionate about the health and wellbeing of my family. I read something on a different blog this week that really resounded with me:

" most people don’t resolve to change their life in a significant way until their world falls apart."

Unfortuantly, that is our story as well. We would never have invested the money we do now in Organic foods for our whole family. We would have never given up fast food virtually all together for aprox. three years. I would have never spoke out at social events, to the discomfort of others about the advantages of eating the way God intended. We also would have never been broken to a point where we had to trust in God's will and purpose in our lives. That suffering is not for nothing, and that we can either embrace it, and thank God for every day we have on this earth with our loved ones. Or we can reject the suffering and resent God for the bad days, and the days we will miss when we are gone. (when ever he chooses to take us.) If we choose to embrace our life, with all its sufferings and uninteneded circumstances, we can be truly transormed. The definition of transformation is "A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. A metamorphosis during the life cycle." Well naturally, we chose our suffering. Through this journey, we hope my husband Ryan's body will "change in form", but we know our souls and realtionship will go through a dramatic "metamorphosis", which is sure to be rich in blessings and beautifly wrapped in love.

What is this great transformatitive suffering. Well for us it came in the form and a hidden auto immune disease deep with in my husbands body found by accident three years ago. What we thought was a gallbladder attack revealed, through a seven hour surgery, a tangled mess of fibrosis attacking parts of his inner organs. His right kidney was failing, his apendex and galblatter were the first casualitys of this mysterious monster with in him. It took over two months for Dr.'s to even name this monster. We call it RPF (Idiopathic Retroparitoneal Fibrosis), in laymans terms: Fibrosis in an arround the kidneys of unknown origin. Upon a subsequent visit to the Mayo clinic, we were told Ryan had a secondary and more troubling condition. RPF's ugly cousin, sclerosing mesenteritis, the same tangeld web had infultrated his bowl cavity. My first thought was; "are you freeking kidding me?" And that began the pharsumitical managary that is the life of the nearly, 23.5 million Americans that have Auto Immune Disease or (AD). This in comparision to the 9 million american's affected by cancer. Auto Immune disorders are more often than not treated with powerful steroids, immune supressants, organ rejection medications, chemotherapy class medications. AND let me tell you NONE of the medications come with out a price. And I am not talking about the thousands we pay out of pocket, I am talking about how these drugs ravage the body, dealing with symptoms and never adress the root of the problem. What caused my husbands body to attack itself??

What about the 23.5 other american's chained to their medications. Can we do anything different? Can we find the cause of this eppidemic? I am sure each of you know some person who has: Rhumatory arthretits, MS, Lupus, Fibromyalisa, Scleroderma, Sogjrens syndrom..and some 140 other conditions. All these conditions are caused by some sort of inflamation in the body, caused by the body, and triggered by the unknown.

This is why I write....