Being disciplined

Hellur everyone.

It’s 6:28 in the morning on Saturday and I’m already dressed (and mostly ready) for the day. I mean I’m still drinking my coffee but if I had to jump up and help somebody right now I wouldn’t be without pants or with a dirty mouth. Because I have gotten dressed and brushed my teeth this morning if y’knowmsayn. Oh dear, maybe it is too early for me to be writing my thoughts onto the interwebs ๐Ÿ˜›

My left knee has been in pain the last couple of days. Wednesday afternoon I had a sharp shooting pain pop up around 3pm. It didn’t go away all night, and I was icing it and heating it and elevating it in hopes that it would be gone Thursday morning. It was not. I went to work in the morning and limped around, trying not to put any pressure on the part of my foot that shot pain up into the knee. I also tried not to be discouraged. Neither worked very well, and three hours later I went home and proceeded to do a whole lot of nothing except RICE-ing (Rest, Ice, Compression, Evelation) and putting essential oils on my knee.

Thursday is my one day-ish off and I spent it taking care of myself. I’m just thankful I had that day to rest and I didn’t hurt my knee … Friday morning let’s say. So Friday morning I wake up and the pain has mostly subsided in the front area. Keyword “front”. All day yesterday the back of my knee hurt hahahah ๐Ÿ™

I think my IT band was just suuuper tight from jumping into a new workout regiment too quickly and not properly stretching or icing afterwards. More essential oils ensued. A hot bath. Heated rice bags. I realized that ice felt really good on the sharp pain on the front of the knee, but the IT band really liked heat. Whatever works, aye??!

So I went to bed at 8:30pm last night. And didn’t wake up til 3:15am for the first time (OOoh Aaah!!). And not again til 5:40ish the second time. And boom, here we are, almost an hour later, and I’m ready to carpe this diem. Hehe

Such a great mug. It was a gift. ๐Ÿ™‚

And yes, my knee is feeling much, much better today. PRAISE GOD! I know it feels better because I stopped and took care of it. I took taking care of it seriously so it didn’t get worse. My nightmare was being up on it too much and worsening it, thus dragging out the healing process.

Side note, I really like being up early. I miss this schedule. I used to go to bed pretty early (9:30ish) and get up at 6ish. Miss this. Miss these early mornings. Mmm. I will try to make this my life again. Just wait.

So back to being disciplined. When we have an injury, we have to be disciplined and do whatever it takes to get well again. The same can be applied to our spiritual life. I believe the human heart craves Jesus, and until we know Him as Lord as Savior, we’re going to try on a whole lot of other band-aids that never quite do the trick. For me, it was comfort eating and idolizing my own body and relationships with men. Never satisfying. Never fulfilling. I also tried drugs, exercising, vegetarianism, veganism, minimalism, environmentalism… lots of extremes.

Comes with my extreme personality I suppose. ALL OR NOTHING!!!!!

It’s a blessing and curse folks. But when I’m in, I’m all in. So I am beyond grateful for the Holy Trinity for saving my soul and giving me direction. Jesus is the only spiritual cure. The only way to heaven. The only lasting (and I mean eternal-kinda-lasting) remedy for an injured soul.

But loving Jesus requires discipline. It requires giving up other band-aids I’ve tried. It means trusting God’s ways and putting my faith in His Word. It means disagreeing with what some people very close to me agree with sometimes.

And it’s hard. It can feel like I have picked the wrong way sometimes because of how enticing the world is. But I do believe and have seen that the more I know of Jesus, the more I understand true beauty. The more time I spend with God, the more I see how I thought ugliness was beauty before. Now I see God as true good, and the flesh as ugly.

Dear reader, are you limping around? Have you tried heat when you should’ve tried ice? Have you tried essential oils and elevating and massaging. Have you taken anti-inflammatory medicine and gotten enough rest and you are still in pain? Still not whole? Run to Jesus. Ask Him to restore you. Ask Him to teach you how to be disciplined. It’s so you can get better. I know I have. I’m brand new because of Him. Now I have the power to understand and choose His ways rather than fall trap to my own.

Lord Jesus, thank you for healing my knee. Thank you for slowing me down these past couple of days so I had more time to read, write and be in your presence. Thank you that you are the ultimate healer and want your people to be well. Thank you for providing all that we need and for paying the price for us with your son’s blood. Thank you for pursuing us always, and never letting us go. I love you and need you and am so thankful for your Holy Spirit to guide me, comfort me and show me the way in which I should go. <3

xxx

GOD BLESS and happy Saturday y’all

V

Why I’m Glad I Got Sick

The Chest Cold Chronicles Pt. 1

Today marks day eight of cold strain 134. I’ve been quarantined to my room for eight days and couldn’t eat dairy (besides a little butter in my coffee) #missyoukefir #missyouparmesan.

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Close-up of my bulletproof coffee (AKA coffee blended with butter & coconut oil= <3 <3 <3) in my favorite mug!

I’ve gone through eight boxes of tissues (no thanks to no dairy! ๐Ÿ˜› ), eight buckets of chicken soup with eighty pounds of kimchi and garlic in it, and wayyy too much sauerkraut mixed with horseradish (this was a mistake).

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A sample breakfast delivered to me! The bowl of what looks like brown rice is actually kraut & horseradish. >_<

Although I was wiped out from walking downstairs and back up one time, I did enjoy having my roommates bring me my meals in bed! Anotherย  examples of my lovely meals:

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Aren’t they the best?

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Part II: More bulletproof coffee & some of the sweetest fresh-picked strawberries ๐Ÿ™‚

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By day four they were trying to make me laugh just to expedite the phlegm-hacking process.Gotta clear out the ol’ sinuses amirite — hence the horseradish *shudder*.

Besides all of the lovely food stuffs brought to me three times a day (not counting mugs of ginger tea with lemon & honey, cups of green juice, and gallons of filtered water), I was also getting treated with steam baths 2x a day and oil diffusions.

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Teach me how to Steam bath:

Boil one pot of water and place it on a tray with a towel separating the pot from the tray.

Add a few drops of eucalyptus, peppermint or other essential oils to the pot.

Cover yo head with a towel and lean down to the pot of oily steam. Inhale for 10 minutes.

Besides steam baths, I also covered my chest, neck and glands leading to my ears in coconut oil with a few drops of peppermintย  oil to open things up and get the mucus moving.

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When I wasn’t inhaling or topically applying peppermint oil, it was being diffused in my room. Buy oils and a diffuser from my favorite company here!

Sometimes I put lavender oil around my ears and temples to relax and soothe.

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Aside from good foods and oils, I was taking extra supplements in addition to my regulars (magnesium & vitex… I will do a post on vitex soon). What I took was:

1,000 mg Vitamin C with two meals a day

250 mg glutathione twice a day

1330 mg curcumin once a day

200 mg Niacin three times a day

Curcumin is supposed to help fight bronchial inflammation.

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Niacin is good for a whole range of things but is mainly marketed for raising good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol. The truth is, there are endless benefits to taking Niacin. The reason I take it is because it helps relieve anxiety and depression, and also aids in sleep.

Niacin, also known as vitamin B3, has only one side effect: it produces a “niacin flush” that looks and feels similar to a sunburn and lasts between 15 minutes and an hour depending on the amount you took, what you ate/drank prior to taking it, and how many histamines are in your body. Here’s a picture of what I looked like with a flush a few days ago:

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My arms were very splotchy and my chest, neck and face were on fire!

I’m sure I’ll do another post on niacin in the future, but if you’re curious about taking this vitamin, check out Dr. Abram Hoffer’s site.

Just be careful to discern what is true and what’s a lie from big pharma. ๐Ÿ™‚

To top the post off: Here’s why I’m glad I got sick (maybe the real reason you are here ๐Ÿ˜› )

*to practice accepting help and service from others <3

*to learn more about health! ๐Ÿ™‚

*to have time to pray for others <3

*to practice resting and being patient! ๐Ÿ™‚

*to practice expressing love and appreciation to those who do so much for me! <3

*to reflect on the direction my life has gone in the last few months ๐Ÿ™‚

*to learn to trust God and surrender doing what I love so I can regain strength and grow even stronger <3

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Backyard chillen after 5 days quarantine. #lookingood #eligible #singlenessisreal

See guys? Next time you’re sick, remember this:

Being sick isn’t too bad. We can learn a lot when we’re sick, whether we want/intend to or not!

Love you all <3

V

The Lobster Award!!

Okay, it’s Leibster. Thank you toย thepoppyseedbee for the nomnomnomination! That’s my second one in two days. Excited to be posting more actively!

Since I still have quite a small audience, Continue reading “The Lobster Award!!”