A Birthing Experience

My second daughter, Israel Rose, was born this past Tuesday at 4:53 pm.

Isaiah 45:3 "I will give you treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name."

Her existence, her being formed into being, has literally been a physical and prophetic sign to me of the fire being birthed in my own heart. God has out-done Himself again! He has used what is happening in the physical to voice what is happening in the spiritual.

God has really been bringing me into the reality that if I really want a life unhindered in the presence of God - then I need to keep my mind and thoughts on the things that are not seen. So many times what we see in the physical can be a mislead image. a lot of times that's where human reasoning and understanding speak louder than God. But God's been teaching me how to hear Him and respond to Him in light of what's happening in the physical. Things are never what they seem - I always find God is working something far deeper than what I am seeing or experiencing. It's learning to live in the Spirit...to see things with the eyes of God. every moment, every circumstance, is an opportunity for God to show us who He is and to hear His voice. in fact, I believe the deepness of our relationship with God goes as far and wide as we allow it to. God has always made Himself available and never withdraws Himself from us. It's us who choose to withdraw ourselves from Him. It's us who choose to make ourselves unavailable to God. So as I learn to make myself available and exposed to the Lord every moment of my day, my eyes are being opened to more of God's intimate desires for myself, my family, and for others.

Now I am even more confident that Israel was born to us for a specific time and purpose under heaven. her birth has been fire to my faith. My husband over the past few months has been seeing the numbers 444. Every where he went - on the clock in the middle of the night, on a bill when he served tables at work, as a password given to him to use a copy machine, etc. With no understanding in his heart, it was the week Israel was born that God began to bring crazy clarity to the things he was seeing. Through finding out about The Wilderness Outcry, Dutch Sheets was calling believers to be a part of a vision coming from Isaiah 44:4.

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, 'I am the LORD's'; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand 'unto the LORD', and give himself by the name of Israel. (Isaiah 44:3-5)

The fear of the Lord fell us on us as we read from Isaiah 44:3-5 and realized Israel's name and birth has been chosen and aligned as a prophetic sign to the times and seasons we are living in! Her birth was physical, but a birthing has also happened in my heart and spirit. i've become alive and my walk with God feels fresh and renewed. Like when your body arouses to the smell of coffee brewing in the morning, so my soul is awaken to the Spirit of God moving and speaking. It's a fresh wind to my spirit and a fire to my relationship with Jesus. I've been in dry places and I know what it feels like when your soul is longing for water - maybe that is why I so appreciate times like this with the Lord. A place where my spirit just keeps drinking and rivers of living love, hope and revelation never stop flowing...

Mushroom Stuffed Venison Burgers ~ Video Blog

Seasonings in ground venison (its great if you can let the seasonings sit in your fridge for a day):

1. 1/2 cup of chopped onion
2. tsp. paprika
3. tsp. garlic powder
4. tsp. crushed red pepper
5. tsp. oregano
6. tsp. salt and pepper
7. 2 TB worcestershire sauce
8. 1 egg
9. 1 lb. ground venison

Ingredients for mushroom stuffing (saute):

1. chopped mushroom
2. chopped onion
3. chopped garlic
4. 2 TB worcestershire sauce
5. salt and pepper to taste

Home-made worcestershire sauce:

1. 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2. 2 TB soy sauce
3. 2 TB water
4. 1 TB brown sugar
5. 1/4 tsp. ginger
6. 1/4 tsp. dry mustard
7. 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
8. 1/8 tsp. cinnamon
9. 1/8 tsp. pepper

Shake well in a bottle (I used a baby bottle)

Thanks for viewing,

walking with God

i was starring at a portrait of my family on my wall this morning and began to be filled with gratitude for them. i have a beautiful family - a wonderful husband, beautiful daughter, one of the way. It made me start thinking about my life. i have a good job. I'm self-sufficient. I'm not in crisis. i am able to live pretty comfortably. i have a lot of friends. from the outside, I probably look like i've accomplished what most Americans want, and, what most individuals desire - happiness. It's the thought of being loved and accepted, married with children, owning a home and being able to pay your bills. The ideal life that so many of us aspire to live for. what's next when it's attained?

Well, for many of us, it's bigger aspirations, bigger toys, bigger plans and dreams. But even in our endeavors to find happiness - I find the majority of people who attain all that the American dream offers are never ever happy or satisfied - with their identity, with their lives, with themselves. There's always something bigger and better. I believe the reason we are truly never satisfied is because the "bigger and better" lies in a void that can not be filled with anything that this world offers. It can only come from God Himself. If we are missing our true cause and purpose in this life - walking this journey in relationship with God - then we will never truly be satisfied with the life we are living. there will always be a void felt...and a striving in our souls that will never feel filled. Walking with God challenges us to not rely on ourselves anymore. It allows us to let go and life be what it is. I believe thats why 1 Timothy says, "godliness with contentment is great gain..." Without relationship with God we become discontent because our focus is on the issues of this world. We exhaust ourselves with the thoughts of getting married, having money, building a family, buying a house, what to wear, how we look, what people think, and the list goes on and on. But as we learn to walk with God, peace and contentment comes in the mist of a loud world of worries and aspirations. I'm not saying never dream. Dream big! Because its in walking with God that dreams seem possible. Its where aspirations turn to reality. Its where we stop striving and allow God to be God. This is where I'm at. This is where I want to be. Everyday is another day to choose to walk it with God. It's the road less traveled, but its the better way. it's the only way.

Spring-Cleaning the Diet

You may be offended by the comic above, but it may be the fact that its true. We look at all other addictions and find fault, but when its comes to being unhealthy as a nation we choose to look the other way.

So why are we not eating fresh food anymore? I mean, admit it, a lot of us were raised in families where our meals could be thrown in the microwave or in the oven with little to no preparation involved. If it wasn't that, than it was your typical American plate with corn, meat and potatoes, smothered in salt and butter. With all the easy, cheap, pre-packaged foods on the shelves of our grocery stores, why settle for something that is going to take more time, work and money? - Especially if I've worked all day, have to take the kids to practice and have a list of chores and projects to do around the house. Americans are getting busier and busier, and there's not enough time to give priority to a "real" home-cooked meal anymore. Most dads and moms are both working and the kids are always going from one thing to the next. Where's the family meal? We don't have time for it anymore. What's happened is a society who is increasingly getting fatter, sicker and more toxic.

Get this: An estimated 125 million Americans (43%) have at least one chronic illness, and 60 million have multiple conditions. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men will develop cancer sometime in their lifetime. Breast-cancer in women is 1 in 7, while in the 40's was only 1 in 22. Even men are now diagnosed with breast cancer with a growing rate of 25% in just the past 25 years. Asthma has doubled in 20 years. (The Essential Green You! Deirdre Imus) And lets not even discuss the huge rise of diabetes, where at one time was unheard of in children. Yes, we are becoming sicker and sicker. And I believe a huge reason is the food we eat and the toxic chemicals we are exposed to in our foods and products in our stores.

I realize that encouraging people to buy organic can be a huge step when there are several who probably have yet to even make the switch from white enriched pasta to whole wheat. Then I realized it's probably a whole other thought when it comes to figuring out what to put with that pasta - especially if your use to the Rice-a-roni, Chef boyardee or any other pre-packaged foods.

So, today I want to give some ideas on how to spring clean your cupboards and begin to fill them with foods that will actually give you more energy, help maintain a healthy weight and keep your body functioning at its best. We live in a "grab-and-go" culture ( I call it a microwave society), where if it's not fast, then its not worth it. Our impatience with good nutritious food is unfortunate because as we become less and less concerned about what's in our food, we are growing sicker and sicker as a nation. Apart from the increasing rate of obesity, we also have a scary increasing climb of people with cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Unless we change this pandemic, the next generation will be the sickest we've ever seen with some radical irreversible diseases. I want to inspire the average individual to go back to three or four square meals a day.

We easily fall into the "healthy junk food" trap because so many manufacturers know that if they add vitamins and minerals to our food, we are more likely to buy the processed food with the additives over fresh because of its convenience. "We're an unhealthy nation obsessed with learning how to eat better," says Michael Pollan. We struggle to put nutrition into our time-crunched lives. If you can begin to change the processed foods in your cupboard, then when your out and have to snack on pizza or a donut, its not a big deal because the majority of the time is spent on eating healthy.

It's no wonder the food industry introduces about 20,000 new products into supermarkets each year. Approximately 3,000 candies, 3,000 snack foods, 2,000 sodas and juice drinks, 1,000 backed goods and more than 100 new versions of breakfast cereals. These companies' marketers claim they're trying to help you fit nutritious meals into your busy lifestyle. But the middle aisles of every grocery store in the country are bursting with candies, chips, cookies, sodas, and other junk, all of which are loaded with way too much sugar, fat, and salt, not to mention synthetic chemical additives that are harmful to your health.

- What to Eat, Dr. Marion Nestle

Your processed foods contain saturated fats, trans fatty acids, excessive salt and modified sugars, along with some artificial sweeteners (to cut calories - beware of fat free and sugar free advertised foods) and other harmful chemicals like potassium bromate, propyl gallate and artificial colorings. If you can't understand what one of the ingredients are on the back of the box, then it probably shouldn't be consumed. Get in the habit of checking your labels on everything you buy. Your nutrition bar on the back is important. It's amazing to me how much high fructose corn syrup is in our food that should never be there (such as bread, peanut butter, cereal, juice, ketchup, even tomato soup!) Read your labels and buy food with no additives such as the ones I listed.

If your cupboards are filled with pre-packaged dinners, its time to start fresh. Learn how to bake mac & cheese and get rid of the box of Kraft. Try brown or yellow rice and beans with some seasonings instead of the Rice-a-Roni mix. Try replacing your cake and brownie mixes with some whole wheat flour and real cocoa. Start making some burritos from scratch instead of the quick hot pocket in the freezer. Replace your sugared cereals or instant oatmeal with bran-fiber cereals, home-made granola, or stove-top oats and add some honey and raisins. Count the white-enriched products in your cupboards and write them down. Try buying whole wheat, whole grain or raw in those products (pasta, noodles, rice, cereal, bread, sugar) the next time you grocery shop. You want to go for "whole wheat" and not just "wheat" because a lot of wheat on our shelves today are still refined and are more concentrated, with higher calories than whole wheat. Whole grains contain more fiber, protein, magnesium, potassium and other nutrients.

These are just a few ideas. In order to live healthy, you have to get creative. We live in a society where grab-and-go food is mass produced. To eat differently will fill awkward at first. But I promise, the more you stay true to changing bad habits to healthy ones, the easier it becomes. Good luck spring cleaning!

When all else fails, plant a garden

So where do i begin? Sometimes the thought of adapting to a "green" lifestyle can be overwhelming because it entails so much change - especially if you weren't accustomed to it growing up. In fact, i am still no where near where I desire to be in my "green" life. I am still learning, reforming and implementing small changes everyday. So, that's where I encourage you to begin. Whether you yourself have already started your own health journey or are just beginning - you can start small. Change one meal a day to a more greener healthier vitamin rich choice or just change on item on your shopping list or in your fridge to organic and as it becomes habit for you to eat and buy that one item, you can begin to add something new and so on. Even if its taking something off the grocery list that serves no nutritional value to you. It can start in the smallest degree. i wanted to share this before I dive into my topic because that is exactly what I am going to do - dive right in!

I had a situation yesterday that was eye-opening, but frustrating nonetheless. We have a local farmers' market here in Rochester that is available to us 3 days a week with locally homegrown produce that is relatively cheap. As I go to each farmer, as i am accustom to do, to ask if their crop has been sprayed (usually I can tell by the size and condition of the food) I usually will find two to three who have not. I love it when I find these farmers because I feel as if I am getting "beyond organic" itself, as Deiredre Imus puts it, to getting "biodynamic" - a phrase used for food with absolutely no herbicides, insecticide, pesticides, growth hormones or antibiotics. Organic produce in our super markets are usually twice as expensive and still may have some pesticides used. (Although organic is ALWAYS better than your typical grocery store produce) - but I will expound on that in a later blog. OK...back to my story. So, as I went to several different farmers and inquired about their produce, i could not find a single one who had not sprayed their crops (with some of the farmers getting a lot of their produce shipped from other places - I hate the winter because of that). Urgh! How frustrating! And in that moment I realized I may have to settle with a farmer who used the fewest pesticides. I had been spoiled all summer as I easily found produce that was free of all chemicals - and usually at half the price of the grocery store. My biggest frustration - I just do not have the money to eat the way I truly desire. I could have easily went to my local grocery store, bought all USDA Certified Organic produce and left there 3 to 4x as broke! Although I have read plenty of books from green authors who are convinced eating healthy can be inexpensive - I still beg to differ from my experiences. Unless you are willing (in which I am and I have!) to shop around, look everywhere for the best costs for the value of your food and go through many possible hours of frustrated grocery shopping, then most likely you are going to do what everyone else does and settle for the food put on the shelf, at easiest convenience. This is where things get tricky. Is your health put at priority, or does it usually take a back seat to the other things going on in your life? Am I willing to forfeit some of the unnecessary things in my life that I spend money on so that i can buy better quality food? I mean, I totally understand why we choose to go for whatever is sold on the shelf. Trust me. There are many times I've given in and decided to settle for what's easiest. Eating healthy is not only difficulty because of the self-control aspect of over-eating, but it also challenging because it forces us to completely re-evaluate everything we do, right from the beginning - starting with our grocery list.

So what did I personally conclude after my encounter yesterday? That if all else fails, plant a garden. And it's exactly what I plan to do this spring. I don't have much land, but I am determined to attempt a small organic garden to provide the best for my family. Health will not take the back-seat. With many new things to learn, to growing veggies to learning how to can them for the winter, i plan to share my whole experience when the time approaches. This is a part of my green journey that is un-explored and will be completely new to me. No, I don't have time to do it, but I am determined to make the time. My health for my family and I is priority because the benefits from eating green keep me healthy to do all the other things I am responsible to or even want to do.

This touches the Biblical principle that we should eat food God created for us. If an insecticide was created to kill a bug at the moment it consumes it, then I don't think its any better for us to consume. in trying your best to eat produce free from chemicals you are getting closer and closer to eating God's original design. No wonder organic food has about 50% to sometimes 75% more nutrients in it than other food! It's because God designed it to be that way!

My encouragement to you as a green eater is to start small - first maybe eating more fruits and vegetables daily. Get creative with what you can do with them! Try a meal without meat and experiment with some good online recipes. Who cares about organic produce if our diet is not full good fruits and veggies anyhow? So, start there. "More than 60% of Americans are overweight, with at least 30% considered obese, compared with an obesity rate of 6% among vegetarians and 2% among vegans" says Imus, "vegetarians have a 28% lower death rate from heart disease than meat eaters." (The Essential Greener You!) I'm not saying you should become vegetarian, but maybe try eating more veggies and start spending less time on meat being the focus in your meals. Or if you've already started meals like that, try to switch a couple of your veggies to organic, preferrably the ones you eat the skins on or cannot be peeled at all (although there is an exception to both apples and potatoes where pesticides penetrate the skin and still enter the crop itself). However you begin your journey...the point is...START! Although my shopping yesterday encountered some discouraging and frustrating things, there are many days I come home after grocery shipping feeling great joy and satisfaction from knowing I did a great job sticking to the healthiest choices I know of.

I want to leave you with a great list of produce from The Essential Green You by Deirdre Imus (in which I quoted from in some of this blog) that helps me when I am trying to save money and still eat as close to green and organic as possible.

Highest Pesticide Residue

• apples
• bell and hot peppers
• carrots
• celery
• cherries
• grapes
• green beans
• nectarines
• peaches
• pears
• potatoes
• red raspberries
• spinach
• strawberries

Moderate Pesticide Residue

• apricots
• blueberries
• cantaloupe
• collard greens
• cucumbers
• grapes (domestic)
• honeydew melons
• kale
• lettuce
• mushrooms
• oranges
• sweet potatoes
• tomatoes
• turnip greens
• winter squash

Least Pesticide Residue

• apple juice
• asparagus
• avocados
• bananas
• broccoli
• cabbage
• cauliflower
• kiwi
• mangoes
• onions
• orange juice
• papyas
• pineapple
• plums
• sweet corn
• sweet peas
• tangerines
• watermelon

You can also find your local farmers' market at www.localharvest.org

Mastering Temptation: A Spiritual Detox

Today I want to share on the importance of prayer and fasting. I know some immediately may think, "oh no, here we go again...." or "just another thing I can't seem to get..." "blah, blah. blah, BLAH!" But, you may not have heard about praying and fasting in the context that I am about to share.

It's interesting to me that some of the self-control we can exhibit to enhance our well-being and health can be experienced in some of the most basic and foundational spiritual disciplines laid out in the Word of God. Here in this blog I want to focus more on the aspect of fasting, BUT my warning in doing that is that you would not forget the aspect of prayer. Communion with God is the very thing that makes fasting fruitful and take a long-term affect on who we are as a person. Without them working together, fasting will be no more than a religious, dead sacrifice of starving yourself. Your motivation to fast should never be to lose weight, but to engage at greater levels with the Lord. With that said, I believe fasting can be a great way of empowerment through addictions and bringing about breakthrough in anything we desire. What better way to break the addiction to food than to fast from it?

I am convinced, with all the detox diets out there, that a fast of pure liquids is probably got to be the best. It's the best antioxidant, blood-thinning, colon-cleansing, energizing, body cleansing detox diet I have tried....and the best part about it.....it heightens my awareness of God at the same time. There is reason God asked us to fast AND pray together. It would be good for us, not only spiritually, but physically. Long life awaits in exercising a lifestyle of prayer and fasting.

There are many stories and verses in the Bible about prayer and fasting, but the one I want to look at together is in Matthew 6:16-24 NKJ

"¹⁶Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. ¹⁷ But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also²² “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Fasting from food gives us opportunity to find where are treasure really is. A lot of us have no idea when we eat out of boredom or out of stress. It's when we fast that, rather than turn to food for comfort, we can turn to prayer. Food is not our master, so its time that we master our temptations. You can not start to learn how to live and eat healthy if our temptations for junk food aren't mastered.

The reason I wanted to talk about prayer and fasting before I get into the specifics on enhancing a healthy lifestyle is because its where God had me begin in my personal journey. I was only a couple months into eating healthy (this was in 2005) when I felt like the Lord prompted me into a fast from all solids for 30 days. Along with two other friends who joined me (in which I highly recommend if you ever feel God calling you to a long fast), we began to use our meal times to pray with one another and for each other. I had NO IDEA what this fast would call of me....and it was extremely difficult, but God showed up all the way through it. I had never thought for a moment I would make it, but with the grace of God....all three of us did and it was an experience we will never forget. What I didn't realize until the end of the fast was that God used it to jump-start my desire for health even far beyond what I desired before the fast. I had absolutely no desire to eat junk after the fast and I certainly couldn't stomach it. God had literally answered my prayers for change when He called me to fast for those 30 days.

Now, I am not saying at all that you need to fast for 30 days, but I use that example to inspire you to begin to fast and pray. Whether its from one meal or just for one day. Romans 12 talks about presenting your bodies to the Lord as a living and holy sacrifice, which is a spiritual service of worship! The rest of the world may not understand your choices for food from here on out, but thats ok because God asked us to not be conformed to the world. Even in what we eat and what we choose to put into our bodies can be worship to God. Allow you and the Lord to walk together in this spiritual journey to good health and long life! The body is the Lord's! (1 Cor. 6:12-20)

A video from my church on fasting: elimgospel.org

Why We Fast from EGC on Vimeo.

Short and Sweet: My Story from the Beginning

So what really prompted me to start blogging about healthy living?

Picture to right is before my health journey.

Is it really greener on the other side? My answer...YES! Over-time, starting mostly in high school, food became a comfort. When I was bored...I would eat. When I was lonely or depressed...I would eat. When I went out with friends...I would eat. I don't think I rarely ever felt hungry because I ate to much to really know its true feeling. Once I got to college, most of my activity and mobility came to a halt as I crammed in late night studying and was consumed by classes and work. With the combined powers of over-eating, eating junk, not getting enough sleep and no exercise, it didn't take more than a year for me to gain a whopping freshman 40. As I entered my second year I felt more and more lethargic and less and less happy about who I was becoming. It was then at my all time high of 210 pounds (and also when I started dating my husband) that I realized I had a problem and if it didn't get cleaned up then my future was going to pay.

In this blog, i desire to not only share my journey to weight loss, but to living a healthy life. Diets don't work because they substitute calories for nutrition. They might give immediate results, but put your body in a even more unhealthy state than when you started. This blog is not about being skinny or trying to get down to your ideal weight. This blog is designed to help others like myself...mothers and fathers, our children, young women and men who desire long life. Over the past four years I have learned so much more beyond using food as my god, but I have also learned how to be a good steward of the body God has given me. Over time I would like to share with you and others about this journey, without information that can seem overwhelming. This is why I plan to start slow and I promise to never say or recommend something I haven't already tried or seen proven true. I also will try to sight any resource I have come across that I may have gotten my information. Of course there are things I will not be able to sight only because I have come to learn them over-time and have studied them leisurely.

Picture to left is after 2 years of getting healthy.

What we put in our bodies can determine how long we want to live! "Ignorance is bliss" is the good old saying, but the truth, ignorance can kill us. Here are three basic biblical principles I will continually hit:

1. Eat foods God created for you.

2. Don't altar God's design.

3. Don't let any food or drink become your god.

My small disclaimer is that this blog is not being written to prevent or cure any specific disease. But my prayer is that you will be inspired....inspired to live healthy lives, so you may able to enter into the ultimate measure of God's blessings.....LONG LIFE!

If you would like to follow this blog I would love to hear your comments and your own experiences or even questions. I appreciate any disagreements or constructive criticism to be sent directly to my email. The blog is designed to help people, so anything that could cause discouragement I would try to refrain from commenting. May this be a humbling experience for all of us!

Love,

Crystal