Broken

IMG_7055
Photo by Ryan, 4-14-20, 6:35 a.m. MT

This post is going to be short.  I’m not doing well.  I need prayer and my family needs prayer.  I was in pain all day Tuesday and Wednesday, then again on Friday while I wrote my Good Friday post and again all day Saturday.  Then Resurrection Sunday was amazing and the pain went away.  I wasn’t well yesterday and now the pain is back again today.  I am exhausted.  I wrote hard through Easter week through all the suffering and I feel beat down and broken.

I have cried out to the Lord for over 8 years for healing.  I have asked him to take the pain and help me gain weight.  I have asked Him to heal my small intestine.  I have prayed all I can pray in asking for healing.  I am tired.  I don’t want to be in pain anymore.  I don’t understand why the Lord has done so many amazing miracles in my life, but He won’t heal me.  God can do all things, but for some reason He chooses to allow me to suffer.  I know His grace is sufficient and all I can do is rest in His grace even when I don’t understand.

All I know is that I have been suffering pain for many many years and I am very tired.  I am concerned about my future as I get older.  I am concerned for my wife and kids.  I am only 41 and my body is falling apart.  I don’t know how many more years the Lord will give me.  I hope the harvest and fruit He produces through me is pleasing to Him.  I hope I am pleasing to Him.  I don’t always get it right and I know I can get fired up, but I want to please the Lord.

I do not blame the Lord.  I just want to know why He won’t release His healing power into me and do a great miracle that would bring great praise to His Name.  It is very difficult to write when in pain.  It is very difficult to live when in pain.  Why would the Lord not want me healthy and strong?  Would that not help me write and serve Him even better?  It would be great and I could get back to working a normal 40 hour per week job and provide for my family, I know that.  Why not remove the thorn and use that as a testimony as well?  These are questions in my heart I lift up to the Lord.  Only He can answer those for me.

I am trusting in the Lord.  I don’t know how much time I will be spending on the blog this week.  You might not hear from me for awhile on your blogs.  I am really hurting and I need help.  I need God to heal me.  I am crying out for mercy, and humbling myself before God and all of you, to ask for an outpouring of healing and mercy on me.  Please pray for me.

Jesus has always been good and faithful to me and I trust Him, even if it means this disease kills me.  I am thankful for the time I have.  May His will be done in all things, whether He heals me or not.

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

Grace and peace to you all

8 Years Of Sufficient Grace

IMG_6634
Photo by Ryan, Sunrise on 1-1-2020

Today is the anniversary of the day my life changed forever.  A day when I began the greatest battle of my life to conquer a genetic auto-immune disorder.  8 years ago on 1-6-2012 I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease.  It has been a very long and painful road of suffering, but I choose to give God praise and rejoice today!  There is breath in my lungs and I am alive and that is a precious gift I will never take for granted again!

Many of you may remember my 7 year anniversary post last year.  It did not go well.  Even though I was over a lot of the anger regarding the disease at that time, I was still hurting and it came out badly in that post.  The first few years of the disease I suffered torturous pain and anguish, and I was wrestling God over many things regarding the suffering and my faith.  I ended up deleting that post and it was a wake up call to finally let the anger go and give it to God.  I can say with great joy that the Lord has healed my heart from that anger and given me peace.  2019 ended up being a tremendous year of ministry and growth in the Lord, and I am excited to see how the Lord moves in power in 2020!

I started blogging on August 10th, 2018.  Five days later on the 15th, I wrote a post about the suffering I went through and the anger I had dealt with.  There were only a few people reading my blog back then.  If you are suffering and dealing with anger, please read my post Wrestling God.  I pray it is a blessing and encouragement to you!  I know what it’s like to suffer and shake my fist at God and I also know what it’s like for Him to heal and comfort my heart with His love!

If you would like to learn more about Celiac Disease, please read my post:

Celiac Disease Awareness Month

I still have rough days where I am in pain, but I am thankful for the healing the Lord has given me so far.  Thank you all for praying for me!  It can take up to 10 years for someone with Celiac to heal from the damage to the small intestine and gut, and even then the doctors say the patches of dead villi will never heal.  I know God can do all things and nothing is impossible for Him, so I continue to pray for healing.  God can do miracles in our lives whenever He wants to!  He can cast out demons like He did for me and my family in 1996, He can send angels to help you like he did for me in 1998, and He can put you back in your body and give you His breath of life back by the power of the Holy Spirit like He did for me after I stopped breathing on 4-28-2012!  Absolutely nothing is impossible for God!  Nothing is too hard for Him!

Remember that time when…

My Lazarus Moment

My published testimony on Amazon:

One Man’s Very Strange Supernatural Life

This disease almost killed me and I am only alive today because of Jesus Christ!  It is by my faith in Him that I am alive, and live, and have my being!  It is His Name I cried out to as my breath was leaving my lungs!  It is through a miracle of the Holy Spirit by the power of God that I live and breathe today!  Amen!

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I know God has a purpose for the thorn.  He has never left me and I want to testify to the world how loving and faithful the Lord has been to me!  After 8 years of suffering, I can say with a full heart that God’s grace is truly sufficient!  Through all the physical pain, through all the emotional anguish and anxiety from the pain and job loss, through all the financial struggles the disease caused and through all the worry about the future, His grace has been sufficient!  It is His love and strength that has sustained me through this great trial and I trust Him to see me through to the end!

“I will sing of the LORD’s great love

forever;

with my mouth I will make your

faithfulness known through all

generations.

I will declare that your love stands firm

forever,

that you established your faithfulness

in heaven itself.”

Psalm 89:1-2

I was up before the sun as usual today praying over my family for the day ahead.  I also prayed about Celiac and asked Him to heal me as I have every day since being diagnosed.  When I opened my Bible afterwards, I had turned to the Book of Matthew and my eyes focused on this verse:

“Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 19:26

I just smiled and gave the Lord praise as I said, “Amen Lord!”  That is how the Lord speaks to us and encourages us through His Word and it is awesome!  Don’t ever give up hope!  God can do the impossible!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Romans 15:13

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Romans 5:5

When you believe in Jesus, His love and faithfulness surrounds you!  He will never leave you and nothing can separate you from Him.  No matter what comes against us and no matter how bad the pain, we will stand victorious over our trials because His grace is sufficient.  8 years of suffering has proven that to me!  His great comfort and love has sustained me through the worst years of my life and in His mercy He let me live!

“But what can I say?

He has spoken to me, and he himself

has done this.

I will walk humbly all my years

because of this anguish of my soul.

Lord, by such things men live;

and my spirit finds life in them too.

You restored me to health

and let me live.

Surely it was for my benefit

that I suffered such anguish.

In your love you kept me

from the pit of destruction;

you have put all my sins

behind your back.”

Isaiah 38:15-17

The Lord has a purpose in the pain and we can trust Him.  His power within us by the Holy Spirit is greater than our weakness!  Thank You Lord for rescuing me and letting me live!  Thank You for loving me and helping me!  Thank You that You can do all things!  May Your will be done Lord Jesus!

Grace and peace to you all!

Celiac Disease Awareness Month

Celiac ribbon (3)

Today is May 1st, 2019 and May is Celiac Disease Awareness month.  As many of you know, I was diagnosed with Celiac on January 6, 2012 and it changed my life forever.  The disease almost killed me and if left untreated, it can kill people.  I stopped breathing on April 28, 2012 and I am only here because Jesus saved me by a miracle in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Too many people still do not know about or do not understand Celiac, and many (including some doctors) even mock the disease and those who have it.  My prayer is that as Celiacs around the world share their stories, we can spread awareness and bring understanding about this life changing and potentially deadly disease.

Celiac facts

The first and most important thing I want you to know about Celiac Disease is that it is not just an allergy.  It is a genetic autoimmune disorder where a person cannot digest the protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and oats.  A Celiac’s body actually views those grains as poisonous.  The protein is called gliadin and that is what is called gluten.  There is no cure for Celiac and the only treatment is a lifelong gluten free diet.

If I eat wheat or any of the other grains I mentioned, my body will go into a full blown autoimmune attack on itself and destroy the lining of my small intestine.  That is what was happening to me for 10 years (from age 23 to 33) as I suffered from undiagnosed Celiac.  It could also kill me by causing anaphylaxis.  Eating oats is what caused me to go into anaphylactic shock and stop breathing.  If you want to read more about that and how God saved my life, please read my post “My Lazarus Moment.”  It was the most torturous pain I have ever experienced in my life and by all medical counts I should be dead, but God had other plans and He let me live.

Celiac autoimmune

When a Celiac eats gluten, the antibodies that are produced in the autoimmune response actually kill the villi in the small intestine.  The villi are tiny hair-like structures that line the inside of the small intestine and they are responsible for the absorption of nutrients from the food we eat.  If your villi die, then you become malnourished along with a host of other problems.  When I was diagnosed on 1-6-12, I weighed 128 pounds.  I am 6 foot 1 inch tall and my normal healthy weight was around 160-165.  Like I said, Celiac almost killed me…and that was before the anaphylactic shock.

Celiac small intestine

Celiac damage

Undiagnosed Celiac disease presents itself with a variety of symptoms and it can cause massive damage to the human body.  Before I was diagnosed, the first major symptom I had was acid reflux.  I even took pharmaceutical pills to stop that, but it just made it worse (because only going gluten free would stop it).  As time went on, it got worse and worse.  I was having incredible gut pain, severe weight loss, low blood sugar, racing heart, my finger nails were brittle, under my eyes was very dark, my spine, muscles, and bones ached, severe nausea, chronic fatigue, and it attacked my brain causing headaches, depression, anxiety, extreme mood swings and irritability, irrational anger, panic attacks, short temper, and suicidal thoughts.  When a Celiac eats gluten, the protein gliadin actually breaks through the lining of the small intestine and ends up spreading wildly throughout the body.  That is how it can affect every part of the body, even the brain.  The protein gliadin can actually collect on the brain and attack it much like someone with the protein on the brain common to the football injury called CTE.

The best way I can describe what it was like is that it felt like I had a swarm of wasps inside my head stinging the frontal lobe of my brain.  It causes the section of the brain responsible for fight or flight to be at peak levels all the time and it was insane.  Before I was diagnosed, I didn’t know what was happening to me.  I thought I was losing it and I was going to die.  All of that stopped once I went gluten free, but it took years to heal from the damage and my body is still not fully healed.  Celiac is so much worse than people know.

Also, it is a very hard disease to detect and it is misdiagnosed and mistaken for many other diseases such as lupus and even cancer.  The most effective way to test for it is by using a simple blood or stool test or simple diet elimination.  They do not recommend doing an endoscopy as it is less than 50% accurate.  My doctor did not recommend it for me and she actually told me it would have just caused me more pain.  The problem with doing an endoscopy is that they go into the small intestine and take a sample (scrape some tissue), but if they hit an area that is healthy, then they say the person doesn’t have Celiac.  The damaged villi are patchy and there can be healthy tissue right next to dead patches.  If they don’t take a sample from a damaged area, then they give a misdiagnosis and the person keeps suffering.  Blood testing and diet elimination are becoming the go to tests for diagnosis of Celiac disease.

Celiac symptoms

Celiac gene

Having damaged villi is not good.  Due to malabsorption, I now deal with a separate condition known as Cachexia or more commonly “wasting syndrome.”  Due to the damage in my small intestine I can’t gain weight properly anymore.  I go through an up and down weight gain and loss cycle every few weeks where I get to 140 or 144 tops, then I drop back down to 134 and the cycle repeats.  I call those episodes, and the days I am at the bottom are still hard days.  The years of lacking the full nutrition my body needed hurt my muscles and bones and I am not as strong as I should be at my age of 40.  I also deal with blood sugar issues now, especially when I get down into the 130s.  Remember this: your entire health is in your gut.  If your gut gets messed up, you get messed up.  It’s that simple, so eat good and take care of yourself.

Celiac is very dangerous and I have to be very careful of cross contamination.  I have not been out to eat since I was diagnosed 7 years ago.  Even one tiny crumb of wheat bread is enough to cause severe suffering or even anaphylaxis.  If my gluten free food was cooked in the same pan as gluten food, I would get sick and I could die.  If gluten food touched my gluten free food, I would get sick and I could die.  My food has to be certified gluten free from a gluten free facility to prevent cross contamination and that is not easy to find.  I once ate some gluten free flavored almonds and afterwards I became violently ill again.  We called the company and asked them about the facility and we found out they also make oat based products in the same facility.  I could have died eating those almonds!  Oats are not gluten free and they should not be allowed to make oat food on the same line as gluten free food.  If you are a Celiac, you must do your research!  Gluten free doesn’t always mean gluten free!

Mainstream companies like General Mills are NOT gluten free!  Cheerios are NOT gluten free–they are made with oats!  Frito Lay is NOT gluten free!  Neither are all the other cheaply made mainstream foods that are made with GMOs and gluten.  Their facilities are not gluten free either as they make a ton of wheat and oat based products.  If you have Celiac disease, please do not be tricked by the mainstream companies!  They just slap some fake gluten free label on their products, so they can make more money.  The food must be certified gluten free!

Certified gluten free

Certified GF

Celiac crumb

Celiac cross contamination

 

Celiac no cheating
I like this pin, but it should specify that a Celiac will damage their body if they eat 1/350th of a slice of wheat, barley, rye or oat bread.

Certified GF and non GMO

Celiac disease goes beyond gluten free too.  After my initial diagnosis, I soon found out that I was also no longer able to eat dairy, soy, eggs, or coconut either.  I learned that through painful trial and error.  The tips of the villi are what digest lactose, so when a bunch of villi die, the body can’t digest it anymore.  I also cannot have caffeine, coffee, or alcohol.  I don’t care about the alcohol, good riddance, but I do miss coffee.  Celiac took away all of the foods I loved and the lifestyle I loved and the life I live now is very restricted.

I eat good, but everything has to be organic, Non-GMO, and gluten free and be dairy, soy, and egg free too.  It is very expensive and very restricted.  I can’t even eat animals that have been fed gluten grains or GMOs.  We eat free range bison from South Dakota, free range Coleman chicken from Golden, CO (or Rosie’s chicken in California), and wild halibut from the ocean.  If I ate chicken or fish that was raised eating soy, I would get sick.  I can’t eat beef because they finish the cows on gluten grains and GMO corn to fatten them up.  That would make me deathly ill!

Please do not eat GMOs either!  They are made by Monsanto, which makes glyphosate (the cancer causing poison in their product Roundup).  The “Roundup ready corn” actually has glyphosate in its DNA and it rots your gut and causes cancer.  Would you pour Roundup on your food before you eat it?  Then you don’t want it secreted from the inside of the food into your gut either!  Monsanto is evil and they are killing people!  Their BT toxin has killed many in India and glyphosate is making people sick and killing them all over the world.  Their chemicals have been linked to autism, cancer, infertility, many diseases, and death.  I could say a lot more about Monsanto and GMOs, but that will be for another time.  Just do your research and don’t eat their GMOs!

No GMOs

GMO truth

GMO truth India

GMO India

GMO spray

Monsanto corn

 

No GMO hat

 

We even have to bring my food with us when we travel and make sure the place we are going has all of our food available.  That is why we vacation in California.  We actually pack a few pounds of the free range bison we eat and get everything else we need there.  Even if I will be away from the house for a few hours (like if we go shopping), I need to pack food because I can’t eat out anywhere.  The disease controls my life now from the time I get up to the time I lay down.  If I eat at the wrong time, my blood sugar gets messed up and it can make for a real tough day.  If I eat the wrong thing or get cross contaminated, I can end up suffering terrible pain or I can end up dead.  Sometimes I feel like a prisoner in my own body.

Gluten can also be found in lotion, toothpaste, shampoo, soda and juice drinks, and a bunch of other products, so we have to be careful with those too.  The personal care companies really like to put oats in things too and I really have to watch out for that.  If I used an oat based shampoo or lotion, I would go into anaphylactic shock and die (unless God did a miracle to save me again).  See how this disease affects every part of a person’s life?

I suffered terrible pain for years leading up to my diagnosis and the first few years after diagnosis were torturous.  I used to lay on the floor in cold sweats every night after vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time as my body detoxed itself over and over again.  The gut pain was so bad that I could barely walk and I used to have blood sugar drops accompanied by such severe nausea that it would knock me to my knees for hours (I still get bad drops sometimes).  I also excreted dead intestinal tissue for years and that was very painful.  All of that went on for many years and my days were filled with pain, anguish, and misery.  In January of 2012 all I could eat was a few bites of rice and drink water and I was laid out on the couch unable to move all day.  My wife had to help me up and help me walk.  I was only 33 when I was diagnosed, I was preparing to die, and I cried out many times for the Lord to take me.

So does it make me mad when people mock Celiac and they say it’s not a real disease or it’s “just an allergy”?  Yeah, it makes me mad!  This disease ruined my life!  It took my health, my youth, and my strength from me and if it wasn’t for the miracle Jesus did, it would have killed me on 4-28-12.  If you know someone with Celiac, please try to show some compassion and never make fun of them or the disease.  If you are a doctor that doesn’t know about Celiac or you think it’s not real, please stop being so arrogant and do your research and actually start helping people!  If you had Celiac, you would know without a doubt just how dangerous and deadly this disease really is.  Gluten free is not some Hollywood fad.  It is a required diet for survival for some of us!

Celiac poster best

Celiac explained

Celiac shirt

I really like that shirt.  For some reason, I have been chosen to fight this disease.  I truly pray people will learn more about it and understand it, but I wouldn’t wish Celiac on anyone.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much suffering this disease has caused me and my family.  From the physical problems to job and income loss, Celiac has tried to destroy us.  The worst part of it is that our kids both have Celiac too, but we caught the disease early enough in them, so they don’t have damage to their small intestines.  We knew our daughter had it when her gut was bloated and in pain and her hair started falling out.  We immediately went gluten free and she was perfectly fine.  Our son is the youngest, so he has been gluten free almost his entire life.

One thing I know is that God is bigger than this disease.  It is a thorn in my flesh for sure and God could simply remove it with a miraculous healing, but that is not always what He does.  Sometimes we have to live with the thorn like the Apostle Paul.  After 7 years fighting Celiac and living through the learning and growing process that fight has caused, I understand better than I ever have that God’s grace is sufficient for me.

I wish I had my healthy life back and I don’t ever want to suffer pain like what I went through ever again, but I am thankful for what the Lord has shown me through it all.  I will never forget the day I stopped breathing.  I went from torturous excruciating pain to perfect peace in a flash and Jesus was right there with me!  He was with me every single day of my suffering and He never left me and He never will!

Grace and peace to you all!

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

 

 

 

 

 

Suffering All Kinds of Grief

Buffalo_Winter_Storm_2017

Good Morning on this fine Saturday!  I hope this finds you enjoying a restful and peaceful start to your weekend.  If your life is like mine, then I know you were very busy this week and you most definitely need a break.  I’m sure I said, “give me a break!” more than a few times…and you probably did too!

Grief, trials, and trouble.  We all experience it.  Some of you are dealing with disease, chronic illness, and injury, and I understand that this weekend might not be restful for you.  It might be painful and hard and you might even feel like giving up.  Please don’t!  There is hope, and I want to share why.

I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease on January 6, 2012 and it changed my life forever.  At that time my small intestine was so badly damaged that I only weighed 128 pounds, and I am 6 foot 1 inch tall.  I was starving to death from the inside because my own body was attacking me.  I thought I had cancer.  I didn’t know it yet, but the wheat I had grown up eating was killing me.

I suffered terribly the first 4 years of the disease.  I was vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time day and night.  I excreted intestinal tissue.  I couldn’t stand up straight due to the pain in my small intestine.  My wife had to hold my arm as I walked and I could only eat a few bites of rice and drink some water.  That was the first few months of the disease, but that wasn’t the worst of it.  For 4 years I would be knocked to my knees with debilitating gut pain every day.  The only relief I could get was when I would kneel by the stairs and bend forward until my forehead touched the third step.  I would stay like that for hours until the pain subsided.  The doctor called it “dumping syndrome” and he told me honestly they don’t know why it happens to Celiacs.  The disease weakened my muscles and bones, and it has taken all this time just to get to 140 pounds.  My normal pre-Celiac healthy weight was around 160 to 165 pounds.  The doc said I was the worst case of Celiac he had ever seen, but I also exhibited the best healing from where I was.  Praise God!  He said I was lucky to even be at 140 pounds after what I suffered.

There is no cure for Celiac Disease.  The only treatment is a completely gluten free lifestyle.  Gluten is the name for the protein “gliadin” that is found in wheat, barley, rye, and oats.  Less than 1% of us have immune systems that cannot tolerate gluten.  Celiac Disease is not just an allergy.  It is an auto immune disorder, and classified as a chronic illness.  If I eat gluten, then my body will respond by attacking my small intestine and destroying the intestinal lining.  The disease specifically attacks the villi, which are the tiny hair like structures in the lining that are responsible for absorbing nutrients from the food we eat.  Yes, Celiac Disease can kill people if left untreated.  Unfortunately, people with Celiac usually suffer on average for 10 years before they are correctly diagnosed.  That has to change.

We immediately changed out our entire pantry after my diagnosis, but my wife and I had a long road ahead of us.  I found out I can also not eat dairy, soy, eggs, coconut, and especially oats.  I can’t have NSAIDS either.  Of course the way I discovered I couldn’t have those things anymore was through eating them and violently throwing up, and going through the whole process of my body detoxing itself over and over until I figured it out.  On 4-28-2012 I suffered anaphylactic shock from eating an oat bread sandwich that was supposedly “gluten free.”  It was not gluten free because oats are not gluten free.  During digestion oats break down into a similar protein as gliadin, and can cause an even more severe reaction than wheat.  I stopped breathing that day, and Jesus saved me with a mighty miracle!  That story is in my book One Man’s Very Strange Supernatural Life.

It has been 6 years, 7 months, and 11 days since my diagnosis, and I am much stronger now.  I turned 40 this summer.  It has been a deeply painful and glorious journey through my suffering.  I know what it is like to truly be carried by the Lord now.  I was so ill in the beginning of the disease that I became like an old man, and I was only 33 at the time.  My wife had to help me get dressed, walk, and eat.  I was in a horrible state and I believed I was going to die.  I felt that I was laid out in the dust of the earth and I was done.  The Lord had other plans.

That is where hope comes in.  Jesus is alive and He loves you!  Yes, we have to suffer here on this earth because of sin (which I can expand on later), and we will all go through trials, but we can be victorious over every single one of them through Jesus!  Jesus gave me my breath back that day in 2012, so that I could tell the world about Him and what He has done for me.  He wants to do the same for you!

Yes, sometimes God heals miraculously.  In college (back in 1996-2000), I had a friend who was a champion wrestler.  His knee was injured during a match and the docs told him he would need surgery.  I led a Bible study at that time, so all the brothers and I laid hands on his knee one night and prayed for his healing.  He went in for surgery that week, but the doctors said his knee was healed and he didn’t need surgery anymore.  It was incredible!  That friend has been a Pastor since college.  Other times God heals naturally over time, and I’m not just talking physical wounds either.  Come to Him.  Give Him your disease, your illness, and your troubles, and you will see how He makes beauty from ashes.

I posted the picture of the bison because it has deep meaning for me.  The disease left me with very little options for food, but one of the best things that came out of this trial was free range bison meat!  I must do a plug here.  The best company on earth for bison meat is Wild Idea Buffalo Company out of South Dakota!  They are doing everything right when it comes to the land and the animals.  Their bison are 100% free range feeding on the natural prairie, they don’t eat grains, and they are not finished on GMO corn.  If I eat animals that eat grains and GMOs, I will have an auto immune reaction.  The family of Wild Idea are true conservationists in every sense of the word.  I feel connected to the land and the beautiful bison that provide my life sustaining protein source, and I praise God for caring for me so well!

I love that picture because bison are rugged and tough animals that can withstand the brutal trials of nature.  When I look at them standing out there in the cold it reminds me to stand strong in Jesus.  To set my face like flint against this disease and give the fight to Him!  I would not be able to fight this disease like I do in victory and power on my own.  I think the Apostle Peter says it better in his letter 1 Peter.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade–kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:3-7

Amen Brother Peter, amen!  Remember, this is not our eternity.  Everything here is temporary, even our pain and suffering.  There is peace, healing, and forgiveness in Jesus.  He can and will not only heal your wounds, but also your hearts.  He wants to carry your burdens and set you free, and there is no condemnation in Him (Romans 8:1).

I am praying for all those who are suffering today.  You are not forgotten!  If you need prayer or need to talk, I am here for you.  Don’t ever forget how much God loves you!

Bless you all!