Deeper Understanding

I just want to let everyone know I am much better. Healing can come quickly when you have true joy and true peace in your life! I have been able to give complete and true forgiveness because after Jesus gave His life on the cross to pay for my sins what right do I have to hold anything against anyone? Bishop Sandy Miller said, " No blessing goes uncontested." That is true in the bible as well. Psalms 41:6 "They visit me as if they were my friends, but all the while they gather gossip, and when they leave, they spread it everywhere." For those of you that have been given misinformation about me or simply do not understand the disease I had. I had a very real, very ugly, incurable disease that would have led to a multivisceral transplant if God had not miraculously healed me! I was a part of 2 research studies that I had to follow certain guidelines including no medication to alter the tests. In both of those studies I was deemed the worst case involving patients from all over the world. Even though I was the worst case, several people in the study died. I got to know a few of them. I followed one young girl from Florida who got married and passed less than a year later. When the doctor who diagnosed me told me there was nothing he could do for me I thought he was being cruel and unprofessional. I thought he simply did not want to deal with this ugly disease, and he did not. But he was simply being honest, there was really nothing anyone could do. I should know, I went to the top specialist in the U.S. Most people still do not understand the pain associated with this disease so I will try my best to explain it. When an organ fails to function or does not function properly it causes great pain. If you have ever had a stomach virus and been doubled over in pain from it, multiply that pain times 3 and you will come close. It is a combination of pain from the immense pressure of gas building up and never being able to pass gas, a feeling like someone is taking your insides and squeezing and twisting them while simultaneously stabbing you multiple times, and because mine was neurological a burning from neuropathy or my nerves dying. Sometimes at the beginning it would come and go in an undetermined cycle. Sometimes it would last for days, others weeks, but as my disease progressed it never went away. Still I would take no pain medication for years. I was once refused IV fluids by a doctor. IV FLUID! The very next day I ended up in the hospital for a week. Sometimes I would get a migraine in my stomach. If you have ever had a migraine you know they are no joke so just imagine that centered in your core. There was also the pain from vomiting so severely that I pulled muscles in my back and chest.  Once I could no longer take the constant pain, I did go to pain management. Where they monitor you and drug test you every month to be sure you are not abusing anything. Even then I did not take all of the medication prescribed. I still have a years wort of medication. It did help me to function somewhat and I am so grateful for the relief it provided. I think the reason some people had a hard time believing how serious my illness was, was because I was faking something. I pretended to be okay or as okay as I could. I would sometimes eat at events or go to eat with people because when I would meet people and not eat it would make them feel very uncomfortable. So I would eat and then privately go throw up. But every time I ate or even pretended to be okay, I would pay for it drastically. For one day I would sometimes be down for a week or two, but I assumed it was worth it and for most people it was. When people would say, "But you don't look sick." They had no idea how painful that was, even if they were being nice. There are many diseases where people don't look sick, but they are in some of the worse pain imaginable. The pain wasn't the only issue. I was literally starving to death. Even if I ate, I would either throw it up or not digest it. I never knew what it was like to be hungry before I got sick. I would eat because it was time to eat or because something looked or smelled good. I would forget to eat because I was not hungry. When I was sick I was hungry all of the time but I was also terrified to eat because of the repercussions I would face. God got me through all of that and more. I did not realize when I was making and selling "Heaven's To Betsy's Gourmet Cookies" on which every cookie or package of cookie dough, the verse God gave me would be for me. Matthew 4:4 "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." He sustained me when "bread" could not. I hope this helps you understand a bit better what I went through and in understanding, I hope it helps you see that God can bring you through whatever you are going through.