Alkalize or Die....well not really, but sort of??

So, this post may be completely out in left field for most, but it is quite possibly some of the most interesting and potentially life changing concepts I have read and participated in in a long time. One of the most repetitive nudges I believe the Holy Spirit reveals to me is my passion for health. Not just my own health, but the health of others. I ultimately believe that if you listen to your body, I mean really listen, you will be amazed at what it is telling you. Now, do I mean an actual voice, "no." I mean recognizing the little things that may just lead you to a more major problem down the road if you don't listen. For example, if you eat a giant milkshake and a few hours later you feel like you have a giant balloon in your belly and the flatulence you have could clear a ballroom. You laugh, but some people just think that is what is supposed to happen. No, this is your bodies way of telling you that you have a sensitivity or intolerance to dairy or sugar or whatever it was that upset your GI tract. Now I am not saying that this particular scenario will end up causing a major health concern, I am just saying that if you will listen and not ignore your body, you and your body could be much better friends. With all that said here is a little story of how I listened to my body and how it has changed my life.

Let me give you some personal history into how this concept of alkalizing and specifically drinking alkalized water was presented to me. Almost three months ago, my husband and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary and headed to charleston for the weekend with our 9 month old in tow, leaving behind our 3 & 4 year old with my parents. The reason we traveled with our baby was because she was still being exclusively breastfed, so therefore she needed to be with her mama. On our way down, a friend of mine who lives in Charleston asks me if it was okay for him to drop off some filtered water for us to drink while we were down for the weekend? I honestly thought "why?" but because I trusted him I said "yes.". When we arrived in Charleston, sure enough he had dropped off a ton of bottles at our front door of the town home we were staying. It was plenty for both of us for the entire weekend. We both drink a lot of water anyway, so we just started drinking. Without having any preconceived notions as to what to expect from consuming this water, we were able to draw some pretty quick conclusions. First, we realized we were both more thirsty than normal and second, my husband realized within 48 hours that he wasn't experiencing heartburn (which he normally does to some degree all the time.) Now, for the most profound change...are you ready for this?? By baby who at the time was 9 months old, stopped spitting up!! She was not your average spitter-upper either. She had suffered from reflux since about 4 weeks of age. She projectiled all the time and I would on average go through 15 burp cloths a day, yes 15! So, this change was life changing to say the least. For any mom out there who has been or is living with the reality of a spitting up baby and never getting to wear anything nice in fear of ruining it, then you know this is AMAZING! I continued to drink the remainder of the water until we were about out and then I knew I needed to figure out how I could get more. We were no longer in Charleston where my friend could provide me with this "miracle" water, so I researched and found a local practitioner in my area who had a unit that filtered this water. I went to him and thankfully he allowed me to fill up my water jugs weekly! A month later and still basically no spit up. Just your occasional small spit-up, but nothing like before. I decided to go off the water for a week to make sure she hadn't just outgrown her spit-up phase. After just 2 days of drinking tap water, the spit-up was back in full fashion. I wasn't really all that shocked as I had been pretty convinced it was the water that had made the difference. There are MANY more benefits to drinking this water other than curing your baby of reflux, but for me this is what sold me and made me want to know more. I am going to cut and paste some info here that explains the benefits of this water. This water is alkalized/ionized water that can be obtained through a filtration unit that does just that. We purchased a unit at the beginning of the year and now our family and friends who have tried the water are beginning to reap the benefits and seeing changes in their health.  The unit we use is the Kangen unit by a company called Enagic. There are many companies out there claiming to do the same thing, but with all the research I have done, my husband and I are convinced this is the BEST! Some of the benefits that either my family or friends have experienced are: lifelong eczema disappearing, chronic heartburn disappeared, joint pain gone, arthritis gone, glowing skin, energy boosts, better restful sleep, anxiety lifting. These are just a few of the testimonies...if someone told you you could change your health this dramatically, wouldn't you be willing to try it?? Anyway, here is the information I mentioned above.

The benefits of Kangen water are numerous:

Promotes healthy weight loss.
Boost body’s immunity against disease.
Increases absorption of important vitamins and minerals
Even when you take your first delicious sip of Kangen water, you’ll immediately notice the difference, and you’ll wonder how you ever drank anything else! Kangen means “return to origin,” and that’s exactly what this water does!
It helps the body fight and remedy conditions like:
Arthritis
Diabetes
Depression
Fibromyalgia
Eczema
Allergies
High Blood Pressure
Hot Flashes
Joint Pain
Migraines
Prostate Problems
Sleeping Disorders
Obesity
High Cholesterol
By using Kangen water on a regular basis, you can return your body back to its original healthy balanced state.

Disease grows and is cultivated in acidic environments and 98% of the american diet is made up acidic foods.  Alkalizing your body is of the utmost importance to maintain a healthy living and stand the chance of a disease free LONG life. Here is a chart of some foods and their pH level or alkalinity levels. See where most of your diet falls.

I am only writing this post, because I so strongly feel that this water's ability to transform your health is astounding and one in which I do not want to keep a secret.  If someone had told me that they could have helped my first born child with reflux by simply drinking alkaline water or my second born, I would have paid over and over again to have that result.  My third child and I finally got the answer I needed.  A true answer to prayer.  With much gratitude, I thank God that we were introduced to Kangen Water and I hope to inspire you to do your research for you or someone you love.  The benefits are endless.

Glorifying God with Our Imperfections

How to Glorify God Through Your Imperfections

Posted on 09 December 2010
Tags: How to overcome sin


Did you know that you can honor God through the bad things that you do? I hope you know this. If you don’t know this truth then you are probably truncating the potential that you could have for making God’s name great. Honoring God through the bad things that we do does not get as much airplay as honoring God through righteousness, obedience, and holy living. However, I think it is important to talk about how we can magnify God through our imperfections. The reason for this is because we are imperfect.

Exploring imperfection

We have yet to attain sinless perfection in this life. And the truth of the matter is, we will never be sinlessly perfected in this life. Therefore, if we cannot honor God through our imperfections then we cannot honor God completely. Let’s say, though I know this could be perceived as silly, that we are 70% perfect and 30% imperfect. I realize some of you are probably more perfect than 70%, but work with me here, okay?

According to my math, you can only honor God up to 70% because that is your personal best for the good things that you can do. Therefore, seventy percent of the time you are walking in holiness, obeying God, making his name great, serving others, worshipping Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. However, there is a pocket of sin or weakness or areas that have yet to be conquered and biblically refined in your life. In my illustration, that amounts to about 30% of your total self.

What if I told you that you could make God’s name great through your imperfections? That you no longer have to limit all of the possibilities that God could perform through you? And what would you have to do?

First of all, you would have to acknowledge that you have made mistakes, that you have sinned. You cannot honor God nor make His name great by hiding part of the truth about yourself. But it gets better than just being honest. Let’s suppose that you become more specific and open about who you really are. You decide that you’re going to put the power back into the Gospel by exposing the details of your imperfections. Anyone who has ever done this knows exactly what I am talking about. They have experienced the release, relief, power, and blessing that comes through confession.

Not only would God be more glorified because of your sin, but He would extend grace to you to help you overcome your sin. Jesus was glad when Lazarus died because it was an opportunity for Him to help His friends trust Him more. (John 11:14-15) It is through our weaknesses that God’s strength is made perfect. The Father came for the weak, downcast, imperfect, and sick. There is no grace for the perfect, healthy, and sufficient.

But it gets even better than this. The more honest you are about your weaknesses and sins, the more He is able to inspire others by your humble example.

The temptation to be perfect

A person who does not acknowledge his imperfections is a person who is truncating some of the possibilities of what God could do through him. A person who does not acknowledge his imperfections is, in essence, “limiting God.” The reason the Gospel exists is because of sin. If we say we have no sin, then we are saying that the Gospel is purposeless and we have no need for the Gospel. A person who is unwilling to come clean about his sin is a person who does not understand the Gospel. He is mocking the Gospel.

One of the primary temptations in this area of not owning our sin is our desire to appear righteous before others. Just like the Pharisees of old, we are too easily stuck on ourselves. How we come across and what people think about us tends to matter too much to us. And because of this we are tempted to promote and present the good things that we do while suppressing and hiding our foibles.

The benefits offered to the sinning Christian

A person who understands the Gospel is a person who is aggressively honest about who he really is. And this kind of humble awareness and acknowledgement opens the door to an entire constellation of benefits that the proud embarrassed-about-my-sin-kind-of-person cannot enjoy. Let me give you a list of benefits that are offered to the person who is willing to be honest about who he really is:

Boldness Grace Freedom Integrity Transparency
Authenticity Joy Peace with God Restoration Guilt-free
Clear Conscience Lack of fear No Shame No Regret True Forgiveness
Wisdom Empowerment God’s Pleasure Blessing Honesty
Hope Confidence Greater Usefulness Ongoing Repentance Discernment
Reconciliation Contentment No Hypocrisy Accountability Humility
God-centered Encouraging An Example Selfless Servant
The person who limits the power of the Gospel through their lack of transparency is like a reservoir held back by a dam. You are a person with the Spirit, but the Spirit is quenched and grieved because of your stubborn pride. In this life you will not be able to honor God as a fully perfected person. Therefore, I thank God for the Gospel because the Gospel opens the door of possibility where we have the opportunity to glorify God through our weaknesses.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. -The Savior, Mark 2:17 (ESV)

I have decided to start a separate blog from my families blog. Why? You may be asking. Well, believe it or not there are a lot of thoughts swirling in this brain of mine outside of when I may change the next poopy diaper or when the next "timeout" may happen or better yet how many times will I have to say "was that a good choice or a bad choice?" although these are quite important occurrences they do not fully define me or what fills my cup so to speak. Well, what does? That is a good question and one I am going to be exploring right here on this new blog. I have found that when I am intentional about recognizing the blessings in my life, whether or not they feel like blessings to me at the time, gratitude seems to come much more easily.  When I am thankful each day for the seemingly small things, the grand things are even sweeter. I am hoping that with this accountability blog I will be able to answer HIS nudges.  For I know that when I am nudged, that the Holy Spirit wants me to answer and our Lord and Savior is inviting me into a growth that can only come from Him.  So, come along for the ride and let's find out. I think this could be really fun and possibly interesting or entertaining on some levels. I am hoping to be as transparent as possible and hope that in some way it may be helpful and encouraging.

I would love to hear comments, thoughts and reactions, so please don't hesitate to "comment."

Disclaimer: all of this material is my own opinions and I do not claim to have any expertise in any of the subject matter discussed (unless it is changing poopy diapers, and then of course I am quite possibly an expert after 3 babies.)