Life has a way of playing by its own terms. Just when we think we have everything under control, life seems to find a way to alter our course. Trust me, I know firsthand.
At 28, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Although I would later learn that M.S. ran in my family, the initial diagnosis came as a complete shock. The business I had worked four hard years to develop – a nail salon with an accompanying gift shop – was finally coming together and my rolodex of clients was expanding exponentially.
Looking back, I have a mix of emotions for the events that took place during those first few years of my struggles with M.S. On the one hand, the symptoms caused a lot of pain and turmoil in my life. I struggled to maintain my business and I also struggled in trying to balance my roles as a wife and mother. On the other hand, everything that occurred led me to unexpectedly stumble upon a journey of change and personal growth.
It was after my very first “unintentional” fast in April 2000. About six months after that fast, I received a box from United Design, a distributor of picture frames that I sold in the gift-shop part of my salon. I got a box and didn’t know where it came from because I hadn’t been ordering anything. It struck me as strange that the shipping container had my street address but the invoice was addressed to the Garden of Gods. What are the chances of that, in this computer age?
Inside was a beautiful cross. I called them and reported the mistake. They told me to just donate it to some non-profit and they’d reship to the right business. When I got off the phone an odd thing hit me: had I been actually buying a cross, it probably would have been that exact one. When I thought harder about all this, it seemed like it wasn’t a mistake, like it had been meant for me as an inspiration to help others who wanted to help themselves!
Everything I describe here really has a basis in the Bible: the fasting, the herbs, the juicing, the fruits, vegetables and greens – you can find it all, the whole journey, in scripture. This journey had come to me, not with a tap on the shoulder, but with a 2×4 over the head!
The story does not end here. During this time, my son was ill, as well. Because of what I went through, I was able to give him back a healthy life. I applied some of these same natural healing techniques to give him a life free of pharmaceutical medications.
