I am healed!!

This will be a long post I'm afraid. But it is worth reading if you are as addicted to diet cokes as I was.

For the past 10 years I've been sick. It hasn't been anything horrid. Just lots of little things that seem to add up to a general feeling of....well....crappiness. Anyway, I've suffered from joint pain to the point of seeing a doctor and being tested for rheumatoid arthritis. I've suffered from uveitis (a condition in my eyes that is most commonly associated with an auto-immune disorder) that has not been traced back to anything. The doctors have no idea why it keeps coming back. I have had a constant feeling of tightness in my chest which I attributed to my weight and allergies. I have lost much of my memory and sometimes can't put a sentence together because I forget the words I want to say. I have had heart burn. My left shoulder was "locked" so that I could not lift it over my head without being in terrible pain. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot lose weight and in fact keep getting fatter!

I am here to tell you today that I am healed of all of it. The story goes like this.

Over the past few months I've really been talking to God about healing me. I've begged and pleaded. But I couldn't get the diet coke monkey off my back. And quite frankly, I never bought into the hype that diet coke could kill you or that I could be being poisoned by aspartame. About a month ago, I was driving by the new Co-Cathedral in downtown. As I was driving by, God was tugging at my heart to go in (presumably to talk with him). I didn't listen - of course, why would God be calling me right? And into a CATHOLIC Church no less. Why I haven't been a practicing Catholic in 20 years. I'm just a Christian - plain and simple, right? Well, about 2 weeks ago I was driving downtown again and got the same feeling. This time, I walked down there from the building I was visiting. As I was walking down, the bells at noon started ringing. It was so beautiful. I walked in and immediately felt overwhelmed. I performed all of the Catholic rituals that I remember from my youth (the holy water, kneeling at the pew, etc.). I got on my knees and begin to pray. I just begged God to take away my life and give me a new one. I've been "saved" for a long time, but I needed God to do everything for me. I know - it sounds lame, but that's where I was. I asked God that day to heal me. I begged....pleaded. The next Friday I decided (or I guess God decided for me) that this was going to be the day that I was going to change my life and get healthy. I stopped on my way out to our Conroe property to get breakfast. I bought some yogurt and some apples. I bought two bottles of water and one bottle of diet coke. Now, I was a 6 - 10 diet coke a day person. So this was going to be a big deal for me. I started off by drinking the water. Before lunch I opened the diet coke, drank a few sips, and closed it back up and got the water. It just didn't taste good anymore. That weekend I started drinking water like crazy. I was so thirsty. I couldn't get enough. I had one diet coke a day trying to stave off the headaches that I knew would be inevitable, but they didn't taste good, and I didn't want them. The headaches never came. The frayed nerves never came. I had no DT's at all! So finally, I just stopped drinking diet cokes all together.

I won't even say that the symptoms disappeared slowly but surely. They were gone as soon as I stopped drinking diet cokes. The most incredible thing is how clear my vision is getting. I will always have floaters because I've got scar tissue in my eyes from the recurring uveitis. But I don't have the "fog" covering my eyes that I've had for probably the last 7 years. Next time I go to the eye doc, I'm asking for contacts again! And I have no desire to overeat at all. I'm eating "normal" portions (which are much smaller than I used to eat). I don't crave sweets like I used to. I think half of my hunger was dehydration (maybe more).

I don't know whether it was the aspartame from the diet cokes or if it was massive dehydration that was causing my issues. It was probably a little bit of both. But I am now healed. I can't even think how close I might have been to a heart attack with how dehydrated I was. My chest felt like I had an elephant sitting on it at almost every part of the day. Now -- nothing. I can breath in and out like normal. It is an incredible feeling. I have energy like I haven't had in years and I want to go out and train for a marathon (hey - might do that! LOL). Anyway, that's the story - I know it's long, but I had to share.

Until later....