Candida Infection: THE BATTLE WON!

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GOD IS OUR HEALER and RESTORES US! HE HAS WON THE VICTORY! 

I saw the specialist there is no more traces of the overgrowth of Candida in my system! 

The results reflected the complete restoration that I knew in my spirit that God did in me.  Out of 14 body systems and organs only 6 of them were in the yellow and the other 8 were in GREEN (functioning how they are supposed to without stress)!  My first results I had ALL 14 body systems and organs in the MID range yellow and 7 clearly over the MID range closer to the red (really bad) area! Even the specialist was taken back by the amazing results! 

Thank you and all glory goes to the FATHER, JESUS and HOLY SPIRIT! 

Thank you for your love, encouragement and prayers! 

It was awesome to be able to process with Calvin what I learned during the last 4 months and discuss about what are possible next steps for me my results showed that my liver is still struggling to function as it was created for.  So right now I am praying through what standard of eating and living God desires for me to make a lifestyle now that I have the freedom to choose. I want applying the lessons He taught me through the battle.  I want to use the freedom to glorify God and choose life for my body! 

Even though I have the results, I would still like to share the rest of the process with you.  Today, I wrote two blogs # 1 Candida Infection: Called to Believe God's Word and #2 Candida Infection: God, the Master Planner.  So to get the story in order go down to Called to Believe God's Word first and then read God, the Master Planner.  

There is still more to testify and share so I will continue to blog the process that God took me through to the victory and the lessons that I have learned through the battle. And the last blog will share even more about the results and processing I am going through now. 

Candida Infection: God, the Master Planner

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After God showed me scriptures and I started to declare them over my life.  All of a sudden, I felt like "something like scales fell from my eyes and I could see again, like Paul when Ananias placed his hands over his eyes after he was blinded by the light on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:18).  I was able to see all the ways that God has planned and prepared me for this trail!

1. First of all, when I started to react in Costa Rica was the start of the Bible School we did.  Everyday we had work duties to serve the base. Guess where God placed me? COOKING DINNER FOR THE BASE IN THE KITCHEN! When I found out I struggled so much, I will clean the dishes, sweep the floor or wash tables but do not ask me to cook! I did not cook at all and an area I felt every insecure.  Almost daily, I had to pray before 400 work duty time just to have a good attitude in the kitchen as I cooked dinner for the base.  About half way through the school, my flesh broke and I fully received the place where God put me and started learn from others in the kitchen and prepare me for 4 months of cooking my every meal.  During this time I had already identified that I was reacting to dairy and had cut out milk etc completely but I was still reacting to a lot of the food that was cooked at the base and I did not know why.  By being in the kitchen I was able to see how much butter the cooks put in the mashed potatoes or oil was used to cook the vegetables and avoid those things and able to put a portion aside for me before they put in the butter or oil. I would only be able to do this by serving in the kitchen for my work duty. 

2. Secondly, we had already planned to move to the states, Washington DC in July.  The move to July was also completely planned.  The ability to access the specialist who I could completely communicate with in English and ask whatever questions I desired, where in Costa Rica communication was a struggle.  As well as in the states the knowledge of Yeast infections is way more common and I had more accessibility to healthy, organic food stores. 

3. Not only did He plan which country I was to live in during the infection but He planned the exact location and family I would live with.  As we moved to DC, we were not sure where we would live as the staff housing was full.  The base leaders decided to open their home and guest room for Dan and I to live in with them (Jason and Kimberlee Hershey) and their four children.  This was a complete blessing as Kimberlee know how to cook and cooks HEALTHY.  Even before I went to the specialist, God had me eating healthy with the Hershey family, and when I was on the strict diet living with a family that does not have sweets or desserts in the house was such a blessing as I was less tempted to cheat and eat sugar.  Finally, I knew that I could not eat dairy and as I shared that with Kimberlee one of the first days we arrived, she shared that she also was not eating dairy because she was nursing her youngest child and he was reacting when she ate dairy so she had stopped it in a couple months before, around the same time I did! Come on, that is only GOD and his perfect planning! 

4. After I went to the specialist and learned the strict diet that I could eat, I really was overwhelmed. Remember, I never learned to cook.  Growing up my mom worked full time and had 4 kids under the age of 5 so she spend her energy on us rather than cooking for us.  She cooked maybe about 5 times for my whole childhood.  We ate fast food and out at restaurants everyday.  Literally everyday! The food I knew was soft or hard at TACO BELL, large frosty at WENDY's and quarter pounder at MCDONALDS.  So vegetables like artichoke, eggplant, asparagus or grains like quinoa and millet were foreign concepts to me.  Let alone how to cook or eat them! Kimberlee became my teacher and mentor.  All day I had a source that I could access all day and night that could guide me through it.  And the freedom to cook in a large kitchen and fridge with only one family to schedule around and cook with. 

5.  The location of the Hershey house is 4 blocks away from a Yes Organic Market.  I was able to walk to get fresh organic vegetables everyday if I needed to.  And every time I walk back to the house, I had to climb up the victory mountain as a reminder of God words spoken over me.  As I climbed the mountain, I was rest keeping my eyes forward and focused on Jesus and declare the words He spoke the first day I walked up the hill.

6. Finally, as we moved to DC, we prayed about the where God was calling us to serve with YWAM DC.  Should I serve with finances or administration or planning for worship teams for David's tent etc.  As I prayed, the place where my heart jumped was serving at home with Kimberlee with her children as a nanny.  This was not something that was presented to me to do but God continued to lay it on my heart.  After sharing with the Hershey's it was a need they had been praying for.  So before I knew I had the Candida infection and would be low energy and sick often, God placed me serving at home where I had the freedom to say I need to rest today.  Kimberlee was so amazing with being flexible and understanding about my needs to rest or cook throughout the day.  If I served with David Tent, I would never not had the energy or strength to run with the team or the the freedom to rest and focus on allowing my body to be restored by God. 

God is the Master Planner and clearly prepared me personally and orchestrated my life circumstances for the trail of Candida battle. After God opened my eyes to all of this, my perspective on the battle completely changed.  God was in CONTROL and my MASTER PLANNER. 

Master Planner: a person who makes the perfect and ultimate detailed plan for achieving something and makes it happen

"I am God and there is no other . . . I say: My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. . . What I have said, that will I bring about what I have planned, that I will do." 

Isaiah 46:9-11

Candida Infection, Called to believe God's Word instead of life experiences

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So I arrived home after struggling up the mountain near my house physically exhausted but my spirit soaring! I was determined to seek God and his plan in all of the things I was experiencing!  

As I sought him, He brought to my mind from a devotional page (Day #10) our YWAM team was doing together, Ignite Faith by Steve and Wendy Backlund.  

"Here is a major life question: Does our experience create our identity or does our identity create our experience? The answer is . . . (drum roll please) . . . our identity creates our experience. Remember those who think they can and those who think they can't, are both right. What we believe about ourselves will either bind us or launch us.  . .

When it comes to who we think we are, 

God is calling us to believe His Word instead of negative experiences."

God was calling me to believe and based my identity based on HIS WORD rather then what I was experiencing day to day.  To focus on God's promises rather than how I was feeling or even what I was seeing with my human eyes.  He was calling me to know HIS TRUTH and PROMISES in HIS WORD and start declaring them over my life and see them come to pass. 

So I waited.  I said God show me your truth and promises in your Word. He brought me to four scriptures, the last one was the promise I held on to and declared over and over during the last 4 months. It was my promise of His plan in my life through Candida infection. I wrote them out as declarations (statements that directly apply the scripture to me personally). 

I am a new creation, the old is gone and the new has come. 2 Cor 5:17

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Phil 4:13

I am a royal priest, a chosen person, a holy person, a person belonging to God so that I may declare the praises of him who called me out of darkness into his wonderful light. 2 Peter 2:9 

God himself will restore me, make me strong, firm and steadfast, after I have suffered a little while. 1 Peter 5:10

I started to speak out loud the promises and scriptures God revealed to me during our time together even though I saw no evidence of it in my physical body or with my human eyes.  I started to speak out the promises and scriptures even if I did not truly believe them at first but He wanted my flesh, my feelings, my thoughts, my brian to hear the TRUTH over and over and come into alignment with God's Word! It says in Romans 10:17, "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."  I needed to hear the message (God's truth and promises) over and over so that it would produce faith in me that then would see the truth I was declaring in the spirit manifested in the physical! 

I am a daughter of God who bases my identity on God's Word rather than my life experiences! I am a woman who holds on to the Words of truth that God has spoken over my life and believes I am who the Bible says I am! It was only after I got to this point that I could declare things statements in faith, that God could open my eyes to see how God had prepared the soil and planted the seeds in my life and circumstances to produce a crop in my life multiplying it to a hundred times what was sown. 

Candida Infection: The mountain . . . our first VICTORY!

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So after the visit with the Herbalist, I started to follow the strict diet and cut out all sugar. On the way home from PA, the bus ride, I started to feel sick.   We arrived back and I was sick in bed for 5 days with a sore throat and body pains and headaches.  I felt like I was hit by a car! I was so weak that I could not even get out of bed to take a shower. For the next two weeks, it was 1 good day where I had energy and strength and then two DETOX days (weak days where I had no strength or energy).  And during that time my body would still react to food, even though I was following the list the specialist gave me rigidly! 

One day during this time on a good day, I was walking back from a Yes Organic Market near where we were living and I approached an upward incline, a mountain to me! I need to walk up it to get home.  I started to walk up and did not have the strength to continue going.  I started to cry because not being able to walk up and questioning myself what was happening to me and my body.  Cry because of how weak I felt and so not in control and that I did not have strength to continue.  I started to look at the storms and waves in my life and I started to sink.  

I cried out to God to save me and give me strength to arrive home.  I stood still looking at the rest of the mountain before me waiting on God. I felt him say,

"My daughter, whom I love, it is ok to stop and rest as long as your eyes are fixed on me and your desire to continue to follow me forward.  It is not how important how fast you go but where you are going that matters to me."

 I stopped and rested, keeping my eyes forward and mind on Jesus the whole time.   After a while, and I collected myself, I started the upward mountain with renewed strength and energy.  I walked slow with a constant pace and made it up the hill! 

When I arrived on top it was literally a HUGE VICTORY! And I celebrated as much as I could! I jumped a few times and shouted! Saying Yes God! Thank you God! Not caring what other people thought, as there was a bus stop right across the street of the top of the hill and a person waiting at it! God and I just fought and won my first battle with Candida and I was rejoicing! 

After the hill, there was easy flat ground all the way home.  I felt like I was skipping home that day! As I crossed the street and felt the nudge of the Father speaking promises over me.  

"I promise you will make it to flat ground. You are at the bottom of the mountain right now but you will make it to flat ground again."

I arrived home, my body exhausted but my spirit ALIVE! I knew the only way I was going to get through this life experience and trial was by keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus and searching out God's ultimate purpose and plan in it all.  I was determined in every stage to be a seeker of God in the mist of a storm.  And that is exactly what I did.  I dove into the bible searching for scripture and promises that I could hold on to during this time. 

And WOW did God spoke! He gave me scriptures to hold on to, revealed How He has been preparing me and my circumstances for a battle of Candida for his higher purposes in my life! In the next blog I will share about how He opened my eyes to see all of His planning.