Jesus took a cancer bullet for me

I have been very hesitant posting this as I assist many believers around the world who suffer with hypochondria. But I do believe it is a subject the Lord wants more people to know about. This has been a lesson to me to learn to take more care of my body. God values our bodies as it houses the precious Holy Spirit, so we should honour it (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

A year ago I was diagnosed with precancerous cells on my cervix. I almost fell apart from fear. I was only 2 stages away from cancer.
I prayed hard for an answer and God led me to following a plant based diet. By His grace He led me to Chris Wark’s website, a Christian guy who cured his stage 3 cancer by following a plant based diet. I did not receive any advice from my doctor, this was all God-led.
So you know, I wasn’t the healthiest eater. I kind of went off meat after I had my daughter and my meals have always consisted of mostly vegetables, chicken or fish. However, wolfing down processed foods was more often than it should have been. Sodas, tons of coffee, sugar and all sorts of horrible junk poisoned my body. These are terrible pollutants to our bodies, as the Lord has shown me.
I am convinced this is linked to the vision I had a few years back of unhealthy, gluttonous eating.

I cut out coffee because even though studies have not really proved it causes cancer it looked to me that it was messing with my endocrine system which eventually leads to cervical cancer. I allowed myself a cup of decaf on the weekends. Winter without coffee is hard. Hot chocolate I made from a plant based milk with raw cacao.

I also cut out sugar and switched to xylitol. My sugar mostly came from fruit. I stayed far away from processed foods and started growing my own vegetables.
No alcohol. No sweets. No meat. If it didn’t come off a tree or out of the ground I stayed away from it as far as possible.
I drank a lot of water with lemon. Lemon is alkaline in our bodies. Cancer adores an acid system. Our bodies want and need to be mostly alkaline and fruit and veggies ensure that. Meat, coffee and processed foods are very acid, and cancer feeds off it.
I ate tons of fruit and veggies that are high in antioxidants like berries and made a concerted effort to eat the fruit seeds as well, which contain compounds that help kill cancer cells.
Women with the condition I had are found to be lacking in selenium, folate, vitamin B and most cancer patients lack plenty of vitamin C as well.

So, I juiced the following and drank it every morning:
-Dark leafy greens, like kale and swiss chard/spinach for vitamin B
-Beetroot for the folate
-Apples and carrots for the vitamin C and to add some sweetness. I drank this with chia seeds that carry a lot of antioxidants that’s needed to quench cancer cells.
-Nuts (selenium) and avocado every day- healthy fats are essential, not fattening!
I supplemented my daily diet with the following tablets:
-Vitamin B complex
-3000mg vitamin C (yes, 3000!)
-Selenium
-I3Complex (Indole-3-Carbinol) which is a cell mutator protector, off the shelves from Solal.

I had a biopsy done towards end of November and my condition is gone, I’m all clear! It went within 5 months!
There’s more to plant based diets than people think.
To God the glory, for His mercy in saving me from disaster and teaching me something new!
“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Genesis 1:29
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matt 6:26

My daughter’s dream

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.” Acts 2:17

I try avoid looking too deeply into things or spiritualising everything. It helps nothing. But my daughter had a strange dream and I don’t know what to make of it. I’m not sure if it means something or just a product of too much pizza or an overactive imagination. I have never spoken to her about the Blood Moon or things pertaining to the end times, as she is too young. She just turned 7 years old.
Perhaps Readers, you can make some sense of it?

She had gone to the store with my mom. She said she looked at the moon and it was “very red” and she knew then and there something bad was coming.
All of a sudden there was an earthquake and the ground was shaking and splitting open. People were screaming and panicking and trying to run away. Then a flood came and the water was quickly rising so she ran into the store to be safe; but the water eventually came into the store as well.
She said people had turned evil, like “zombies” (I’ve never allowed her to watch any TV etc. with zombies in it so I’m not sure what that means to her). Then she said she kept praying for this scenario to stop. These evil people could not breathe if they left the water (Isaiah 27:1?). And along with prayer, if she threw store items from the shelves at these people, it kept them at bay and kind of calmed them a little.
She said she kept an eye on the moon waiting for its red colour to go and eventually it did so she knew the catastrophe would all stop. Once it turned its normal colour, everything went back to normal and people normalized as well.

Thoughts?

Traffic Light salvation

In May last year I noticed a beggar standing on the corner by the traffic light I pass every day from work. He had never been there before. When he first greeted me, I took an instant liking to him. He is so warm, sweet and funny. As the days went by the Holy Spirit stepped in- I think Richard standing at that traffic light was the Holy Spirit’s doing. He gave me compassion and love for Richard, and I would often bring him some lunch or pack some goodies for him. We quickly became friends.

He pressed heavily on my heart to speak to Richard about the gospel. Now, this has always frightened me – I get dry mouth, stutter and totally freeze. But I’ve learned those are times when I do it in my own flesh and strength. This time I prayed for the Holy Spirit to help me and to give me boldness. I found this was the key – before I left work every day I would pray for boldness and to say whatever He wanted me to say. I was quite surprised that I was not nervous and spoke freely – I could not do that ever without praying, I would always fail. When I would fail, I would be upset and think, “this is too hard, it’s like making a sales call!” 😉

Anyway, turned out Richard once upon a time read his Bible, but got into smoking marijuana and his life went downhill from there. I knew the day had to come when I had to ask if he would like to give his heart to Jesus. Two things were hindering me – complete nerves (because even though I had more boldness than ever, this was crunch time!) and the place where he stood made it difficult to talk. We could talk as long as the traffic light stayed red!

Days passed and I would drive away from that light not having asked him that important life changing decision, always thinking, “Ok, tomorrow!” One day as I drove away, the Holy Spirit firmly said, “Do not tarry!” I had to quickly look up the definition of tarry to refresh my memory if it indeed means ‘to wait’, and it does. Oops 😦

I decided I had better be obedient in case something happened to Richard! The next time I saw him, I found a spot to pull over and led him to salvation. He was so sweet, he did it with a huge smile on his face! And surprisingly said, “You know, the Bible says when two are gathered together, He is here with us. So God is here with us now!” I said, “Yes amen! And welcome to the Kingdom my buddy!”

This important lesson I will take with me always – to 1) pray for God-given opportunities to lead someone to salvation and not waste them and 2) always pray that the Holy Spirit gives me boldness in that day and leads me 100% in both words and actions.
I have not seen Richard for four months, but before that he told me that he had just gotten a part-time job! Isn’t that wonderful, how God already started working in his life!
Your Kingdom came, Your will was done 🙂

 

God is First Class!

Toward the end of last year the private Christian school I applied my child to requested that all kids come in for a school readiness assessment for first grade.
I was not concerned about the assessment because I had regular talks with her teacher about her work and popped in to look at her school books from time to time to make sure she was not struggling with anything, to which she wasn’t. The teacher always gave good feedback and was not concerned about any areas in her schoolwork.

To my horror, three weeks after the assessment the report told me she was not ready for First Grade at all and had to repeat Grade R! Panic galore, as this did not make any sense at all. I immediately made an appointment with the Educational Psychologist and she took me through the assessment Jordan completed. It was like I was looking at another child’s work! I explained that this was the opposite of the work she produced in class. To cut a long story short the Psychologist said she could ‘push her through’ but did not think it was wise, and I did not want to be a biased parent and decided that if it was her opinion to let Jordan repeat then so be it. I did not want bias to jeopardize anything in her future. I was told I was a “very wise mommy.”
A few days later, Jordan’s school was just as shocked as I was and were adamant that making her repeat would be a bad thing because 1) it was not necessary as she was right on par where a 6 year old should be and 2) repeating the work would be too easy for her and she would get bored and ‘turn bratty.’

Now I was confused. How do I make such a decision when I have 2 sets of professionals telling me different stories?
I took it to the Lord and it went along these lines, “Father, I just don’t know now! There’s no way I can make this decision. You know Jordan better than I and the teachers do- if You think Jordan should start 1^st grade, please let the Psychologist know! I’m asking You to make this decision for me, so I’m going to leave it in Your hands. I’m not sure how I will know what Your decision is, but I trust You. I will obey whatever You say.”

I didn’t think much about it and about three weeks later I get a call from the Educational Psychologist at work. She said, “Caddie I’m calling because I can’t stop thinking about Jordan. Something is bugging me about her. There’s just something nudging me about this assessment and I think I need to reassess her…”
Whoa! I had to do everything on the phone to not giggle at how wonderfully the Holy Spirit was answering my prayer! I thanked Him for those nudges and bugs! Jordan ended up passing the second assessment with flying colours! She has started First Grade so well and is ahead in reading.

The devil only comes to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10) and I guess his hope was to steal a whole year away of Jordan’s life for nothing! I suppose it being a Christian school never tickled his fancy either.  God on the other hand, wants to give Jordan, like all of us, a future and a hope (Jer 29:11). Leave all your important decisions in the hands of our Almighty God. He is First Grade, First Class and knows exactly what He’s doing!

The Incredible Journey

Something astounding happened to me this month. I have been in absolute awe of what God did for me. It’s taken me time to write it, rather just enjoying and basking in His most wonderful love for me, His power and glory.

My dog went missing. Before you roll your eyes and sigh “Blugh, boring,” just wait… this is not a post about an animal but about God and prayer. There are so many facets to this story that I will have to break it up in other posts. But first, God.

I almost hyperventilated when we realised Maxi had gone missing. We rescued her as an abused pup – literally while she was being thrown around! As a result she does not like humans one bit. The wind blows and she gets a fright. So the thought of her going missing on her own terrified me. Even worse, what tormented my mind most was that she was stolen as bait for dog fighting rings.

I prayed my heart out. I travailed. I stayed on my knees for two weeks. I warfared. I got my family, friends and pastor to pray. I got my home group to pray. I started fasting, and every day after work I would walk around the neighbourhood handing out pamphlets and speaking to people. I was exhausted and nauseous from worry but on the third day I was at peace. I remember sitting in my lounge praying, and then almost in a moment of panic I said, “Lord, I’m at peace this can’t be, it’s not right, why am I not worried about her today?? I can’t relax about this! I must find her!” But in my spirit I heard, “Rest child.”
The peace did not last as long as I allowed negative thoughts to enter my mind. By day five at one point I had to leave my visitors and run into my bedroom crying and praying for the torment that was going around my head about dog fighting. I remember falling asleep crying, and before that in my mind’s eye I could almost see myself above my bed uncovered. I felt uncovered, open to all sorts of attack. I was so tired, I said “Jesus, cover me.”

I grew more tired as the days went on, but constantly pushing in prayer and pushing and pushing, no matter where I was or what I was doing. And now always remembering to keep my armour on so I wasn’t open to attack, especially my mind. It is important to note that during this entire time, God showed me constantly in His word to remain merciful to others and walk blameless before Him.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. ~ Luke 6:36
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly~ Psalm 84:11

I actually asked the Holy Spirit to help me pray, “Holy Spirit help me to pray please. I don’t know where she is, and I’m running out of things to pray. Help me to pray.”
I prayed numerous countless prayers, but the constant prayers I kept praying were:
– according to the Our Father
– declared that her return home will happen (“You will also decree a thing and it will be established for you; and light will shine on your ways.” Job 22:28)
– for His mercy and that He keep a hedge of protection around her
– that He divinely position people to make her return home possible
– keep her nourished and hydrated every day
– that any chains that are binding her from coming home to me be loosed in Jesus name
– that He make the mountains low and the valleys high and the path for her to come home smooth and straight.
This was the Holy Spirit’s doing, and I highlight it here so you can see later how important this was.
One night on my knees I told God that, “Father, I’m in too much distress so I’m placing myself and Maxi into Your arms for Your mercies are great- don’t allow her to fall into the hands of men” (2 Sam 24:14). At one point I was so desperate I said, “I’ve placed her into Your arms, please can’t You just drop her off at my gate?” 🙂

By day 7, I messaged Christian friends and family and I told them I had petitioned God to bring Maxi home to me before her birthday on 1^st Feb and if they could all stand in agreement with me, which they did. I had hoped at the time this wasn’t a cheeky thing to do. I told God I’m not petitioning Him to test Him, or because I think He’s at my beck and call, but because of Maxi’s fragile personality, I needed her home safely with urgency.

By day nine I then told God I surrender her to Him, as I can’t do anything in my own strength. As the days went on, I had so much more peace in my spirit and I just knew that she was actually safe. I no longer went out every day to hand out pamphlets. As I started to feel bad because I was so tired the Spirit would say, “Rest child.” And I really was at rest even though my body was aching constantly.
I had a dream one night that my mom came to me and said, “just carry on praying.” Even though I felt I should physically rest, in no way did I ever rest from prayer. That was crucial.

Day 13 on a Sunday night, 25^th January, I fell into a nice deep sleep. In the middle of the night this voice said to me, “Caddie! I need to tell you something!” I woke up with a fright because it sounded like the voice was right next to me. I kept quiet waiting to hear more. I heard, “the end is near.” I immediately knew in my spirit that my wait for Maxi to come home was close by!
I thought maybe another week or two, but my husband woke me up at 6h30am shouting “Caddie come look! Maxi is home!! She’s standing at the gate!”
I cried with joy, I screamed with joy – in my thanks to God on my knees I eventually started laughing a hearty laugh! The one way you do not expect your dog to come home is pitching up at your gate! By herself. It just never happens. Here is a comment from an animal rescue organisation that had been helping me when they learned Maxi had returned home:

Haha – “magic” 😉

I had learned afterwards that my gran could not sleep the early hours of the morning I got the message and prayed to God the most simple prayer, “Father, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Caddie found Maxi standing at her gate this morning?” She had maintained from the beginning that Maxi will return home to my gate.  I was thankful for her faith but thought that it would not probably happen like that because it was impossible.

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ~ Matt 19:26

I laughed and laughed at the immense miracle of it, at how simple it was for Him to guide her home that way after being missing for two weeks. I pictured my guardian angel walking and leading her up the road toward my house. I felt the beautiful love of my Father wash over me, the absolute love. He cares for me. I was blown away that heaven had moved for one mere person. My pushing through with constant fervent prayer was heard and honoured. The one way I never expected her to come home, happened! However, I always told God that I know He could do exceedingly abundantly above all I asked and thought for Maxi, in Jesus name (Eph 3:20)…I just did not expect it to be THIS exceedingly abundant!

I want to mention that when the voice/angel spoke to me that night, it seemed to me that the words were ‘made of copper.’ I know that does not make any sense but when they were spoken, they looked like copper. Remember how the one thing I was always pressed to pray for was that any chains that are binding her from coming home to me be loosed in Jesus name? I found out that the word for chains, neḥushtayim, is also derived from copper!

Remember how I kept asking Him every day to keep her nourished and hydrated? Well, she came back not having lost an ounce of weight after two weeks! Not a hair on her head was moved. She was covered in ticks, but biliary never touched her!

Remember how I kept praying that He divinely position people to make her return home possible? Turns out, He never needed a single person, He did it all alone! Such remarkable power! Her path to return home was indeed made smooth and straight!

How forcible are right words! (Job 6:25)

I was able to happily celebrate my sweet girl’s birthday yesterday, all glory to God. I will gladly go through that torment again so He can have all the glory. So many people have told me that they been touched by what He did that it has increased their faith and their faith in prayer!

I pray that you are encouraged. When you face hard trials, it will be hard, no doubt; but push through and persevere, no matter how difficult or hopeless the situation may seem. Your angel is holding a vial of your answered prayers – but just like Daniel, keep pushing for the breakthrough so the prayer can be delivered straight into your hands.

When God steps in

One of my dear friends fell into a diabetic coma last month. Her family rushed all the way to South Africa from the UK to be at her bedside. She had always told us that she was on medical aid/insurance, but the private hospital she was rushed to could not locate any details that this was the case.

So there was this worry that they would have to move her to a government (state) hospital. In South Africa, that’s a no go! You want private medical care here. But because they were battling to stabilize her, they kept her in the private hospital. The first day’s costs were a cool fifty thousand Rand!
A week went by and she woke up but not getting that much better that they could move her.

My friend was saved but her mother and the rest of her family are not. The last thing you want to worry about when your child is in ICU are bills. We said only one prayer that God would assist with the bills somehow. One. We kept praying for my friend and her family that God would show up in a wonderful way so that they could see the King she was serving.

Unfortunately, two weeks later, God had decided to rather take my friend home to be with Him. But that doesn’t mean there was no miracle. He did show up.

My friend’s mother got to a point where she was starting to worry about the increasing bills, as they had warned it would cost in the region of over a million once my friend had recuperated! So she caught the Doctor in the hospital parking lot asking him about the ICU bill as she wanted to start making plans to ensure they could pay it.
He told her that any cent after the deposit she put down would not be charged to her. The rest of the treatment was absolutely free! How miraculous was that! She acknowledged that this was definitely a move of God, all glory to Him!
The way I see it is that He kindly gave us 2 more weeks with her to say our goodbyes – and we didn’t even have to pay for the privilege of it.

God, the gentle Archaeologist

I had finally managed to get to church that Sunday morning. If the devil had succeeded in his plans I may not have seen what God so graciously showed me.

I stood in powerful praise and worship. All of a sudden I saw myself standing over South Africa. I bent down and started to pick it up at its tip and it snapped off like a piece of matzah. I lifted South Africa up and handed it to the Lord. He had an archaeologist’s round brush in His hand and He started dusting off the surface of the country by twisting the brush clockwise and counter-clockwise to remove all the dust, debris and dirt lying on top. And the more He dusted the more pure gold became revealed beneath the surface!

Archeologists use soft bristled brushes to take great care in removing debris and dirt from fragile artifacts to prevent them from getting damaged. This tells me that South Africa is a very fragile country, considering our past and present, and only the precious hand of God can gently deal with removing the debris that is blocking people from receiving the gospel. Only God’s mighty plans and purposes can reveal the gold that lies beneath! Amen Jesus!

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

I have always wondered what worship sounds like to God from way up there. I also often wondered if this is why God created different time zones, so that He is worshiped constantly in a 24 hour time span.

This mashup by Louis Giglio is probably the best 15 minutes I have spent on youtube ever, well worth the watch!

One morning while reading a newspaper, Jarbas Agnelli saw a photograph of birds on an electric wire. He cut out the photo and was inspired to make a song using the exact location of the birds as musical notes. He was curious to hear what melody the birds created.
He sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the newspaper. It ended up Winner of the YouTube Play Guggenheim Biennial Festival.
Just have a listen below at how incredible this sounds. I wonder if God sees this as worship:

Bent Bows

“For look! The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalms 11:2-3

Satan’s hindrances to God’s plans and purposes in your life can be extremely frustrating but it is almost an encouragement too, because you know you’re on the right track.
Since the beginning of February I had been getting very strange heart palpitations, jumps and flutters that I’ve never experienced before. I had terrible shortness of breath, even when sitting still, and excruciating back pain, especially when I ate. The shortness of breath was making me dizzy too.

I had x-rays on my lungs and all sorts of heart tests done. From the lung x-ray, my Doctor told me I was all clear but had a nurse walk in to tell me that I “have pleural thickening on my lungs which basically means it is affecting my heart and my heart will grow too big for its cavity and I will be on medication for the rest of my life.” I’ve never been exposed to elements or situations that will cause pleural thickening anyway! I didn’t pray though, I ran out of there crying like a baby! Sigh. The only thing I managed to do was rebuke and renounce the words she spoke over me. When I calmed down I only managed to tell God “just use this for Your glory.”
But then I thought, “Oh no, what about the fast for the country? What if I can’t participate now?” Cut a long story short, all my tests came back 100% clear, and another Doctor I saw was quite irritated with the report the nurse gave me and basically said she was talking rubbish! So what’s that about?

Then, everything was working against me to get to church one Sunday after all that, which was the same Sunday that kicked off the 40 day fast for the country. My car decided it wanted the battery to pack up last week Friday, which means I had to send it in for a service. Not having a car was not a worry as I use my husband’s if I need it. But lo and behold, a client decided to call my husband Saturday night asking him to come into his workplace for assistance early Sunday morning! Which NEVER happens! Ever! Now what? My parents were away for the weekend, I needed a car to get to church! I refused to miss church for the world so I prayed; and my friend, sick in bed, rebuked Satan’s hold over this in Jesus name too. Ten minutes after that my husband pulled into the driveway much earlier than expected and said the client called him on the way and cancelled him having to come in! Hallelujah! I grabbed the keys and off I went to church! If Satan got his way I would have missed out on something God wanted to show me during praise and worship about South Africa, which will be my next post…

Satan may be bending his arrow toward you right now, but when he drags you back with difficulties, it means God is counterattacking by trying to launch you into something great! Keep focus. Keep aiming.

“He bends His bow and makes it ready.” Psalms 2:12

Divinely Appointed Labourers

God is the Master Orchestrator, there is nothing more exciting than seeing Him in action!
I have written before how I have been praying and fasting for my dad’s salvation, and how God revealed to me the hindrances that surround him receiving this gift.

There is no use anymore talking to my dad about Jesus as he gets irritated and I see this resilience wrap around him. I would like to say his eyes glaze over, but no, there’s just fiery irritation. So I have been praying that the Lord sends other labourers to cross my dad’s path that he will listen to, and that anything they say about God will be like a fragrance diffused all around him (2 Cor 2:14).

My dad never liked Jewish people – for what reason, who knows? There never is a valid reason anyway, is there? That was until my gran did some research on my grandfather’s family tree and found out we have Jewish bloodline. From way back, but that was enough to make my dad change his mind! Now he thinks they’re just awesome. Fickle. Sigh. He has a lot of Jewish clients, and lately they have been talking to my dad about their culture and God. He told me that they invited him to Shul and he said, “You know what, I think I’m gonna go!”
Now that’s God in action! He may not be directly drawn toward Jesus for now, but he is, at least, toward His Father, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! I will be praying during every time he goes to Shul or interacts with his Jewish friends that God will penetrate his heart and His truth will saturate him; and that the fortresses surrounding my dad will be broken down to the point where he can see his need for a Saviour and accepts Jesus. My cousin has dreamt three times over the past two years of my dad praying and quoting Scripture out loud.

I just love how God works – the very people my dad never liked, God’s chosen, could possibly be the very same who will help draw him to the gift of salvation! Kind of makes me giggle at the sheer awesomeness of it.