I received an “offer” from a health insurance company today.  I applied a couple of weeks ago through my financial advisor for a new health insurance policy because the premiums were going up on my existing plan.  I remember sitting there with him and saying, “okay, so, basically, they raise the premium every year on all of their clients and don’t offer them the opportunity to change their coverage.  It’s ‘take it or leave it?’”  ”Yep.” He said.  So, I said, “so, you have to apply with another company, fill out all the paperwork, give the blood, wait for them to pour over your records and then take whatever the new company offers?”  ”Yep.” He said again.  So I said, “Well, what if they just didn’t raise the premiums every year and saved all the man hours it takes (for the insurance co. and for me) to go through this process annually.  Would they maintain their profit margins just by saving trees and labor?”  ”Yep.  Probably.”  He said.  ”If you just sign here, I can get the ball rolling.”

So, I get the call today that my health and the health of one of my sons have “exclusion riders” written into the policy.  So, there are conditions in our health that the new policy won’t cover (it doesn’t really cover much now anyway.)  I could go on and on, but I’m sure my story is not the most heart breaking one ever told.  To me, it’s been very annoying.

I got fed up and I called an organization that I had looked into several years ago, but, regrettably, never participated.  It’s called Samaritan Ministries.  It’s really great and I think my wife and I are going to take a leap of faith and get involved.  What they do is organize Christians so that they can help support needs of the body directly.  You have a monthly committment and each month the organization sends you a notice of a need somewhere in the body and you’re to send your monthly committment directly to that person or family, along with prayers.  Then, if you have a need, you apply for it to be met and they do the same for you.  It’s refreshing to see this non-profit working to help Christians support each other.  I highly recommend you look into it.

We bake bread here at the Nabb house.  We bake lots of bread.  Every week at least twice we bake four loaves of bread of which we make sandwiches, toast, spread with butter and jam or just eat.  I thought I’d share with you how we make bread and why we don’t just buy it from the store.  

I started baking bread about eight years ago.  I made bread for fun using white or wheat flour that I bought from the store.  I used my bread machine to mix the bread.  I would then take it out of the bread machine and bake it in the oven.  My husband loved coming home to a dinner with fresh baked bread.  I was still buying bread but the bar had been raised, no longer were we satisfied eating white wonder bread.  So, I learned, I asked, I read books, finding different recipes and finding the best methods to bake bread.  

When baby number three was born, much to my husbands chagrin, I laid down my bread pans for quite some time and only got them out for special occasions.   I picked them back up again when a dear sister in Christ shared with me her bread making abilities.  She came over and showed me how to make bread, gave me her recipe, gave me a wheat grinder and a 50 pound bag of wheat berries.  She told me that if I was going to bake bread that using fresh wheat was so much better for us than store-bought flour.  I didn’t really know why, but trusted her educated opinion.  

I later learned the why’s of freshly ground flour.  Wheat that has been freshly ground is truly a whole grain.  Nothing has been removed or separated or added back.  When wheat is ground it loses it’s nutritive value  quickly.  After 24 hours, it loses about 45% of it’s nutrition and after 72 hours it is virtually void of nutrition.  Flour companies extract the wheat germ because of it’s high rancidity potential.  The wheat germ is the powerhouse of the wheat berry.  It contains vitamin B and Vitamin E which are  great for our skin and heart.  The bran is also removed from store-bought flours.  Bran is the basic fiber of the wheat berry and having a diet high in fiber, as we all know, is a good way to prevent cancer.  Enriched white flour that you buy at the store is just that, the government decided some time ago that flour companies needed to add back in some good stuff after they made it “shelf stable”.  The good stuff they put back in is 3 synthetic vitamins and 1 mineral.  

If you don’t own a wheat grinder check with your local health food store, sometimes they have a grinder on premises along with wheat berries that you can grind fresh there.  The benefits to your families health is worth the extra effort.

Here is my everyday bread recipe.

This recipe is used as basis for cinnamon bread, cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, herb bread and rolls.

• Preheat oven to 375
• 2 1/4 c warm water (hot to the touch)
• 1/4 c milled flax seed (milled in a coffee grinder)
• 1/4 c canola oil
• 1/4 c honey
• 1/4 c molasses
• 2 t sea salt
• 2 T Kal’s Nutritional Yeast Flakes
• 2 1/2 T vital gluten
• 5 c fresh ground wheat flour (more flour is needed later)
• 1 T 2t Saf-Yeast Instant Yeast
   

Layer ingredients in your stand mixer or Bosch mixer, add more flour until dough pulls away from bowl, approximately 1 1/2 c.  Add back up to 2 T warm water.  Knead in mixer for 5-7 minutes at speed 2 for a Bosch or medium speed in a stand mixer.   Dough should be soft and sticky.  Turn out onto well oiled board, divide into pans and let rise 30 minutes in a warm place.  Bake at 350 for 26-35 minutes depending on the size of your pan and your oven.  Bread should sound hollow when done.   

Makes 4-1lb loaves

My husband is self employed which means we don’t have the luxury of having health insurance.  We are covered if something major happens but the little stuff is all on our own.  We also have six children and when illness strikes our home it can last for weeks before everyone gets it and it can cost a small fortune if everyone went to the doctor, and got a prescription every time.  I had a dear friend introduce me to herbal and natural remedies.  From there it took off.   I am, by no means, all-knowledgeable of herbs and their potential to heal our bodies but I am a firm believer that God has put plants, minerals and even dirt on our planet for our benefit.  We see duplicity so often in God’s creation.  God is bigger than we can imagine and his plan so intricate that virtually everything serves more than one purpose.  Plants and flowers are not only beautiful and attractive, they’re also useful to us.

 I have read many books skimmed through even more.  The first book I read was one called The ABC Herbal: A Simplified Guide to Natural Health Care for Children by Steven Horne.  Other books to check out are Mommy Diagnostics (The Art of Taking Care of Your Family) Revised & Expanded, Herbal Antibiotics: Natural Alternatives for Treating Drug-Resistant Bacteria (Storey Medicinal Herb Guide) and I found a site that is especially helpful, mountainroseherbs.com.  These are all good references but nothing is better than just starting.  

So, I began creating herbal remedies for our family to take to keep us healthy and those to take when sickness did strike.  I picked a few recipes to start with and a handful of herbs to really learn about and went from there.  The first thing I made were glycerin tinctures.  I have since moved on to make alcohol tinctures as well as vinegar tincture.  It is not uncommon for us to have garlic in our ears for earaches, take steamy peppermint baths for a fever, garlic catnip enemas are given to small children with fevers, valerian and cayenne pepper for headaches, echinacea tincture is always stocked in our fridge and probiotics are a staple.  

We do still get sick but I have noticed that we don’t get as sick as we used to and not as often.  Our bodies are working better and we are healing faster.  It is possible to take control of your own health care and to not go to the doctor as often.  Our bodies are wonderful creations and have the ability to heal themselves, sometimes the just need a little help.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.  —Proverbs 3:5-8

Recently, my husband and I had the luxury of going to this years homeschool conference in our town and, much to my delight, it was an answer to prayer.  We have one little guy that has always been what I call a hands-on learner.  Traditional methods are hard for him.  Sitting down to a workbook is not his cup of tea and would only frustrate him and me.  We know he is an extremely intelligent kid.  He has always had a huge vocabulary, but would often use phrases in confusing ways and not be able to follow two or three-step instructions.  I felt like I had this bright kid locked in side this brain and I just needed to find the right keys to get him out.  I don’t feel like we are dealing with insurmountable learning disabilities just glitches. We sat down to listen to Dianne Craft, one of the featured speakers at the conference and immediately found relief.  We could see our son in the pictures that she painted of children with the same glitches as him.  

She has a book called Brain Integration Therapy.   In her book, she teaches you, the parent, to help retrain your child’s brain to move things such as writing from the right side of the brain to the left side.  Dianne Craft also talks about what she calls  The Biology of Behavior. This is how our gut and the gut-ecology, as she called it, can determine how we feel, act, behave and even learn. Yeast over-growth is the main culprit along with insufficient serotonin. Come to find out that these two things are related. I invite you to take a look at her site www.diannecraft.org and read through some of the handouts she has.  She lists other resources as well for further reading and investigation.

Dianne Craft has a Master’s Degree in special education and is a Certified Natural Health Professional. She has a private consultation practice, CHILD DIAGNOSTICS, Inc., in Littleton, Colorado.

I held the poor boy’s head as he leaned over the toilet heaving and I just thought how pleased am I that he is now old enough to know to run to the bathroom first, then seek out parental assistance.  How many times, parents, have you been awakened in the middle of the night by a child, “Daddy?  I think I’m gonna be…BLEEECCCHH!”  I expressed my great satisfaction in his course of action and told him how proud I was of him and that I really hope he feels better soon.  

My wife and I pulled out an extra mattress onto the boys’ bedrooom floor for him to try and give him and his brother some space (they share a bed).  I asked him to lay with his head opposite his brother’s (the mattress is on the floor between their bed and the door.)  After dealing with this as much as we have, I know it’s only a matter of time before the culture growing in our other little “petri dishes” bears fruit in much the same fashion, so I wanted the path between my next oldest son and the bathroom to have the least resistance possible.  We tucked him in and laid the baby back down (he was awakened during the “upheaval”) and came back downstairs.

So, we’re stocking up on bedsheets, towels and making sure there are plenty of extra pajamas, clorox wipes and washcloths around for the coming storm.  To try and defeat the coming bug we have several weapons in our arsenal.  Mainly, probiotics for good digestive health, lots of handwashing, tinctures and plenty of water.  Oh yeah, and if you’re fighting the 24-hour flu, it never hurts to remind all of them, when your tucking their little full tummies into bed, where the bathroom and nearest garbage cans are and that you will come running if you hear them.

My biggest struggle in these situations is having a good attitude at 3 in the morning when I’m standing in the driveway hosing off a comforter.  Many times I’ve jumped out of bed in a huff because somebody just sat there, in bed, mouth gaping open.  I can’t stay mad long, though, because they’re so sad (especially the little ones) and really need me.  My wife and I made a deal, she takes care of the giving birth part and I clean up vomit.  Funny enough, when we’re in the middle of either, the other one feels like they got the better deal.  Well, I’m off to stock up on some sleep…it’s going to be a long night.  God bless.

By Cindy Nabb

Avocados, I love them.  There are so many reasons to love avocado.  The are a great source of good fat, fat without cholesterol,  vitamin K, and many others.  Avocado is a perfect baby food.  My little guy trembles with joy when I am cutting into his daily avocado.  It mashes to a perfect texture for little ones and it even comes in it’s own bowl, how great is that?  Most of us just eat guacamole and call that good but consuming more of this wonderful fruit could change our overall health.  Avocados contain more potassium than a banana and are full of vitamin E.  Avocados are not only good in our bodies but on our bodies too.  Mash up half an avocado, 1 tsp lemon juice and an egg white use it as a facial mask, add some oats for an exfoliating scrub.  Replace the lemon juice with 1Tbsp olive oil and apply it to your hair (use more avocado for longer hair),  makes for silky, moisture rich hair.    The oil of avocados have been used to make cosmetics and soap.  We use avocado oil in a soap that we make and it has become my favorite soap.  It is so silky and smooth.  It leaves my skin feeling clean yet rehydrated.   

Next time you are at the grocery store pick up a few slightly firm avocados if you plan on eating them right away.  Put them in the fridge to slow down the ripening.  If you find your avocados need to be ripened/softened a little place them in a paper bag on the counter and they will ripen faster.  Make some guacamole, slice it on a salad or sandwich, add a little salt or dip in sour cream and ENJOY! 

Check out  these avocado recipes for more avocado fun!

also www.purelightsoap.com