My Big WHY for Juice Fasting

Today is day 24 of my 30 day juice cleanse and I have decided to write my story and what motivated me to do this. Many of you know, last month I went to the USA to do some additional study/training to add to my Naturopathy training and to attend a Young Living Retreat with my global essential oil family. My trip was so amazing and I had a wonderful time, making beautiful lifelong connections, learning, growing, upgrading, awakening with lots of tears and laughter along the way.

 My last 24 hours in the USA were not so fun because I started to have pain in my left ovary and the pain became more and more intense. My roommate Karlyn loved and served me so well, applying oils, running a bath, contacting others for support and so much more. I was so loved and supported by all my new friends and Young Living family, however, the pain only increased to the point where I was shaking and needed to go to ER. My check in time for my flight that day was 4:15pm and I arrived at ER about 11.

As the Young Living retreat was ending many had to catch flights and make the trip home, but my amazing brand new friend Leslie took me to ER.  I will forever treasure in my heart the love and care she showed me. The pain was so intense I continued to tremble and cry. I was quickly seen and taken for an ultrasound which was very uncomfortable while being in so much pain. While I was walking back to the room after the ultrasound, I was overcome with pain and emotion. Here I was, due to fly home today, and I was in ER in incredible pain. 

That’s when I broke down. I started to cry, and weep and then I was overcome with a full blown panic attack. 

Fast breathing and unrestrained sorrow poured forth from me. Leslie quickly came to me, and she embraced me. Even as I type this now, tears are filling my eyes as I recall the intensity of my pain and yet, the intensity of love that held me in that moment. I heard the overhead speakers declare that there was a panic attack taking place, and despite some of this being a blur, I was aware there was a rush of activity and a screen was placed around the area I was.

Words cannot fully describe that moment, but as you read this, I know your heart can feel my inner world. So much pain, yet so much love. So much fear, yet I was wrapped in arms of love and peace. Within a few minutes, I was able to slow my breathing down and peace overcame me. This is the first time the pain severely reduced and I knew I was going to be ok.

The rest of the story I will summarise quickly. I had a cat scan to make sure there were no other source of this pain and the ultrasound results came back inconclusive because I was shaking too much during the scans. I finally was able to get some serious pain meds to calm the pain and give me confidence that I could travel 17 hours in a plane. Leslie continually engaged my vision with hope. She kept asking me how I will feel once I am home with my family. She kept faith that I would make it to my flight and begin my journey home. I am forever grateful for her faith and love. 

As I said, my check in time was 4:15 and we made is to the airport at 5pm. Phew! I checked in and it was time for me to fly solo. I cried my way through the airport. I looked a mess, I felt a mess, but I also felt so relieved that I was beginning my journey home. I had a 2 hour flight to Houston (which I slept) and I was wheel cheered through the airport to my next flight (now that’s an experience for a young fit mama). When I awoke on my final flight home, I was pain free and have not experienced any pain since then.

Sooooo, all this to say, this was the major push to do my juice cleanse. My body had whispered in the past that there was an issue here, but this time it SHOUTED and I heard my body loud and clear. I could choose to have surgery and have the cyst on my ovary removed, or I could have faith in all that I have been learning …the healing power of food, faith, declarations, emotional release and my God given ability to heal. My good friend Jack who I met in the USA advised me that a 30 day juice feast would give my body the nutrients and time it needed to heal, and so here I am.

I used to be able to feel the cyst each day, as it was up to 10cm and caused my tummy to look bloated, so I have enjoyed seeing my tummy flatten and I can no longer feel anything there. I am overjoyed with this miracle and I am booked in for a scan to confirm what I know has happened. I know so much more has taken place in my body than I can know, so I celebrate this transformation deep within my being. I am on my final 7 days of my cleanse and then I will transition gradually into eating whole foods again next week. I am so thankful for this opportunity to upgrade my health and experience the healing power of juice feasting. 

The Importance of Recognizing Self

Yesterday I began my new assignment on the immune system as part of my studies to be a Naturopath. I love to study and learn new things and I especially love it when God begins to show me a parallel between the human body and spiritual truth. Well, I had this expectation in my spirit yesterday and as I was reading I could sense the spirit of wisdom and revelation lingering, ready to unlock some truth to me. Over the next few hours as I read and answered assignment questions I received this beautiful and timely word for the Body of Christ. I awoke today with an excitement to share it.

The one particular part of our immune response that I received revelation on was the development of self-recognition. You see, our immune system provides us with protection from ‘foreign invaders’ that seek to attack and destroy us causing sickness, death and disease. Without this system, we would easily die from invading pathogens. However, of equal importance is our system’s ability to recognise which cells are ‘self’ and which cells are ‘foreign’.

There is a very complex process that our body goes through to develop our immune system to recognise ‘self’ so that we do not attack and destroy our own cells (as seen in autoimmune diseases). There are two processes known as positive and negative selection which ‘weed out’ immune cells that do not recognise self and this is where I received revelation of what is happening in the body of Christ.

We are in a process of developing recognition of ‘self’ as the children of God. And by self, I do not mean just me as an individual. We are a body. One body. Jesus himself prayed that we would be one as He is one with the Father (John 17:21). We are in a season where we must embrace and recognize Christ in us and Christ in others and complete Oneness as a body.

There is a ‘positive and negative selection’ taking place which is eliminating those cells in the body that try to attack ‘self’. We could call it self-sabotage. See, what I didn’t tell you was that those immune cells that try to attack ‘self’ cells are destroyed. Yes your body completely annihilates these cells and entire cells lines that are ‘out of line’.

Anything we do or say that attacks ‘self’ is up for annihilation. Whether it is myself or my neighbor, my friend or another church member, my children or a careless driver, these ‘cells’ or thoughts or actions need to die. This is the process of crucifixion. For a body to thrive, we must not attack ourselves. We must rightly discern ‘foreign invaders’ and attack with full force, but we cannot live with self-sabotage.

The good news here is that the immune cells that do not attack ‘self’ are then multiplied and sent all over the body to do their job of attacking only foreign invaders. This is where my spirit is excited. There is a multiplication that is about to happen. Everything in us that walks in LOVE towards the body is about to be multiplied and sent throughout the body to deal to the real enemy.

So I am encouraged today to embrace the ‘weeding out’ process of any thoughts, ways or actions that are attacking ‘self’ which includes myself and others. Let us remember we are ONE BODY. Any thought that is less than love is not worthy to be reproduced and not worthy to ‘serve’ the body. Every time we choose love towards others and recognize that it really is our ‘self’ we are setting ourselves up for greater service towards mankind.

I pray that those who have ears to hear will hear what the spirit is saying today. I pray for grace to confess our shortcomings and ‘crucify’ anything that is less than love towards ourselves and others. I pray for an awakening to love the ‘whole body’ and begin to recognize ourselves as one body.

Much Love to you today

Rani

Love Whispers before He Shouts

God IS love. He is always speaking. He is always expressing His love towards us. Sadly, we are often not even aware of His love each day because His whisper can be drowned out by the clatter of this world.

I watched a movie last night that lingered on in my mind and heart. It lingered long enough to awaken areas of my parenting into greater love and joy (my funny accents and goofiness are back). I thought to myself, it may seem crazy but this movie has changed my life.

And then in dawned on me, the whispers in life can drastically change our lives if we choose to meditate on them and embrace the truth being spoken. However, sometimes in the busyness of life, the clatter of the world drowns out the whispers and we miss golden opportunities to grow in love. This made me ponder what maturity looks like.

I realised that…

Maturity can be measured by the level of resistance required for us to make adjustments in our lives towards greater LOVE. In other words, the mature respond to whispers.

Remember. Love whispers first. Only when we are still can we hear Him. If we constantly do not hear the whisper, love does raise His voice, because after all, He delights in loving us all. Love will speak up. Love will raise His voice. And ultimately Love will shout if necessary because Love never gives up.

Our bodies are the same. They begin by whispering to us when things are out of balance. A slightly sore knee, a sniffly nose, a headache. They all begin as whispers and if we give attention to those needs when they whisper, we find balance returns quickly.

However, if we ignore the whispers, just like Love, our bodies will raise their voice. The pain will get stronger, the symptoms will increase and the level of discomfort will increase. We have been magnificently made for balance and wholeness. If the whispers and nudges are constantly ignored, this leads to shouting which I would call chronic illness.

So if you feel that circumstances in your life are shouting at you or your body is screaming out to you, maybe it is time to pay attention. Maybe it is time to be still and ask yourself, “what is it that Love is teaching me in this season” or “What does my body require of me right now.” I dare you. Because I know Love has your best interest in mind and I know your body desires to be whole. Let us embrace the whispers of love and health today, and prevent the need for Love to shout.

May we have ears to hear what Love is whispering to us today.

Health and Harmony to you,

Raneeta Grace

The Power of Harmony

The past few years have been a wonderful journey of health and wellness for our family as we discovered the power of essential oils and natural health. It has been a fascinating journey that has opened our eyes and minds to so much more about health and wholeness. 

Along the journey of striving for good health, we discovered the most powerful protection for our family was not nutrition, essential oils or even prayer, it was actually a HOME filled with love, peace and harmony. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am ALL FOR nutrition, essential oils and prayer, in fact, I wholeheartedly embrace these things, however my journey has taught me that love, peace and harmony are the key that override it all (I was gonna say 'the key that trumps it all' but maybe that is not fitting during the US elections. lol). Psalm 133 puts it this way, "How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity (harmony)! It is like precious oil poured on the head."

I would love to be able to say that we have perfect harmony in our home, but that would be a lie. There have been many times when peace and harmony are not present in our home and fear, strife and anger have been present. In these times, I have learned about the power and protection of harmony.

Harmony is beautiful. Harmony is when everything is united in love. Harmony is a sweet sound. It is peaceful. It is blissful. When you hear a sound that is out of harmony, it creates discord. It is unpleasant. It causes us to not feel at ease. It actually causes dis-ease to your ears and being. 

That was a big clue for me right there! Dis-ease!

We were created for harmony. Our body is designed for harmony. Love, joy and peace flow freely from harmonious relationships. When there is harmony, the bible describes it like precious oil being poured on the head (Psalm 133 as mentioned above), and you know what, that oil flows down to the rest of the body.

When my husband and I are in harmony, our home is filled with love and peace. It is just incredible. The children are happy and healthy, things go smoothly and even our pets benefit from our harmony. However, when we are out of harmony because we get offended or annoyed by one another, the atmosphere of our home changes quite obviously. There is more conflict among our children, things go wrong and I have even noticed that we become more susceptible to sickness.

I have tested out this revelation time and time again, and this has only further revealed the truth about harmony. As a couple, we have learnt the power of unity and harmony. We have learnt that nothing can penetrate that bond of love. We have learnt that if the enemy cannot put a wedge in between us, he has no way of getting in at all. This is the power of harmony that has led to breakthrough after breakthrough in our home with our health, our relationships, the atmosphere of our home and our business.

It is now obvious to me why the bible says to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit (Eph 4:3) because it is SO POWERFUL! I encourage you to test this out for yourself. Place HARMONY and UNITY as the top priority for your home today and step back and watch your family blossom. Sure, it might not happen over night, but as you continue in harmony, you will see blessing after blessing flood your home, your health and your family. 

Written with much love
Raneeta

The #1 Secret Ingredient to Your Healing

I love Monarch butterflies. I love watching them, I love growing them, and I love learning from them. You see, about 3 or 4 years ago, when we first started growing butterflies at home with my children, I began to awaken to some sweet revelation about transformation. The truth is, monarch butterflies cannot transform without eating about 90% swan plant. We learned that you can feed them pumpkin when they run out of swan plant, but this is only if they are almost big enough to transform anyway.

 

So the wonderful revelation I had about the key to transformation is this. Swan Plant = LOVE.

 

Without love, we cannot and will not transform into the new creation that God has intended for us to be. And so, the secret ingredient to your healing, your families’ healing, your children’s healing is…LOVE! In the past 2 years with all that I have learned and practised on my journey to natural health, that common thread for ever healing has been LOVE. Loving others, but just as powerfully, loving ourselves! For one to truly heal, self-love is part of the journey.

Again this year, as every year, we have more caterpillars than swan plant and we run into the desperate situation of not having enough for all of our precious caterpillars to transform. And I have realised we have a shortage of LOVE worldwide. A global deficit. There are so many on their healing journey, so many who desperately want to transform and become who they were called to be, and yet, there is currently not enough LOVE around to be that secret ingredient to complete the transformation process.

 

I am challenged. I am deeply challenged. When I see caterpillars crawling off in search of food because there is none left, it touches my heart. And now with the ‘knowing’ that the same thing takes place in our world each day, that people, precious people are looking, searching, hungry for love to help them make their transformation, I am deeply challenged that I would sow more seeds of love and cultivate acres of swan plants, acres of a love culture in order to be the catalyst for true healing, transformation and freedom. It is our responsibility to plant seed, it is God who makes them grow. There is no striving in this kind of love. But there is lots of giving, feeling, connecting, enduring and persevering.

May this inspire us all to cultivate more love in our homes, our communities and our beautiful world. Everyone deserves an opportunity to transform. Let’s make sure we provide the love when it is in our power to do so.

Written with Love,

Raneeta