Getting Well God's Way

     Hi, my name is Kathy Bates

     I’ve recently published a book that’s taken 27 years to bring it to it’s peak purpose and the timing couldn’t be better with our world in it’s current state of upheaval.  The book was inspired by my story of gradually failing health, which became noticeable in 1985 but deteriorated rapidly after the birth of my only child in 1987.  I was a typical American, church-goer, mom and wife which meant that I turned to the mainstream ideas of Christianity (faith) and allopathic medicine (Rx drug philosophy) in an effort to get well.  After seeing eleven doctors in eighteen months I had to admit that I was in worse condition so I canceled the remaining medical tests and doctor appointments and slid down the wall of my kitchen and cried out to God. Because I truly believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience it only made sense to seek guidance from THE spiritual source, THE CREATOR, my Heavenly Father. Psalm 33:22 in the Amplified version of the Bible held a clue. “May your loving kindness and mercy be available to me in proportion to my waiting and hoping in you.”  Ha. I’d been waiting in doctor’s offices and hoping they had my answers.  No wonder it wasn’t working.   

     I felt that God would have no agenda other than my highest good; I simply needed to learn to hear His guidance.  I KNEW GOD WAS REAL because He met me in the trenches in a powerful way in 1982, shared on page 1 of the book.  I already knew that He could hear me, and would respond. I just didn’t understand why it hadn’t happened yet and was about to realize that I was going to have to go to a deeper level in my spiritual walk to get these answers.  2 Peter 1: 5-7 talks about adding desirable traits to your faith so you won’t fail; things such as virtue or character, knowledge, and temperance… https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+1%3A5-7&version=VOICE

     Six months passed since I’d canceled those tests or seen any doctors and my health continued to decline but I had made a definitive decision to invest my hope in God’s faithfulness and saw no other option so I waited, this time with determined intentional listening, ready to obey.  One day a confronting event drove me to pray what I deemed a “final prayer”, which meant that I heavily contemplated my choice of words.  I was going to ask God to show up and help me one more time and if nothing happened, then I would accept what seemed like my fate and learn to do it with grace.

     The event that unfolded was a profound spiritual manifestation and I was immediately given an amazing embrace, heard spoken reassurance, a conditional warning, and then I was led into a life-changing relationship with God regarding how to restore and maintain my health.  I became immersed in books about people overcoming disease, mainly by a change in their diet but He certainly made sure to put some reading that was outside of my comfort zone on the list. Some of this information would only make sense many years later.  Sure enough, as I changed my ways, I was rewarded with deeper knowledge and experiences with specific information that led me into full recovery.  I was able to reverse my Hashimoto’s Autoimmune Disease and Advanced Cervical Degenerative Disc Disease and eventually resolve the Fibromyalgia flare events, and reversed eleven years of crippling sciatica. 

     Much of what I needed to know was outside the bounds of conventional thought and medical ideas, which means I would’ve never found the answers I needed had I maintained the approach adopted and ordained by Christianity.  It was through this journey that I began to see how Christianity had abandoned God’s ways detailed throughout the Bible and put the world’s ways in their place. If you’re trying to build a church business that’s a good way to get customers in the seats but if you’re trying to please God, that’s a really ignorant thing to do and scripturally promises some tough consequences for those who use God to build a business.  As for those sitting in the pews, you’re about to see the dangers of being in groups where a “hive” mindset or “collective consciousness” forms. Churches are no exception! They may be well-intentioned but humans are humans. Put them in groups and some strange ideas can become cemented, even if they’re wrong.  When you add the religious element it can get even more unbalanced.

     So here I am, God is leading me to the truth that high-quality, whole, unprocessed, fresh foods were His desire for me. He showed me that my body is a temple for the Holy Spirit and I should regard it as such.  Unfortunately every church I attended had Coke machines and junk food widely available, chronic and recurrent disease among its members, and literally no knowledge about how to pursue health outside of the hope for a Divine miracle or a traditional medical doctor’s perceived magic.  “Hell-be-damned” with what any statistics say, “Ignorance is bliss and Jesus loves me” was about the depth of their knowledge.  The over-emphasis on teachings such as “we’re free in Jesus” and “by His stripes we are healed” without any stipulation of the conditions that often accompany God’s promises, collectively presents an idea that Christians are void of responsibility for their health. Even further, this claim is often tied to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as if to say, “Jesus died so I don’t have to be a mature, knowledgeable, self-disciplined person.  It’s led to a prevailing belief that Christians can be ignorant and irresponsible, dismissive of any duty or responsibility, as if any laws don’t apply to them however, I don’t see them trying this attitude with the law of gravity.  Honestly, it’s become nonsensical.  Finally, because the Spirit-led information I was being taught was so contrary to their model I became curious to learn the actual teachings in the Bible.  Wow!  How is it possible to miss the volume of scriptures that support a disciplined and informed lifestyle which benefits the individual, the corporate testimony of Believers, the community, the economy, and ultimately glorifies God, validates the truths in the Bible, and promotes the right people, products and ideas?

     Although I gratefully relied on the skills of surgeons after a broken spine in 1994, I haven’t been to a mainstream medical doctor for illness since 1989. Can you imagine if this were true for most of Christianity? And it correlates perfectly with when I brought my physical health into my spiritual and devotional life.

     I was also given a gift of healing in 1991 and told not to tell my pastor or promote it in the church as it was basically for my own education.  I didn’t understand that at the time but God clearly brought specific people into my life for me to learn on and then used this experience to show me the crazy ideas present especially among the Body of Christ.  The most prominent lesson was on the futility of healing someone who wasn’t willing and/or didn’t know how to maintain their health which would squander His gift.  God continued my education and had some very confronting words to say about this behavior, especially that it’s encouraged in churches.  Another interesting set of revelations was the common heart attitude seen in those who did receive healing.  They were zealous in love and service to Him with fiercely teachable spirits.  Those who were not healed had traits of being selfish, worldly, and unteachable.  They often had some idea they were hanging on to or a benefit they were receiving from being sick or injured. Surprisingly some were healed in spite of themselves.  There is much to teach the Body of Christ on this one topic alone.

     In 1994 more knowledge was required after a broken spine and a second serious spinal injury within 18 months requiring three surgeries and drastically affected my life for eleven years.  These were not accidents but were foretold by God and noted in the journals I’ve been keeping since 1989.  These events brought in a necessity for me to submit to even more learning as I again had to rely on God to teach me how to heal the variety of pain that this brought into my life.  In my view I had three choices.  I could become a prescription drug addict, end my life, or get well.  I clung tightly to God and allowed Him to use this experience to further teach me about the human body.  It was a tough curriculum but highly beneficial.

      Overall I was shown how the way we eat, live and medicate promotes products, ideas, people and companies and will ultimately create the culture we live in.  One charter school for troubled youth in Appleton, Wisconsin demonstrates clearly how food affects behavior.  The environment was so violent that a policeman interviewing for a security job refused to take the job out of fear for his life.  Paul and Barbara Stitt, two people with a profound story of their own regarding the power of natural foods, offered the school $100,000 provided they be allowed to take over the food. The school accepted and all un-natural foods were taken from the campus.  One year later there was no violence, no absentees, no attitude issues and the kids were focused on physical fitness and their academic future.  The same is true for a prison system that Barbara Stitt was in charge of.  Bringing in nutritious food dropped the theft rate by 73% and a similar drop was seen in violence.  (YouTube.com has many videos about Paul and Barbara Stitt).  These events should’ve changed our culture permanently but that doesn’t happen because there’s no sustained awareness.  Eat your vegetables, drink plenty of water and exercise doesn’t drive a lot of profit.  It’s powerfully simple wisdom that requires a higher consciousness to fully embrace.  If there isn’t a lot of profit in something then there’s no money for media coverage.  Over-the counter and prescription drugs, manufactured food, soft drinks, alcohol, insurance companies, banks, entertainment, restaurants and the like are what produce enough profits to have industry representatives, lobbyist’s and commercials.  One Facebook graphic suggests that you “Don’t eat anything that has a commercial.”  So, what does this have to do with churches?

     According to a recent search on Google I was encouraged to learn that 73% to 88% of this nation identifies themselves as Christians (including Jehovah’s Witness’ and Mormons).  That tells me that anything we get behind as a group could be aggressively influenced.  Scripturally we are called to shape the culture around us through standards of holiness which would obviously empower the right things.  The Bible also leans heavily towards stewardship, wisdom and inherent consequences for doing otherwise.  We live in a world where neurological and environmental poison is knowingly introduced into our food supply, fed to our children and incorporated into our everyday life while wisdom, sanity and non-toxic cures are considered “alternatives.”

     One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Edward R. Murrow, a days-gone-by radio host I believe.  He said, “A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves.”  At the moment I’m typing this, this nation has just spent almost $1 Billion on what is apparently a failed attempt to launch a government effort to provide health insurance for its citizens, or the poor, or whatever term you care to give it.  When I began this journey I was suffering with chronic allergies and asthma.  I had severe PMS, mood swings, suicidal depression, infertility, severe digestive problems, low blood sugar and Hashimoto’s Disease.  I had chronic fatigue and cervical degenerative disc disease, an immobilized metabolism, bursitis, a chronically dislocating shoulder, and recurrent urinary and respiratory infections.  I was taking all the typical remedies with all the empty explanations of “unexplainable but normal” and “incurable” and multiple dismal projections including total cervical fusion by 1993.

     Mainstream Christian ideas and mainstream medicine both failed to provide answers I needed to get well from illness or injury and both lay claim to having insider information.  If I can ever get the populace to realize that the consumer is the most powerful force on the planet and link that with their spiritual and devotional efforts, we may change the world.  The consumers decide consciously what kind of world they choose to create by making conscious purchases.  If it’s garbage and undermines health, stop buying it!  What kind of world do you want to live in and leave to your children?   In fact, everything I did and continue to do to get well and stay well is/was not covered by my health insurance.  Health insurance will not cause you to eat right and exercise.  And if you know how to get well and stay well then the odds of you actually needing medical intervention are quite slim.  However now that the culture, (including the churches), has behaved like sheep and lived an unthinking life, propelling a self-feeding and toxic cycle, it has indeed ushered in a wolf pack government that stands to further wreck our economy by feeding the delusion that health insurance makes people healthy.  If the citizens were healthy there wouldn’t be this perceived need.  Again, with the churches making up a large majority of the culture we could have and should take this on as a spiritual challenge to positively redirect this culture.  I have said and will continue repeating that one of the most patriotic things you can do for your country is to “get healthy!”  If you have to drive a lesser car or scale down your house, jewelry or travels then so be it but it’s time to truly examine this culture and to start supporting the things that REALLY matter.  Things that are priceless, like our health, shouldn’t be taken for granted.

“Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.”  JFK, Jr.      

     While our soul may be saved through faith, the teachings regarding stewardship of our physical man have been largely ignored which has contributed heavily to this junk-culture we now live in and God is asking us to change this NOW!!!  If you stop buying it they’ll stop making commercials about it and start making commercials about what we are buying.  The consumer gives things value or negates their value.  God is asking us to take a serious look at what’s valuable.

     I learned early on that not only was the Christian community off-course in this area they were not in any way welcoming of ideas that would require them to give up their soft drinks and junk food to the point of blatant hostility.  Sadly this has not changed in my 27+ years on this journey.  I finally stopped going to church because it was too painful to watch.  Although my relationship with God is alive and well I no longer want to be part of a religious system that would adamantly reject deeper knowledge to protect a carnal appetite.

     When we eat, live and medicate in a way that promotes chemically-laden, toxic foods, and the goofy idea that we can take chemical drugs or buy health insurance that will “keep us healthy” this will obviously fail us as a culture.   This way of life profits junk food manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies who then make hefty financial contributions to career politicians whose very careers hinge on donations so then they become dependent on this “dirty money” so they propel legislation forward that protects, promotes and prospers a self-feeding agenda that unfortunately only functions when citizens are sickly.  These fortified companies are undermining our food, drastically limiting our medical views in favor of an elite group that does not have the best interest of the individual or society in mind and typically destroying our environment.  This entire cycle is created by the consumer!  The Body of Christ has an opportunity as a major consumer group to change what is being promoted!  You’ve likely heard of voting with your wallet.  Personally I think God’s desire is for Christians to be so committed to their devotion in their everyday life that the politicians would be pandering to us and the businesses we support.  Can you see how the leverage can be shifted?  We empower or destroy.

“What you do not understand, you will not value.  What you do not value, you will destroy.”

     I was eventually led to become a licensed massage therapist in 1995.  I’ve had some amazing experiences as opportunities presented while working with clients which let me know that I don’t work alone.  I don’t mean to sound weird, just factual and hopefully inspiring to others to seek a similar experience.  We are after all mere humans who in my view could use some help.  Unfortunately the culturally-conformed way of insurance-reliance and a traditional medical approach eliminates many qualified practitioners like me from people’s pursuit of health.  One of God’s early revelations was my need to go to practitioners as directed by Him rather than only those paid for by my insurance.  It had never occurred to me that this American way was limiting God’s ability to lead me to the needed answers. He also wanted me to invest in my health, in myself. It’s kind of a grown up thing to do.

     Early in my journey God’s spirit would constantly whisper the word “Holiness” which I later learned has the same Anglo-Saxon root word as “health” so they are obviously related.  Another time I was cooking my healthy dinner and He spoke, “This is your worship.”  These insights helped me see that this way of life was a manner of honoring God with my physical body which is certainly established through many scriptures.  Scripturally we are called to conform the culture to God’s ways but the churches have instead become conformed to the world and its ways and has certainly created a less than holy and less than healthy nation.

     “We, God’s church, are the greatest hindrance to revival.  We need not wrestle revival from the hands of a reluctant God.  Revival is a gift, not a goal.  God is simply looking for a decent place to put one.  As we become that holy place, we will see the knowledge of His glory cover our nation as the waters cover the sea!” 

Eddie Smith, U. S. Prayer Center

      If your group is ready to be challenged and encouraged in a spiritual activist fashion I’d love to talk to them.

     Peace and Blessings,

     Kathy Bates

You can request a signed copy of the book by hitting the CONTACT button at the top of this website where you’ll send me a message. You can send a donation for the book + shipping through the link on the right side of the page. Suggested Donation is $34.50 + $10 for shipping inside the USA. Outside the USA postage to be determined.

You can also purchase/explore the book listing and some reviews on Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Well-Gods-Kathy-Bates/dp/1508839514/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=getting+well+gods+way+by+kathy+bates&qid=1619377300&sr=8-1

Note: This is a 358 page, 8.5 x 11 “dense and intense” book best read in paperback in my opinion. Go check out the other reader comments on this blog and you’ll see what readers have been saying about it.

Below is the link telling the God-story of how we were SENT to the Ozark mountains: https://neighborsorganizingagainsttrespassingtechnology.blog/2018/09/07/sent-the-back-story/