We learned early in our married life that the corporate business world isn’t a friendly place for a middle aged man; the best work Bruce has found for his master’s degree was $24k plus benefits as a curriculum counselor for a local university and he was laid off after two years. Bruce prefers working for himself anyway, so he has made his living teaching adult education courses– team building workshops, CPR/First aid, and safety training for most of our married life. He is doing what he loves. I retired as an art illustrator after thirty-one years to stay home with our kids. I picked up my pencils and paints for portrait work in 2005 after Jenna and Winn were both in school full time. Building our businesses has been rewarding but money always is in short supply. We are a rather typical American family, complete with an equity line second mortgage on the house and credit card debt that never seems to go away.
We have budget guilt for taking four days off for a short family trip to Arkansas. I buy most of our clothes at SA Limited (Salvation Army), our food comes from Aldi’s. As Dave Ramsey would say, it has been rice and beans, and beans and rice for several years so we can do a few major things like keeping the children in a very economically priced private school. God has been very good to us though, and he is showing us His wonderful plan for us. I admit my weakness, however, even considerable worry, as we have seen our resources eaten away by the stock market plunge in 2001, budget short falls, and high prices at the pump.
Fifteen years out from our wedding day, we are 60years old, facing college expenses for Jenna and Winn in the next five to ten years, a sizable mortgage left on a 30 year note for our modest house, and a need to create some sort of cushion so that Jenna and Winn won’t rue the day they were adopted by a couple of brain dead middle-aged yuppies. All to be done within the next ten to fifteen year span of time. We will be 75.
My health - a huge pain in the back!
Over the last 5 years my health has slipped. I have developed arthritis in my hands and lower back. Household chores became torturous sharp pains grabbed my lower right side. The outside of my left leg would tingle. I was bushed by 7pm every night. For the last solid year I have been taking 1200mgs ibuprofen and 1000mgTylenol split between morning and evening doses to manage the pain. Our family doctor put me on Prilosec to protect my stomach. If I dared miss my morning dose, by 10am or noon, at the latest, the spasms would force me to take it, and it would take the rest of the day to stabilize the pain.
In 2006, a hospital stay for a strep infection and foot surgery turned up some heart irregularities. I was put on three drugs to correct a low pumping action and an enlarged ventricle. In the past 5 years I went from taking no drugs to six.
My health was going downhill and no way in sight to change direction. What was life going to be like for my whole family in ten years? A prayer was on my lips continually as I wondered how we were going to make it through our remaining years and not be in want or able to enjoy our life. The American way was not offering optimistic answers, and our future was bleak and not a pretty thing to contemplate. This was not the sort of life I had expected. My faith was wavering, I was losing grip on my hope.
Jim and Lou, the Water Men!
I learned about their water from a reading club friend. After she mentioned it a couple of months running, I decided to try the water. I drove 20 miles to her house for the first sample and then called Jim to arrange for more water to be delivered to my home. After 12 days, I decided to try going without the pain meds. I went a whole week without them! The grabbing pains were gone and the general aching across my back was improving and manageable without the pills. I was gaining stamina and energy. A bad case of hang nails and small cuts on my fingers had healed up. I used the disinfectant water to clear up athlete’s foot. I even lost 15 pounds of ugly fat. I was amazed that simply drinking water could melt away 5 years of increasing back pain and annoying problems in less than two weeks!
I could think more clearly; I wasn’t anxious anymore; I was sleeping better at night. I’m not sure I can credit the actual water alone, though. It was more that for the first time, I saw hope and had a peace that everything was going to be alright. Here was a way to change direction and improve my life. I could put this health car in reverse.
Jim brought me water from Kansas, over 30 miles away one-way, for three months before Bruce & I decided to buy our own machine. Jim didn’t pressure me to buy, but as he shared the water with me, he asked me how I was feeling and if I noticed any benefits. Jim told me what he had learned about acidosis and what he was doing for himself to improve his health even more, i.e. eating more alkaline foods, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I was tough to convince – not because my physical health hadn’t been helped by the water or didn’t believe the stories of improved health other people were telling, but because I didn’t see how we could afford such an expense. And when Jim & Lou told us how our family financial health could also benefit by sharing our water with others, this was also difficult at first for me to visualize. Bruce is a teacher. I am an artist. It is important to us to do what we love most. We consider our businesses more of a ministry than a mere means of earning a living.
Yet we were open, though, to divine direction to do whatever is needed to help others as well as ourselves. This is an unexpected, new path for us, but it allows us to speak health, hope, happiness, and prosperity to our family, friends, and strangers alike. Surprisingly, it has become another passion for us, telling everyone we know that God is bringing all of us help to regain our physical, financial, and spiritual health. This water ministry-business is the first - and the most important - of many things we have learned recently which we are passing along.
I could finally see that a wonderful opportunity had been placed in my lap. For me, it is God’s answer to my prayer in such a marvelous way, and far beyond what I would have ever dreamed. From the moment I started feeling the benefits of drinking the water I began thinking of so many others the water would help. It is a pleasure to share a message of compassion with this water. It is a pleasure to give help and hope to my family and friends, and even strangers who have been struggling the same as I had.
Muriel L.
[Postscript: Muriel's machine ending up costing her nothing and in fact has become for her & Bruce a key income stream for her familiy's finances; a byproduct of her being about her new ministry work, compassionately helping over 65 others with their and their loved ones health and financial challenges.]
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