Beware the yeast ....

[Guest guest]

Yesterday some words jumped out at me from the page in the book of Mark as I was reading.

"Be careful," Jesus warned them. "Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod." (Mark 8:15)

I've shared with this group before the story of my good friend Lori Beauchamp. She was struck down in the prime of her life with a mysterious disease...she went from a vivacious, energetic business owner to a drooling, wheelchair bound, very ill woman with a feeding tube. She was put on life support twice in the course of her illness. She was often hospitalized and pumped full of prednisone, but nothing helped. Doctors were stumped. She nearly lost the will to live. Her husband and young son struggled for 5 long years to take care of her, and they lost everything they had in the process of this illness. Lori lost her business, her husband lost his, they lost their home, their possessions, their credit, everything but their faith. They trusted God. They didn't have any answers, but they clung to the only thing that could bring them hope and that was God. Lori is a Jewish believer in Christ. Even she, for a moment, almost lost her faith--she was near tears as she told me this part. She almost stopped believing in God because of the devastation they had been through. Eventually she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and myesthenia gravis.

At the neurosurgeons office one day, while her husband sat in the waiting room as Lori went through her various tests, he ran across a magazine with an article about a therapy a local doctor was using. Glyconutrients. He thought, "what have we got to lose?" Her husband Mike is an incredible go-getter, optimistic and made an appointment with the doctor. They didn't even have the money to buy the products, so a friend gave them the money. Before they opened the box, Lori's son said, "Wait! Let's pray over this."

Lori got started on these products and she gradually started gaining strength. Within 6 months she was able to get out of her wheelchair. Prior to that, she was told she would never walk again. Her blood work improved, and eventually went back to normal. She was able to get off almost all of her prescription drugs, which she felt were killing her. Her healing was truly a miracle. Today she lives a full, almost normal, life once again. She became a distributor of these products because her story is so compelling and she totally believes in them. They gave her and her family a purpose. Scientifically, glyconutrients have been studied, and there is evidence to support their use. But that science has been under scrutiny and politics has gotten in the way.

This is the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, which Jesus warned us about. The Pharisees were the "established order" of the day. Herod was the king. They made all the rules.

Today, Lori can no longer, by law, give her testimony of her healing. She cannot say that she was healed. She cannot talk about her glyconutrient products. Why? The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. The company whose products she was licensed to sell has come under scrutiny because it is a threat to the established order of our day.

I find that incredibly sad, unfair, suppressive, and horrible. Lori is a beautiful lady with a beautiful story of healing to tell. But she has been silenced.

Dr. Rush, surgeon general of the Continental Army stated when they sat down to sign the Declaration of Independence, "The Constitution of this republic should make special provision for medical freedom, as well as religious freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and to deny equal privileges to others, will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic."

Do we have medical freedom? I fear we are losing it because of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod. BEWARE.. BEWARE.

Patty