Share Six | Restore

As I do every month, I agonized over what route I wanted to go with my interpretation of the theme over at Share Six.  After looking the word up in the dictionary, I chose to go with this particular definition of the word.  It seems to hit home for us and what we are going through as a family.

Restore

v. to bring back to a state of health, soundness, or vigor

 Those who know us personally know that our son was diagnosed with Lyme disease over the summer.  It’s been an overwhelming couple of years trying to get to the bottom of the medical issues we’ve been dealing with.  It’s great to have an answer now, but choosing a plan of action has proven to be pretty difficult.  As with any treatment for an illness, everyone responds differently.  The bottom line is though, we want to restore health and happiness to our family.  I’ve decided to photograph some of the ways we’ve been trying to do this.

Rest/relaxation is one of things we’ve been trying to prioritize.  Thankfully we homeschool, so we have tried to adjust our schedule so that we can get as much sleep and rest as possible.  Hanging out in the hammock is one of our favorite ways to relax.

Another thing we love and that boosts our spirits is being out in nature.  We took a trip to my childhood vacation spot.  It is a little resort nestled in the Northwoods.  There are no phones and no TVs…just nature and relaxation.  Once it got dark we’d go out to the dock to view the stars and the Milky Way and listen to the call of the loon.  Trying to not get bit by mosquitoes added a whole other element to the evenings, but made for great laughter and memories….definitely healing for the soul.

Most of our days at the little resort were spent jumping in the lake.  You can’t get a whole lot more invigorating than that.  The sound of our kids’ and their cousins’ laughter echoing over the lake and through the woods was music to our ears.

Back home, we still love to get outside as much as possible.  It definitely has a healing/restoring effect.  Hikes and walks along the river are a relaxing way to end our day.

Through all of the stress this illness (and the illnesses the rest of our weakened immune systems have endured) has brought our family, we have tried to cling tighter to God’s promises.  Through Him there is restoration of body and soul.  Even though our bodies have been failing us (we’ve been sick with one thing or another since the middle of December), our souls are finding healing in God’s word.

Our biggest change we have made in order to restore health and happiness to our family is our diet.  We’ve never been very unhealthy, but we were eating things we did not realize our bodies were having a hard time breaking down.  (We have some genetic mutations.)  We are now dairy, gluten, msg, dyes, GMO, corn, wheat, soy, rice and refined sugar free.  I won’t lie, we occasionally cheat at special occasions, but otherwise our normal daily diet is free of the things listed above.  Our son is on quite a few supplements for the Lyme disease as well.  We have also taken great strides to eliminate as many toxins from our everyday environment by switching to all natural products and using glass containers instead of plastic.  It hasn’t been an easy task, but we’re hoping it will pay off in the long run and help us restore our son’s health as well as our own.

I hope you enjoyed my interpretation on this theme.  If you want to learn more about Lyme disease click here.  To learn about how it can present itself in children click here.  Unfortunately it is often misdiagnosed as other diseases and disorders, so the more people know about it, the better chance people have of being properly diagnosed.

Head over to Claire’s blog to see her take!  Continue through the circle and show our contributors your support by leaving a comment.  Don’t forget to post your own images on the theme and tag them #sharesix and #sharesix_restore !!

Thanks for stopping by!!!