Tag Archives: Strong black woman

Friday Feature: Roundup One

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God has placed some awesome natural healing practitioners in my path. Starting today, I plan to roundup some of their articles for a fourth Friday Feature. With my lay experience and their expertise there will be a wealth of information to help us strong black women be strong in body the way God intends for us to be (1 Corinthians 6:19-20.)

    • Dr. Colbert tells us about The Most Important Nutrient in the Body.
    • Dr. Cherry speaks about necessary enzymes in God’s Pathway to Healing for Digestion.
    • Mike Adams, the Health Ranger and editor of NaturalNews.com, says Dangerous Chemicals in Personal Care Products Compromise Health

    • What do you think you might do as a result of reading these articles?

    Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

    Friday Feature: Baking Soda

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    Buy one, get one free. Get two for one. Fifty percent off sale. However it’s termed, I think we all like a deal where we get more when we only spend for one. What bothers me, though, is when I can’t use the second item or don’t want it. I usually have that problem with clothes at a discount store where the inventory is already limited. I have a hard time finding another item to complete my deal. I’m so glad this is not the case with several natural, non-toxic household products I use. I get more than a ‘two for one’ with most of them, and for a recovering strong black woman trying not to have a specific something for everything, that’s definitely a break that I more than welcome.

    Baking soda
    The advertisement on the box doesn’t exaggerate. There is a bunch of ways to use baking soda. Of course I use baking soda to clean my teeth if I run out of toothpaste and have used some with water the rare times I get heartburn, but following are the ways I use baking soda on a regular basis:

  • Cleaning fresh fruit and vegetables.

    • I wet fruit then rub a little baking soda on each piece. For soft produce and items that have a lot of ground in dirt, like beets, I soak them in a half sink-full of cold water with about a tablespoon of baking soda for about ½ hour. This is my preferred way to clean my mustard, turnip and collard greens. I rinse with cool water after rubbing and soaking.

  • Cleaning sinks and tubs.

    • After the boxes I use to deodorize the refrigerator and freezer need to be changed, I use these old boxes as cleansers for my bathroom and kitchen. This is the ultimate two for one!

  • Tenderizing greens.

    • Sometimes I just can’t find the small (young) collard green leaves, only the large ones, which are almost always tough. If cooking them a little longer than usual doesn’t work or I don’t have time to cook them for extra time, I put a pinch or two of baking soda in the pot toward the end of the cooking cycle. They easily go from tough to tender in a matter of minutes. I also use this method with other tough greens.

  • Cleaning my locks.

    • When I wore my hair straight and had product build up on my strands and my regular shampoo wouldn’t work, I would just switch to a different shampoo. That doesn’t always work with my dreadlocks. A natural hair care specialist gave me the tip of cleaning my locks with baking soda and this has worked well for me: I pour the desired amount of baking soda in a dish with enough water to make a paste. I then take the paste and rub it vigorously on a group of locks, particularly the ones where I can clearly see product and dirt build up. I rinse with warm water and my hair is literally squeaky clean. The baking soda can be drying so I make sure to follow up with a hot oil treatment.

    I hope these tips are as helpful for you as they are for me. Besides for baking, what are some ways that you use baking soda?

    Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

    Satisfying God

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    Light a candle for the Holy Spirit, let His figure be the one invited person we’d hope would come, show up to cover us with His presence, illuminate our lives, giving direction, showing where we need correction and peace. We need Him here, always, stroking our lives, making us whole and holding us captive with great fear, an awe of His presence, His likeness, His coming near to us, helping us. He’s the Helper, if we let Him. He’s our guide, if we choose not to do this on our own. He’s our shield, protecting us from us and others. He’s Lord, leading us down righteous pathways, the place we belong.

    He’s calling us, in whispered songs and we hear the melody floating above our heads, in our heads. We long for and like the words, but they are too simplistic to us. We want better, want more than what He sings. We bring our requests through ignoring the songs, refusing to sing the lyrics, hum the tunes in our hearts. Our dark, dry souls can’t see and are thirsty. Our candle is quenched, and we have snuffed our sight. We are not satisfied satisfying God.

    This is His request: Be satisfied satisfying Me. This is the great challenge of my too often discontented soul, the strong black woman one who always wants more and so little of that has to do with God. I yearn through faithfulness and obedience, putting the spiritual above the physical, to be satisfied by satisfying God. Yearn with me. Joy with me in bringing joy to God.

    Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

    The Valentine’s Day Gift

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    Each time I was pregnant, I craved burgers. I devoured patty melts my first go around, Wendy’s double cheese burgers my second go around and White Castle burgers with my third pregnancy. While I had a great love affair with burgers, I declare I wouldn’t want my husband to try to woo me with a burger, even though this is what White Castle is encouraging.

    Did you see this ad? While I commend the fast food chain for capitalizing on broke people who like sliders and people who just want to show their loved ones some love, I just don’t think White Castle is special enough to give as a Valentine’s Day gift. White Castle is something you crave in the moment, get in the drive through when you’re in a hurry, buy when you can’t afford something else or grab when you don’t feel like cooking. White Castle just doesn’t seem special enough for the special person in your life.

    The more I thought about how I would feel if my husband took me to White Castle for a Valentine’s dinner, I thought about how God, our first love, feels when we give Him the spiritual equivalent of a White Castle dinner: When we only read our bible when the moment hits us, only say a couple of words to Him as we rush out the door, or go to Him when nothing else has worked or when there’s nothing else to do. While these are probably not the pattern for most of us, I’m sure we have been guilty of at least one of these at some point in our Christian walk. I know that I, trying to balance all that strong black women are expected to balance, have given God some White Castle love. Yes, we all have extenuating circumstances, like perhaps sickness and caring for a new baby, but when we constantly let life get in the way of our fellowship with the person who gave us life, we have to make some adjustments, including planning better so God gets our very best.

    This Valentine’s Day I want you think about how you plan to upgrade your gifts to God. I’m not necessarily talking about giving more money to Kingdom work, though some of you may need to do that. If you’ve been giving Jesus White Castle burgers with your time and talent, I want you to figure out how to give Him filet mignon. I want you to give Him whatever your best is. And as you know, He is worth every ounce and then some.

    Read what an exSuperwoman is doing with her gifts this Valentine’s Day at Confessions of an ExSuperwoman.

    Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

    Friday Feature: Free Flowing

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    It’s so easy to give up after trying hard at something and not seeing the results you expected. I know. I’ve done this in trying to improve my digestive health. The change in eating certain foods, the increase in enzymes and even more water just didn’t seem to be working for me at one period. I finally realized that more water and fruits and vegetables for me meant more than the average person. My major increase helped, but I was still having a bit of sluggishness until I discovered that I needed to do the following to keep my colon free flowing:

      1) Avoid mucous-forming foods (also known as acid-forming foods), like cheese. Mucous can get caught on your intestinal walls and block the free flow of waste through and out of your system.
      2) Drink room temperature beverages with meals. Many of us love an ice cold glass of water, but cold and food don’t mix well. Cold drinks can solidify your food and keep it from flowing freely.
      3) Drink 32 ounces of room temperature purified water first thing in the morning. This helps my digestive tract get going after its rested overnight. I also have a friend who drinks a hot cup of water first thing in the morning. She says this does natural wonders for her system.
      4) Drink a freshly squeezed juice or vegetable drink in the morning. This also helps my digestive tract get going immediately.
      5) Drink a hot beverage after a meal. I like to drink tea. Hot drinks help to “melt” foods, helping them break down and allowing them to move easier. Sometimes for an extra boost I select fenugreek tea, which loosens mucous and is a natural diuretic.

    If you are on the quest for better help, please don’t give up. Sometimes we strong black women think we have too much going on to work so hard on an issue like digestion. After all, we’ve dealt this long with a sluggish system; we can survive, some of us might think. But you don’t know this. God gave us everything we need for life and godliness. Taking care of our bodies in every way we can gives us life and helps us to be godly because we are honoring our bodies, the temple of the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost, God Himself, deserves the best. We should give our best whenever and wherever we can.

    Copyright 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith