Author: Dara Dietz

Dara D Dietz is co-founder with her Husband of H.E.A.L. Marketplace, a private Natural Healing Association. As a teacher and counselor she has been supporting the members of H.E.A.L. with Natural Healing information and herbal supports since 1998. She continues to maintain strong ties to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Since healing her own kidney ailments she has assisted thousands of people in discovering and using natural herbal remedies. Dara has written and compiled numerous articles on a wide variety of natural healing topics. Drawing from her own healing experiences and borrowing from the vast wisdom of natural healers long departed, she continues to provide H.E.A.L.’s international membership with down to earth natural healing wisdom in H.E.A.L.’s bi-weekly newsletters. Dara and her husband currently reside in Rutherfordton, North Carolina.

Arthritis

October 13, 2026October 27, 2026 Dara Dietz

Stiff, Swollen and Painful Joints, Rheumatism, Fibromyalgia, Gout and Sciatica

Understanding the Condition

A Healthy Joint

Where two bones meet, the ends are capped with smooth, slippery cartilage. The joint is wrapped in a capsule whose lining makes a thick, clear fluid, the joint’s own oil, which keeps the cartilage gliding and feeds it. Cartilage has no blood vessels of its own. It is fed the way a sponge drinks: every time the joint moves and then rests, fluid is pressed out of the cartilage and drawn back in, carrying fresh nutrients in and waste out. Muscles, tendons and ligaments hold the joint steady, and the blood flowing through them brings what the whole area needs.

So a joint lives by circulation and by movement. When the blood is clean and flowing and the joint is used, it stays smooth and free.

Diagram comparing a healthy joint with an arthritic joint. — A healthy joint and an arthritic joint. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

How the Trouble Develops

Dr. Christopher taught that there are over forty kinds of arthritis, and that “they all stem back to a toxic condition of the body.” When the bowel is backed up, the liver is overloaded and the kidneys cannot keep up, acids and waste build up in the blood. Waste that cannot get out settles where the circulation is slowest, and the joints, with no blood vessels in the cartilage, are among the first places it lands. Over time it hardens. As the old sheets put it, arthritis is caused by acids and waste matter in the body, which eventually become solidified and lock the joint.

First, stiffness. Waste and acid in the joint fluid make it thick and sluggish. The joint is stiff in the morning and loosens as it moves.
Then inflammation. The lining of the joint becomes irritated. The joint swells, turns warm and hurts, and the swelling presses on the nerves and slows the flow even more.
Then deposits. Mineral the body could not use (hard water, processed food, rock-based calcium) and uric acid crystals settle in and around the joint as spurs and gravel. The cartilage wears rough and thin.
Finally, locking. In long-standing cases the joint enlarges, the muscles around it waste from disuse, and the body lays down scar tissue until the joint can fuse.

Dr. Christopher, quoting Thomas Deschauer, explained how the body turns worn-out tissue into urea and should pass about an ounce of it every day. When that process is left unfinished, or the urea is held in, it turns back into uric acid. Things that hold it in: stopping perspiration, cooling off too quickly, neglecting bathing and clean underclothing, and sleeping in a room with no fresh air. Avoid these if you want to get well.

Dr. Christopher noted that “when an arthritic is badly constipated, the stiffness and pain are worse.” The joint is where it hurts, but the bowel, liver, kidneys and blood are where it starts.

The Kinds of Arthritis

Wear-and-tear arthritis (osteoarthritis) is the most common. The cartilage wears rough and thin and spurs form, usually in the knees, hips, hands and spine.
Rheumatoid arthritis begins in the lining of the joint. The body’s own defenses inflame it, often in matching joints on both sides of the body, with fatigue, morning stiffness that lasts for hours, and flares that come and go. Physical or emotional stress can bring a flare on.
Rheumatism and fibromyalgia cover aching, stiffness and pain in the muscles, tendons and soft tissue around the joints. Dr. Christopher traced rheumatism to poor elimination: toxic matter stagnating in the body.
Gout is uric acid crystals in the joint. Attacks come suddenly, often at night, and usually in one joint, most often the big toe, which turns hot, red, tender and shiny. Left alone, it spreads into the foot, ankle and knees, with indigestion, constipation and scanty urine.
Sciatica is pain, numbness and tingling down the back of the thigh along the sciatic nerve. Dr. Christopher called it sciatic rheumatism and taught that it is not a nerve problem at all: toxic poisons from a congested lowest part of the bowel (the sigmoid colon) irritate the nerve and throw the sacroiliac out of place.
Bursitis is inflammation of the small fluid sacs that cushion a joint. See the Bursitis sheet.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. When one part is neglected, the other two cannot find complete healing. A person can follow a perfect herbal program, but if she stays in a life that keeps wearing her down, or never makes time to care for herself, the body will keep losing ground. Healing the body often means facing what is happening in the heart and spirit as well.

Stiff joints often go with a stiff heart. Resentment held for years, criticism of ourselves and others, and refusing to bend all lock the flow the same way deposits lock the joint. Rheumatoid arthritis in particular is known to flare with emotional stress.

Dara has found that fibromyalgia can be one of the hardest conditions to clear, and the reason is often not in the body. After years of hurting without being believed, a diagnosis can feel like finally being understood: there is a reason for the pain. Once some people receive it, it becomes part of who they are, and letting go of it can feel like losing something, even though it is the pain. Healing asks for a willingness to be well, and to step out of the role of the one who suffers. That is the heart work, and it matters as much as the herbs.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Arthritis: feeling unloved; criticism and resentment. Turn it around: I am love. I choose to love and approve of myself, and I see others with love.
Arthritic fingers: a wish to punish; blame; feeling like a victim. Turn it around: I see with love and understanding. I hold every experience up to the light of love.
Rheumatoid arthritis: deep criticism of authority; feeling very put upon. Turn it around: I am my own authority. I love and approve of myself. Life is good.
Rheumatism: feeling like a victim; lack of love; long-held bitterness and resentment. Turn it around: I create my own experiences. As I love and approve of myself and others, my experiences get better and better.
Gout: the need to dominate; impatience and anger. Turn it around: I am safe and secure. I am at peace with myself and with others.
Sciatica: being two-faced; fear about money and the future. Turn it around: I move into my greater good. My good is everywhere, and I am secure and safe.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). These are not faults to blame anyone for; they are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Arthritis involves the joint itself: its cartilage, fluid and lining, and the muscles, tendons and ligaments around it. But the work starts with the bowel that must carry waste out, the liver and kidneys that filter it from the blood, and the blood that feeds the joint and carries the waste away. Clear the blockage, get fresh blood and nutrients into the joint, and keep it moving.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. Not where the symptoms show up, but the part causing the issue. That is the area that needs to be cleared. With arthritis the joint is where it hurts, but the bowel, liver and kidneys are where the waste comes from. Clear them, and the joint can let go of what it has been holding.

Quick Relief: Hot Apple Cider Vinegar

Over the years Dara has seen one natural aid act quickly and effectively every time for pain and swelling in the joints: apple cider vinegar.

The hot soak. Soak the inflamed joint in hot water with apple cider vinegar. The hot vinegar works to dissolve the uric acid in the joint, and relief often comes within a few hours or by the next morning. For a joint you can’t soak, wring a towel out of hot vinegar and lay it over the joint, as hot as can be borne without burning the skin.
The daily drink. A tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water, one to three times a day, with a little honey if you like. It cuts the toxic waste loose from the joints and supports the kidneys in filtering it out of the system.

Two Formulas That Work Together

Joint Support and BF&C (Bone, Flesh & Cartilage) work very differently, and together they knock down the inflammation and restore the damaged joint.

Joint Support (formerly the Arthritis Formula). Hydrangea root, which Dr. Christopher called the solvent of solvents for mineral deposits; yucca, Mormon tea, chaparral, burdock and sarsaparilla to purify the blood; wild lettuce, valerian and black cohosh to ease pain; black walnut, wormwood and cayenne to carry it all where it needs to go. It takes down the inflammation so healing can begin. Take ½ to 1 teaspoon in a cup of hot water, two to three times a day. Relief is gradual, because there is a long rebuilding job to do.
A&R Salve (Arthritis & Rheumatism), the same formula made as a salve. Spread it on flannel, lay it over the painful joint, and hold it in place with Press’n Seal. Dramatic results often appear when the pack is left on overnight. An arthritic flare can be handled in a few hours with the salve.
BF&C, extract and salve. BF&C knits the damaged joint back together. It works to remove mineral deposits and clears old injuries of adhesions while it rebuilds bone, flesh and cartilage. Take 1 teaspoon three times a day, and use the salve as an overnight pack over the joint. For extremely painful or crippled joints, use both salves as packs.

Using Chaparral and Comfrey With Care

Chaparral is one of the herbs in Joint Support. It has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use and has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Stay at the dose on this sheet. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

Comfrey root is one of the nine herbs in BF&C, where it feeds and rebuilds tissue as part of a traditional blend. Take the extract at 1 teaspoon three times a day. Use the salve as an overnight pack, and leave the area open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day. More is not faster.

Gout

Ease the attack. Bathe the joint in hot apple cider vinegar; relief often comes within a few hours or by the next morning. A few drops of Lobelia tincture added to the vinegar bath helps relax the joint.
Free the waste. Apple cider vinegar and honey in water three times a day, and a tea of equal parts skullcap, valerian and yarrow to help free the toxic waste from the tissues and carry it out.
Clear the cause. Gout comes from overloading the system with the wrong foods. Improve the eliminative organs (bowel, kidneys and skin) and change the diet, or it will keep coming back and spreading.

Sciatica

Clear the bowel first. No lasting relief will come while the bowel is backed up. Empty and cleanse the lowest part of the bowel with LBF.
The foot soak. Soak the feet in hot water with apple cider vinegar. For faster action, rest the right foot on a plate of freshly chopped garlic while the left foot soaks. Add hot water and more vinegar as it cools. This starts a circulatory movement that brings quick relief.
Burdock and lobelia. Drink burdock root tea, and lay a fomentation of burdock root (or crushed burdock leaves) with one-fourth part lobelia, or a hot apple cider vinegar fomentation, over the hip and down the leg.

Hots and Colds: Getting the Blood Into the Joint

Anytime there is disease or injury there is blockage. Alternating hot and cold water over the joint blasts through the blockage and lets the body flood the area with fresh, nutrient-rich blood. It does no good taking in all the great healing herbs and juices if the nutrition is blocked from the joint.

Think of firing a blood bullet through the blockage. The hot water loads the gun: run the shower or a hand wand as hot as you can tolerate without scalding, over the joint, until the skin is pink with fresh blood. Then switch to cold, which drives the blood out so fresh blood rushes back in. Go back and forth several times, ending on cold. When healing any major disease or injury, do the hots and colds three times a day.

Clearing the Source

The bowel. LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. A backed-up bowel makes the stiffness and pain worse.
The liver and kidneys. A week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing, repeated at least every six weeks while clearing and repairing the joints, more often if needed.
Kidney bean pod tea. Dr. Christopher called it a Godsend: one or two quarts a day. He told of a woman of 91 who drank only a few cups a day and could walk without her cane or walker; when she stopped the tea, the trouble came back.
Burdock root tea. One of the best blood purifiers in nature; it increases the flow of urine and relieves congestion in the lymph. Drink it over a period of time.
Kelp. Dr. Christopher found kelp a great help in arthritis and rheumatism, which he tied to faulty kidney function and a lack of the sodium salts.
Water. Plenty of clean, soft or distilled water every day to flush the waste out. Hard water adds to the mineral load.

Feeding the Joint

Live food. Fresh fruits and vegetables and their juices, much of it raw. Celery, cucumber, carrot and apple juices are old favorites for the joints.
Cut the acid-forming foods. Dr. Christopher named eggs, bread, milk, meat, salt and sugar among the worst for arthritic calcification. Processed and overcooked foods add to the load.
Plant calcium the body can use. Superfood and Dr. Christopher’s Calcium formula feed the bones and cartilage without the mineral residue of rock-based calcium.
Cayenne, worked up gradually, keeps the blood moving to the joints.

Sun, Air, Movement and Bathing

Move the joint every day, gently and within comfort. Movement is how cartilage is fed. Walking, stretching and warm water exercise all count.
Sun and air bath for 10 to 15 minutes a day, and walk barefoot in the grass or dirt when you can. Breathe deeply while you’re outside.
Bathe regularly to keep the skin open, and use the Detox Bath to draw waste out through the skin.
Massage helps encourage toxins out of the tissues. M&L Salve softens and relaxes tight muscles around a stiff joint.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. See a doctor for a joint that is suddenly hot, red and very swollen, especially with fever (it can be an infected joint); a joint that may be broken or torn after a fall; new swelling with fatigue, rash or fever, which can be the start of rheumatoid arthritis or another inflammatory disease; or a first gout attack with fever. Sciatica is an emergency when it comes with loss of bladder or bowel control, numbness in the groin or inner thighs, or a leg that grows weak: go to the emergency room right away. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without the doctor.

Level of Commitment

How much is needed depends on how long the trouble has been building:

Gentle support. For occasional stiffness and the first aches. The hot vinegar soak and daily drink, Joint Support, BF&C, daily movement, plenty of water and the Foundational Programs: bowel cleansing, Echinacea and good nutrition.
Focused cleansing. For joints that ache every day, swell, or have begun to change shape. All of the above, plus A&R Salve and BF&C packs overnight, hots and colds three times a day, and a week of liver flushing followed by a week of kidney flushing at least every six weeks. Give it about three months, then keep going: this is a long rebuilding job.
Incurables Program. For crippling or long-standing arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. The full Incurables Program, with fresh juices, the mucusless diet, cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula, and the BF&C fomentations every night. Blood Purifying also contains chaparral: take it in courses, not continuously, two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day, with the same liver cautions as above.

More Is Not Faster

These doses are set to what the body can clear. Taking more stirs up more than the bowels, liver and kidneys can carry out, and that is when cleansing starts to feel like poisoning. Healing the body requires steady, consistent nutrition and action, not a bigger dose.

People are different, and now and then someone reacts poorly to a particular herb. If that happens, stop it. What I offer here is a guideline. You are the one living in your body, so work with the Holy Spirit and the wisdom the Lord has given you to apply these supports in the best way for your life.

A Loose Healing Plan

Day 1: ease the pain. Hot apple cider vinegar soak or fomentation, and a salve pack on the worst joint overnight.
Week 1: start the formulas. Joint Support and BF&C, the daily vinegar drink, LBF to get the bowels moving, and plenty of water.
Week 1 onward: hots and colds over the joints, up to three times a day, and gentle movement every day.
Week 2: clear the source. A week of liver flushing, then a week of kidney flushing. Repeat at least every six weeks.
All along: feed the joint. Live food and juices, cut the acid-forming foods, Superfood and plant calcium, kidney bean pod tea.
All along: sun, air, bathing and the heart work. Let go of what you have been holding.
About 3 months: take stock. Relief often comes in weeks; rebuilding a joint takes months. Keep going with what is working.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: A Finger Shooting Bullets

I do a lot of work with my hands: embroidering, painting and all types of crafts to keep myself occupied. I woke up one morning and my index finger was shooting bullets of pain I did not know it had the gun to shoot. On a scale of 1 to 10 it was well into the 9 range. I could hardly stand to touch it, and I could not bend it or move it at all without a lot of pain. I laid a thick layer of the A&R Salve over the entire finger, wrapped it with a roll of gauze and tried to ignore it. By lunchtime the pain was gone, and it did not come back. That was about four hours.

A Member’s Story: A BF&C Pack on an Arthritic Spine

A woman in her 80s was in bed and in pain with an arthritic spine. Her son applied a BF&C pack over her spine at bedtime. The next morning he reported she bounced out of bed feeling “right as rain.” She was not healed overnight. The BF&C had greatly reduced the inflammation around the arthritic areas in her spine, which contributed in a large part to her pain. Her improvement has continued, as it has for everyone who keeps using the formula over an extended period.

From Dr. Christopher: Out of the Wheelchair

In Mesa, Arizona, a young man in his middle twenties, badly crippled with polio and arthritis, was brought into Dr. Christopher’s lecture in a wheelchair and laid on a pile of pillows. He had been told he would never be out of the wheelchair unless it was into a hospital bed. A practical nurse took him into her home and helped him follow the program faithfully. A year later, in the same hall, he walked down the aisle to the front and asked to speak. He was traveling on foot, house to house, selling, to pay off his hospital bills, and he urged everyone to listen and put the program to use.

Watch

Arthritis: Natural Support and Herbal Healing Suggestions.

Arthritis: The Programs Class.

Clearing Calcium Deposits Naturally.

More on Arthritis

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

Pain

October 13, 2026October 13, 2026 Dara Dietz

Blockage, Injury and Restoring the Circulation

Understanding the Condition

Pain is not your enemy. It is a friend trying to show you where the damage is, giving you an opportunity to repair it before a worse issue appears. Dulling the area with pain killers only masks the real issue, and numbing it often makes it easy to keep overusing an injured part of the body that needs rest and healing.

Pain Means the Circulation Is Broken

Anything that hinders or breaks circulation causes pain. In nature, water circulates from the oceans to the ground, up to the sky and back down again, and that circulation keeps the earth thriving and healthy. It is the same in the body. Good circulation of nutrients, water, light and air creates a healthy condition. When you lose the ability to move out the waste and bring in fresh nutrients, you end up in pain and with an unhealthy, toxic condition in the body.

Diagram comparing nature’s water cycle with the body’s circulation, with a blockage or injury breaking the flow and causing pain. — Nature’s water cycle and the body’s circulation. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

Jethro Kloss, author of Back to Eden, taught the same thing: “All pain is caused by disturbance to the circulation because the overfilled vessels put pressure upon the nerves.” Dr. Christopher put it this way: when the system is clogged with wastes, mucus and sludge, “the organism can drown in its own filth. Pain is a result of congestion and degeneration of healthy cells and tissues by poor elimination of waste products.”

Blockage and Injury

Whenever there is injury or disease, there is blockage. Pain is usually caused by blockage, injury or inflammation, or any combination of the three. Clearing the blocked area and allowing free movement through it often relieves the pain quickly.

Congestion and waste. A backed-up bowel, an overloaded liver and sluggish kidneys leave waste in the blood and tissues.
Deposits. Uric acid crystals in gout, old mineral deposits in arthritic joints, and stones and gravel in the kidneys.
Spasm. A muscle locked tight chokes off the blood flow through the area. A kidney under stress can throw the muscles of the back into spasm.
Trapped air. Gas pressure in the stomach and bowel.
Swelling. Inflamed tissue and excess lymph fluid press on the nerves.
Injury. A sprain, a pulled muscle, a break, a wound or a burn tears the vessels and stops the flow.

Pain Killers and the Liver

All the drugs hospitals use for pain place a heavy weight on the liver. It is the liver’s job to clear poisons and drugs from the system, so habitual use of pain medication keeps wearing it down. Dr. Christopher noted that the old opiates hid the true cause of pain while they brought on chronic constipation, a sluggish liver and lethargy, and the original complaint was still there when the drug wore off. The first and most important step with any pain is to understand why it is there.

When Cleansing Stirs Up Pain

When old waste breaks loose from the bowel and the tissues, it can hurt on its way out. These pains may be rough, but they are temporary and subside as the cleansing goes on. Dr. Christopher taught that on a clean, living diet, pain usually means the body is housecleaning. On a diet of acid-forming, mucus-forming and overcooked food, it is a warning that poisonous congestion is building.

Pain That Shows Up Away From Its Source

Pain often shows up somewhere other than where the trouble started. The area that needs clearing is the part causing the issue, not the place the symptoms appear.

A backache that is really the kidneys. When the kidneys are inflamed, the muscles over them go into spasm. Dara’s Three Drinks (see the Kidney Disease sheet) tell the two apart: if they calm the pain, it was the kidneys.
A headache from the bowel. A backed-up bowel sends toxic blood to the head. Keep the bowels clear and the toxic headaches stop.
Sciatica from the bowel. Dr. Christopher taught that crippling pain down the leg comes from toxic poisons in the lowest part of the bowel (the sigmoid colon) irritating the sciatic nerve. Clean out the bowel and the poisons no longer reach the nerve.
A tight chest from trapped air. Gas pressure can make the heart and upper chest feel constricted (see Trapped Air below).
Skin trouble from the liver. With psoriasis and eczema the skin is affected, so we want to treat the skin. The real answer is to clear the liver so it stops pushing toxic waste out through the skin.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Feelings that are held in instead of let go stop the flow the same way a blockage does. Dr. Christopher wrote that pain and suffering can begin in the mind as well as the body, and that anger, hatred and selfishness can set a person up for physical anguish. Love is the best pain reliever.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes this pattern:

Pain: guilt, and guilt is always looking to be punished. Turn it around: I lovingly let go of the past. They are free, and I am free. All is well in my heart now.

Emotional pattern paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House).

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Most acute pain can be quickly cleared without much drama if you can see or understand the driving cause behind it. Clear the blockage and restore the natural circulation through the affected area: waste out, fresh blood and nutrients in.

Opening the Way to Healing

1. Clear the blockage.

2. Get the healing nutrients into the area.

3. Let sunshine and fresh air cycle over and through the affected part.

4. Bathe regularly.

5. Move the area as much as you can.

6. Know which area is truly affected. Not where the symptoms show up, but the part causing the issue. That is the area that needs to be cleared. With psoriasis and eczema, the skin is affected, so we want to treat the skin. But the real answer is to clear the liver so it stops pushing toxic waste out through the skin. Then the body quickly clears the skin, and the topical supports become effective in healing the damage.

Keep the Bowels Open

The bowels must be kept open and clean so the body can absorb nutrients and carry waste out of the cells through the blood and lymph. Nothing else on this sheet works for long while the bowel is backed up. Use LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Slippery elm tea soothes an inflamed bowel.

Hot and Cold: Getting the Blood Moving

Kloss taught that hot and cold applications, alternated for thirty minutes or more, relieve congestion faster than any other remedy. Heat relaxes the tissues and takes the pressure off the nerves; the cold that follows drives the blood out, and fresh blood rushes back in.

Hot and cold fomentations. A towel wrung out of hot water, as hot as can be borne, then a cold towel. Dry the skin between each round. Dr. Christopher ran them the full length of the spine for deep pain, as well as over the painful area.
Hot baths increase the circulation and have eased pain both inside and out. Arthritis and hemorrhoid pain respond well to hot water.
The castor oil liver fomentation. A flannel soaked in hot castor oil over the liver (right side, under the ribs), a hot wet towel over it and a hot water bottle on top, 20 minutes; then a cold towel for 5 minutes. Repeat for up to an hour and a half. It has relieved the pain of congestion in the liver, gallbladder and pancreas.
The Ice Towel for headache. Wet a towel, fold it in thirds and freeze it until icy (about 45 minutes). Wrap it around the head while the legs soak in a bucket of hot water. This drives the congestion out of the head and pulls the excess blood down to the legs. Most headaches begin to ease in 10 to 15 minutes.
Hot apple cider vinegar. For gout and inflamed joints, soak the painful part in hot apple cider vinegar; relief often comes within a few hours or by the next morning. Drink a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water three times a day to help clear the uric acid from the joints. The Arthritis sheet gives detailed instructions for clearing gout.

Sweating: Opening the Skin

The skin is one of the great ways waste leaves the body, and sunshine and fresh air on the skin are part of opening the way. Dr. Christopher taught that wherever the trouble is in the body, if the general circulation is involved, sweating helps dramatically. Drink hot yarrow tea, or take a ginger bath, and let the body sweat; then rest, wrapped up warm.

Spasm and Soft Tissue Injury

A spasm is a muscle locked tight, and it chokes off the circulation through the area. M&L Salve stops the spasm. BF&C Salve repairs the damage. BF&C Salve is the answer for any soft tissue injury. Once the ice comes off, wrap or pack the area with BF&C Salve. As long as nothing was ripped or torn, it should recover by morning.

M&L Salve (mullein & lobelia) relaxes spastic muscles and releases a locked-up joint. It also moves excess lymph fluid out of an injured area, which eases the pain and lets the circulation back in. Massage it into the muscle; for a severe spasm, add a dropperful of Lobelia by mouth.
Over the spine, too. Dr. Christopher rubbed lobelia over the area of the spine whose nerves feed the painful part, as well as on the sore spot itself.
BF&C (Bone, Flesh & Cartilage). The salve packed over the injury overnight, and the extract by mouth, 1 teaspoon three times a day, to knit the tissue back together. With time it also clears old injuries of adhesions and the mineral deposits behind arthritic pain.
Lobelia for cramps. Lobelia or M&L Salve is good for any kind of cramping. By mouth, 1 good dropperful usually does the job; up to 2, depending on size and how severe it is.
Arthritic flares and inflamed joints. An arthritic flare can be handled in a few hours with the A&R Salve. Joint Support (the extract) and A&R Salve (the same formula as a salve) take down the inflammation so healing can begin; BF&C then rebuilds the joint. For a stubborn joint, apply the A&R Salve as a pack overnight.

Using Comfrey With Care

Comfrey root is one of the nine herbs in BF&C, where it feeds and rebuilds tissue as part of a traditional blend. Take the extract at the dose on this sheet, 1 teaspoon three times a day. Use the salve as an overnight pack, and leave the area open and clear of salves for at least 6 hours each day. More is not faster.

Nerve Pain

G-Nervine Salve and the General Nervine. The nervine herbs calm the fiery, throbbing pain of an injured or pinched nerve, shingles and nerve injuries. Apply the salve, or the General Nervine tincture straight from the bottle, over the painful area; when it begins to wear off, apply more. The valerian in it is sedating, even on the skin, so expect to feel sleepy.
Sciatica. Clear the bowel first; no lasting relief will come while it is backed up. For quick relief, soak the feet in hot water with apple cider vinegar. For faster action, rest the right foot on a plate of freshly chopped garlic while the left foot soaks. Add hot water and more vinegar as it cools. This starts a circulatory movement that brings quick relief. The Arthritis sheet gives detailed instructions for clearing sciatica.
Swollen glands and lymph nodes. A fomentation of mullein and lobelia (3 parts mullein to 1 part lobelia), or the M&L Salve, has reduced pain and swelling in the lymph nodes of the neck, under the arms, the breasts and the groin.

Trapped Air and a Crampy Bowel

Trapped Air: Pressure, Not Cramping

Trapped air feels like pressure, as if you want to explode. The stomach feels hard all the way across, and the heart and upper chest can feel constricted. Take 2 teaspoons of the L-P Formula and 2 teaspoons of the Digestive Tonic in a few ounces of hot water, which drives off the alcohol. Follow it with a swallow or two of juice or a nice-tasting tea if you like. Then lie down on your right side for a few minutes. The formulas displace the pressure and let the blocked air move through the system. Lying down also relaxes the stomach muscles, so the trapped air can pass more easily. Before long you may begin burping or passing gas. Either way, the pressure is relieved.

Keep a cup of cayenne tea ready while you wait for the gas remedy to work. If the tightness in the chest doesn’t ease within a few minutes, gets worse, or comes with pain running into the arm, jaw or back, shortness of breath, sweating or nausea, treat it as the heart: give the cayenne and call 911 (see Chest Pain below).

A Crampy Bowel

A crampy bowel is a different feeling. It can come with loose stool, or you can be crampy with nothing coming out at all. Either way, stir a rounded teaspoon of LBF #2 into 6 oz of water or juice and drink it all at once. Then sit in your favorite chair with a heating pad across your stomach. LBF #2 quickly absorbs what is irritating the bowel and firms the stool, and the cramping usually ends within 5 to 10 minutes. Even if you’re stuck on the potty, it only takes a few minutes before you can move to your chair and get comfortable with the heating pad.

Chest Pain and Heart Attack

In a heart attack, a blockage breaks the circulation to the heart, and the pain is the heart crying out. Cayenne supports the heart and blasts through the blockage. That restores the circulation, and restoring the circulation is what ends the pain.

For chest pain: stir 1 teaspoon of cayenne and 1 tablespoon of hawthorn berry extract into a cup of hot water and sip it as a tea.

If the person takes any drug that slows the heart rate, such as a beta blocker (metoprolol, atenolol, propranolol) or digoxin, leave out the hawthorn and give the cayenne alone. If you’re not sure whether a medicine slows the heart, ask the pharmacist.

The pain stopping doesn’t mean the heart is well. It is still sick, clogged and damaged, so the work of healing needs to begin or continue. Dr. Christopher said to “follow with the diet, bowel cleaning and heart foods from then on until healing is fully evident.”

A Heart Attack Is an Emergency

Call 911 first. Give the cayenne while help is on the way, not instead of it.

Quick Relief for Common Pains

Each of these has its own sheet; here are the first steps.

Toothache. The Tooth & Gum formula on a cotton swab over the tooth. Oil of cloves or a few drops of cayenne tincture will do in a pinch.
Earache. Two or three drops of warm mullein flower oil or garlic oil in the ear, two or three times a day, massaging around the ear. The Infection Poultice over the ear often draws the infection out overnight.
Sore throat. Freeze a damp washcloth (20 to 30 minutes) and sip a teaspoon of Herbal Antibiotic in a cup of hot water with honey, letting it wash over the throat. Then wrap the frozen cloth around the neck, cover it with a hand towel and pin it. The cold draws fresh blood full of infection fighters to the throat. No eating or drinking while it thaws, about 45 minutes.
Menstrual cramps. One good dropperful of Lobelia by mouth usually ends them in about 20 minutes; M&L Salve over the lower belly helps too.
Kidney stone pain. Hot fomentations over the kidneys are the go-to: people rolling on the floor in agony have been comfortable in 15 minutes or less. Keep the fluids going. See the Kidney Disease sheet and the Stone Dissolve Routine.
Gallbladder attack. See the Gallbladder Attack & Gallstones sheet.
Shingles. The pain of shingles is nerve pain, and the G-Nervine Salve over the inflamed area stops it. One man who had been in so much pain he could barely sleep or wear clothes for nearly three weeks got relief shortly after the salve went on, and slept a good five hours that night. Shingles near the eye needs a doctor right away. See the Shingles sheet for clearing the virus.
Muscle tension headache and stiff neck. M&L Salve massaged over the tight muscles of the neck and head.
Insect stings and spider bites. Plantain ointment or crushed fresh plantain leaves over the bite. Red streaks running from a bite need medical care the same day; keep the plantain on alongside it.
Cuts, scrapes and burns. BF&C Salve; the BF&C herbs make one of the best burn pastes.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Get help right away for chest pain that doesn’t ease quickly, sudden severe pain anywhere, a severe headache that comes on like a thunderclap, pain with a high fever or a stiff neck, red streaks running from a wound or bite, a possible broken bone or torn tendon, or any pain after a serious fall or accident. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without the doctor.

Level of Commitment

How much is needed depends on what is causing the pain and how long it has been building:

Gentle support. For a sudden pain with a plain cause: a spasm, a sprain, gas, a headache, a crampy bowel. Use the quick relief on this sheet, keep the bowels open, drink plenty of water and rest the injured part. Most of these clear in hours or days.
Focused cleansing. For pain that keeps coming back: headaches, back pain, sciatica, arthritis, gout. Bowel cleansing with LBF, a week of liver flushing, then an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in. Hot and cold hydrotherapy, BF&C and the salves over the painful area, daily movement and sunshine. Give it about three months.
Incurables Program. For pain that comes from a serious or long-standing disease. Find the sheet for that condition; the pain will ease as the blockage behind it clears. The full Incurables Program includes cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula. Blood Purifying contains chaparral, which has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use. It has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Use with care: take Blood Purifying in courses, not continuously: two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time, in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

More Is Not Faster

A Loose Healing Plan

In the moment: find out what kind of pain it is. Blockage, injury, spasm, trapped air or the heart? Rule out an emergency first.
First hours: open the way. Use the quick relief that fits: hot and cold, M&L or BF&C Salve, the trapped-air or crampy-bowel remedy, the Ice Towel, a vinegar soak.
Same day onward: get the bowels moving. LBF, plenty of water, and live food.
First week or two: feed the repair. BF&C extract and salve packs for injury; Superfood for nutrition; rest the injured part, then move it as much as you can.
For pain that keeps coming back: clear the source. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in. Hot and cold hydrotherapy several times a week.
All along: sunshine, fresh air, bathing, movement and the heart work. Let go of what you’ve been holding.
About 3 months: take stock. Long-standing pain takes steady work to clear. Keep going with what is working.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: A “Fire Ball” in My Knee

What you might call a “fire ball” of pain had developed in my knee. None of the regular herbal remedies were bringing any level of relief. Searching in Dr. Christopher’s writings, I found a reference to the use of nervine herbs for nerve pain. I applied the General Nervine Tonic directly from the bottle to the painful area on my knee. It was as if I’d taken a fire hose to the pain. It just wiped it out. I was amazed. The relief lasted about three hours, and when it began to wear off I applied more. It continued to work. We quickly made a salve from the formula, which continued to relieve the pain in my injured knee. Over the next few months I found the salve worked great on the pain of shingles and nerve injuries; if it is pain from an injured or pinched nerve, this salve is helpful.

Dara’s Story: Twelve Years of Back Spasms

A car accident in the late summer of 1985 caused a compression break to a vertebra in my lower back. For years afterward, out of the blue, my back would go into a spasm and send me to the floor in a world of hurt. All of this came to a blessed end when I discovered the BF&C formula in the late 1990s. Three months after I began using the body-repairing herbs in the BF&C, the devastating back spasms ended.

Dara’s Story: My Husband’s Back

My husband is 6’4” and thinks he is still 19 years old. He sprains his back at least once a year. One time he wouldn’t wait for help to arrive so the two of them could move a new, oversized piece of furniture into the house. He did it on his own and paid dearly for it. The next morning he could not even lift his head off the pillow. When he couldn’t get up, he began taking the BF&C I suggested. By the end of the day he was on his feet, shuffling around like an old man. By day two he was back to himself, still a bit sore but moving normally. Last time it was moving wet lumber. I use the M&L Salve to stop the spasm and the BF&C Salve to repair the damage.

A Story from the Work: Sciatica and a Foot Soak

Someone close to the work was suffering badly with sciatica and decided to give our foot soak a try. We filled her foot basin with hot water and two cups of apple cider vinegar. Her left foot went into the hot soak while her right foot rested on a plate of freshly chopped garlic. As the water cooled we added more hot water and more vinegar. Her pain nearly cleared during the 45-minute soak, and over the next several hours she became completely pain free.

More on Pain

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

A stained-glass dome seen from below, every panel radiating out from a single center

1 Corinthians, Bible Studies, Spiritual Healing

Who Is My Head?

October 13, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:3

“But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 11:3, NIV)

A verse I had a problem with

This morning I came to 1 Corinthians 11:3, and it was a tough one. Paul lays out three pairs: Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.

As always, I wrote the verse out in several translations side by side. Most simply say “head.” But the TEV says the husband is supreme over his wife. The Living Bible says a wife is responsible to her husband. I have a problem with that. It doesn’t fit anything else I know about the God of the Bible.

The Remedy gave the most reasonable rendering. It speaks of every man following the loving leadership of Christ, the wife following the loving leadership of her husband, just as Christ follows the loving leadership of His Father. So I set out to understand what Paul actually meant by “head.”

What does “head” mean?

The Greek word is kephalē. Scholars have argued over its meaning for a long time, and there are three main views:

Authority over. The traditional reading, and the one behind “supreme over.”
Source or origin, like the head of a river, where it begins.
The prominent or honored part, the head as the part that carries the body’s honor.

I was drawn right away to the second. When the Greek translators of the Old Testament met the Hebrew word for head meaning “ruler,” they usually chose another Greek word. Kephalē didn’t naturally mean “boss.”

And Paul tells us what he means a few verses later. Woman came from man, yet every man since has come through a woman, “but all things of God” (vv. 11–12). He is talking about where we came from, and how we need each other.

Why it can’t mean “supreme over”

Paul is not writing about domination. Both men and women, husbands and wives, can build and keep a close, loving relationship with Christ. As a woman, I want Christ to be my head too. He is the one I follow and the one I lean on.

So think it through. If “head” means who rules over whom, then a woman who never marries has no head. Of course that isn’t so. That kind of thinking doesn’t hold up against any other part of the Bible.

Then there is the last pair: God is the head of Christ. If head means “supreme over,” Christ becomes less than God. But Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).

The order of the verse matters too. Paul doesn’t give a top-down list from God to Christ to man to woman. He gives Christ and man, then man and woman, then God and Christ. Whatever he is describing, it isn’t a ladder of rank.

Three beginnings

Look at the facts. Man was created first, and he is the first one given a head in this verse. Woman came from man, and he is given as her head. Then Christ came forth from God to be man. Each pair names a beginning, an origin:

Man from Christ. Christ is the Creator: “All things were made by him” (John 1:3).
Woman from man. Paul roots this in Genesis 2 (vv. 8–9).
Christ from God. “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world” (John 16:28).

That third one is a little tricky, because Christ is God. But He came from God to become man. This isn’t about His eternal nature. It’s about Christ as He stepped onto the stage of this world.

And He came because of sin. If man had never fallen, Christ would never have come as a man, and God would never have been His head in this way. So the verse begins in creation and ends in redemption. Paul says in this same letter that Christ is “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). He made the first Adam, and as the last Adam He re-creates humanity through the power of God. Even though He is God, in Christ He was human.

We are His twice over, by creation and by redemption. This isn’t order forced on us. It is how life came about, and how it is restored.

The last pair is the key

Why does Paul save “God is the head of Christ” for last? Because it shows us what headship looks like. Christ and the Father are equal. Yet Christ freely chose to come, to honor His Father, and to “do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

That is headship between equals, entered freely and carried out in Love. If that is the model, it tells us what “head” means in the other two pairs.

Within a marriage, a man by his nature and the way he is put together is to cover, protect and cherish his wife, and give of himself for her and his family. She in return responds and gives him a loving home, a place to come to when the work day is over. Men and women are not the same; we are equal but different. And Christ is the head the man is to follow in his decisions, while the woman has her say and a right to her own mind.

This is exactly what the Remedy says: the wife follows the loving leadership of her husband, just as Christ follows the loving leadership of His Father.

Surrounded by God

Tall trees rising on every side with a canopy of green branches overhead

Look at the shape of the verse once more. Christ as man’s head comes first. Man as woman’s head is in the middle. God as Christ’s head comes last. Man in his fallen state is surrounded by God on all sides. It is a bit like being in the middle of a God sandwich.

Scripture says the same thing. “Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). The Lord goes before us and is our rearguard behind (Isaiah 52:12). And “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27).

Looking at this through the eyes of Love, what do we see? Christ at the head of fallen man, saying, “Follow Me, I will show you the way home. I am here for you always; you can depend on Me.” In the middle, how we are to relate to each other: a man treating his wife and family with the same love and respect, the same value, that Christ put on him. And God, our foundation, ready to give all the power of the universe through the life of Christ for the healing and salvation of humanity.

That is what it means to have a head. Not someone supreme over us, but Someone before us, behind us, and underneath us, from whom we came and to whom we are being brought home.

Still reading on

I want to be honest with you: this is not a finished understanding of this verse. It is one verse standing alone, and I am sharing the struggle as much as the answer.

Graham Maxwell used to say that when you come to a place of confusion, read on, and it will make sense at some point. It always has for me. Paul’s own explanation is still ahead, in the verses that follow, and I expect this picture to fill in as I work through them.

So take this as a first look, not the last word. I’m trusting the Lord to make it clear in His time, and I’ll share what He shows me as I go.

Brain, Nerves & Sleep, Herbal Healing

Alzheimer’s, Dementia & Memory Loss

October 12, 2026October 27, 2026 Dara Dietz

Forgetfulness, Confusion and Senility

Understanding the Condition

The brain is the hungriest organ in the body. It is only about 2 percent of our weight, yet it uses about 20 percent of the blood’s oxygen and fuel, every minute of every day. It cannot store food for later. It depends on a steady flow of rich, clean blood, on plenty of water, on the liver to supply its fuel (glucose) and carry off its waste, and on the nerves to carry its messages to every part of the body. When any of these falters, the mind is often the first place it shows.

Dementia is not one disease. It is a name for a group of signs: memory loss together with trouble in at least one other area, such as judgment, language, planning or personality, bad enough to get in the way of daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of a dementia that keeps getting worse; the second most common is vascular dementia, from narrowed blood vessels and many tiny strokes. Many older people have some of both.

Diagram comparing two kinds of clouded mind: a starved or clouded brain that can often come back, and damage built up over years. — Two kinds of clouded mind. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

When the Mind Can Come Back

Much of the confusion we see in older people is not true dementia at all. It is a brain that is starved, poisoned or upset, and it often clears in days or weeks once the cause is found and the brain is fed. These are the first things to look for:

Not enough water. Many older people stop feeling thirst, and a dry brain is a confused brain.
A hidden infection. In the elderly, a bladder infection often shows up as sudden confusion instead of pain or burning.
Poor blood flow to the brain, from a weak heart, hardened arteries or sitting still for most of the day.
Low B12 and poor nutrition. The nerves and brain run on nutrition; a body that has eaten poorly for years runs short.
Sleep aids and other medications. Dr. Tim Jennings teaches that sleep aids, both over-the-counter (the “PM” pain relievers and the diphenhydramine or doxylamine sleep tablets) and prescription sleeping pills, interfere with the brain’s work of moving short-term memories into long-term memory. Used night after night, they can produce what looks like serious dementia, and many people recover a great deal once they come off them. Herbal sleep supports are not part of this concern. Some bladder and allergy medicines, strong pain pills and a long list of prescriptions taken together can also cloud the mind.
Marijuana (THC). Dr. Jennings warns that THC, the part of marijuana that makes people high, disrupts the brain’s work of turning short-term memories into long-term ones. More and more older people are being offered THC gummies or drops for sleep and pain. In his view, marijuana is dangerous to the mind, and anyone whose memory is slipping should stay away from it. It can be habit-forming; if it is hard to stop, that alone is worth paying attention to.
A sluggish thyroid, which slows the thinking along with everything else.
A toxic bowel and liver. When the bowel is backed up and the liver is overloaded, waste stays in the blood that feeds the brain.
Grief, depression and loneliness, which can look just like dementia.

A change that comes on suddenly, over hours or days, is not dementia. Look for the cause, and see the box on medical care below.

Coming Off Sleeping Pills

Over-the-counter sleep aids can usually be stopped and replaced with herbal sleep supports such as the General Nervine and NFX. Prescription sleeping pills and anxiety medicines are different: stopping some of them suddenly can be dangerous. Work with the doctor to taper them down slowly.

When Damage Has Built Over Years

In Alzheimer’s disease, sticky deposits (plaques) build up between the brain cells and twisted fibers (tangles) form inside them. The cells lose their connections to one another and, over the years, the brain shrinks. In vascular dementia the arteries feeding the brain harden and narrow. Dr. Christopher wrote that when the arteries in the brain harden, the result is slowness in thinking, loss of memory, dizziness, and in the end senility, and that a long-standing case can leave a brain that has practically “turned to stone.” He also taught that hardening of the arteries can be reversed if the cause is reversed: dead, processed and overcooked food. This kind of damage takes years to build, and it takes time and steady work to turn. Herbs and good food can slow it, steady it, and sometimes improve it. The earlier you start, the more there is to save.

What Dara Has Seen

I’ve seen members give the Brain Formula to parents who drifted from the boat, so to say, and they came right back in only a few days. Other people it seems to do no good. I believe it is the heart work as well as how you have been feeding your body up to that time.

The common signs are forgetting recent conversations and events, repeating the same questions, losing words, getting lost in familiar places, trouble with money, cooking or other everyday tasks, poor judgment, changes in mood or personality, withdrawing from people and activities, restlessness and, later, confusion about time and place.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Dara has seen that the heart work matters as much as the feeding. Often a mind begins to slip when life has become too painful to face: a deep loss, a betrayal, loneliness or years of carrying more than one person can carry. Some people simply withdraw from a world that has grown too hard. Love, patience, company and a reason to get up in the morning help bring them back.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Alzheimer’s disease: not wanting to face the world as it is; feeling hopeless and helpless; anger. Turn it around: I let the past go with forgiveness. Each day holds a new and better way to live, and I walk into joy.
Dementia: refusing to deal with the world as it is; hopelessness and anger. Turn it around: I am right where I belong, and I am safe at all times.
Senility: retreating to the safety of childhood; escaping a life that became too hard to face. Turn it around: I rest in God’s protection. I am safe, and I am at peace.
The brain: the computer, the switchboard of the body. Turn it around: I am the loving keeper of my own mind.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House). For the family: these are not faults to blame anyone for. They are a reminder of how much the heart is carrying.

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

Dementia involves the brain and its blood vessels, the heart that pumps blood up to it, the liver that supplies its fuel and clears its waste, the bowel that must carry that waste out, the kidneys that keep the blood clean and the body watered, and the nerves that carry every message. The work is to get the blood flowing to the brain, feed it, clean the blood that feeds it, and give the heart and spirit a reason to come back.

The Brain Formula: the First Support

Brain Formula. Ginkgo leaf, gotu kola herb, calamus root, rosemary, kola nut and cayenne. It opens the blood vessels and increases the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, and this is often what brings a clouded mind back. Many people who are confused will not take a green drink or much nutrition at first, so the Brain Formula is the main support to start with. Take 2 dropperfuls three times a day, up to double that amount. As a tea: 1 teaspoon of the herbs to a cup, 6 cups a day.

Using the Brain Formula With Care

The Brain Formula opens the circulation, and its ginkgo and cayenne thin the blood a little. That is part of how it helps. If the person takes a blood thinner (warfarin, Eliquis, Plavix) or a daily aspirin, let the doctor know they have added it. Stay at the dose on this sheet; this is a time when more is not better. If unusual bruising or bleeding shows up, ease back, and set the formula aside for a week or so before any surgery.

Helping a Forgetful Person Keep Up

The formula only works if it is taken, and a person who is forgetting things will forget the formula too. Both of the stories below worked because the doses happened every day.

Reminder notes. Put notes where they will be seen: the bathroom mirror, the coffee pot, the kitchen table.
Tie it to meals. Breakfast, lunch and supper make three natural times for the three doses.
A pill organizer or a set of small cups set out each morning shows at a glance whether a dose was taken.
Family or a caregiver gives the doses. When the confusion is deeper, someone close by needs to make sure every dose goes down.

For the Family: Caring for a Confused Loved One

Often it is family, friends, or the people they do business with who first notice that something is off: a forgotten promise, an order they don’t remember placing, a phone call they insist never happened. How we respond matters a great deal.

Rule out the reversible causes first. Before anyone decides it is dementia, get a checkup. Sudden confusion or “strange things” in an older person can come from a bladder infection, not enough water, low sodium, a new medication or sleep aid, low B12, or a sluggish thyroid, and these often clear up (see When the Mind Can Come Back above).
Don’t argue; agree and move on. You cannot win an argument with a confused mind, and trying only frightens and shames them. If they insist something never happened, let it go: “I must have meant to and didn’t.” Agreeing lets them keep their dignity, and the problem can be solved quietly another way.
Watch the money and the mail. Forgotten payments, double orders, unpaid bills and phone or mail scams are often the first trouble to show. A trusted family member should quietly look over the mail, the bank statements and the card activity, and be someone the people they deal with can call.
Let family know. If you are a friend, a neighbor or someone they do business with and you notice these changes, gently let a family member know. It is a kindness, not a betrayal.
Get the paperwork in place early. A durable power of attorney and a health care directive can only be signed while the person still understands what they are signing. Don’t wait.
Care for the caregiver. Caring for a confused loved one is a long and tiring road. Share the load, take breaks, and keep your own bowels, liver and heart in good order too.

Feeding the Brain

The Brain Shake

When a green drink won’t go down, turn it into a milkshake. Blend frozen banana and strawberries with fresh apple juice. The berries turn it pink instead of green, and the sweetness goes down easily. Add 2 tablespoons of Superfood and 1 tablespoon of flax oil or wheat germ oil; both feed the brain and nerves and make it creamy. Blend and serve like a milkshake.

The Foundational Program. As soon as the person will take it: Superfood and juicing, Echinacea, and bowel cleansing with LBF.
Water. Offer water all day long; many older people no longer feel thirst. Dr. Christopher used steam distilled water to wash out the deposits that harden the arteries.
Live food. Dr. Christopher taught that hardening of the arteries comes from dead, stale, processed and overcooked food. Move toward fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, as many of them raw as possible, and away from sugar, white flour and processed foods.

Clearing the Liver and Bowel

Keep the bowels moving with LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Many older people go days between movements, and that waste stays in the blood that feeds the brain.
Liver flushing. The liver supplies the brain’s fuel and clears its waste. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once or twice a week; many people describe it as the fog lifting. Weeks of kidney flushing can be alternated in.

Circulation, Movement and Company

Hot and cold showers in the morning wake up the circulation, when the person is steady enough to stand safely.
Walk every day, outdoors and in the sunshine when possible. Movement sends blood to the brain.
Company and purpose. Conversation, music, singing old hymns, puzzles, gardening, and a job to do that matters. A mind that is used and loved has a reason to stay.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Confusion that comes on suddenly, over hours or days, needs a doctor the same day: it is often an infection, a medication problem or a small stroke. Before accepting a diagnosis of dementia, ask for a check of B12, the thyroid and a urine test for infection, and a review of every medication, especially sleep aids. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without the doctor.

Emergencies: a face that droops, an arm or leg that goes weak, slurred speech, or sudden severe headache or loss of balance. These are signs of a stroke: call 911 right away.

Level of Commitment

How much is needed depends on how long the trouble has been building and how much the body and heart are carrying:

Gentle support. For the absent-minded and the early stages. The Brain Formula three times a day with reminders, plenty of water, the Brain Shake or Superfood, daily walking, and company.
Focused cleansing. When the confusion is plain to see. All of the above, plus LBF, a week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in, and the Foundational Program as soon as it can be taken. Give it about three months, with someone close by making sure it all happens.
Incurables Program. For diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease or advanced dementia. The full Incurables Program includes cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula. Blood Purifying contains chaparral, which has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use. It has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing what has built up. Use with care: take Blood Purifying in courses, not continuously: two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time, in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day. Avoid it with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked. At this level the family carries the program, and it takes every one of them.

More Is Not Faster

A Loose Healing Plan

First days: Look for the quick fixes. Get plenty of water in, look hard at any sleep aids, and have a doctor check for a bladder infection, B12, the thyroid and the medications.
Day 1 onward: Start the Brain Formula, 2 dropperfuls three times a day, with reminder notes or a family member giving the doses.
Week 1: Feed the brain. A Brain Shake every day, LBF to get the bowels moving, and the Foundational Program as soon as it will be taken.
Week 2 onward: Clear the liver. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in.
All along: the heart work. Company, conversation, music, walking, sunshine and a reason to get up in the morning. Face the grief and the losses together.
About 3 months: Take stock. Some come back in a few days; long-standing damage takes months of steady work. Keep the Brain Formula going.

Stories from the Work

A Member’s Story: “You Need to Fix This”

One of our longtime members, one of three brothers who have been with us almost from the beginning, called and started talking the moment I said hello: “My wife is not happy, I’m not happy, you need to fix this.”

A few questions later the trouble came out. His wife’s mother had become too confused to handle the phone. Her daughter lived too far away to visit easily and was beside herself with worry, missing her mother.

We sent the Brain Formula to the mother’s address, and her other children, who lived close by, made sure she got every dose. The next week he called back. All was well again, and his wife could talk with her mother on the phone again.

A Member’s Story: Still Finding Each Other

A local couple, two of the sweetest people, knew they were getting absent-minded and worried that in time they would be lost to each other. They started the Brain Formula, but at first they kept forgetting to take it, and they would call to ask what they could do. The answer was always the same: the Brain Formula, and how much.

Over time the calls stopped, but the orders kept coming, regular as clockwork. When they were down in Florida visiting a grandchild and having a blast, they ran low, and three shipments followed them there. They don’t call anymore to ask what to do. They just keep doing what is working.

Watch

Dr. Tim Jennings, The Aging Brain. Dr. Jennings, a Christian psychiatrist, explains in detail what is happening in the aging brain and what we can do to keep it healthy. He doesn’t cover herbs, but the science he lays out backs up what is on this sheet. It is solidly scientific, and easy for anyone to follow. If the video doesn’t play above, watch “Modern Medicine Seminar 6: The Aging Brain” at comeandreason.com/mmbttb-6.

More on the Brain

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

Ripe red raspberries and green raspberry leaves on a sunlit bush.

Herbal Healing, Women's & Men's Health

Menopause

October 12, 2026 Dara Dietz

_{Photo: Mirek Kielar / Pexels}

Perimenopause, Hot Flashes, Night Sweats and the Change of Life

Understanding the Condition

Menopause is not a disease. It is a natural passage, as natural as the first period was in girlhood. Through the childbearing years, the ovaries make two main hormones each month. Estrogen builds the lining of the uterus and keeps the skin, bones, heart, bladder and vaginal tissue supple and strong. Progesterone, made after an egg is released, steadies the lining, calms the nerves and helps with sleep. The brain watches over all of it: the hypothalamus and pituitary send a hormone called FSH to call the ovaries into action each cycle.

As a woman moves through her forties, the ovaries’ supply of eggs runs low and they begin to answer that call less and less. The brain calls louder (FSH rises), and the hormones start to swing.

Line diagram of hormone levels from age 35 to 60: estrogen swings up and down through perimenopause then falls, progesterone falls first, and FSH rises steeply, with menopause marked at about age 51. — How the hormones shift through the change. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L. (not to scale).

How It Unfolds

Perimenopause (often four to ten years, usually starting in the forties). Ovulation becomes irregular, so progesterone falls first while estrogen swings high and low. This is the time of irregular or heavy periods, breast tenderness, PMS that grows worse, trouble sleeping, mood swings, and often thinning hair.
Menopause itself is one day: the point when a woman has gone 12 months in a row without a period. In this country it comes at about age 51 on average.
After menopause, the ovaries rest. The adrenal glands and fat tissue carry on making small amounts of hormones, and the liver keeps clearing used hormones from the body. This is why tired adrenals and a sluggish liver make the change so much harder.

Why the hot flashes come. The same part of the brain that calls to the ovaries also sets the body’s thermostat, sleep and heart rhythm. As estrogen falls and FSH rises, that center is unsettled. It decides the body is too hot, opens the blood vessels in the skin and turns on the sweat: a hot flash, or at night, a night sweat. Dr. Christopher wrote that this same disturbance can unsettle sleep, stamina, heartbeat, digestion and blood pressure, and that few women go through the change without some symptoms.

The common signs are hot flashes and night sweats; trouble sleeping; a racing or pounding heart; mood swings, anxiety and low moods; foggy memory; thinning hair; dryness of the skin and vaginal tissue; urgency or leaking of the bladder; weight settling around the middle; and joint aches. Over the longer term, falling estrogen leaves the bones and the heart with less protection, so this is the time to care for both.

Dr. Christopher believed the hard symptoms are not caused by the change itself but by a body that comes to it undernourished, without the raw materials it needs to make its own hormones. He saw women “glide smoothly through the changes of life” once that food was given. Medicine offers hormone replacement, but its own labels warn of risks to the uterus, breast and blood, and when it is stopped the symptoms often return.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

The Hormonal Curtain

The real hormonal shift comes at the end, when the cycle stops. Many women think they’re home free when their cycles end without much drama, only to discover it has just begun.

From puberty on, the hormones that run a woman’s cycle also turn her attention outward. It is as if a curtain drops between her and the girl she was when it all began. Her focus turns to nesting, a home and babies, and all of that is hormonally driven. Something is lost during those years, too: the creative side of herself, so alive in her early teens. Not every woman loses it, but many put their inner selves on the back burner through the family years.

In perimenopause, the curtain lifts for longer and longer stretches, and at menopause it rises, never to fall again. The nesting urges simply fade, and you find yourself looking inward more and more. This is a gift. The old tales of the wise older woman, the understanding that comes from a lifetime of living, were always there. You just weren’t looking inward; too much else had your attention. Now you will bloom. You’ll write that book or pick up those paintbrushes again, and discover other amazing parts of yourself. It is time to make friends with yourself.

But behind that curtain is the stash of emotional bills: everything you swept under the rug or tucked away to deal with “later.” Later is here. The more unfinished business waiting there, the harder and more symptomatic your menopause will be.

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, darlings, but the curtain is gone and the rug is up. It’s time to deal with yourself, or spend the rest of your life trying to medicate it away. You’re always free to keep denying the reality of your life, but you can no longer use the hormonal curtain as a barrier against the inner woman demanding your attention. Do the hard work on you, and become the woman you always knew you were.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Menopause problems: fear of no longer being wanted; fear of growing older; rejecting yourself; feeling you are not good enough. Turn it around: I am at peace through every change of life’s seasons, and I bless my body with love.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House).

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The change involves the whole hormone family: the ovaries stepping back, the hypothalamus and pituitary in the brain that set the thermostat and call to the ovaries, the adrenal glands that take over making hormones, the thyroid (whose troubles can look much like menopause), and the liver, which clears used hormones out of the body. It shows up in the skin and blood vessels (flashes and sweats), the heart, the nerves and sleep, the bones, and the bladder and vaginal tissue.

Opening the Way: Clearing the Liver and Bowels

Keep the bowels moving with LBF, building up one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. Used hormones the liver sends out through the bile are taken back into the blood if the stool sits.
Liver flushing. Juice fasting and flushing the liver are like hitting the restart button. When the body is out of balance, a good week of liver flushing clears a layer of toxins and helps the hormones settle. After that, an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once or twice a week until the symptoms have cleared.
Cool the triggers. Coffee and other caffeine, sugar, alcohol, spicy foods, hot drinks and stress all set off hot flashes. Many women find their flashes come at certain times of day once they start watching.
Hot and cold showers and fresh air. A hot and cold shower in the morning wakes up the circulation and trains the blood vessels to respond. Exercise, outdoor walks and sunshine steady the mood and protect the bones.

Feeding the Female System

Female Formula: the first support. Chaste tree berry, wild yam, dong quai, damiana, licorice and hops: it gives the body the raw material to balance its own hormones and calms the nerves, and it helps stop hot flashes, night sweats and the emotional free fall of the change. The daily amount is 1½ teaspoons. For hot flashes and night sweats, split it into three ½-teaspoon portions: ½ teaspoon in the morning, and the rest taken before your problem times. If the flashes come in the late afternoon, take the larger share in the early afternoon so the herbs are in the blood when they are needed most. For night sweats, take a dose at bedtime. Without these issues, take the full 1½ teaspoons in the morning.
Changease: hormonal food. Black cohosh, sarsaparilla, ginseng, licorice, blessed thistle, squaw vine, shatavari and vitex. When symptoms still persist after the Female Formula and liver flushing, add Changease alongside it: ½ to 1 teaspoon three times a day. It gives the body the raw material to make the hormones it needs in the last stages of the change; the shatavari is cooling and moistening, a help for hot flashes, night sweats and dryness, and the vitex supports the pituitary.
Wild yam cream: a helper alongside. Some women do best using both the Female Formula and a wild yam progesterone cream. Dara used the cream herself, mainly for thinning hair and the symptoms of perimenopause. It is valuable to a degree; the Female Formula is still the foundation, and the cream is an addition, not a replacement.
Feed the adrenals. The adrenals carry the load after menopause. The licorice in both formulas feeds them; when a woman is worn thin, see Rebuilding Tired Adrenals.
Heavy, breakthrough or lingering bleeding: kick it hard. The everyday Female Formula amount is 1½ teaspoons a day. When the bleeding turns heavy, comes between cycles, or a cycle refuses to end, even if it is only spotting, don’t let it drag on. Take 1 tablespoon all at once in a cup of hot water, and for heavy flooding with clots, up to three times a day. Keep it up for a day or two after the bleeding stops, then drop back to the usual dose. The natural progesterone in the wild yam can make the breasts tender at this higher dose; it eases within a day or two of returning to the normal dose. Any bleeding after menopause needs a doctor (see the box below).

Calming the Heart, Nerves and Sleep

A racing or pounding heart. Many women report palpitations through the change. Dara’s supports: NFX and the General Nervine for the nerves, with cayenne and hawthorn extracts for the heart. In hot water at bedtime, cayenne (working up gradually to 3 droppersful) and hawthorn (6 droppersful) make a calming evening tea; when palpitations wake you, take the cayenne and hawthorn every five minutes until the heart settles.
Sleep. 2 droppersful each of the General Nervine and NFX at bedtime help with falling asleep and staying asleep. See Two Formulas for a Good Night’s Sleep for more.

Thinning Hair

The Female Formula first. Thinning hair is one of the most common signs of perimenopause, and for many women it is the most upsetting. Dara’s own hair was falling out by the handful until she began the Female Formula; then it stopped. Use the daily amount above.
Clear the liver. The liver clears used hormones out of the body. When it is sluggish, the hormone swings are harder and the hair shows it. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week, supports the hair along with everything else.
Add Changease if it persists. When hair loss keeps on after the Female Formula and liver flushing, add Changease alongside them.
Wild yam cream. Dara used wild yam cream mainly for thinning hair, and some women do best using it together with the Female Formula.
Ease the stress and check the thyroid. Stress drives hair loss, and the nerve supports above help. Thyroid trouble also thins the hair and can look just like the change, so have it checked if the hair loss is heavy.

Protecting the Bones

Calcium the body can use. Dr. Christopher’s Calcium formula (horsetail grass, comfrey root, oat straw and lobelia) with Superfood: 1 teaspoon three times a day. Dara regards ordinary calcium pills as ground-up rock; plant calcium feeds the bones without leaving mineral residue for the kidneys.
Weight-bearing exercise and sunshine keep the bones strong; walking counts. Stop the calcium robbers: soft drinks, coffee and junk food.

Using Comfrey With Care

Comfrey root is one of the four herbs in the Calcium formula, used in traditional proportions as part of a blend. Take it at the dose on this sheet, 1 teaspoon three times a day. More is not faster.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Any bleeding after menopause (once you have gone 12 months without a period) needs to be checked by a doctor, as does bleeding that is very heavy, comes every two weeks, or lasts much longer than usual during perimenopause. Have your thyroid checked if symptoms are strong, since thyroid trouble can look just like the change. A bone density scan in the years after menopause shows how the bones are holding up. If you are taking hormone replacement, work with your doctor to come off it gradually; stopping suddenly can bring a hard rebound.

Emergencies: chest pain or pressure, a racing heart with fainting, dizziness or shortness of breath, or heavy bleeding with lightheadedness. These need emergency care right away.

Level of Commitment

Most women pass through the change well with steady, simple support. How much you need depends on how much your body and your heart are carrying into it:

Gentle support. For most women in perimenopause and the change. The Female Formula, timed before your problem times; LBF to keep the bowels moving; cutting the triggers (caffeine, sugar, alcohol); water, walking and sunshine; the sleep supports as needed.
Focused cleansing. When the symptoms are strong or don’t settle: a week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week until the symptoms clear, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in; add Changease to the Female Formula; the heart and nerve supports; the Calcium formula for the bones. Give it about three months.
Incurables Program. The change itself never calls for this. It is for a serious condition that comes along with it, such as fibroids, cysts, or cancer of the breast or uterus; see those sheets. The full Incurables Program includes cleansing the bloodstream with HEAL’s Blood Purifying formula. Blood Purifying contains chaparral, which has long been regarded as one of the strongest blood purifiers in herbal use. It has had years of bad press, but used wisely it supports the body in clearing growths, and over the years many members have used it to eliminate tumors. Use with care: take Blood Purifying in courses, not continuously: two dropperfuls 4 to 6 times a day for a week at a time, in a few ounces of grape juice, while drinking 64 to 128 oz. of liquid a day. Avoid it during pregnancy or nursing and with existing liver disease. If the skin or the whites of the eyes turn yellow, the urine turns dark, or there is pain under the right ribs, stop and have the liver checked.

More Is Not Faster

A Loose Healing Plan

Week 1: Build the foundation. Start your Foundational Program (Superfood and juicing, Echinacea, and bowel cleansing with LBF). Start the Female Formula, timed before your problem times, with a bedtime dose for night sweats. Begin cutting caffeine, sugar and alcohol, and notice what sets off your flashes.
Week 2: Flush the liver. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once or twice a week until the symptoms clear.
Weeks 2 onward: Calm and protect. Add the sleep and heart supports if you need them, the Calcium formula with Superfood for the bones, and daily walking and sunshine.
After a month or so: Take stock. If hot flashes, night sweats or mood swings persist, add Changease to the Female Formula. Weeks of kidney flushing can be alternated with the liver work.
About 3 months: Most women are steady. Three months is the average time to bring the hormones into balance. Keep the Female Formula going through the change, easing down as the symptoms fade, and return to the supports whenever a rough patch comes.
All along: the inner work. Make friends with yourself. Face what has been waiting behind the curtain, and give yourself the care you have given everyone else.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: My Own Change

Menopause came for me in the middle of some of the most turbulent years of my life. Our move to Mountaindale, New York, had been a time of real growth, with all the drama that comes before growth. Our move to Hendersonville, North Carolina, gave us a little time to recover before our own family drama began, and perimenopause began right in the midst of it.

My hair started falling out by the handful. I had always had very thick hair, which was a good thing, because at that rate I was soon going to need a wig. My hairdresser suggested vitamins for stress. They helped a little, but nothing fixed it.

During those same years I was discovering the herbal cleansing programs and the herbs that support the female system. I began the Female Formula around 1997, when I was 37, with excellent results. My hair stopped falling out. My cycles improved, and the clots from the heavy bleeding that had been my lot for years were gone.

That was the beginning of a perimenopause that lasted about ten years. At 46 I began skipping cycles, and for several years I had one cycle every three months. In my 48th year, after 11 months without a cycle, I had one last one. It began with a feeling of emotional free fall, and my body seemed determined to make up for all 11 months: I was passing huge blood clots. I took a full tablespoon of the Female Formula three times that day and kept up that dose until the cycle ended. By midafternoon of the first day the bleeding had slowed to a normal flow, and my emotions felt steadier after that first large dose. The bleeding lasted five days and stopped. I kept taking the large dose for several more days. The last thing I wanted was to see that bleeding return.

During those twelve or thirteen years, I wrote my biography, recovered a marriage that was all but dead, and discovered who this woman really was.

The regular dose of the Female Formula is 1½ teaspoons a day. A tablespoon three times a day is the dose for controlling heavy bleeding, and the same approach handles breakthrough bleeding or a cycle that won’t end: kick it hard and get it done, then return to the regular dose. See Feeding the Female System.

A Member’s Story: Calming the Heart Through Perimenopause

A member in North Carolina shared how perimenopause brought what she called “panic attacks”: waking dizzy and lightheaded, her heart racing like a freight train, over and over. Every night she made herself a hot tea with 3 droppersful of cayenne (working up to it gradually) and 6 droppersful of hawthorn, and took 2 droppersful each of the General Nervine and NF (now NFX) formulas to fall asleep and stay asleep. When she woke with palpitations, she took the cayenne and hawthorn every five minutes until it stopped, usually just once. She used these supports at bedtime for years with great results; the only time the supports failed her was when she had overdone the caffeine or sugar.

Off the Hormones and Sleeping Through the Night (from Dr. Christopher)

A woman in Vancouver, British Columbia came to Dr. Christopher “climbing the wall” with nervous tension. Her hot flashes were driving her almost insane, she threw off the covers all night, and her husband was losing sleep and patience. She was taking estrogen but felt it was doing her more harm than good.

He put her on the three-day cleanse and the mucusless diet. She suffered for a time coming off the commercial hormones, but took the female corrective formula and the hormone formula (now Changease), each three times a day. A short time later she told him her whole life had changed: she slept all night without throwing off the covers, the nervous screaming jags were gone, and her husband fell in love with her again. She said it was worth every bit of the change in diet and the effort of taking the herbs.

More on the Female System

This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.

1 Corinthians, Bible Studies, Spiritual Healing

Until It Is No Longer New

October 12, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:2

A long brick walkway under a pergola, its white pillars wrapped with old vines

“I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.” (1 Corinthians 11:2, NIV)

The Remedy says it warmly: Paul is so pleased with them for remembering all he taught them and holding firmly to the truth he shared. The word “traditions” here is the Greek paradoseis — things handed over. Paul received the gospel from Christ and handed it on (1 Corinthians 11:23; 15:3), and these believers were holding on to what had been handed to them.

The Hard Part Is Keeping It

Paul recognized the effort it took to stick with the changes they had taken on while he was with them. He understood how hard it is to accept something new, to learn it, and then to keep doing it until it is no longer a new thing. The science of the brain wasn’t available then, but observation and wisdom could see how the mind works.

Think about who these people were. The society they came from was different in every way from the truths they had embraced into their hearts and minds. It was an entirely new way of living — and they learned it and kept living it without leaving the city and community they lived in. They changed their gods. They took a new foundation to build their lives on, right in the middle of the same society. That is truly huge.

A Perfect Storm

A change like that could not have happened if society had been at rest, with nothing stirring the heart to go looking for somewhere to rest. The Roman world was that storm. People were weary of the drama — of leaders, of politicians, of a military that could turn on itself at any moment. The more affluent Roman culture became, the more corrupt its leaders grew, and the decay was already in public view when Christ was born. A single ruler could give an order and every boy in a town would be killed, as Herod, Rome’s appointed king, did in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).

Brain science shows the mind holds hard to its old foundational ways of thinking until something strong enough — a crisis, an epiphany, a force — pushes it to look for something new. Into that weary world, Christ brought something new.

The Imprint That Remains

Two thousand years later the whole world carries the imprint of what Paul and the disciples of Christ left behind. Slavery, once ordinary everywhere, has been abolished by law nearly everywhere. The life of Christ is known in every corner of the earth — not accepted by every culture, but known well enough that some fight against it. It began with ordinary people like those Corinthians, holding fast to what was handed to them.

So Paul’s praise is for us too. What Christ hands us is new at first, and it is hard. But we keep at it, day by day, until it is no longer new — until it is simply who we are. And then we hand it on.

1 Corinthians, Bible Studies, Spiritual Healing

Follow Me as I Follow Christ

October 12, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:1

A man walking ahead on a leaf-covered woodland path

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV)

At first it sounds bold, maybe even a little proud. Who would tell a whole church to copy him? But read it again. Paul is not calling for followers of his own. He is saying, as long as I am following Christ and you can see Christ in me, let me be your example, just as Christ is my example. The condition is built right into the sentence. Phillips puts it plainly: copy me, as I copy Christ himself.

The Remedy adds what that example looks like — following Paul in reaching others in love. That fits the verses just before it, where Paul says he seeks not his own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved (1 Corinthians 10:33). The chapter break was added much later; this verse is really the closing line of Paul’s thought in chapter 10.

We Cannot Imitate Someone We Do Not Know

We cannot imitate or follow someone we do not know. When a person first comes to Christ, they don’t yet know Him well. So the one who pointed them to Christ becomes the example they follow, until they meet Him and develop their own relationship with Him. That is a sobering place to stand.

It is our duty, through daily time spent with Christ, to allow His character, His mind, His Glory and His Love to envelop us, fill us and saturate us, until we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). By beholding we become changed (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It Is Not Us

Each morning I need to remember that it is not me, my talents, or anything in me that draws these lost and hungry souls. No, it is the mind and heart of Christ we have become. The mind and heart of Christ in us will draw those seeking truth.

Then we are a useful tool in the hand of Christ — no longer a raw recruit, but a soldier He can place anywhere in His ranks and count on to carry out His orders as He would (2 Timothy 2:3–4), a worker in His field (Matthew 9:38), His light on a hill (Matthew 5:14). And to us He continues to be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105), the Good Shepherd (John 10:11), a friend that sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24) — our closest and dearest friend, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

We Do Not Stand Alone

Because Christ is our example, we can say with Paul to those newly come to Him: you may follow my example, because I am following the example of Christ. And as soon as their own relationship with Christ is strong, they will begin to bloom, the Love of Christ flowing from them as they show His Love to their world. Then they become the example for someone else, and the chain goes on — each link pointing past itself to Him.

A wooden boardwalk winding through green trees

1 Corinthians, Bible Studies, Spiritual Healing

The Quiet Change

October 11, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:33

“Even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” (1 Corinthians 10:33, NIV)

The Remedy says it this way: remember to be winsome in dealing with others, not promoting your own agenda but spreading the Remedy of Jesus Christ, so that many may be eternally healed.

What does this look like, trying to please everyone and not looking out for your own advantage? It begins with keeping your word, whatever the personal cost (Psalm 15:4). It means noticing the little things that would make someone else’s day, and doing them when wisdom allows.

Balance is the key. An organized life leaves you free to do the little things. A cluttered life keeps you so busy with your own mess that you never notice anyone else. Living an open, other-focused life does not mean you stop living your own. It means you become organized and responsible, aware of how your own growth affects your ability to bless others.

Start at Home

Start with your family. Clean up your world, and really notice each member of your family. Do it for yourself; they don’t need to know you are doing it. Do special things to draw them out, so you can know them better. Start growing your loving muscles at home with the ones closest to you. As kindness and the little extras become your habit, they will naturally spill over into the rest of your life.

Start small: one choice, one day. Learn to be consistent with your new habits. It takes time to heal and change a lifetime of how you react and speak to those around you. Some people will not approve; they were comfortable with the old you. That is fine. Paul was not seeking approval but the good of others. Growth is never easy or completely painless. Stay with your plan, and stay with your time with the Lord. You will find your life expanding. You will become more.

Making close companions of your family is a true gift to yourself. Enjoy them, let them in on the new you, and see if they don’t jump on board and begin working on themselves too. And so the wave of Love and Light moves out from you, first to those your heart is bound to most, then out into the world around you.

Don’t Announce It

It all begins with one person making one choice to change. That choice, made alone between you and Christ, gathers strength in the currents of Love and Truth flowing through the universe, on into eternity. You are not alone in it. You are standing with the God of all creation, and all heaven is ready to help you in your new life.

These are not changes you announce. This is a new life you begin quietly, one observation at a time. When you notice one thing you can do, just do it (Matthew 6:3–4). The reward is greater when someone asks, “What has changed about you? You seem different.” Then what you share is not just words, but a real answer to a real question, from someone who truly wants to know (1 Peter 3:15).

People are drawn to Christ because they are drawn to the winsome way you have begun treating them.

A clear mountain pool below small waterfalls

1 Corinthians, Bible Studies, Spiritual Healing

Every Movement in the Water

October 11, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:32

“Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:32, NIV)

The Remedy puts it this way: do not knowingly act in ways that confuse others about God, or lead them astray, whether believers or non-believers.

Be open and caring toward everyone, regardless of who they are or how they affect your life. Every soul born into this world is a child of God and deserves to be treated with the wisest, most interested concern. No one is beneath your notice.

We cannot be aware of everyone we affect. The wave each choice creates travels far past our ability to follow it. Picture it this way: we are all living under water. Every movement, no matter how small, shifts the water around us. You cannot pass by anything without changing it in some way. You cannot even come close enough to notice another person without having an effect on them. Water carries every twitch, every slight change in us, out to everything around us. Nothing we do is of no consequence.

This is why Paul tells us to put no stumbling block in anyone’s way. We never know how far the ripple of a careless act will carry, or whose faith it may unsettle.

God created the water, and He sees all of its movement at once. He is with us in everything we do, yet He is not tied to physical reality as we are. He lives in eternity, but He chooses to participate in linear time with us. In eternity, past, present, and future are one before Him (Psalm 90:2). He can see everything without being pushed around by any of it, and when He chooses to act in time, He acts with perfect control.

We cannot do that. We affect each other on every level. So move carefully through your life, not with fear but with understanding, aware that what you think, say, and do reaches far beyond yourself. Live in the moment, aware of all that moment holds and all you can do to better your own life and the lives of everyone sharing it with you.

And never stop learning. Knowledge ennobles us, empowers us, and lifts us above the life we were born into. The more we understand, the better stewards we become of ourselves and of everyone our ripples touch. The more you know, the more you are.

Fresh green fronds growing out in front of older leaves

Bible Studies, Romans, Spiritual Healing

I Do Not Want to Be a Pardoned Sinner

October 11, 2026 Dara Dietz

Reflections on Romans 4:3

“What does Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’” (Romans 4:3, NIV)

One modern paraphrase renders this verse to say that because Abraham believed, God “canceled his sins and declared him ‘not guilty.’” When I read that, my heart cried out. I want my sin condition healed! I want God to create in me a new, clean heart that no longer wants to be sinful and selfish. I do not want to be a pardoned sinner!

The Remedy captures what I long for: Abraham trusted God, “and his trust was recognized as righteousness because the distrust caused through Satan’s lies had been removed, and through trust he was endowed with a new heart, right motives and Christlike principles.”

How sad that anyone could believe God would do only a halfway job of healing His creation, that all through eternity we would have to keep arguing with our fallen natures.

A Clean Heart

The Lord will create a clean heart in us (Psalm 51:10). This means we will be free from the inclination to want to sin. The inner man of sin will be removed. In our walk with the Father, we will have crucified these sinful attributes of our characters. This is done by refusing to agree with, accept, or think on selfish, evil things. We starve the man of sin in us to death by refusing to feed him.

Every time we shut down the inclinations, thoughts, or actions to be selfish or sinful, we weaken this part of our nature. We don’t have the emotional or spiritual strength to wage this war alone. This is where the Father promises all the power of His throne to aid even the weakest member of His family who is choosing to wage this war. Any movement or choice in this direction floods our life with power from heaven.

When we begin this war, our ability to recognize and take in this heaven-sent Grace and power will be small. Each day, as we make our will subject to our wishes, along with the growing connection with the Father that comes from spending time with Him, our ability to take in more of His saving, healing power grows, as it does its work of healing and restoring us to the mind of Christ.

Our wishes are His wishes when we have His heart and mind in us. We truly want to do well; we are just running our new life on the old sinful platform in our brains. As we do the good, we change our inclinations, until our knee-jerk reaction is the mind of Christ acting first, not something we have to catch and redo.

Learning to Absorb

When our physical bodies are sick, it is all but impossible to absorb the nutrition from the good, healthy food we eat. One of the most energy-consuming things our bodies do is produce the hydrochloric acid bath the stomach uses to break down our food and release its nutrition. When the body is sick, this creates a downward spiral. We flood our body with good, nutritious food, but most of it passes through unabsorbed, because the body is too weak to make the strong bath needed to break it down.

So it goes in the spiritual life. The Father floods our hearts and minds with His healing Love and Grace, but we do not have the spiritual strength to absorb all He sends. In the beginning, only a little is taken in. Each day that we take time to commune with the Father, spend time in the Word, and meditate on His Love, our ability to absorb grows, and our connection to heaven grows with it. We are able to feast on and absorb greater and greater amounts of the healing nutrients sent straight from the throne of God. This is our spiritual healing journey.

Junk Food for the Mind

You must control your mind; there is so much power for good or evil in our thoughts. Keep your mind away from sinful, evil, selfish subject matter. Learn to feed on the beautiful, healthy, and uplifting. Close your mind to negative subject matter. Turn off the news and the TV. All the material pouring into you from every direction is destroying your connection with the Father and dwarfing your mind.

You would never knowingly let junk food cross your lips if you understood what it does to your body. Even one candy bar’s worth of sugar can weaken your immune response for hours afterward, leaving you open to whatever virus is floating by. Junk food throws open the doors of your body to invaders.

Junk food for the mind does the same. It breaks your connection with the Father and dwarfs your mind, making it harder for the healing power to enter and heal. And feeding your mind and heart on junk is addictive, just as junk food is. Choose to disconnect from the garbage media.

The more time you spend with the Father, the more you will want to be with Him. Your heart and mind will expand. This is your choice.