291: Your Body Is Sending Signals. Are You Listening?

Dr. Tabatha sits down with Jackie Tewes, MSN, APRN, CNP, board-certified family nurse practitioner and founder of Flourish Medical + Wellness in Savage, MN. Jackie has 15+ years of clinical experience and runs the Flourishing Life Podcast with her husband. Together they dive deep into why conventional lab ranges are failing women — and what the functional medicine approach actually looks like.

In this episode:

• Why "normal" lab ranges are built around sick populations, not healthy ones
• The fasting insulin test your doctor isn't ordering (and why it matters more than your A1C)
• How estrogen and testosterone loss creates insulin resistance — even when you're doing everything right
• Why HRT alone won't fix the problem if no one's looking at the full picture
• What it looks like to have a provider who actually investigates your symptoms
• How faith shows up in Jackie's practice — literally written into the walls

Connect with Jackie Tewes: Jackie is a board-certified nurse practitioner and founder of Flourish Medical + Wellness in Savage, MN, where she helps women navigate hormones, aging, and whole-person health — rooted in faith. Find her at flourishmedicalwellness.com, listen to The Flourishing Life Podcast, and follow her on Instagram at @jktewes and @flourishmedicalwellness. 

Scripture close: 2 Timothy 1:7 — "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline."

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Transcript

Why Normal Labs Mislead

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If your body is telling you something, if you're super tired, if you have headaches, if you aren't sleeping well, that is a sign that there is something going on in the body, and it is not in homeostasis. So we cannot ignore that.

Dr. Tabatha 0:17

If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, stuck in your body, and disconnected from God, this podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabitha, a triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Fast of Faith. I'm Dr. Tabitha, a triple board certified physician, functional medicine practitioner, and I am on a mission to help women heal their hormones, their gut, and their faith all at once. Okay, I want to ask you something before we get started today. Have you ever walked out of a doctor's appointment feeling more dismissed than when you walked in? Yeah, you told them you were exhausted, that something fell off, your brain wasn't working, you told them you weren't yourself, and they looked at your labs and they said, You're fine. I don't know what to tell you. You're just getting old or you're just going through menopause. Oh, that moment is so frustrating. And that is what we're gonna talk about today, right, Ashley? Yeah, right.

Ashlee 1:31

And it is so um painstakingly hard for me when I'm somewhere or I'm in a group text and someone sends that they went to the doctor and they have X, Y, and Z wrong with them, and they literally are like, my labs are normal. So everything must be okay. And I have to like bite my tongue because I just feel sorry for them that they're just being so dismissed and they're like exercise harder, eat less, and that's just not gonna get them where they need to go.

Dr. Tabatha 1:57

Yeah, it's just gonna drive them further into chaos, right? It is.

Ashlee 2:02

That's exactly what it's doing.

Dr. Tabatha 2:04

Well, I'm really excited about our guests today, but I'm just really excited about this topic because the truth of it is, I was struggling to start this episode this morning because I'm having major brain fog. And the reason for that is I had a colonoscopy, y'all. I'm just gonna be super transparent. And the reason is we're gonna, I think we have to do an episode about this. Yeah, let's get this on the schedule. But I have been having digestive issues, I've been having bloating and reflux and my pills getting stuck. And I was like, I think I have a hiatal hernia, I think I have something going on. Um, and I was talked into all the scopes because I'm quote unquote an old lady. I'm 51, and oh my gosh, you have to have that. Colon cancer is the second leading cause of death and cancer and all the things. So I signed up for it. I did the colon prep. I did it. I got the anesthesia, the fentanyl, the versed.

Ashlee 3:03

You were a good patient.

Dr. Tabatha 3:04

You were an amazing driver and caregiver for me. Thank you. Um, but my brain hasn't worked since then.

Ashlee 3:12

Yeah. Well, and it screwed with your gut microbiome, too. That's what we need to talk about at the episode.

Dr. Tabatha 3:16

Yes, let's do an episode about what actually happens. But why I'm bringing this up on this conversation today about quote unquote your labs are normal, everything looked good inside of me. Yeah. My esophagus looked normal. My colon looked normal. And so if

Colonoscopy Side Effects And Brain Fog

Dr. Tabatha 3:35

I was your typical patient, I'd be like, okay, I guess I just have to live with this.

Ashlee 3:39

Actually, if you were a typical patient, you would take that prescription they offered you.

Dr. Tabatha 3:43

Oh, yes, they told me I needed to be on a meprazol for the rest of my life. And here's your prescription. So, oh my gosh, we need to do an entire episode on that.

Ashlee 3:52

And we will. So I am really excited about our guest today. And actually, something I was thinking about when I was getting ready was we're getting ready to interview another woman on the exact same mission that we are on. And it's just so powerful to know that God is just aligning so many women, like because this is what we're supposed to be doing, that we are out here helping women and we can't do it alone, and so we need other people to do it. And so I just love that we are able to interview other women to get them on our show so that we can show that this is a big deal. Like God is clearly putting a message out there, and so I'm really excited to interview our person. And we do need to address that we're both wearing white today, and we did not plan this. And little brown sandals.

Dr. Tabatha 4:39

So we like great mind things, yeah.

Ashlee 4:42

Think alike. Okay.

Dr. Tabatha 4:44

Well, I just want to sing her praises for a minute. And I'm excited for not only you to know her, but the world to know her because I met her through Brooke Thomas's mastermind that I'm in, Live Out Loud. And she's just a gem, and she's, you know, living in Minnesota where it's cold and lonely sometimes, and we're feeling that, but she's doing good important work with her husband. So we are gonna talk to Jackie Tavis, and I just want you to know that it's spelled T-E-W-E-S. So when you Google her after this episode, the links are in the show notes, but it's German, and so it sounds like Tavis, even though that's not how it's spelled. Okay, she is a board-certified family nurse practitioner with 15 years of clinical experience. She and her husband founded Flourish Medical and Wellness in Savage, Minnesota. They run their Flourishing Life podcast together, which is awesome. I love how they talk about client success stories and what their patients go through because I think sharing stories is always really helpful. And she is just on fire for Jesus, which is one of the reasons that we connected so quickly. So we're gonna dive into all things women women's health and why your labs

Meet Jackie Tewes And Flourish

Dr. Tabatha 6:05

sometimes do look normal, but why we need to look deeper and consider other things. Because I promise you, if you're just getting on hormones, if you're just getting that medication filled and you still don't feel well, there is a deeper reason for that. So welcome, Jackie. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Thank you so much for having me. I like we haven't had a chance to talk business, so this is super cool. Um, we've had a lot of other times to connect on a deeper level, but I'm just so excited to talk one-on-one about something we're so passionate about. So thank you for having me. Sound great.

Dr. Tabatha 6:42

You are a necessary voice in this space because there's a lot of women in the country who don't live in a big city or they don't have access necessarily to the latest and greatest. But you and your husband are bringing the solution to, you know, Minnesota, which is really cool. And you can help patients all over. So bravo to you for doing that hard thing because it is hard to open a clinic and run a wellness center and be a businesswoman while also being a mom and all the things. So um I I appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

Right back at you. You do it all too.

Dr. Tabatha 7:24

Okay, let's dive in because I was listening to you um on your podcast with Tad, and you guys were talking about insulin resistance. And that is one of the biggest things that we tackle at Fast to Faith. You know, our fasting program, it's an intermittent fasting program. It's teaching women how to go from sugar burner to fat burner. But when you go through the transition into menopause and your estrogen drops, everything shifts. All of a sudden, that insulin resistance pops up or gets worse or can't control it. So I would love for you to share with my audience what the heck is happening to our body's ability to manage all our other hormones, especially our insulin and blood sugar, when we're going through that change.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

Yeah, so when estrogen and testosterone drop, we actually become more insulin resistant. Part of that is because of that testosterone. So when we have lots of good, healthy testosterone in our 20s, maybe low 30s, our we have bigger, larger muscle mass. And that larger muscle mass, all of our muscles have insulin receptors on them. And so when we have plenty of muscle, we are more insulin sensitive. Our body makes the insulin, the cells on the on the muscles themselves can take that up, and the body works well. But as we start to lose that muscle mass, we don't have as many insulin receptors.

Menopause Hormones And Insulin Resistance

SPEAKER_03 8:50

And so now we can start to see an increase in insulin resistance. So you can do absolutely nothing different, be eating the same, working out the same. But if your hormones have dropped to the point where your body is no longer able to efficiently make and use insulin, we do have to make some changes. We have to tweak the way things are going because it's a physiologic change in the body.

Dr. Tabatha 9:13

Absolutely. And the saddest part is that these are the labs that are not getting drawn at all in conventional medicine when you're going to an OBGYN or family practice. Or they might, if you can talk them into it, do a hemoglobin A1C, but that is going to only tell you if you actually have diabetes. It's not going to tell you if you have insulin resistance and prediabetes isn't even acknowledged. Or at least it wasn't when I was in conventional medicine. So you can you explain that a little bit to patients?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Yeah. Yeah. So I also worked in the traditional world for so long, and that's another commonality that we have that I just I think we connect and we get it so well because of that. Um, but a lot of like complete transparency, a lot of the testing that we order in the traditional world is based on what the insurance companies are recommending or what they will cover. And so the protocol behind diabetes and prediabetes is to draw an A1C if the blood sugar is high. And so what we miss is this like 10 years of insulin resistance occurring. It's not just like, oh, one month I woke up and now I have diabetes. This is a multi-year process that occurs with the body. And so the way that our medical system, our traditional medical system is set up, that we only check an A1C once the blood sugar is high, like we've already missed the whole pre-diabetes time. And a step before that is looking at that insulin level. So it's so important to get a fasting insulin level, even more so than that A1C, because that fasting insulin level is actually going to show us more of that insulin resistance happening sooner.

Dr. Tabatha 10:59

Absolutely. And can I just say that it is so not ordered in conventional medicine that when I send patients to labs, the lab will say, I don't know how to draw a fasting insulin. I don't see it listed in the orders of possibilities. I'm like, it's just an insulin and you do it fasting. You don't eat for 12 hours and then you get the insulin serum drawn. But like nobody's checking it outside of the functional and integrative space. And so even the labs don't know about it. It's so frustrating. Or even worse, you probably see this a lot. The range is so big on insulin because it's not quote unquote a fasting level in the system that these people are being told, oh, your insulin's normal when it's 20, you know?

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Yeah. Should we talk about that real quick? Like what is normal? Can we talk about what is normal? Um, literally, I talk about this every day with patients, and they're always just mind-blown, which they should be. And I didn't know this. Like when I came out of training, when I came out of NP school, I thought

Fasting Insulin Versus A1C

SPEAKER_03 12:15

that normal meant healthy. And we have done a real disservice to our country, really, in telling them that they are normal because they interpret that and we've made them think that means healthy. So normal ranges doesn't mean healthy ranges. The normal range that you're given on that paper is actually just telling you this is where 95% of people who were checked for the lab, that is where they fall, healthy or not. So it's just the combination of everybody. And so that's where we, when we practice here, we want to compare you just to this, those healthy people. We don't want to compare you to the sick people. And that's what the majority of those reference ranges or those normal ranges are telling you, is where the majority of the population falls. I just had these back recently on a couple labs. And because this is a range that's based on the population, these change. Okay, so you would think that if this was normal or if this was healthy, the range would always be the same. But that is not what happens. And we'll see that on the lab printouts where it will say, note, reference interval has changed. And so I have seen the normal blood sugar range change for it to go higher, not because it's healthy, but because more and more people have higher blood sugars. And so now we have a new normal. So it just makes us think as a population and as a country that, oh, we're still healthy, but really we're just getting sicker and the ranges are just changing us, changing to make us look healthy.

Dr. Tabatha 13:45

Oh, that is a really important point. Ooh, okay. If you missed that, you gotta like rewind it a minute and listen to that again because we are comparing ourselves to our sick cohorts. That is not okay. And really, the labs that so many primary care providers are drawing are labs that were first created to be checked in the hospital, in the emergency room, to see whether or not you need to be admitted and you need IV fluids and you know, sodium and potassium replacement and all these major things. So it has nothing to do actually with health and wellness. 100%. Oh my gosh, crazy. Okay. So you see patients all the time who have been gaslit or they've been dismissed, they've gone through all of this, and then they realize wait a second, there's another way. There's actually someone who will listen to the fact that I'm having all these symptoms and my test results aren't showing it. So speak to that person who's at that point. Like are you doing your discovery calls? Are you meeting them for a consultation? What does it look like to even help them see that there's a whole world that they're missing out there?

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Yeah. So, yes, we do in most of our care is in person. And so we do literally spend almost 45 minutes just getting to know them and understanding their symptoms. I think this is a big takeaway for people is that if you have symptoms, that is your body giving us a sign, a sign that something is going on. And so often that's just being dismissed. Like, oh, well, the labs are fine, so you must be normal. Everything's fine, it's just in your head. And that is such a disservice to our women and men, frankly. And so, what what I like to tell patients if your body is telling you something, if you're super tired, if you have headaches, if you aren't sleeping well, that is a sign that there is something going on in the body and it is not in homeostasis. So we cannot

Treat The Person Not Numbers

SPEAKER_03 16:00

ignore that. And we have to move away from treating numbers on a page. And this is not to say that our traditionally trained practitioners, I was one myself, um, are doing anything wrong. It's just how we're trained. We're literally trained to treat that number on the piece of paper instead of the patient in front of us. And that is the big thing that I tell our patients hey, you if your body is telling us something, I need to know it because that will help me make sense of your labs and better treat you. And so it's so important if you're just being told, hey, everything's fine, but you don't feel fine, to keep looking, keep searching for that person who's going to listen. And, you know, I call us master investigators. Like that is really our job. We have to understand your symptoms, your lifestyle, your labs, how do those all play together? And that is what you're dealing with. And that's what we have to address. Yeah.

Ashlee 16:56

So good. Yeah, go for it. Oh, so what I was thinking when she was talking was just about how you were saying uh like sometimes the master investigator piece, they for they kind of decompartmentalize like coming to the doctor from the dentist, from going to the chiropractor, and they forget to kind of bring all that. So that's what we see at the medical practice level. Like, we I literally will say to them when I do the first coaching call is like, you have to tell us everything. Like if you go to the dentist and you get on an antibiotic, we need to know that. Like all of this goes together, and they're not understanding how it all impacts everything, their stress, their relationship with the Lord. And so I think all of that is so important that you understand it, it's all comes together.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

100%, especially when we're thinking of hormones. Like I frequently see hormones being treated kind of as a silo, and that is such like that is not good care. We have to know their gut health, their metabolization, how their body is processing the hormones. Are there nutrients, are they, do they have adequate nutrients, vitamins, minerals to actually create the to accept the hormone and create the signal? So it all of health, like, right? None of it can be done in silos because that's not how our body was created. God created us as a whole system, mental, emotional, physical, all of the things.

Ashlee 18:19

Oh, yeah. So that I'm so sorry I'm gonna say this again. But we so we we kind of call it chasing their tail when they come and they just want hormones, and we don't, we don't just do hormones anymore because there's so much more to it. And that's why it's so important, and and we're just not willing to draw the line in the sand there because we really do want to treat the actual problem, not just give them another pill. This is so good. Such a good conversation. I know, right?

Dr. Tabatha 18:47

Real quick, I just want to interrupt this conversation for something super important. Even though we need to take care of ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we do have to take care of ourselves at a cellular level. And that is why I have my Fast to Face supplement line. So let's just take a minute to hear about something that might be the game changer that you need in this season. We really need to up-level how we're taking care of our temple. I used to treat mine like a garbage can, I will just be honest. And I'm not okay with that anymore. So this is one of the most important things to me is that I'm taking high-quality supplements that are actually doing what they say they're doing, and I'm getting my money's worth, and I'm not making my body worse by putting the wrong stuff in it. So let's talk about Hormone Tame Essential Multivitamin, because even though it gives you all the vitamins and minerals you need, there's extra goodness in there, isn't there? I think you have a bottle sitting next to you. Tell us about Hormone Tame.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Hormone Tame is five products in one. Um, if you listen to the the other episode, one of the things that we talked about is oftentimes, you know, women are just people were taking a lot of supplements. And the nice thing

Cellular Support And Hormone Tame

SPEAKER_02 20:10

about a lot of the um supplements that we have here at Fast of Faith is that they're they're just so consolidated, where you could take this and you are basically taking five products. So, yes, this is gonna be a multivitamin, but there is so much more. We actually kind of refer to it as a multivitamin on um steroids. One of the key things that this is gonna be helping is your mitochondria. All you need to know is that they are responsible for so many systems and processes in your body. The reason that we need supplements is because we're just supplementing areas that we just can't really kind of get with our food. So we're filling in those gaps. And so hormone tame is inviting the body to just fill in all of those gaps. So you gotta fill those gaps, and hormone tame it will help to do that.

Dr. Tabatha 20:58

The truth of it is sometimes you have to start on hormones to even be able to address those deeper things. Like I know for me personally, I I couldn't even function until I got back on some estrogen because I was so depressed and I had so much fatigue and joint pain and all of the things, but it has to be part of a comprehensive approach. So, what are you seeing in the clinic now with women who are possibly coming in already on HRT replacement since everybody can get it? Now I heard you talking on an episode about how like the patches are not available to a lot of women because all of a sudden everyone is on them. But here's the truth of it most of those women still don't feel better, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yep. Yeah. So this is huge. And again, it's I, you know, I I'm on the fence here. So I applaud those providers who are willing to say, okay, I'm gonna start, you know, prescribing this and trying to help women. But again, They haven't been trained. Only, I think it's like 2% of medical school students who've been surveyed have any sort of menopause or postmenopause or perimenopause training, which is insane, right? Like it is not trained on. And so they're doing what they think, like they're just prescribing because that's what we do. And then

HRT Pitfalls And Better Monitoring

SPEAKER_03 22:20

the rest of the picture is being missed. And so a lot of times I actually get patients coming in and they've never even had labs checked. So maybe they're put on an estrogen patch, but we don't even know what their estrogen is. I've had this where there was a woman who came in, was put on estrogen, having super high estrogen symptoms, you know, breast tenderness, bloating, super emotional, weepy, and her estrogen was 400. She did not need a patch, right? And so that's what we're seeing now, unfortunately. So, you know, listeners out there, if you're going down the HRT route, it is a really good thing when it's done the right way. But if it's not done the right way, it can cause some risk, some harm, and make you feel miserable. And you shouldn't feel miserable. If you're on hormones and you feel miserable, you need to look at how they're being managed because they're supposed that you should feel better with them.

Dr. Tabatha 23:15

Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's what I'm seeing as well-meaning prescribers or I hate to say it, some clinics who want the quick money grab because women are willing to pay cash to feel better, you know? And so they're going outside of the conventional system because their doctor's telling them no. And so, okay, let me pay for this. Um, but then you're right, they're getting new problems because they're not actually being managed appropriately. So I'm so glad that you are someone that is trustworthy, that has been trained, who understands this and is willing to dig deeper and work with them because I think we're gonna have more frustrated women than we already do. Like right now, women are frustrated because they felt like they didn't have any options for 20 years, and now they have all these options, but they're still not gonna feel better.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

So absolutely, yep.

Dr. Tabatha 24:17

Oh my goodness, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

The other thing you you mentioned about like for you needing to be on that patch, and this is one of the things I tell, especially practitioners when I'm training them here in the clinic, if we can get women and men, but women, those like quick wins where they actually feel like they can live again, then it we can dig into the deeper stuff. We can dig into the fasting and the nutrition and the movement, like that. But sometimes they just need that win, like they need to feel different. And so there's not necessarily a right or wrong. Um, it really needs to be personalized for each patient on where is that starting point and what can they handle.

Dr. Tabatha 24:55

Absolutely. Okay, so if we get a quick win or we start to feel change and progress, I would love for you to speak to the fact that our labs can sometimes lag and take a while to change because this is one of the things that we hear. We get pushback from women. Uh I'm still insulin resistant, my hemoglobin A1C is still pre-diabetes. It's like, you've literally done this for two or three months. We need to give it time. What is that about? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

So I like to educate patients on this as well because they're setting expectations, right? Like, what is the expectation here? If it took you 40 years or 50 years to get where you are, it is not realistic for us to think that we can reverse that completely in a month or two months or three months. Sometimes it takes a year for you to really heal those cells and those cells to become more responsive in the way that they're supposed to. And so um, one of the big things that I will explain to them is that symptoms are typically our first sign that something is wrong, and then the labs will start to change for the worst. And the reverse is true as well. So, first our symptoms feel better, and then eventually the labs are going to change and improve as well. But symptoms are usually going to come ahead of the lab change, which is why it's also so important to make sure you're addressing those symptoms because if symptoms are improving, we're going down the right track. We're going to get there. And so hang tight, keep going. Um, but that's a big, big like win if those symptoms are getting better. That means we're going in the right direction.

Dr. Tabatha 26:40

So good. Yes. I would love for do you have any case studies of anybody in this scenario? Because I think if women just hear like the actual story, they'll be able to see themselves in that and and have some hope again and realize I just need to find a provider to work with. And maybe that is Jackie. Um, give some ladies some hope today.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah. I mean, okay, so I have a really fascinating story that I want to share with you guys, but it's not necessarily in the hormonal world. Um, so I want to share that, but just in general, every day. I mean, we have six practitioners here, and so we probably treat, I mean, we each probably see eight to ten, maybe even twelve a day. So we're seeing a lot of patients, and a lot of our patients are women. We do do see some men as well, but a lot of women. And it is every single day, like they're tired, they have brain fog, they don't like their husbands anymore, they look in the mirror, they don't know who they are. They just they're like, I literally don't know who I am. And that is the typical average woman who has been to her doctor at least once and is told she's fine, or told she's too young to have hormones, that can't be the problem, and they feel terrible. And so we look at the labs, you really spend the time digging into their symptoms and then put a plan in place. And usually, if it's being done the right way, you know, four weeks, six weeks are like, I am already feeling back to myself. And that's one of the biggest I think like wins is I feel more normal, right? Like you're not gonna feel and you shouldn't necessarily feel like Superman. We want you to feel like you. And when we're able to accomplish that, that is that's where the sweet spot is. But one specific patient story,

Root Causes Like Mold And Toxins

SPEAKER_03 28:30

which I don't I haven't actually shared much of it and I need to, but um, she was actually a virtual patient that I was seeing, and I have videos. So her daughter actually reached out to me on Facebook and was like, I need you to help my mom. She keeps going to the doctor, they're telling her that nothing's wrong with her, everything's in her head. She had been seen by multiple specialists, and she was having seizure-like episodes where her body would uncontrollably shake. Um, she had severe pains. She would be like, she literally couldn't even um get full sentences out. Like she would be like when this was happening. And she was told this was in her head. I'm like, okay, this is crazy. Like, this is obviously not in this woman's head, right? Right. And so this, you know, honestly, I just do a lot of praying for my patients and pray that the Lord guides and directs us and heals through me because sometimes it's way out of my league. But um this was definitely one of those cases. And so we took a deep dive into things like parasites and heavy metals. She actually had some pretty high mold toxicity and she lives on a farm. And so they had a lot of exposure to different types of like pesticides and herbicides and like atrazine and things like that. So her hormones were in the tank. She had super high toxin levels, high mold levels. And as we've cleaned her out and um gotten her hormones back to where they need to be, she praise Jesus, has not had any more of those episodes. And so that was, it's just such a remarkable thing. It's like, again, the body is obviously telling us something is wrong. You have to listen to it. And if you're being dismissed, don't give up. Don't give up. Like, like you guys said at the beginning of this, God is putting the people out there who can help you, who will help you. So don't give up.

Dr. Tabatha 30:25

I love that you pray for your patients and you are thinking about that when you're taking care of them. I would love to know how else does your faith show up with caring for women, with running your medical practice with your husband? Um, because like you, I just do everything for the Lord now. And I don't know how not to. And I know that women are listening right now, and there's a few of them who are just feeling drawn to you because you're they're supposed to work with you. So, how does your faith um activate all of this?

SPEAKER_03 31:03

Yeah, so we literally would not be here if it weren't for the Lord. So, this was, you know, some people I think go into life thinking, I want to own a business or I'm an entrepreneur or things like that. That was so far off my radar. And I will still say this, people tell me not to, but like I'm not a business owner. The Lord literally was like, you need to open a clinic. And I had no idea what that meant or what it would lead to. Um, but we have like we don't do anything without that piece because it is all from him and it's where we started and it's how we will continue until the end of time. So um it's just really the foundation of our practice. It's not something we force on people. If you don't know God or you don't love God, you are more than welcome here, just as much as anyone else. We will love on you and we will treat you the best we absolutely can. But it is the foundation of our practice. So every decision that we make for our team, for our patients is really on that foundation of love, kindness, right? Provide a sense of hope. You know, when people walk in the door, they're just like, it's just different here. There's just a different feeling, and we never want to lose that. Like this entire um clinic, we actually have scriptures wrote written on the studs and on the ground and was been anointed and prayed over. So it isn't everything we do. And God a lot of times will direct and guide just treatment plans, even for my patients of like, you need to do this. And it's it's such a privilege to be able to be those hands and feet for him.

Dr. Tabatha 32:35

Oh, I love that so much. No wonder we connected instantly. It sounds a lot like fast of faith, doesn't it?

Ashlee 32:41

It does, yeah. I love that um when we end today, the scripture that we're gonna use is the one from your clinic too. So I'm excited for us to share that.

Dr. Tabatha 32:50

Yeah, I know. I I texted Jackie and I was like, we always close with scripture. We give a scripture for women to meditate on for the week and just ask the Lord, like, what are you saying to me through this scripture? And you said, I love Second Timothy 1, 7. So let's share that. I'm so excited for it. It's for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So to me, that speaks so much to how you need to approach um comprehensive care for yourself, working with someone like Jackie and her husband, because you do have to get in the game and be an active participant and take responsibility and have some self-discipline and learn how to love yourself and just step into what God is offering to you. Like at the end of the day, there is no magic pill, right? Like, I can you just speak to that really quickly before we close because we just live in this culture where the doctor is gonna fix me. I'm gonna go to the nurse practitioner and she's gonna like tell me what to do, and it's all gonna be better. But the truth of it is you have to do the work, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yes, 100%. So I think this is really important, and this again is what

2 Timothy 1:7 And Doing The Work

SPEAKER_03 34:15

we are built on is we believe that God created us all perfectly in his image. And if we believe that, then we believe that our body was not created with disease. Our body was not created to fail, our body was not created to live that way. And so we were made with all of the things that we need to have a healthy, long, good quality of life. But that doesn't mean if we make bad choices and if we choose to put the wrong things in it, or if we choose to, you know, ignore our surroundings and potentially things like a mold toxicity or things like that, that it's going to keep working that way. It's not, it's not magic, right? Like we have to put the work in. And that is where if you are somebody who wants to heal and live in a and and practice more holistic medicine, that is incredible, but it will take work. It is not a quick fix. It is not just a pill, it's not a pill for every ill. That's what I used to do. It didn't work. People just kept coming back. And then I was giving more pills for their side effects of their other pills. And so if that's the way you want to live, that is totally your choice. Like that is your it's your body, it's how you choose to live. But if you want to restore health and live the way God created and intended for your body to live, then this holistic stuff is what is for you. And it does take work, it's not quick.

Dr. Tabatha 35:43

I love it. It's so worth it. It's so worth it. Okay. I I'm so glad that you stayed with us for the whole episode. I want to honor that because it means so much to me that you give me your time and Ashley for being here with me. But go meditate on 2 Timothy 1.7. Talk to God about that, get some clarity and make some decisions in your life. Because when you make a decision, doors open up, some doors close, but either way, you're going to help get yourself into action and get unstuck, get out of the pit. And so it's really important to get in the word and see what God has to say about your health journey. He said at first, science is just catching up and proving everything the Bible said from the beginning. So I hope that you start to see that. God wants to reveal that to you. So I love you. I believe in you. We will see you next week. And thank you, Jackie.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Thank you so much. This has been amazing.

Dr. Tabatha 36:54

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