Me, Myself, and Food! It's not Pretty.

This post is a continuation of a series on the book Seven, a Mutiny against excess, by Jen Hatmaker. If this seems confusing you may want to start with some of my previous posts starting HERE.

The not so pretty side of me, myself, and… FOOD!

I am being absolutely honest when I tell you that I actually love being on this fast, but I did have my moments where I missed certain snack foods. I had days when I forgot to make up some food ahead of time and found myself in a pickle.

I had weak instances where I was spreading a certain chocolate hazelnut spread on my kids’ bread for a special treat and I longingly looked at the lovely chocolaty goo and bread and thought, “Oh how wonderful you are! I miss you so.” 

Or  perhaps the time I was with someone who was eating some lovely french fries and my mouth started watering for the salty crispy crunch to be mine all mine, but the truth is... I really feel better not eating them.

I have caught myself many a time trying to rationalize why I can buy myself a pumpkin spice latte from “Four bucks”.  (This is a very apt name my awesome sisters-in-law came up with.) 

Sadly, I get a wee bit too excited for this little cup of pumpkin spiced joe. It is the kick-off celebration for my favorite season of fall. Which became especially "rough", (I use that word loosely since we are only talking about coffee, dear drama queen.) the moment my sweet hubby called on his way home offering to pick one of those pumpkin lattes up for me since I was having a really bad day.

I practically wept while telling him no, and reminding him of this fast I was on. I was simultaneously grateful for such a sweet man, frustrated at having to turn something so sweet down, and hoping he would offer this another day when not on said crazy fast. (Don’t judge people, it was a very bad day and I was operating on too little sleep.)

One of my cute pumpkins holding a pumpkin! ;) She is so much better than a silly cup of coffee.

 Or how I think to myself in a panic, what if I miss all my chances to eat a sugary spicy cider doughnut from our favorite orchard. (Why!? Oh Why did I agree to start this fast in the fall?) It’s one of my favorite seasons for the food! I am surprised by my blatant issues with rationalizing my food habits by emotional whims or the, “But it’s tradition to eat this right now!” mentality.

The lessons learned that rid myself of me, 

and focused it on The One

                                 and the ones He calls me to LOVE.   

       

I have discovered some new ways to cook some meals. (Like Pasta-less Lasagna, which my whole family proclaimed as delicious!) I am astonished (Le gasp!) that I do not need to eat bread or pasta as much as I thought I did. 

I have once again come to the realization that when I do something unto the Lord He can give me the strength to do it where I normally would fail. My sweet Heavenly Father has taught me way more about myself and my American mindset than I even expected.

The Lord has unearthed my shallow ways and I have found myself and my habits wanting. The wonder of it all is that even in the midst of my ever present weaknesses I discovered a wonderful Lord who still loves me more than I could ever dream. 

He has plans for me that are absolutely amazing and detailed. He takes care of me and asks that I would take care of others through my families’ insane abundance. 

Jesus has offered me a love song for His people. It has cracked wide my bleeding heart this last month. The veil before my eyes is falling away and His light is revealing those who are crying out for help, healing, and for love. I know just the One who can provide those very things in abundance and I need to be sharing about Him through my heart, through my hands, and through my feet.

Remember? Love Does.

Do you see that lovely lady to the left? She was my buddy while we walked the streets of Pontiac in our group. She is 62 and recently experienced a stroke, yet she grabbed her walker and walked those streets sharing the love of Jesus. She is on a mission!

So last weekend this was how I celebrated the end of month one. I walked the streets of a nearby city with dear friends and family in Christ. We shared Christ’s love. We shared food. We shared gloves, hats, scarves, and invited them to a banquet being given in their honor the following weekend.

This will be a “Luke 14” kind of banquet, where they will be waited on hand and foot. People will supply them with winter coats, clothes, blankets, a delicious meal, entertainment, haircuts, and so much more. The part I love best? They will be showered with the sweet, sweet love of Jesus. How beautiful is that?

Matthew 22:37-40

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Food, Glorious Food! Sing with me. ;)

Seven, My first months fast against excess…

FOOD

Have you ever seen, Ice Age, The Melt Down? Where the vultures start singing about, "Food glorious food"? That song has played in my head more times then I can count this month. Hmmm...I wonder why?

After listening to the words I feel like I need to explain this song. So, for those wiho have not seen this movie, this song is sung by vultures, and yes it's a little creepy, but funny. ;) It was mainly the chorus that was stuck in my head. 

If you have read Jen's book you will notice that I did a different type of food fast than hers. (She tells you to do it the way the Lord leads you to.) After some prayer and  realizing I have some health issues that I do not want to aggravate by such a long sustained fast, I came up with this plan and I still learned a ton.

This month my meal plan for the fast will consist of...

Breakfast: Plain oatmeal. The only add ins will be milk or water.

Lunch: boiled chicken breast, sweet potato, leafy greens. 

Snack foods: Banana, apple, or carrots.

Dinner: Only homemade meals. No processed junk. This also means that if I did not make the bread or pasta myself, then I will abstain from eating it. 

So yes, my dinner was not an extreme thing, but I have a good reason. I have 3 munchkins and it is very important in our family that they know, we get one meal to eat. Momma is not a shorthand cook ready to make 3 different meals for dinner to satisfy their whims. 

There will be one meal, for our whole family, and we will all eat it. Enough said. If I suddenly show up to the dinner table with a different meal these smarty pants will undo all of our hard work using me as their example. No thank you.

Beverages: I will drink mainly water with some coffee or juice. (For the first 2 weeks I am challenging myself to drink the coffee without sugar/flavoring. This is rough since I like "phoo phoo" coffees. I have given up coffee for a whole month before and survived. I just flat-out chose not to give it up this time.)

I will also abstain from all refined white sugar.

My First Reflections…

Eating plain oatmeal with no seasoning or fruit, or maple syrup/ sweetener of any kind…Well, it really stinks. This absolutely will take a while to get used to. I LOVE cooking and this is hard to not go into chop and season mode…

Also it tastes like bleh.

Reality check…

This is sometimes the only food a person in a developing country may get for the day and honestly many do not even get this one bowl. ARGH! Sigh.

Well, so much for my pity party about how bad it tastes.

Lunch, was good. It takes a lot more forethought to cook some chicken up and chop up some sweet potatoes or other veggies. I learned the hard way that I have to think ahead with our crazy lifestyle and cook up 3-4 servings for myself ahead of time in case an emergency arises like a child throwing a major fit and a friend needing a ride to the hospital to have a baby six weeks early… (She is a beautiful and precious munchkin by the way!)

Oh how I miss you salty and sweet snack foods! I miss you so…

Suddenly, I am reminded like a smack in the face, (in other words…Wake up woman! Do you hear what you are whining about?) about something I learned from my lovely friends in South Africa. They call chips, candy, soda, etc., “luxuries”. This should be a splash of ice cold wakeup water in our faces. 

Hello America!

A bag of chips is a luxury? It’s standard fare for so many here, along with candy, beverages, and so much more. A luxury? It used to be.

I remember those days…

 I recall somewhere back there in the cobwebs of this mama brain, a time when it was an amazing treat to get some soda pop because it was someone’s birthday. Or the joy that yes, your parents actually took you to the “Golden arches”. I remember working odd jobs to save up the money to get some candy. 

I kid you not, my children are so spoiled by their grandparents that I have to give away and toss out candy monthly. There is no possible way our kids could eat it all nor would we ever allow them to, but yet it abounds.

A second issue I am running into with the word, “luxury”.  What do we call luxury items here in America? There are luxury cars, luxury vacations, luxury spas, luxury medical treatments, and so on. Luxury has such a different label here and price tag.

I am floored at how much of a difference one can experience after only one week. It’s Saturday and it’s my nephew’s birthday. All the family is there and I had decided ahead of time that I would eat “normal” during birthday celebrations. 

“Normal!” 

Haha! Oh my goodness, I didn’t even eat that much. Since my stomach had apparently shrunk a bit I took small portions. It was nothing that would have made me sick before, but oh Mylanta! 

There I was trying to shoot some video of the kiddos hitting the piñata after dinner and I suddenly had to do a quick camera hand-off to my hubby as I literally ran for the bathroom inside. Ack! Ahem…it was not pretty, but I did make it in time. I have never looked so forward to eating plain oatmeal before.

Stay tuned for, 

The not so pretty side of me, myself, and… FOOD!

A Flashback to the Fall of a "Foodie"

This was bedtime. Yep I wore my coat, gloves, and hat to bed. ;)

Flashback...

South Africa, July 2011

I was bundled up in my winter coat with my hat and scarf fitted snugly around my head because honestly there is no heat in these buildings and the temp is a lovely 40 degrees F and continuing to plunge. I quickly tucked my gloves into my pockets as I grabbed my mess kit for dinner and headed down the stairs to get in line with about 60 other hungry people.

The Lovely Miss Winnie

The Fabulous Miss Nisie

 I never quite knew what we might be eating, but Miss Winnie and Miss Nisie never disappointed us, even on those nights when I had no clue what I was consuming. All that really mattered was that it tasted fantastic and it was always served hot from the fire. Why ask questions? 

Tonight I was ecstatic to discover we would be eating some delicious curry. Score! I love curry, but this would be followed by jelly and custard? Jelly being jello with hot custard poured all over it.

 Hmmm…Okay I am slightly confused about this part, but I was up for trying something new.

 I excitedly brought my steaming hot plate of delicious looking curry over to the wood picnic table style seating. Gratefully I sat down next to one of my new South African friends and we quickly began chatting about our day out on the mission site.

 I remember watching as one of my teens finished up his plate and headed back for seconds...or maybe it was thirds? (Oh how the cooks just adored him!)  He was a 6 foot tall, 15 yr old, and he seemed to burn those calories as fast as he could shovel them in.

Do you see how tall he is?!

As he left to procure another mounding plate of the steamy curry I remember glancing down at her plate and finding myself a bit shocked at what looked like fairly small portions on it. In my unending curiosity I asked her about it. (Oh goodness! Now that I think about it, maybe that was rude?)

“D” was so patient with me, as she shared her views on food. (It went something along the lines of how we should eat just the amount each of us needs to fuel our body.)  She, then, very politely shared how she was a bit confounded by the large amounts of food we eat. (“We,” being the Americans.) 

She then pointed out that perhaps we view food differently between our two cultures. There was nothing offensive in her tone. She was by no means calling any of us "fat", but her point was made and it has never left me. Ever since then I have asked myself the self professed, "Foodie" can I get to the point where food is more about fuel for my body and less about my momentary cravings.

Fast forward to right now..

I am 2 days shy of completing my first month in the "Seven. A Mutiny Against Excess" fast and in my next post I will be sharing how God used the book Seven, and this last month to rock my little foodie world and so much more.

Warning... I am a mess for Jesus

WARNING-------What you are about to read is a bit messy and rife with errors. Like my life right now.

Hi Friends,

I am sorry it has been so long. I have missed you all. This last month has been full of ups and downs. I stopped writing when I came down with a “lovely” bronchial infection for about 2-3 weeks, but honestly did not return to writing because God is teaching me so many things. (Man, that sounds really lame, but I assure you it’s the truth.)

 I know I will eventually be able to put all these lessons He has been teaching me into words without sounding like a crazy mess of a bleeding heart. Okay, I cannot even promise that. I am a mess right now.

Lately I cry when reading scripture. (Why can’t I just read it and think on it like a normal good little Christian? Nope, right now I cry. His words break my heart. My lack of action breaks my heart.) I love my Lord so very much, and He is really re-working me in some areas.

Then while reading this book “Seven” by Jen Hatmaker, God began to escalate some of these things that I had finally shoved behind the couch in my mind because I could not figure out what to do with them. (Thank you Jen!) 

For example, after returning from Africa I found myself walking through my home thinking, why in the world do I have so much stuff? Why do I place so much importance on what others think of how well decorated or updated my home is when people are literally starving to death? 

When I found myself alone in our home, I would literally look around the room and examine all the pieces of furniture and think, “I don’t need that. Am I willing to give it all up?” (This from a person that attaches sentimental meanings to objects like crazy.)

 I have done fundraisers and worked with our teens and we have raised thousands of dollars to help the poor here in the US and across the globe, but how often am I being truly intentional with my “stuff” that I have accumulated. Yes, I can mindlessly donate it to “Good Will”, or to the “Salvation Army”, (Both great places to donate) but what if I am more intentional and seek out someone who really needs it? What if I give away things I really love, but do not need?

What if I stop eating so much food simply because I am on an emotional whim or because my goodness I just love food? (And I do, I love cooking, baking, all the wonders of the culinary world.) 

What if I start eating not to satisfy my taste buds and emotional outbursts, (Ode to chocolate how I love you!) but as I should to feed this “temple” the Lord has given me. I truly am excited with the over-haul God has given me on my view of food this last month.  Why am I so excited? Stay tuned my friends, stay tuned…

I am thrilled to say I started my "Seven" fast with a friend of mine from church. (Thank you Jesus for giving me such a wonderful soul to go through this fast with!)  I started with month one which covers food and I cannot wait to write about what He has been teaching me through it. (Obviously)

Here is where I have to tell you that I just love how the Lord works. He is such a beautiful master-mind.

While reading the book, “Seven” and starting my, “Seven” fast I simultaneously was reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Also midway through reading the book, "Seven", I began another book called “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne that one of my teens, I call her my “dear daughter” handed to me and told me I needed to read.

I was completely in the dark at the time, that these books all intermingle on the same topics over and over again. I was even more clueless to the fact that they might even literally mention each other by name. Oh Lord, you are such a clever one. Mmm, mmm, mmm…

Oh Lord, Your ways are not mine and that has never been as abundantly clear as it is right now.

I hope you stay tuned my friends, there is more to come on my mess. ;)

Micah 6:8

Seek Justice, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with your God.