La la la la la la, it’s a Beautiful World.

Day 9 of the Daniel fast. I’m feeling deeply cleansed–this fast has been the spiritual retreat I’ve always dreamed of taking. Here are a couple things I’ve learned:

1. Caffeine withdrawal is painful. 
2. Food is an idol in my life. 
3. I get really jumpy when I can’t eat–see #2. 
4. I no longer enjoy cooking-although I have made a lot of stuff  I pinned. 
5. Comfortably full is a foreign term.

Today, the caffeine headache and sugar cravings have passed, and the clarity has begun to settle over me. (By the way, I have not lost one pound. Today, I said, “F#$K you, scale; you ain’t bringing me down! You’re registering all the additional knowledge in my brain not fat on my thighs!” But, this fast wasn’t about the scale.) I realized that I have relied on food for far too much. Food was my comfort, relaxation, solitude, love, and so much more.

That’s how I grew up. Sick? Chicken soup. Celebration? Cake. Love? Cookies. My mom communicates in food. Still. But now, when she walks in my house with a fresh-baked plate of cookies, I smile and thank her, then I look right in their little peanut butter faces and say, “You are a cookie; you are not love.” I often say it with my mouth full of cookie, but I’m making progress. At least now I realize the cookie’s not love.

Cookies and love. Really?

When I quit smoking over a year ago, I realized that I had absolutely no coping mechanisms. Stressed? Have a cigarette. Tired? Have a cigarette. Sad? Have 100 cigarettes. There are never enough. There are never enough cookies, never enough cigarettes, never enough coffee to fill that hole inside you.

Today is my brother Chris’ birthday. He would have been 53. He died almost 25 years ago and left a big old gaping hole in my heart. A hole that I have tried to fill with so many of the wrong things. Eventually it healed as much as a human heart can heal, but not through any of my attempts to patch it together with peanut butter cookies for sure.

What I’ve mostly learned through this fast is to feel and be in each moment. To question my motives for eating. To realize that food doesn’t satisfy a deep internal craving, it simply paralyzes it for awhile. I have learned that I do have will power. And I learned–again–that when you step out in faith, God sends in a heavenly support team.

So, I don’t know if I’m gonna lose any weight, and I don’t really care. What I do know is that when you stop dulling your emotions with food or whatever your drug of choice is, the fog lifts and a beautiful world awaits.

Day 9, I gave my food addiction to God, and I’m not taking it back. Can I share something with you guys? My husband surrendered his cigarettes to God on day 1. I’m so proud of him. Would you please pray for him?

Fast On.

For 21 days, we are joining our church family in the Daniel Fast (we started Monday, so this is day 3). If you aren’t familiar, this fast involves eliminating meat, dairy, animal products, sugar, coffee, tea, leavened bread and more. You basically eat fruits, vegetables, and nuts and drink water.

Historically, people have fasted for many purposes: clarity, peace, closer relationship with God, an answer to a prayer and so forth. My fast is about surrendering deeper to God’s call on my life. I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year for several reasons. First, resolutions feel a lot like rules, and I don’t like rules. In fact, I have spent a good part of my life breaking them. And second, I have quit all the things I want to quit, and I don’t intend to take up any new bad habits. If I do, then I’ll rethink this next January 1st.

What I do, however, is start every day with the promise of being kinder, more patient, more compassionate. I really believe turning 40 changes you, and I feel now more than ever that I can really be in the moment. I no longer get all worked up about a stain on the carpet or a broken glass or any other sort of material loss that would have unhinged me before.

Things aren’t as important anymore. I used to want new furniture and new clothes and new stuff (we did just get a new car, but that was a necessity not a luxury), now, I am outrageously happy with what I have. My kitchen table scarred with glitter, nail polish, paint, and more. My sofa worn from three kids bouncing on it. Our house and our stuff is more than good enough.

And in that same vein, so is my body. This morning, when I looked in the mirror, instead of seeing hair that desperately needed to be washed, I saw little fingers twisting that hair to fall asleep at night. I saw the one perfect curl that falls beside my face every morning because my husband twirls it around his finger when he falls sleep. And I am enough. My unwashed, uncolored hair is good enough.

Instead of thinking what new exercise I could pin (yes, pin, someday I will actually do them, maybe) to flatten my stomach, I remembered the three times that same stomach had been stretched to outrageous proportions as my most precious gifts grew inside. My not-as-flat-as-it-once-was stomach is good enough.

I looked at the lines on my face and thought not of what new wrinkle cream would come in my Birchbox, but instead of all the experiences etched in those lines. I might have considered the wrinkle cream for minute; give me a break I’m in process. I thought of eyes that winked at my little athletes so they knew I saw their play and lips that had kissed so many boo boos and feverish heads. The face in the mirror doesn’t look the same as the face in my mind. The face in the mirror doesn’t look the same as it did 10 years ago, but it’s good enough.

In my 20’s and 30’s, I wanted to take pictures and make scrapbooks of every single moment (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but now, I just want to live in those moments. The memories are all ready captured in my heart and my mind.

So today, hungry, 15 pounds away from my goal weight, with dirty hair and a cold, I’m good enough. Good enough for my beautiful husband, my amazing little loves, my friends, and most of all for God. So, if you are looking in the mirror and seeing flaws, please stop. Look at what’s right. Be as kind to yourself as you are to your best friend. See yourself as the person who loves you the most sees you. You are more than good enough; in fact, you are wonderful, and you are loved.

Just Because Your Name is Mary

Sometimes things shake you to your core and make you question everything you think you know. I have had a few of those instances: my brothers dying and getting pregnant with my girls–both were unexpected blessings with unexpected being the key word (I may or may not have extreme control issues) are a couple.

Recently my daughter wrote an amazing blog, and I realized that in trying to raise her differently than I was raised, I managed to instill in her a whole host of different issues. She was born at a crazy tumultuous time in my life. Imagine your life at 21. Drunk? Partying? Well, I was crazy in love with a tiny baby while finishing college, getting an amazing job, never weighing more than 100 pounds, and planning a wedding to man I never saw. At least those were the idealistic balls I was trying to keep in the air.

I approached motherhood pretty much like this: I’m not gonna be like my mom. Period. Yesterday, my mom mentioned that her doctor had gained a few pounds and that she hopes “he doesn’t get fat as a pig.” That should clear up any residual questions about my weight issues. Fat is the worst thing you can be in my mom’s eyes.

I had a lot of self-esteem issues that took/are taking a good part of my life to sort out. I wanted acceptance and people to like me. My mom’s acceptance came the skinnier and blonder I was–the more I was like her. But, I like to eat, y’all. So, 100 pounds wasn’t in the cards for me. Although, this Fast Metabolism Diet might just help me get close.

Now, I love my mom, know that she loves me and was the very best mom she knew how to be. She was tremendously awesome in many ways, but she didn’t exactly excel in the body image department, and body image is a big deal to girls. I accept her for who she is; good grief, she lives with me. This isn’t about bashing my mom, that was context. 

I didn’t want my kids to have self-esteem issues. I wanted them always to know how beautiful, smart, talented, precious, special and so forth they are. So, if they didn’t hear it from the world, you better believe they would hear it from their mama. I am not that mom who thinks my kids are perfect and puts them on a pedestal; trust me if you came out of my womb, I’ll put you in check. BUT, I am pretty sure that they all know I am always their biggest fan, cheering the loudest, and willing to do and be ANYTHING they need.

So that brings me to this earth-shattering revelation: Shouldn’t I have that same attitude about God? Shouldn’t I start asking what He wants from me? My sister gave me a book, Anything, by Jennie Allen, and more than any book I’ve ever read other than the Bible, it is changing my life. The premise: Be willing to do anything God asks of you. Do it when He asks.

Many times I’ve asked God what He wants me to do, but I don’t think I’ve been listening well enough. Instead, I look at the gifts He gave me and try to figure out how He wants me to use them. But I don’t have to figure it out. I just have to listen. The beginning of the week, God put two people on my heart. I said, “What do I do for them?” The answer was so simple: Pray. Last night, one of them sent me a message saying how much they loved coming to our church and thanks for inviting them.

Here’s the shake-you-to-your-core part: I’ve been waiting for Gabriel to swoop down in all his angel splendor with a harp and a shield (maybe because my name is Mary?) and announce some great calling for my life, and I have been missing millions of little whispers.

Food Revelations

Last week I read Women Food and God. Have you read? Seriously, it changed my life. I LOVE Geneen Roth as if she were one of my people. After the first few chapters, when I sat down to graze in front of the kids’ snack cupboard as is my habit, I literally stopped and thought, “Wait, am I hungry?” It was revolutionary.

For those of you who are wondering, it’s a lot about Women and Food, but not a lot about God. The God part is more light spirituality and less Bible-based eating plan, but it forced me to sit down and have a long overdue discussion with myself about why and how I eat.

If you ever saw my mom and sister, you’d understand some of my food issues. They are tiny little waifs. So is my daughter. I am not a particularly big person, but they are really, really small. My mom always told me that I was big-boned and didn’t “have the eating habits of a thin person,” and I have always held a pretty distorted image of my 5′ 2″ 125 pound self. Yep, I just said my weight out loud to the whole internet. The absolute true weight I saw on that dang-blasted scale this morning. Have I mentioned how much this book helped me?

So one of my biggest food issues is that when I was growing up, food was my mom’s main expression of love. Whatever was going on, good or bad, could be remedied with food. Sick? Chicken soup. Sad? Cookies. Celebrating? Cake. And since that was pretty much my mom’s only expression of love, when she cooked for you, you ate. And the more you ate, the more you were loved. To this day, her favorite people in life are the people she can control with cookies. I’m kidding. A little.

Additionally, I realized that my happiest memories were wrapped up with food. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, milestones celebrated by going out to dinner, goals met and rewarded with food. In many ways, I had grown to equate food with happiness. Unfortunately, in many other ways, I also equated skinniness with happiness. That crazy combination cannot possibly add up to happiness. I mean maybe when I was 20 and had a pretty fast metabolism, but now it is kind of a problem.

So for the past few weeks, I’ve had a lot of conversations with myself about food, why I’m eating, when I’m eating, what I’m eating and so forth. Turns out it’s not particularly healthy to sit on the floor and eat from the snack cupboard at 10:30 p.m. Huh. Also turns out that eating an m&m every time you walk past the m&m jar until it’s empty is not a great habit. Go figure. And one of the most important lessons I learned is that I really didn’t even know how hungry felt anymore.

In all this dialoguing about why I’m really eating and what I really want, I haven’t lost one pound–in case you wondered. But, I’ve been eating much healthier foods and much less and I haven’t really had any junk. While I have a long way to go, I have been able to pinpoint some serious issues I have to come to terms with:

• I am almost 40, not 20, so my 20-year-old weight probably shouldn’t be my goal weight. 
• Being skinny doesn’t necessarily make you happy or signify you’re happy.
• Not being skinny doesn’t necessarily make you unhappy or signify that you’re unhappy.
• I have a bread addiction, similar to my nicotine addiction. I cannot eat just one piece of bread.
• Just like my husband is as hot to me today as he was 20 years ago, he looks at me and sees the girl he fell in love with (who was skinny, btw). He literally judges my weight by the size of my boobs, so you can probably guess when he’s happiest.
• Food is an idol, and when I give it this much power in my life, I am putting it before God; that is unacceptable.
• My mom lives with me. I don’t eat her cookies. She still loves me.

 So, if you have a messed up relationship with food, I highly recommend this book. If not? Well, you are a rare breed of fabulosity, and I admire you greatly.