Food.

Food has always played a huge role in my life. Well, eating it, really.
Growing up, my mother cooked often and well.
She still does:)
But we also ate out a lot- probably more than the average family.
When we woke up on the weekends we talked about what we'd be having for dinner. Our's was a highly social family and the rest of our day functioned around who we'd be eating with where and when. What we were having for dinner impacted what I would eat for lunch, so it was a critical decision.
My family ate around the table.
We drank milk with dinner because it was a rule.
We talked and ate slowly.
I love that feeling. I love that intimacy.

I love food.
I love eating.
I eat the food that I love.
but

I'm not liking how I feel.

Food has changed for me. Jonathan and I are on a poor people budget now, we can't just go out to eat every time I don't feel like cooking.
and so I'm eating more crap.
Well, I've always eaten crap- it just looked better when my mom cooked it or when it came on a pretty plate in a restaurant.

The only time I've ever thought about regulating what I eat is when I've wanted to lose weight. And that's never lasted.
For the first time, I just want to be
healthy.

I want to KNOW what I am putting into my body.
I want to rid it of toxins and garbage.
I want to fuel it so that it lasts a long time.
I want to set an example for my children some day.
I want to be around to set an example for their children.

Scripture says that our bodies are temples.
They are a gift, they are something we have been entrusted with.
So I want to take care of mine.

Many of you, (from both the blog world and the real world) are responsible for this growing conviction, this change taking place in my heart- so thank you.

I don't know what comes next.
I don't know if I can cold turkey this stuff.
I don't know if I can learn to shop, cook, eat, live differently.
In fact, I know that I can't...

Romans 7: 15-25

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Father, do in me things that I cannot possibly do on my own.