No more meat?

This post will be a rather short explanation on how I came to my decision to stop eating meat. Both of my sisters have been vegetarian for quite some time now, so I have heard first hand testimonies from both of them on the benefits they have experienced from ditching meat. I had been wanting to try the vegetarian thing for a while, as I have had weird digestive and "female" issues for years now and had heard from my sisters that quitting the meat thing had changed a lot in those areas for them. However, I have spent the last 3 years living with different people and didn't think it would be fair to hoist such restrictions on them. Plus, who wants to think about such things while muddling through nursing school? So, I only recently gave it a try.    And seriously. No meat=issues are gone. Incredible. 
I have to add that I also watched a documentary that is really interesting...it addresses different scientific research that talks about what animal products do to the human body. This definitely wasn't the only reason, or even the main reason, why I chose to stop eating meat. But it is something to think about, and maybe look into more.

How I (mostly) Eat

This is a follow-up post from On Food, Exercise, and Knowing God. Read the first post to get the background to what I discuss in this post.
This is the post where I will talk about my continuing evolution from this:

Source

To this:

Source

I seriously have seen the gamut as far as diets and calorie counting go. To be honest, though, nothing has changed me like becoming a nurse. And I'm not talking about all the classroom mumbo jumbo they shoved down my throat (don't get me wrong, I loved that stuff too). I'm talking about watching people have heart attacks and taking care of young (and I mean YOUNG) patients with every ache and pain in the book and seeing people decide that they have no control over their health and well being. 

I truly believe we are seeing a generation succumb to preventable diseases (like heart disease, diabetes, and, in a lot of cases, cancer), simply because many individuals believe bad health is something that happens to them. "Well, the doctor says I have {fill in the blank}, so I guess I have to take this pill now." Believe me, I'm not saying that modern medicine is bad (and many conditions due necessitate medication). God has allowed us to live in an era of truly brilliant minds and incredible science. It would be stupid to completely ignore or abandon such things. But seriously? (And I am saying this to myself too.) Let's start being more proactive about our health!

My brother's argument is, "I'm not going to live forever anyway, so I might as well live it up now." I understand...I really do. These bodies are nothing but tents, and these tents WILL collapse. Death is inevitable. But I don't believe that God intended for us to live this life in misery, suffering from maladies that can be prevented by the way we eat. In short, even if I only live for a few years, I don't want to be miserable that whole time if I can help it.

So in the past several months, I have slowly been learning about food. Where does food come from? What process does it go through from tree or field or plant to the table? Will I really become protein-starved if I don't eat meat? How does what we eat contribute to the diseases and conditions we suffer with on a daily basis? I have asked so many questions, and found {a few} answers. My goal has changed. A good friend and I were recently talking about food and dieting...she couldn't have said it better: (paraphrasing) "I don't want my children to remember me as always being on a diet because I am never satisfied with how I look. I want to teach them what it looks like to be healthy."

Do I care how I look? Yes. {Um, doesn't everyone, to some extent?}  But more than anything, I want to feel good...I want to be healthy. Believe me, I am by no means perfect. Ahem. Just last night I consumed an obscene amount of chocolate. What can I say? I'm human! = D  {And I might add that I felt miserable when I woke up this morning}

That being said, here is what I have found works best for me:

~I no longer eat meat (my body feels and functions better without it). ~I try to limit my consumption of other animal products (dairy and eggs). ~I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible.  ~I try to make veggies and fruit the main substance of my diet. {I have become a big fan of the farmer's market. No kidding. It makes me giddy inside.} ~Because I really could stand to lose some weight (speaking purely from a health standpoint), I do try to monitor my total calorie consumption.

Sound crazy? Yeah, I get it. I would have thought it was crazy even 2 years ago. But when I follow these basic principles, I feel like the best version of me. And to be honest, I fall into various levels of MISERY when I don't follow these principles. Although I won't elaborate on specifics (you should thank me), my body really does function better when I am consuming a whole foods, plant based, meatless diet. 

Just in case anyone is interested in knowing more about what those specific guidelines mean and how I settled on them...Don't worry ; ) I will elaborate in the next few days. I may even share some recipes, as it seems like the most common reaction people have to what I just shared with you is Dear heavens, child, what CAN you eat?!?! Hopefully I won't bore you ; ) Any questions? What have you found to work best for you?

On Food, Exercise, and Knowing God: Part 1

Source It all started in the garden. God said, "Don't eat this." But it looked delectably delicious, and Eve ate it anyway. It seems like the struggle for self-control and the attainment of a certain kind of body has haunted humankind ever since. Speaking purely for the female population, I don't know that I have met a woman who has not at some point struggled with what she looks like or how much she weighs. Please correct me if I am wrong. Over the years, I have often conformed and sometimes rebelled. I have frequently acknowledged defeat, while other times I have sworn to never be affected by impossible standards. I have tried diets, exercised in numerous disciplines and venues, and pleaded with God to take the struggle away. I have gained weight and lost weight. Through it all, I have come to a conclusion about what I call the Body Image Dilemma.

This struggle has taught me more about myself and God than probably just about any other struggle I have faced or will face. The Body Image Dilemma has brought me nose to nose with the internal struggle between my base desires (Romans 7:14-15) and the freedom I am promised as a child of God (Galations 5:1).  I can now freely acknowledge that I am human...and He said "It is good!" about humankind and about ME! I have desires, founded in a need for Him. My desires are good...created in me by the God of the universe. The problem comes when I am misguided in how I seek to fulfill those desires. For many people, food or exercise or looking a certain way seems like a good way to fulfill a desire. And sometimes it does...but just for a little while.  I want to learn to allow my desires to point me toward true fulfillment in Him.  And I am still learning. There are still days when I overeat, or choose to be lazy, or sulk in discontentment over how I look. There are times when I obsess over calories eaten or miles completed. Feelings of inadequacy or comparison often surface. 

But I am learning...

-When I am hungry, I am reminded that Jesus is the Bread of Life...the only One who can truly satisfy (John 6:35).

-When I think I hate exercise I am going to die, I remember that I do not run aimlessly. Rather, I beat my body and make it my slave so that I am not disqualified from the prize (1 Cor. 9:26-27).

-When I look in the mirror and am tempted to say Ick, I am reminded that I am a dearly loved child of God, and I am beautiful when I am His imitator (Eph. 5:1).

-When I am tempted to obsess over diet or exercise, I return to Biblical truth: "For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come" (1 Timothy 4:8).

In all things, I seek to remember...though sometimes I feel like a prisoner to my body and the war waging inside me, I have been delivered from slavery by Jesus (Romans 7:25)! The old has passed, and all things are becoming new (2 Cor. 5:17)! I want to choose to live in the the freedom for which Jesus saved me.  Thanks be to God, and His gift in the Spirit, I CAN choose freedom. 
And I can accept His grace when I fall short. 
What about you? What has God taught you through the Body Image Dilemma? *Because I have had several conversations recently regarding this subject matter, I want to take the next few days to share some practical things that I have implemented in my life (or am seeking to implement!). I would love to interact with you on this subject.  Many of you have a much greater scope of wisdom on this subject than I do, and I am ALWAYS trying to learn...so please share your own thoughts! My next post will specifically address FOOD.* 

My anxious heart

I find myself feeling anxious today. Anxious over silly things, especially in light of my last post. On one level, I find it rather amusing that we human beings--or maybe it's just me?--stress over things like money. Really? As if God's plan can be thwarted by a man-made system of currency? Somehow I think He is more than capable of handling such things. On another level, I do feel anxious over silly things today, and I can't deny that. So here I am...being real = )
Then I saw an internet-comment that encouraged me:  "Don't give up on what God has called you to do. The end result is worth the pain."
Thank you, Lord, for your grace to my doubting, anxious heart.
Thought I would share in case He might use those words to encourage any other doubting, anxious hearts.

On the wrongness of death and brokenness

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I look around and I wonder, where do I begin? Where do I begin to make sense of brokenness? Of Children gone to soon and life snuffed out and pain and hurt and gut-wrenching sorrow? Where does one begin? 
Should I start at the beginning? I stand before the tree holding knowledge of all things, of life and death...before man KNEW. I stand before the tree and I gaze up at the succulent fruit. I wonder what those days were like, walking with God in the garden of perfection. Before mankind tasted the fruit of life and death, normal was perfect and perfect was normal. No tears. No pain. No losing. Only walking with God, hand in hand...perfect intimacy with the One who created all.
But then man tasted. Man bought into the knowing, the terrible understanding of life broken. Man disobeyed, and for it he paid a price unfathomable. Sickness. Ugliness. povertyhungermanslaughterweaknesswarbirthdefectscaraccidentsthieveryslandertears. Death. 
Some days, I can't see past this lens of brokenness. I look at poverty, at war, at senseless dying and I cannot see beyond. I am bound by this terrible understanding of brokenness. I am held captive by the talons of sin. 
Is this desperate landscape of brokenness all we have the capacity to see? If so, why does it feel so wrong? I cannot help but think of these words from C.S. Lewis: "If we find within ourselves a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

If this lens does not seem to fit right, it must not be the right lens. Praise be to God...for He has purchased with His blood a way for us to return to perfection. Few in this world live with the lens of perfection He paid for. Even those of us who have been given this staggering gift of grace sometimes throw our Heaven-tinted glasses to the side and don instead our sin-glasses. 

Today, put on your Heaven glasses. Remember that this world is temporary. Embrace the desperation for renewal, the sorrow of brokenness...acknowledge that this is not the way things are supposed to be. Babies are not supposed to die because they are hungry. Daddies are not supposed to die while sons and daughters are still being fathered. Cancer is not supposed to eat healthy bodies. Beautiful teenage girls are not supposed to be stolen from life before they waltz at the prom. 

As you wrap your hands and your mind and your whole being around the wrongness of it all, remember that "the things that are seen are transient." The wrongness is temporary. The rightness? Forever. Walking hand in hand with God of creation? Forever. The damnation of pain, suffering, death? Eternal. 

It hurts. But it hurts a whole lot more when I choose the sin-glasses, when I forget that the garden-beginning is not the end. With the heaven glasses on, this I'm-going-to-die-this-hurts-so-much pain can become "a light and momentary affliction." With the heaven glasses on, the terrible image of my dad gasping his last breath becomes a beautiful snapshot of his birth into eternity.

Sin glasses? Death. Heaven glasses? Eternity birthday.

Today, even as I mourn things-gone-terribly-wrong, I will don my heaven glasses and choose to see all through the eyes of eternity.

I interrupt this blog hiatus to say...

…for your encouragement, prayer, and support throughout the ups and downs of the last 10 (only four? Sure seemed like 10…) years. 

I have so many memories...

Living in a big city for a month and loving it…introduction to independence and college life? Fabulous.

Receiving the worst phone call of my life…and living through the even worse 24 hours of angst before it.

The end of my very fabulous but very brief experience with “college life” due to said phone call.

A year of soaked up Daddy-moments that will last forever and horrific snapshots that will hopefully not last forever.

Saying goodbye to my earthly father and please dear God hold me tight to my heavenly Father.

Finding healing in the giggles and cuddles of little ones…and a new passion and direction in—who knew?—nursing. GOD knew.

That moment of pure terror when I had to give my first injection…haha. If only I knew what was to come…

Almost moving to Africa. Almost. And then realizing that sometimes I think my ideas are better than His.

Meeting incredible patients. Serving incredible (and sometimes not-so-incredible-but-equally-loved-by-Him) patients and finding myself to be the one blessed.

Standing on a dirt floor in Guatemala, looking at my hands and thinking, “Lord God you MADE me to do this, didn’t you?!”

Getting a sideline seat to a precious little one coming home to his family…forever.

Crashing and clinging in a sea of never, ever ending grief…and finding myself nestled in the palm of His hand.

Getting to love and be loved by another family. Grace, all grace.

Discovering what He has laid on my heart.

Nursing school. What to say about nursing school… Can I just tell some gross stories? No? You really don’t want to hear about blood, guts, and gore? About the time I was asked to get a r*ct*l temperature and, well, the guy had no…Okay, okay. You get the picture. Lots of delightfully gross stories.

Holding a home health job with equally gross and you-did-WHAT? kind of stories.

******

I could go on, and on, and on…but then you would stop reading (if you haven’t already?) and I would just be rambling to myself about stories and memories I already hold in my heart.

I have been wounded. I have been torn, and hurt, and buried deep. I have lost and been lost. I have been broken. But in the midst of it all, I have discovered that

He makes beautiful things.

"God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Now, after a winding and sometimes tumultuous journey, I am *officially* a nurse (say WHAT?!) and looking at a new unknown. And while I could choose to be anxious, and terrified, and full of questions—and sometimes I do choose worry over trust—today I choose thankfulness. Today I choose to marvel at His grace, and His grace through YOU…loving and supporting me along the way. All praise and glory to Him alone.

Celebrating…

Um, He-LLO brownie cheesecake!

Relishing the moment with friends...

and family (or a part thereof)...

*photo credit goes to my lovely friend Rebecca*

...If I was super cheesy, I would sign this post "ASH, RN." But I'm not. So I won't.