Thursday, April 30, 2015

Confessions of a Food Snob

I'm a food snob. I am the first to admit it. My husband and kids would rapidly nod their heads in agreement. They lovingly accept my journey, though, and I feel pretty blessed that they listen to my oft-occurring tirades about the food industry and the vast misconceptions of our people because of misinformation.

See? I told you. Food. Snob. (!)

While fasting, here's what I learned. Whenever we try to outdo what God has put in place, we fail. Maybe we don't fail right away; maybe it takes time. But God's original plan and intent is always infinitely better than anything we can do on our own, both collectively and individually. But it's okay! It was meant to be this way. He is our loving Father, and He knows what's best. He does not point and laugh when we fail, but shows us how much easier it is when we are guided by Him.

I am a driven person, so sometimes this is a lesson I have to learn and relearn.

I have cried over a grapefruit. No joke.

I eat grapefruits like most people eat oranges - I peel the whole grapefruit, contemplating how its colors are like the layers of a sunset. I indulge in each delectable slice. I don't cut them in half and put sugar on them anymore. God made it a perfect and nutritious fruit just as it is.

While pondering the grapefruit one afternoon at work, tears spilled over my lower eyelid and clung there to some eyelashes. When God created this fruit, He thought of us. He thought of us, with our opposable thumbs and a delight in juicy-sweet. He thought of us, our physical bodies in dire need of daily true, real nutrition.

Image result for grapefruit

Our physical bodies are as desperate for His untainted physical creation as our spirits are desperate for His untainted spiritual grace and love. Physical and spiritual food connect us with our Creator (though, let it be known, I DO believe our spiritual food is #1 priority).

We've been getting it all wrong for quite some time now.

When we try to make food, with our factory farms and factory bakeries, with our processing and bleaching and stripping of nutrients, we miss out on the purity of God's creation. We think that what we are doing is more sustainable, more time-conscious, more modern. But God is timeless, my friends. When He made food for us, this too was a part of creation that He saw was good.

He already planned how to nourish our physical bodies. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We shouldn't.

You don't need a supplement. You don't need a prescription. You need Him - His physical nourishment and spiritual sustenance.

I may be a food snob, but I will stand up for what I know God has done for us. Every time. I will tell you that He provides all that we need - He is Jehovah Jireh in every way.

It's time for us to start honoring and respecting what He already did for us. He made a way for us to be healthy. When we are healthy, we are able to receive and give more of His love. And that's what He calls us to - a life of holiness, spilling over with His love and care for others.

Next week, we will look at Genesis. There is a rich fountain of blessing there for us. Who knows? Maybe you will become a food snob, too. ;) And then maybe we can stop calling it food snobbery, and call it holy eating.



Sunday, April 12, 2015

A Note and "Locked In"


Friends, I had taken a hiatus from writing because I was struggling. And then I fasted, giving every perception and misconception up to my Abba, begging Him for wisdom and strength and light and joy. He showed me many things, and I will be sharing these most intimate conversations and revelations in the next few weeks. Thank you for being patient with me, and for reading your sister's thoughts.
In His Love,
Cherie


Photo retrieved from: ohbeloved.blogspot.com

If you ask me, there's only one thing worse in regards to personal relationships than being ostracized or locked out - it's being locked in. In your own mind. Wrapped in the deathly talons of your own accusing thoughts. Desiring the sweet vapor of being outside of yourself, when you're actually choking on the blood that is ever-rising within you. And you're trapped here.

For well over a decade, this is what I went through every time I looked in the mirror. I choked daily on my own blood, blood drawn by my own hands. The thoughts, the thoughts, the thoughts. Those deadly villains whispered to me the most heinous descriptions of myself. And I believed them, even when everyone on the outside told me differently. Those people didn't really know. They couldn't possibly.

My tumultuous relationship with my body began so early that it precedes even my earliest memories. Marry that body relationship with an anxiety problem, a need for structure, and a desire for perfection, and you have the perfect cocktail for an eating disorder and a complete distrust in self. 

Self was to be feared and obeyed. Self was the ugly monster that manifested itself in every fold of my flesh, threatening my eyes with its imperfections when I wasn't a "good girl."

And my culture wouldn't tell me anything differently about accepting my temple-body. No. I need only turn on the television or glance at the magazines at the check-out to know that "self" yelled at me so incessantly in order to protect me from the cultural repercussions of getting too comfortable/eating what you want/loving your body despite its flaws.

Lies. Lies from hell. Literally from hell. Because this girl I had called "self" for so long wasn't really me. I was made in God's image, and His perfect love casts out all fear.

And I wouldn't see clearly until I continually gave self up to Jesus, carrying my heavy cross named fear-of-imperfection, also named self-loathing, and just-eat, and dare-to-love-even-yourself. He said to take up my cross daily. My cross had many names; it was weighed down by many sins-we-don't-call-sins.

This is where Satan wants God's Daughters - stuck in themselves, loathing the temples of their own bodies, too ashamed to get out there and do what we were made to do: love and care for and help others. If we hate ourselves, we cannot effectively love our husbands and children and friends and strangers-who-need-Jesus. So, if Satan can paralyze us in fear, in the rejection of ourselves, in the immersion of lies-seeming-true, he wins.

She who has ears let her hear! You are royalty. You are made from the wonder of THE King. You are a sister to every woman in the world. You are God's very definition of beauty. Yes, you. Just as you are.

Let us join hands and worship Him who made us, growing us from seeds in the perfect garden of His will. Let us reject the lies of Satan and our culture, and hug the curves or straight lines of our beloved sisters everywhere. Tell each that she is God's Daughter, royalty more dazzling than the stars.