What I Learned from Whole 30

Yesterday marked the end of an experiment for our family.  Well.... more specifically my husband and I...  Shortly after we were married my husband expressed a desire to try out this thing called Whole 30.  Now if you are a woman you can probably totally relate to my initial reaction... 

"Another diet?  I've tried diet after diet and they just don't work for me.  Not only that we haven't been married long enough for you to see me without sugar...  That's worse than me without make-up!"

So we shelved that idea... For about 5 years to be exact...  Enter an author I very much enjoy, Jen Hatmaker.  Randomly across my Facebook feed comes a post about her experience on Whole 30.  As I watched her pictures of amazing food find their way across my social media over the course of the next 30 days, I found myself thinking, "Maybe, just maybe I can do this."

Jump to a few months following her experiment with this life change and I found myself listening to her interview with one of the creators of this system.  The thing that caught my attention in this particular interview was the idea that the purpose of the 30 days was to deal with our addictions to food.  That hit home for me.  

What I know to be true about myself is that when I'm happy, sad, depressed or anxious food is how I celebrate, cope or hide from the pain.  If I needed any reminder of that it had come the year before when I heard the thing no one wants to hear at a doctor's appointment...  I had gained rather than lost weight after the birth of my second daughter.  

In the months following this realization about Whole 30 my husband and I decided that we would definitely do this.  Finally, the day came when I finished the bag of Oreos and realized I just felt yuck.    The food hadn't filled the void that it usually filled.  Shortly after that I did what any rational person would do.... I bought a half gallon of unsweetened almond milk and determined our start date from that singular plastic bottle and it's expiration date.  

That was about 40 days ago...  

When my husband came home five years ago and told me that he wanted to try this thing called Whole 30 I never would have expected to learn about myself from what I thought of as a diet.  What I've learned from our Whole 30 experiment is how I can abuse food.  Crazy thought, right?  I mean we need food to live, don't we?  

What I realized as we progressed through the Whole 30 is that I really don't need all of the food I typically manage to consume in a day, week or month.  The Whole 30 helped me realize to recognize when I was genuinely hungry and when I wanted to eat because I was bored  The Whole 30 by taking away my sugar and processed foods made me think about what "treats" really hold value for me.  One of the things I spent the last week doing is anticipating my first Starbucks visit after our 30 days was over.  Prior to Whole 30 I made excuses to go big on my Starbucks visits, guzzling a venti latte or mocha in short order.  This time I found myself like a kid in a candy store with enough to only get one piece of candy.... What was the exact thing I wanted to savor....  What was the smallest size that would give me the greatest enjoyment?  

The Whole 30 made me realize that I had stopped enjoying the things that should have been special.  I was using them to mask or medicate a feeling that I didn't want to experience.  Our experiment with Whole 30 has made me realize that one of the dangers in the addictions that we allow ourselves to have in areas we deem socially acceptable is the way they dull our senses.  We no longer allow ourselves to anticipate the simple things.  They become commonplace.  

When I had to spend 30 days finding some way other than snacking to fight boredom I found time to invest in things that had been on my to-do list, but just never managed to trump sitting on the couch snacking and watching a movie.  I  decluttered our bathroom closet, pantry, bookshelves and half our basement.  I found more time to read and visit the library.  I found time to spend special days with my daughters.  I don't think I've ever tried a "diet" that made me do the soul-searching that Whole 30 did.  

The Whole 30 brought me face to face with my socially acceptable addictions in the form of food and in some respects my laziness.  There were days where the urge to go get McDonalds for the convenience it afforded was so strong, I had to make a decision to make to not make the fast food run.  I discovered there is a part of me that wants to make things easy for myself.  I in no way believe that my struggle with food is over....  I'm human.  I think that this will be an issue I need to continually be aware of, but before Whole 30 I did not see food addictions in quite the same way I do post-Whole 30.  Will I live the remainder of my life sugarless?  No, but I believe that I will choose more wisely how I spend my newly developed sugar allowance.  

The Journey of Discovery

You know that feeling when you feel like your entire world has been rocked on it's axis.  You know in that moment that nothing will ever be the same.  You just cannot see the world in the same way after "that" event happens.

I am not sure about you, but my favorite part of a movie is the moment the lead character realizes, who they were meant to be and just grabs on to it and holds tight.  It takes "that" moment, but then the entire story changes.  We move a little closer to the edge of our seats and try to reach in to the character.  It happens early in our lives.  I think instinctively even as young children we have the desire to be known for who we really are.

One of my favorite things right now is watching my two toddler daughters watch "that" moment in their favorite movies.  For my youngest, Eden it means at 20 months mimicking the motions of Elsa as she runs up the North Mountain and belting out the word "Go" at just the right time.  For my oldest, Myka it means getting out her guitar the moment Ash, in Sing starts to stomp out the beat to "Set It All Free", in a fierce determination to let nothing hold her back any longer.  At a year and a half and three years old my little girls recognize that in this moment these characters have recognized who they are and they want to be a part of that.

As we become adults the movies change, but the draw to that moment does not.  We see it when Aragorn comes into his own in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.   Right now I see it in the song "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman.  As I see this scene I lean in a little closer because I want to feel that moment that this group of misfits leaves the opinions of other behind them and owns their uniqueness.

Uniqueness.... Have you ever noticed how humanity will fight to own a one of a kind original piece, but wants the most unique creation of all, humans, to fit and conform?  This is a brokenness we see all the way back to the beginning of our existence.  The suggestion to Eve that by eating the fruit "you will be like God" is the first invitation to humanity to abandon our uniqueness (Gen 3:5).  From there on humanity manages to consistently find ways to lose or hide our uniqueness.  Overtime we became obsessed with a need to fit in to the larger whole.  To find our place by conforming to the expectations of the most powerful personalities in our sphere.

Now we become resistant to our own uniqueness because it now includes unique brokenness.  If we begin to examine that brokenness we begin to feel exposed.  Our brokenness prevents us from conforming.  So we hide it and call it a weakness, trying desperately to conform when we see the glaring evidence that our very brokenness makes us distinctly unique.  No one shares our brokenness exactly because they do not live our same exact story.

C.S. Lewis wrote,

Friendship is born the moment when one man says to another "What you too?  I thought that no one, but myself.."

That is the power in exploring our broken uniqueness.  It is only by understanding the unique gifts we bring to the world that we can truly say "This is me".

Our messy brokenness can be so difficult though.  When we start to explore it, we will experience rejection.  It will make some people who have shared our journey uncomfortable.  We will experience discomfort as we learn about the unique individual that we have spent years and even decades hiding.    We will find beauty.  The moment we lean in to the screen when Elsa throws her glove or when Aragorn give a speech worthy of a king becomes something we have the opportunity to experience ourselves.  It allows us to look at the characters we admire and feel kinship.

I have often spent my life feeling like Mia Thermopolis in the Princess Diaries.  I'm really good at being invisible.  If I stay invisible maybe I won't get hurt or will at least avoid conflict.  Maybe I won't get yelled at or punished.  There are so many advantages to invisibility.  It's the next best thing to conformity.  If you can't mimic everyone at least make sure they don't notice you.  Then I started to realize as did Mia, royalty cannot hide.  If I genuinely believe in this whole God the Father thing, then I need to learn as Mia did how to conduct myself like royalty.  And so I learned to explore my brokenness.

That exploration led me to realize a lot of big things about myself.  I struggle with depression.  I have panic attacks and experience anxiety.  I have PTSD.  I stress eat.  I have moments of crazy insane mommy guilt.  I yell at my husband on occasion.  I also learned that I have a massive amount of grace to extend to others.  I am an introvert, but I am also relational (yes.... those two things can co-exist in one human).  I learned I actually enjoy camping and I love the outdoors.  I realized that I have a gift for details.  I learned that in spite of what that mommy guilt tells me, I actually have daughters who regularly expect to go on "adventures".  I learned that I never outgrew cartoons and I absolutely LOVE Disney Princesses.  I learned that fresh flowers bring incredible joy to my life and that it is ok to have them.  I learned I enjoyed listening to Podcasts.  I learned I love Bible Study and Application.  I learned that I could earn a Bachelors Degree while raising toddlers.  I also learned there were some soul deep hurts that still haunted me.  The crazy thing about emotional and spiritual healing that I am learning is that you never really "arrive".  You can't actually get to a place and say well... Mark that off the list.

The journey of discovery is unique to each of us.  We get to take it at our own pace.  God will stretch us, but he doesn't force us.  He will challenge us, but he doesn't dictate.  What we do get in that journey of discovery is our own moment to say "This is me".  The more we embrace and learn who God designed us to be the more we are able to live in confidence in our uniqueness.  As we embrace the brokenness and the lessons and healing it holds we are able to stop letting others dictate our lives and we are able to listen more closely to the still small voice that knows exactly who we are suppose to be.

2018 One Word - Hope

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

For the past several years I have adopted a Word for the Year.  

2014 - Pieces

2015 - Recklessly Abandoned

2016 - Exhale

2017 Intentional

Quite honestly, most of those years those words have seemed really difficult.  They have become reminders though that words can have more depth and meaning then we ever imagine.  In 2014, leaving a job meant feeling like my life was falling apart.  It meant feelings of loss and abandonment.  It quite literally felt like life as I knew it was falling apart.

The crazy thing about words though is that they create a story.  When the end of 2015 came along I found myself once more leaving a job (which honestly seemed a little reckless), but this time it was with a sense of anticipation.  We were expecting our second child and I was about half way through school.  There was the offer of a volunteer position in the field I was studying and things looked promising.

2016 saw the birth of our second daughter and the releasing of various relationships, expectations and learning how to be a one income family.

As I have reflected on 2017, I find that once more the idea of being intentional has impacted my life in ways that I never expected.  It meant that in a year that held a lot of change my approach to that changed was different.  I wasn't just reacting to everything that was going on around me, I began to learn to slow down and be intentional about how I responded.  Our family as a whole has tried to be more intentional about how we spend our resources.  It has meant saying no to some good things so I could say yes to better things.

As we neared the end of 2017, I began my usual conversation with God.  It seems like every year my monologue with God goes something like this...

"So, God, are we doing a Word again this year?  I'm not really sure I want to.  Last year sort of hurt.  I'm not quite sure I liked the way that word played out.  Could I maybe have a "happier" word if we are going to do this again?"

Inevitably it seems that when I start this questioning, God begins to show me just how much having a word that year changed me.  I never hear that one word the same way.  I have started to think of it a experiential living.  We live our entire lives using words, but do we fully absorb their impact?  We use words to argue our point in a debate.  We use words to build up, but also belittle others.  Even if you chose a word for the year, have you ever asked God to speak that word over your life for an entire year?

This year God indicated earlier that usual what my word for 2018 would be.
Hope.

I'll be honest.... I'm a little nervous about this word.  I have learned over the past few years that there is always more to a word than we see on the surface.  I think of hope as something clean and pure, a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am a little afraid to have that definition challenged.  What if I don't like what I learn about hope this year?  But what if a new understanding of hope changes me?

And in that comes once again the reminder that words can be one dimensional or they can be experiential.  To live a year allowing God to demonstrate the multi-dimensional facets of one single word or phrase is truly life changing.

Hope will change my life this year.
Will I like all of the ways that happens?
Probably not.
But will I have a deeper understanding of that one singular word Hope by the end of 2018?
Most Definitely!

An Intentional Christmas

Sometimes even though my word for 2017 has been Intentional, it seems like intentionality finds me in curious ways.  Going into November I didn't really think about celebrating Christmas intentionally.  I was just trying to survive.  

Then it happened...

I felt God telling me I had to stop and slow down.

I was doing lots of good things, but they were not necessarily the best things.

It can be funny how we get caught up doing and being part of something and we miss the fact that we are losing who God created us to be in the middle of all the activity.

So I listened 

(after several weeks of sickness that forced rest on me)

And I stopped...

And then I started to hear again...

It is amazing how quickly we can lose the still small voice that God uses to speak His truth into our lives.  

A podcast I listened to recently suggested that the reason God speaks so softly and quietly is so we have to lean in close to him to hear...

I loved the visual this creates....

It makes me think of my own daughters...

One of my favorite things to do in the middle of a tickle fight is to pull them close and say...

"I love you so much!"

And that is how my Christmas season has become Intentional...

In a moment of wrestling and struggling with all the unknowns that loom in my near future God pulled me close and whispered... 

"I love you so much!

I have plans for you that you can't even begin to imagine

and I am working it all out in my time.

I'm working on your future so you can just be and enjoy the present."

So as November faded into the past and December became my present, I began looking for ways to intentionally enjoy a time of year that can be so chaotic and crazy.  

So far we have managed three different visits with Santa for Myka, my oldest daughter.

We have shared the excitement of our annual Victorian Christmas celebration with our community.

We have painted ornaments, made cookies, just driven around looking at Christmas lights.

My husband and I took the time to cram ourselves into a little train because a three year old asked, 

"Can you ride with me?"

We are just twelve days into December, but I have unintentionally met goals early by suddenly having the margin to invest energy I did not have before I listened and stopped.

I have been learning in this Year of Intentional that intentionality is not something that comes easy.

It can look great on a motivational poster.

It sounds really inspiring.

The reality...

It is really hard...

For me this year Intentional has met setting boundaries that protect my physical and emotional health and holding those boundaries even when it becomes uncomfortable.

Intentional has been saying no when the desire to please screams that I should say yes.

But as we come to the end of the year I feel like I am recognizing exactly how much this one word has changed my life.  

The word Intentional has taught me better self care and in teaching me that it has made me a better wife, mother and friend.

Being Intentional has helped me create margin so that I can slow down and listen just a little more closely for that holy whisper that says...

"I love you so much!"

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Yesterday marked 5 years since I took the first steps away from my nursing career.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will mark five years since I last filled the position of Registered Nurse.  Leaving nursing was an idea that only made sense to my husband and myself.  It did not make sense.  I was two and a half months away from my wedding.  In our planning and wisdom we had decided that while I was feeling that God was leading me to leave nursing we would wait until we had been married a couple of months.  Our thought was that I would go to a part-time position and begin pursuing college classes that would prepare me for ministry.  

It was the perfect plan.... 

Until it wasn't.

I will never forget the moment I realized that all of the planning we had discussed meant nothing when God said it is time to leave.  

You see, I'm a detail person.  I find great joy in making the details work to accomplish a goal.  My first goal at that time was to make it through my wedding.  But God had decided that there were lessons to learn.  So we listened and I handed in my two weeks notice.  There were so many people that thought I was crazy.  I was quitting with no plan.  I sort of feel like I understand how Abraham felt as he packed up to leave his home country.  

Neighbor

"Hey, Abram, we see you are packing to leave.  Where are you headed?"

Abraham

"I'm not really sure.  I'm just suppose to leave"

Neighbor

"Dude, you are nuts!  Do you realize that there are heathens are out there?"

Abraham

"Yeah, but God said go..."

The crazy thing...

Within a week or two of my resignation at my job, our associate pastor at the church we were attending handed in his resignation.  As I was asked to fill his position as an interim I had my first taste of ministry.  While ultimately that position did not work out, it served to provide some valuable insight into what life in ministry would be like.  

As I've been thinking about that first step that began a rather crazy journey, it has struck me that November tends to be the month God consistently seems to call our family to follow him in crazy ways that test our faith.

Two years ago, after the position at the church had not worked out I was still working at a local optometrist office.  It wasn't nearly what I made in nursing, but it helped with the bills.  Then in November of 2015 God called us to the radical again...  He indicated that it was time to let go of that little part time job.  So after much prayer and with much trepidation, I once more handed in my resignation, letting go of the security that this job provided.  All of this as we were expecting our second daughter.  

Fast forward another two years and yet again in November, God has called me to let go of security again.  This one is a little fresh to share, but the truth in this situation is that I'm once again unsettled. While I can look at my past and see that each time we have moved in the direction that God has directed, He provides amazing opportunities that I never would have imagined.  

But still, I find myself standing once more at the abyss of the unknown.  I don't know what comes next...  I can't plan for the next step in my Bullet Journal.  I can't look at the details and connect them all in the right order.  Instead I have been called to wait.  Waiting is a nerve wracking place to be....  It is full of uncertainty and a fog clouds the future.  I can't see the next step right now...

I suppose it was likely a situation much like this that inspired 

Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Right now, the words that I find bringing comfort to my uncertainty come from Matthew 11:28-30 in the Message:

"Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion? Come to me.  Get away with me and you'll recover your life.  I'll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you will learn to live freely and lightly."

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  

Part of me wants to force results.  I want to muscle through it forcing the details into a place where they work.  But deeper connection with God is not found in the busyness and white noise with which we surround ourselves.  It is found in the "unforced rhythms of grace".  

The truth is I am tired.  I'm exhausted in a soul deep way.  I desperately need the rest that God promises in this passage.  So for this season I find that the uncertainty points me to rest.  It points me to pull on those things that I lose sight of when I fill my life too full of the craziness.  I asks me to not just learn, but to remember what I have learned about the rhythms of grace God desires us to embrace and live out of freely and without burden.

Intentional Boundaries

"Boundaries define us.  

They define what is me and what is not me.  

A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins..."   

~Henry Cloud

Can I be real for a minute?  Boundaries are really hard for me.  I really struggle with the feeling that I am failing in life when I set them.  I do not think I am necessarily alone here either.  I think we often associate boundaries with "mean" people.  You know those people who are the last to help anyone ever.  We think of boundaries as the meanest rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge.

God has been teaching me a lot about needing to establish boundaries over the past few years, but the last couple of months have felt like boot camp in boundary setting!  Which then results in incredible guilt that I am upsetting people....

"A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, 

leading me to a sense of ownership.

Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom"

~Henry Cloud

Imagine the United States without state boundaries....
What kind of chaos exists in that scenario?
Now image each state without county boundaries....
Now think of you neighbors....
What happens if you neighborhood has no boundaries?
What if those property lines did not exist?
Who is responsible or weeding what flower bed?
Who is responsible to mow what part of the lawn?

Boundaries in real life help us recognize what we are responsible for maintaining.
This applies to the scenario of your neighborhood, but also to our personal life.
Boundaries help create order.

If you think about it God starts our story with boundaries.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
Genesis 1:1

God starts the story of all creation by defining two separate entities.
Heaven and Earth.
They have a distinct different role to play in the story that is beginning to unfold.
They have boundaries that set them apart from one another.

It is out of this story that creation continues all the way to you and I.
God created us distinctly separate.
God created us with natural physical boundaries.
The crazy thing is that God creates us with boundaries for a really good reason!

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6:
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same LORD.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work."

So here is the amazing thing that God has been showing me about boundaries.
They are there so I do not have to do it all and be all things to all people.
It is humanly impossible for me to help everyone I want to help.
And that is ok.

Boundaries are God's way of encouraging me to recognize my limits and be the best version of the person he created me to be.
When I recognize and set my boundaries from a better understanding of how God created and gifted me, my boundaries will actually benefit others.
Those boundaries will keep me out of their gifting.
It will keep me from interfering in the lessons God is trying to teach them that I with my human understanding will try to "fix".

Healthy boundaries can create the opportunity for amazing community.

"Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
1 Corinthians 12:27

What happens if we each begin to recognize what our part in that body is and stop trying to the part of another?  What if rather than a group of people spread thin, the church begins to develop into a group of people living from their gifting and strength?  What kind of community do we begin to create?  How does it change how we share God's love with the world?

Intentional Love

My heart hurts today.  In the past four days, I have seen anger, bitterness and hatred run rampant.  I have heard words thrown as daggers at those we call friends, but who see the world differently from us.  I have watched as our country begins once more to take sides and wonder how after fighting a Civil War which was bloody and ugly have we come to this place once more as friends turn on one another in the aftermath of tragedy.

My heart goes out to the families who even now sit in hospital rooms with their loved one's, who were injured.  My heart breaks for the families that must make funeral preparations for a life cut short.  But the truth is that these figures are mere names to me.  I know nothing of their story.  I have no idea about what their favorite food was, whether they loved movies or a good book better.  What were their dreams?  What was their most embarrassing moment?  All of the things that make us human are things that I do not know about any of these people that I have read about over the weekend no matter what side with which they were aligned.

After college I visited Washington D.C.  the Vietnam Memorial was one of the "must see" places.  I remember visiting the wall and wanting so badly to experience emotion, but I felt a detached sadness.  I could appreciate the sacrifice of all of the lives represented on its long length, but I had no one represented in the letters carved onto the face of the stone.  It impacted how I experienced something that creates such an emotional experience for some.

Events like those our country has experienced in the past few days is similar to my experience in Washington D.C.  They happen someplace separate of ourselves and they can have the impact of a detached sadness or outrage because of the very same reason, we do not know the stories that go with the names.  This detachment allows us to label those faceless names and masses.  We lose sight of the very real fact that each and every one of them is someones father, brother, mothers, sister, son, daughter or friend.  They each have a story in the same way we have a story.

It takes an intentional attempt to be self-aware to view any of these people as more than faceless names on a paper.  It takes intentional effort to slow down one's reaction enough to act and speak in love rather than expressing anger brought on by our fear at those things out of our control.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:13

Paul reminds us in I Corinthians that love does not dishonor, nor is it self-seeking or quick to anger.  Rather it is patient and kind.  It loves and protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres.

The Gospel of John reminds us that God sent His Son out of love, not to condemn humankind, but to offer a means of reconciliation with Him (John 3:16-17).

Reconciliation...  Sounds hard doesn't it?  Reconciling with people who don't see things the same way we do...

Mother Teresa once said, "I have found the paradox, if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love"

What happens if each of us as individuals begin to love unconditionally like that?  What if when we experience hurt we make the intentional decision to love more?

The more I study Scripture the more I become convinced that the lasting power of Jesus ministry is not his miracles.  It is not his dynamic parables or even his resistance to the legalistic model of religion practiced by the Pharisees.

It was the strength of the love he practiced and taught.  

My husband shares a piece of wisdom from his counselor

 "Anger is fear trying to control something". 

I think we see that in full display in moments such as those we experienced as a nation this weekend.

We see it in our own reaction to these events.  It can be a little disheartening...  How are we suppose to deal with the anger that we experience from the varied perspectives that run rampant in the aftermath?  It can be so easy to become fearful and then to watch that quickly morphs into anger as we try to control the opinions of others, who think differently than we do.

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casts out fear:

because fear has torment.

~1 John 4:15

The only true response to these events is love.  By all means hold your family and friends a little closer, but stretch out your arms to those who see the world differently from you.  The most effective way to defeat the anger that surrounds us is to overcome our fear with love.  When we learn to love people who see the world through a different lens, truly love them without the caveat of "maybe they'll come to see it my way", we embrace the love that Christ emulated for us.

The funny thing in Scripture is that we never really find out whether the woman Jesus saved from being stoned to death really left her life of adultery.  We do not see the full story of those that Jesus cast demons out of, but we seem to just assume that they walked away from their encounter with him changed.  That is the power of the strength of the love He demonstrated.  Even centuries later we feel the love in the pages of their stories and cannot help, but believe that they were forever changed by that encounter. 

So who can you intentionally choose to love this week? 

Today? 

This moment?