Seasons Eatings!

I know it’s been a while since my last post. The holiday time has taken up all of my time. So, recently I figured, tis the season! I’ve taken a backseat to worrying about my eating, and weight. Good idea? Not really. Stress relieving? A bit. One thing after another has had me stressing left and right! So, of course, I’m a stress eater! While I actually have accepted and adjusted to my current weight, I don’t want to remain this way forever! I call it my mommy cushion! Who wants to hug a mommy that feels like a board? I never would have! So this way my daughter can be comforted by my squishiness! Also, another reason to not feel guilty about my eating! This isn’t one of those posts where I say, “The holiday times can be difficult, but you should still watch how much you eat! Don’t over indulge!” It’s a post to say, sometimes, we need to sit back a take a breath. Stress and worry this time of year can just add to weight gain, and not eating is just going to make us extra cranky! I’m not saying eat your heart out! I’m saying, enjoy the blessings God has given you! Deal with your mommy cushion, muffin top, thunder thighs, and flappy arms for a month longer. Take in all the delight and happiness this time of year can bring! Let this be your gift this Christmas! I don’t know about you, but body peace is the greatest gift I can give myself right now. Come New Years, I’m sure we’ll all have our resolutions, but let that be Januarys problem. Enjoy being you, for just 24 more days!

2 Timothy 1:7 – For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Counting God’s Gifts

I read a friends blog post from yesterday titled My Thankfulness Journey {31 Days}. She goes on to say how she has been counting 1000 gifts God has given her, because she read One Thousand Days by Ann Voskamp. I’ve seen people put posts on Facebook, but I never understood really what they were doing. So, in the heart of Thanksgiving, I am going to start my 1000 gifts as well. I’ll post a few on here from time to time. I think we worry so much about praying for ourselves, or for things that may not matter as much as we think. We don’t spend enough time thanking God.

The Bible says in Psalm 95:2, “Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.” It’s in plain english…right…there. Who doesn’t want to shout joyfully for Gods graciousness, His daily mercies, His blessings, and for sending His son! Have YOU sent your child to die on the cross for all of the worlds sins? Most likely you haven’t, and if you have…I’m more than a little worried! God did what would be an impossible task for us to do. I don’t know if we truly comprehend how big of an action that was! I know sometimes I hear myself saying, “Yeah! I’m a Christian, because I believed Christ died on the cross for my sins!” Yet…I don’t really let those words sink in. Recently, while taking the Lords supper at church, I found myself thinking, “What does taking this really mean? How am i really thankful for what God has done?” A lot of the time I can’t even fathom a thought or prayer because it’s such a big concept to be thankful for. I can’t be the only one with this thought, am i right? What I really need to do is ground myself. My thoughts tend to float away into all of these bunny trails and emotions while in this moment. What I need to do is just say thank you Lord. A heartfelt thank you. He understands what’s in our hearts. So why babble on in your head and end up missing out on really thanking Him?

We all get wrapped up in our lives and forget to stop, look around, and say thanks God. Thank you for even the littlest of things. A nice breeze on a fall day. The smell of sunscreen at the pool. Glitter fingernail polish. His blessings come big and small. All should be a reminder to us just how amazing our God really is.

So my first few gifts are: 1. Sending His Son 2. His graciousness 3. His daily mercies 4. A nice breeze on a fall day 5. The smell of sunscreen at the pool 6. Glitter fingernail polish…and 7. My baby girl’s BEAUTIFUL smile. Not necessarily in that order, but that’s a start!

Love Your Neighbor

Romans 13:10~ Love does no harm to a neighbor; there-fore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Sounds simple enough. What if we take that one step further? Since love is the fulfillment of the law, why not love not just our own bodies, but instead of judging and criticizing one another, we love what we see? Judgement has become such a huge part of our society. Part of the world. We are constantly seeing what the world has deemed the perfect body. Let me tell you. YOU are the perfect body. God created us in His own image. I’m tried of saying that and not believing it. Since when did weight become such an obsession in our culture? Back in biblical times it was good to big boned. It meant you were healthy.

Lately I’ve had a lot of people telling me how my 9 month old daughter should look. “She’s at the top of her charts”, “she eats too much”, “what a fat little baby!” All saying these things as if it weren’t offensive or judgmental. Since when did the world get to decide what weight or shape is acceptable for my child? My goodness. She’s only 9 months old! God made my BEAUTIFUL little girl in HIS image! I look at her and cry sometimes thinking of her future. Every girl goes through it. We all look in the mirror and see something we don’t like. I just pray she can she herself how I see her. How God sees her. She’s perfect the way she is.

We need to be asking ourselves. Why do I stand and judge people I see based on their body type? Regardless of if they are bigger or smaller. It is not our place to stand there and judge. God will be our judge. When we start treating our neighbors with love, and loving them for who they are, we aren’t doing harm. We are fulfilling Gods law. Treat others how you’d like to be treated. Love others how you’d like to be loved. While we have to work on what comes out of our mouths, we also have to work on what we think in our minds. That’s how we will change our hearts. That’s how God will change our hearts.

Please pray for our daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends in this day and time. No girl or woman should feel like they aren’t beautiful. WE ARE CREATED IN HIS IMAGE! Nothing can be more beautiful than that!

The Lamp of the Body

Matthew 6:22-23~ The Lamp of the body is the eye. If there-fore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

So I felt that just one post today wasn’t enough. I can feel the Lords strength with me on this! I want to be open, honest, and eager when doing this! I read this verse and I couldn’t help but think of the ways it applies in multiple aspects of our lives. One of them being eating! We all know the saying, “Don’t let your eyes be too big for your stomach.” Or some similar version to that! In a way this verse is saying the same thing. Basically the window to our stomach is our eyes. If we make good choices about what we eat, our bodies, which are our temples for the Lord, will be full of light! The Lord created our bodies to work the way they do for a reason. Our hearts and minds work together, because without one or the other things would come out one sided or possibly too extreme. As well as how our eyes work with our brains, hearts, and even our stomachs!

You know those times where you are so extremely hungry you feel you could eat everything on the menu? That’s our eyes getting a little too greedy. Recently, my husband and I have decided that when we go out we should split every meal we get. Not just to save money, but because our bodies don’t need that much food. America has such a different view than the rest of the world when it comes to portion sizes. A handful is all that you need to sustain you. Yes, of course we all have our weaknesses! Mine are Reese’s Peanut butter Cups, Sugary Coffees, and anything with cheese! Its just learning to curb those craves with something else, so we don’t over indulge. That something else is God’s word. My goal right now is that every time after I’ve had a meal, and I’m supposedly “starving” a little while later, is to dig into God’s word and get so immersed that I can either A) forget about the craving, or B) give that moment to Him, instead of food. It may sound silly to you, but it may be the answer to my prayers. Prayerfully consider these options if you too are struggling with this! Let me know if you have any words of wisdom, or if you need prayer! We need to stick together as Christian Women in this crazy food filled world!

The First Step

The First Step is admitting you have a problem. Hello, my name is Molly and I have an addiction to food. However, I’ve recently been transforming that addiction to food into an addiction for God. The Lord gave me a passion for three main things in life. Him, Family, and Cooking. When you have a passion to cook like I do, you have a tendency to love to eat as well. Loving to eat kind of fuels the fire of loving to cook. So, my goal is to transform what is feeding my fire to succeed in any passion the Lord has given me. This has been the recent conviction He has placed on my heart, and I needed an outlet for that. Over time I hope you see me grow in my faith, trust, and health as I take this journey. I hope to be encouraging to those of you with the exact same conviction in life. The first step is admitting it.