health

The One Valuable Ingredient To Find God And Lose Weight

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was shocked when the notification blared its announcement.

I was in the top 3% of users of a new nutrition app I was using.

The TOP 3%.

Everyone else (or 97% of people – whatever! – stay with me!) had already given up.

Now, I have to back up a bit to explain.

As you know, and have been forever changed by, I wrote a riveting blog post series last fall on weight loss. (To my editor: Why DIDN’T anyone read those posts, anyway?)

I have been (more or less) within the healthy weight range (basically – okay!) for my entire life, which has been no small feat.

However, when following my advice failed me, I decided to switch it up and buy a nutrition app. Truthfully, I am constantly trying new approaches and programs and learning a bit more about implementing healthy habits, which is the point of this post. But I’m not talking about that right now.

I’m talking about the notification that startled me.

I thought I was the ultimate failure in using this nutrition app. Check this out. The photo below is an actual graph of my progress over two months, showing NO improvement in achieving my ideal weight.

None.

There are normal fluctuations, but the graph of this line is flat.

Same, same, samers.

I immediately unsubscribed to the “encouragement” texts accompanying this app because so many people complained in a way I could not comprehend.

“I only lost 5 pounds this month!” they would complain.

Huh?

I hadn’t lost anything, so I could not relate.

But I kept going with the program.

And the results EVENTUALLY paid off. EVENTUALLY. I lost 10 pounds recently and feel a lot better.

And I believe the results would have also paid off for many, many other app users.

If only they kept trying.

And now, we’ll switch gears to talk about God, but it’s not changing gears, because the concept is the same.

MOST PEOPLE GIVE UP TOO SOON IN THEIR SEARCH FOR GOD

Is it annoying people that keep you away from your search for God? Get over them! (Get over yourself too, but that’s for when you are MUCH more spiritually sanctified and you realize that you are a loser too!)

Is God distant, just out of reach? You’re on the right path. God hides Himself as a critical component of his character.

God delights in concealing things

The Message

Why, you ask?

He is not a dictator, shouting orders and wanting us to go off somewhere and obey every minute detail of his complicated directives. He longs to walk WITH us on this journey we call life. He wants us to WANT to want Him.

And so, right now, He is bending down low but right next to you. Will you reach out, tag his back, and say, “Gotcha!”

Will you seek Him?

If we don’t give up, even though most people do, and keep walking forward, following where we last saw his footsteps and carving out time in our busy day to sit with Him, unhurried, if we read his word, and ask others what it means even when we don’t understand it, then we will find God.

He’s waiting for you right now, holding out His hand to you.

And so, what is the one valuable ingredient to lose weight and find God?

Perseverance.

There’s more to come . . . keeping us alert for whatever God will do next.

The Message

Keep walking, friend.

Hunger for Jesus attracts the manifest (felt) presence of His Spirit. Does your hunger for God outweigh your discouragement? He’ll help you up, point you in a new direction, lighten the weight on your feet, help you soar.

Don’t give up just before your breakthrough, friend.

Despairing? Unlikely People Carry Startling Crumbs Of Hope (Again)

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

Crumbs of hope that whisper or nudge from God can be found in the oddest places.

Sometimes even through strangers.

Are our ears glued on?

It seemed that God wasn’t finished speaking to this clerk at Tim Hortons yet, but I had some pressing paperwork to do. Would I trust Him to interrupt my more essential tasks again? Was I too busy?

My bagel was burned.

I could eat a bagel, slightly dark at the edges. Tell them it seemed God may have been saying. Really?

I already had one interaction where God somehow fed this young man a crumb.

Why did I have to ruin it by criticizing the food? I obeyed, and co-incidentally, perhaps, it was the same young man whose turn it was to speak to me. Several others were working the till.

I showed him my bagel and explained that I recently learned that burned food contains carcinogens, substances capable of causing cancer.

I apologized for the nuisance. “Maybe I should come to you for advice,” the clerk called loudly across the restaurant, as I walked away. I smiled.

He thinks he is drawn to me, but he is drawn to You in me.

May he learn the difference.

As I was about to leave, I thought the Lord said to buy another coffee. But I didn’t want another coffee! “Maybe my life is not entirely about what I want,” I reminded myself.

I stood in line.

Clerks were running everywhere, and many different people were taking orders. Again, I wasn’t surprised when I got the same clerk because this felt like a God appointment. Ask him about his church, God seemed to nudge as I ordered coffee.

“Hey, you said you are a Christian. Have you found a good group of people at a church around here to belong to?”

I wasn’t surprised when he said no. Theology that revolved around the type and frequency of product he smoked, the topic of our earlier conversation, didn’t seem completely orthodox. “Even though my mom is an atheist, I used to go to church. But I don’t have a ride right now,” he said as he gave me my change.

Again, a nudge from the Lord.

Do you have a car? God seemed to ask me, tongue in cheek. I offered him a ride to our thriving church. He declined, and I presumed there were deeper reasons why He wasn’t in a church community.

I walked away, carrying a bagel I was too full to eat.

Use me, Lord. There is so much food here at Your table. I pray this young man’s hunger pains will be satisfied one day.

May he truly know he is accepted and thus seek his next step in a relationship with You and other believers.

May he find another who can lead him to the feast.

Teach us more clearly to scatter a bounty of crumbs from Your voice, and with Your love, we pray.

What Did God Say? Heal Our Children? Are Our Ears Clean?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I wasn’t sure if I could keep the car on the road because I couldn’t see through my tears.

The downpour we were driving through didn’t help, either. “Keep it together. Keep it together. . .” was my mantra until I could get inside, close the door to the world, and let these emotions out.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to drive the car home.

Inside, I collapsed behind a closed door and told my husband the news. His sadness began deep, deep in his soul, in the place where love resides, and found its expression. It was the future we mourned.

A dark cloud had cast a shadow over the future of one of our children. Like a candle in the snow, her joyful little light was sensing wind on the horizon. And the odd pieces of cardboard I found nearby to try to shield her from the wind didn’t look like enough right now.

Heal her, God whispered to me months later.

I was minding my own business, letting my mind wander while in the hot tub.

“Um, what now?” I asked. I sat upright and perked up my ears. “What did you say?”

Silence.

I had heard him. Would I take the next step in faith? Or would I put cotton in my ears and dunk my head under the hot tub, ensuring I could not hear any more of this foolish talk?

They told me this was incurable. Everyone knew that! The best we could hope for was some moderate success with behaviour modification – a few small wins.

And so, which road should I take?

This is where we stumble.

Is that a jewel I just about stepped on along the path of life?

Will we pick it up, inspect it, hold it to the light and find a friend with a hammer to crack it open?

Or will we put it in our pocket to consider later if we remember?

The joys and the sorrows of life arrive, and we hang up our clothes at the end of the day. We forget them there for awhile. When we remember, through foggy memories, that there may be a jewel in our pocket (!), we look again, but it fell out. There are only the singed edges of our pocket to remind us that we were holding a bit of heaven for a while.

But it’s gone now.

What’s for lunch?

And God feels far away, again, even though He just descended from heaven to meet us. We treated His gift like just another stone on the path. Will we catch the next jewel He holds out to us? Will our eyes be open enough to see this time, or will we trample, again, the precious jewel that He offers, His firelight shining in the darkness?

It’s only a sparkle at first.

Time to bow low and fan the flame of His voice in your life, friend?

Come along. Let’s journey together.

Oh. And she was healed, God guiding and then redeeming my pathetic attempts to listen, Him re-directing me and helping me up when discouragement hit. For that is His way.

Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”

“All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.

Jesus said, “Bring them here.” . . . The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand were fed.

The Message

We give Him what we have. It’s all we have but it’s not very much. We work with Him, following His direction so that the miracle can occur.

But that is a story for another time.

It’s also a repetitive story found here and here and in any heart willing to receive what He offers.

Ready for an adventure into the miraculous?

To Lose Weight, DON’T Focus On Food – Focus On Identity (Healthy Habits Post 10)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I threw away the diet books in a fit of frustration.

I failed.

Again.

HOW is it possible that EVERY time I start to diet, I GAIN weight?

True story.

I don’t even lose weight for a while and THEN gain weight.

My body pushes the pedal to the floor, green light ahead, and helps me put on the pounds without meandering through the territory of “thinner me” first.

“Thanks a lot”, I thought. My body is too smart for me. I had to find another angle.

HOW can I win this battle of the bulge with a body that bulges whenever I FOCUS on my food, I wondered?

I was focusing on the wrong thing.

That’s when I learned about “identity.”

“Identity” and related terms were some of the most frequently Googled words in 2023. Yet I think it’s safe to say that few of us clearly understand what EXACTLY identity IS or HOW it applies to ME.

IDENTITY was the smoking gun that allowed me to keep wrestling (granted, I am still in the ring) with the battle of the bulge in my own life.

Here’s the secret. Lean in close.

Is no one looking? Ok . . . (shh… what will it take for us to BELIEVE ourselves that we are the KIND OF PERSON WHO IS FIT?).

Then we do that – end of discussion.

I’ll explain to you the FORM of what exactly this looks like in my own life. Then, if you’re still interested, I can explain WHY this works.

I will first discuss a CAR (the FORM) and then an ENGINE (the WHY) to convert the above paragraph to an analogy.

The CAR I drive is reliable and gets me where I need to go. These are the actions I take to stay fit. The ENGINE of the car, the fire and the pistons that make the wheels go around are found in digging into beliefs about identity.

In the analogy above, I drive a 20-year-old Toyota. In real life, this is the car my Grandpa gave me when he could no longer drive. He scratched and bashed this car from headlights to tail lights from failing vision and judgment, but it was a VERY reliable car because he didn’t have far to go each day.

This Toyota is kind of like me. I care that I can get from here to there and reliably do my errands. My goal, as much as I can control, is to be fit enough to have a reliable body that gets me where I need to go.

Being a healthy weight is not about image but about avoiding pain associated with obesity, if possible, in other words.

So how do we do that?

I focus on what I must do to TRICK MYSELF INTO BELIEVING I AM A FIT PERSON.

Sometimes I do a Triathlon. Sometimes, I complete P90X, and related challenging workout programs. Once, I bought equipment and lessons to learn to skate ski.

I did THE KIND OF THINGS THAT FIT PEOPLE do.

I pretended to be someone else, in other words.

And then I thought, “Fit people eat green smoothies in the morning, so BECAUSE I AM A FIT PERSON, I will do that too.”

And so now we’re talking about the engine of the car.

I naturally ate MORE OFTEN like a fit person because I BELIEVED that I was a fit person.

It was all about identity.

Something else about identity?

Jesus cared a lot about identity.

We have a record of six times that Jesus asked something along the lines of, “Who do (the people/ the crowds/ you) say I am?“

Identity is the A-Z of what drives your car in life.

What we believe about the identity of Jesus is the steering wheel in the car He is riding.

What we believe about His identity determines whether the car of God is coming toward us, bearing the overwhelming love of the Spirit and all of the inheritance that adoption by a King offers. Or whether we are hitchhiking and miss the car of God again.

‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’

C. S. Lewis – Letters to Malcolm

God, help us to see ourselves using the glasses You use to look at us. And may we, by Your Spirit, grow into Your best vision for us and for our lives, we pray.

I Lied Again But Here Are 3 TRUE Tricks To Curb Sugar (Healthy Habits Post 9)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Yeah, OK. I lied again.

I said I FORGOT to finish the blog post series I started on Healthy Habits. That is only PARTIALLY true. I am more organized than you think!

The TRUTH is that I didn’t think we would want to discuss fasting the week before Christmas when we are constantly stuffing our faces with stuffing and turkey and homemade treats and eggnog.

But now that we are on the couch, stomachs in pain and feeling like losers (Losers in a good way, if you haven’t read that post), let me help you get off the couch and let’s punish our bodies again by doing things we don’t like: eating less food, exercising etc.

Or let’s trick ourselves into believing we like doing the stuff we may not always feel like doing.

Whatever.

So January is here!

I would recommend starting off the year by re-reading my blogpost series about Healthy Habits.

Time to get fit!

This post in the Healthy Habits series is a recommendation to try to (more or less) eat dessert on Sundays only.

But that is impossible, right?

Yeah, I know, but we have to try to wean ourselves off the hourly Christmas treats, eventually.

Here’s how:

1. Trick yourself into thinking you are eating dessert when you are not.

Like a cocaine addict (are they the ones that use needles, again?) seeking a fix, I MUST HAVE a snack like this one every day. This is the FIRST item I make when I run out. I’ll skip cooking supper to have a week of these on hand.

Why? Because they FEEL like dessert, even though they are not! Fat and sugar and chocolate and yum all rolled up into a ball! But it’s healthy fat (nuts) and healthy sugar (dates) and chocolate (of course). I eat these at 3:00 pm when I’m craving my fix, and there is just enough heroin (substitute) to help me last another few hours till supper and my nightly camomile tea fix.

2. Downscale your addictive personality.

Our church has been reaching out to our city’s homeless population, and it is AMAZING how much sugar these people who have kicked their drug addictions mainline (Can you mainline sugar?) Whatever.

But let’s face it, mainlining sugar is a LOT healthier than mainlining crystal meth!

Since the reality is that we, too, are just nicely dressed balls of addiction, chasing the wrong desires, let’s learn from them!

Let’s downscale our addictions!

For example, I met a lady last week who stopped smoking and then gained 30 pounds. But stuffing our faces with food is better than stuffing our faces with cancer sticks!

In my case, I am more addicted to sugar than I am to processed chips. So I TRY to eat chips instead of sugar. Once I’m addicted to chips, it’s easier to wean myself off of that addiction. I’ve been downscaled!

It’s easier to eat less chips than it is to mainline crystal meth!

Get the pattern?

While we’re at it, downscaling our addictions, let’s upscale our Levels of Happiness!

3. Let’s look forward to making massive pigs of ourselves.

As per the theme of point two above, we don’t start out at the finish line, having already won the race.

Meaning let’s cut ourselves some slack! We are all basically crack-addicted homeless people, seeking happiness in all the wrong places, so let’s cut ourselves some slack!

Let’s LOOK FORWARD to making a COMPLETE PIG of ourselves on Sundays! A COMPLETE cheesecake with Oreos and highly processed foods on Sunday, anyone?

Start where we’re at!

We’ll eat ONE piece of cake with good manners and a napkin sometime on the future Sunday. Even if our progress is WAY OUT in the future, we celebrate successes! You’re awesome!

Good luck!

You’re welcome!

We’re Overweight Because We Lack Organization Not Self-Control (Healthy Habits Post 8)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Hopefully, I’m organized enough to remember that I was writing a series of posts on a particular topic and then if I get distracted, come back at a later date and finish the series.

It happens more than I’d like to admit that I write a post, announce something I’ll talk about later and then completely forget that I ever wrote that.

In the last few posts, I took a break from my blogpost series about healthy habits. But today I remembered to . . . I mean . . . I AM writing about healthy habits.

It’s not that I didn’t WANT to finish the series of posts I am writing about healthy habits.

It’s just that I’m highly distractible.

What was I saying?

Anyway, this post is about how to be more organized and focused, so let’s get started!

I proved definitely in previous posts that we ACTUALLY:

  1. LOVE practicing annoying healthy habits
  2. LOVE drinking nothing but water
  3. LOVE becoming exhausted exercising
  4. LOVE eating green food
  5. LOVE starving ourselves
  6. LOVE to avoid dessert (future blog post, if I remember)

So by now, we have finally figured out (or tricked ourselves into believing) that these healthy habits are awesome.

How we DO these habits, the hard work of rolling up our sleeves and getting them done is the next part.

But that’s not as hard now, because if we WANT to do something, then getting up enough willpower to prep and do the work so we can DO these habits is the easy part. 

Being successful in life is kind of like being successful in homeschooling our kids, I think.

The main goal of a homeschooling parent is to structure school in such a way that the kid enjoys learning as much as possible. If a kid WANTS to do something we can stand back, and yeah, maybe even drink a martini by the pool for once, for real. (For about an hour, tops, but this time I’m telling the truth about martinis).

And it’s the same with motivating us. When we WANT to do something we can make it happen.

Sometimes we beat ourselves up for all the wrong reasons. We are annoyed at ourselves for having an unhealthy lunch, and we assume it must have something to do with self-control.

Organization is the real culprit.

Try spending two hours on the weekend preparing healthy food to make these healthy habits easier during the week.

Here is an example to get you started. Her methods have been transformational for me.

I’ve learned that if we put in that extra bit of effort to buy proper running shoes, it’s a lot easier to run the race. Similarly, if we put that little bit of effort into preparing healthy foods then success is inevitable.

We won’t go from couch potatoes to famous triathletes in one week, of course, but we will make progress, and progress is enough.

Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit.

The Message

We can find a way, and we’re proud of ourselves, and we can give ourselves a little sticker on the wall or whatever it is that motivates us, particularly.

Yes! I do have a LOT of stickers! Why do you ask?

And whatever it takes, right?

What I Am Learning About Suffering Well After Twenty-Nine Days Of Bed Rest

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The first week on bed rest wasn’t too bad.

I was pretty sure my body would figure itself out, my back would crack in the right direction, and I would be up and running in no time.

I opened an office on my bed, barking orders at my homeschooled kid, and attending meetings online.

I forgot to tell one male teacher why I was in bed during the online call which was a bit embarrassing after the fact. But I’ve done more embarrassing things in good health.

My husband brought me coffee each morning. My daughters brought me tea. All in all, it wasn’t the end of the world.

But I’m on day twenty-nine today of near constant bed rest. The allure has lost its charm.

I was struggling to hang onto my mood today, meaning I was trying to kick a foul mood and find some fruits of the spirit somewhere, but I was coming up empty-handed again.

A friend texted me “How are you?”

I shut off the phone and rolled over. Where do I begin? I’m trying to hold onto a positive attitude.

Don’t shut her out, I felt God whisper.

I answered her text.

Be honest, I felt him whisper again.

She phoned later that night. And again, despite my foul mood, I felt God prompting me to pick up the phone, to say something.

I answered the phone and chatted imbecilely about happy things in our life – toilet training our new rabbit, our daughter home from university this week.

And when we got to the subject of my back I tried to keep up a brave front for a while. No one likes a bother. We all have stuff we walk through, after all.

But I was surprised when I felt emotional as I babbled my feelings to her. I’ve seen her tears before so it was safe for her to see mine. So I let them flow a little. And I learned a bit more about myself, about the lessons I’m learning on this journey of suffering. Here are a few:

1. It’s fear again that’s robbing my joy. I couldn’t figure out why the first week of bed rest was not too bad but today with a regression of symptoms was so upsetting. Yes. It’s because fear has shown itself again, reared its ugly head again, gnawing away at the courage in my heart. What if I get worse? Fear. And fear fed by my unfiltered thoughts grew bigger, overpowering my peace.

2. I was also afraid I wasn’t doing enough. Apparently, this is the a very common fear most humans feel, I recently learned*. What if I should be taking one healthcare provider’s advice and not the other’s, or vice versa? What if I try to get up and move around too much or too little? Fear. Fear that I am not walking the tight-rope of expectations for a temperamental back that randomly punishes me no matter what I do.

3. The remedy to fear? Repentance. I actually feel powerful when I repent of fear, ironically. Try saying this: God I’m sorry for being fearful of something way far out in my future when you promised me only enough grace for today. Jesus, I’m sorry for thinking that I’m going to pull myself up by the bootstraps and fix this back problem when I can’t even see my own back, never mind have any idea what knots my back nerves and muscles inside have gotten themselves into. Forgive me for thinking, again, that I will save me. Instead, guide me and whisper to me, and help me to learn from you how much rest and movement my body needs to heal.

And so the phone call ended.

My situation hasn’t changed but my heart of a lion was feeling stronger. I could sense it beating within me again. Whatever I go through You will strengthen me. Whatever difficulty I face You are there with me. When I go through the valley, You comfort me.

As you listen to this song, try repenting of your fear, repenting of your self-sufficiency, and thanking God for the glimmers of hope in your life. Then ask Holy Spirit how to have enough strength to face today. What do you hear Him whisper?

Blogpost Footnotes

* Joyce Meyer – Do It Afraid! Obeying God In The Face Of Fear

You Love Eating Only Air Instead of Feasting On Turkey – Admit it! (Healthy Habits Post 8)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

One of these days I’m going to write a book about how to have copious financial resources. The key premise:

To accumulate more money, simply buy less stuff!

Lori Lawe, TM*

I’m writing this blog post series about healthy weight, however, but a similar key premise applies:

If we want to stop carrying around all that extra jiggly stuff in the middle, at some point, we may have to talk about eating a bit less food.

Lori Lawe, TM*

Today’s blog post is about ENJOYING eating less.

I’m the kind of person that likes to have fun. So if we have to do something that’s not fun, let’s trick ourselves into thinking that we are having fun! So, as you are learning these helpful tips and habits, try to keep in the back of your mind the key lesson which is: Eating air is way more fun than eating tempting and delicious food!

Today we will learn to trick ourselves that we:

1. Are eating dessert when we are not,
2. Love God more than we love padding our belly fat, and
3. Are stuffing ourselves when we’re not eating anything at all.

  1. No dessert anyone? Back when I remembered I was writing a series of posts about healthy habits, I wrote that one of the habits was to have camomile tea just before bed. This is a great tip I picked up on the internet that actually helped me! I guess there IS useful information out there somewhere! You put quite a bit of extra honey in your camomile tea after supper. Then you tell yourself “This is dessert!” You’re having extra honey so it is a bit of a treat. Then you drink your tea with the relish of eating an entire cheesecake, and wait until Sunday for real dessert. You can do it!
  2. God or more belly fat? The next habit is kind of cool and it’s a way to develop the habit of fasting and seeking God, without having to do any work (Oh wait, did I say that out loud?) As you know, and I’ve discussed here, I found fasting for spiritual purposes, for even more than – oh – 10 minutes, to be a little challenging. So this is a compromise. I just try to delay my breakfast. We all have to start somewhere! Use that time of being a bit hungry to push yourself into God, to ask Him why you’re such a spaz most of the time, to pour out your heart, and you’ll realize that breakfast kind of loses its allure. Your deeper needs are emerging. And so, this habit has become one of my favorite habits, if I’m honest. Plus your body thanks you. There’s a lot of good research about intermittent fasting. And the way I’ve structured these habits, where you kind of trick yourself into thinking you’re eating dessert when you’re not after supper (so you’re not eating), and you just delay your breakfast for a bit turns into a temporary fast. But don’t tell your body that because your mind might not like it, and it’s all about keeping your mind happy, right? Even if you are deceiving your mind a bit. Who’s counting?
  3. Top secret tip for tricking yourself into thinking you are eating copious amounts of food when you’re not eating anything at all. Don’t tell anyone I said this, or at least don’t link back to this site if you do. (I won’t admit I ever said this), but here’s an AMAZING tip. Shh…. Top secret. . . Lean your head over the food dish of choice, when no one is looking, of course. Close your eyes, inhale, enjoy the smells, and pretend you’re chewing. Say, “Yum!” A second plate without any calories, anyone? (Was anyone looking when I said that? Whew! No one heard!) Remember you didn’t hear it from me! Enjoy!

Whoever can figure out how to market the promise: How to enjoy whatever foods you want, whenever you want them, and not gain any weight, and then link to Point 3 above will be a millionaire! Cut me 10% of your profits, please! (I still won’t admit I had anything to do with you, however.)

Hey maybe you want to ghostwrite my financial book discussed in the first paragraph, come to think of it!

We could call it, “How to ENJOY Getting Rich And Thin!”

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Blogpost Footnotes

*Trademarked

(My conscience finds it ironic, for some reason, that I’m eating a 482g bag of “snacking chocolate” as I write this. Don’t forget to eat lots of chocolate when people are looking to confuse them! Because confusing people is fun.)

Does Your Spiritual Food Taste Rotten? (Healthy Habits Post 6)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Of course, who doesn’t LOVE to tuck into that holiday feast and eat so much we can barely move? We sit on the couch, our stomachs in pain, contentment bringing a smile to our faces.

(Yes, I will soon be publishing an apparently contrasting post called “You LOVE To Breathe Only Air Instead Of Eating That Tempting Turkey Dinner- Admit It!” but let’s face it, no one knows WHAT is true on the internet anymore!).

Ahem . . . As I was saying . . .

In a previous post, I proved definitively that you LOVE to eat green food AND you LOVE to be nourished with healthy spiritual food.

But we actually eat popsicles, cotton candy, and fast food burgers more often than we should.

Similarly, we’ve tasted the equivalent of spiritual cotton candy and we sometimes assume that we’ve attended a spiritual feast

“That food gives me a stomachache, heartburn, and nausea,” you conclude after a trip to church in Grade 5. “That food doesn’t nourish me”

And you’re right. It doesn’t. The problem is many of you never tasted, proper, nourishing, spiritual food. The kind you eat with relish and that leaves you on the couch in pain but with a delighted smile of contentment.

(There will be pain too at this spiritual feast because God will bring to the surface those unhealthy desires in your body that are poking you like cocaine needles. His operation, like any operation, hurts. But along with the pain comes contentment, which also makes us smile . . . eventually.)

Proof you may have been eating spiritual cotton candy when you thought you were at the full feast include the following:

  1. You’ve been to church. Most churches are empty shells. They are the plates that the food comes in. You have your fork and knife and you’re ready to eat but no food is there. They forgot to invite God to the party. They forgot to invite God to church every Sunday. So just because you’ve been to church doesn’t NECESSARILY mean you’ve been to a spiritual feast and tasted the food.
  2. You know a Christian. Your neighbour down the street, Ned Flanders (Me!), your coworker, your distant or near relative, your friend, or whoever, who calls themselves a Christian may or may not be a Christian. Sorry for the shock. When I was at Bible college, a mentor suggested that out of those who call themselves Christians, possibly only 2% are true Christians, learning to abide with Holy Spirit. So just because you know a Christian, doesn’t mean you’ve enjoyed the main course of a spiritual feast NECESSARILY.
  3. You’ve noticed Church is for losers. Yep. That’s true. In a previous post, I describe how you shouldn’t let the losers be a barrier to you reaching God. (The truth is that you’re a loser too, but you may be too spiritually blind to realize that yet. It’s OK! They have to love you!) That’s actually the coolest part about Church! You’re accepted exactly as you are, a loser among losers.

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

The Message

The best places to begin the hunt to increase our chances of finding healthy spiritual food will be discussed in a future post.

After we celebrate my birthday.

(My blog’s birthday, I mean.)

Of course!

You LOVE Eating Green Food, Remember? (Healthy Habits Post 5)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The point of today’s blog post is to remind you that you ACTUALLY LOVE eating green food!

Three examples to prove this to you:

1. Green smoothies for breakfast. Have you ever had a green smoothie at Jugo Juice or a local smoothie shop and you think – “Wow! I should make that!”

But then you get home, and the cat is on your lap, and another episode of Downton Abby auto started, and you can’t easily get up, and then it’s the next morning, and you’ve forgotten all about the fact that you ever had a green smoothie?

(I know who hasn’t, right?)

Well, the thing is:

You actually enjoyed drinking the green smoothie, and it was good for you.

So just make one, OK?

You actually WANT to drink green smoothies, if you get the right green smoothie, and if someone (Your mother?) puts it in front of you in the morning.

I make green smoothies that people who don’t even like green smoothies say taste good. Or check out this website for delicious green smoothie ideas on steroids.

But don’t whine about the fact that drinking a green smoothie is one of your habits. You LIKE drinking green smoothies, remember?

2. Another habit is having salads for lunch.

When I was a “working” person (I guess therefore I haven’t “worked” in decades! Ha! Hilarious!) and had extra dollars to spare, I would buy my lunch every day (What was I thinking? Did I not think I’d ever have kids?).

And I actually CHOSE a salad.

It was an amazing salad a bit like these ones. It had protein and tons of lettuce.

It actually filled me up. And it tasted good.

The thing is, now that I’m homeschooling my kids, I look in the fridge and (even though yes, I do organize the cooking in our family) nobody cooked the chicken breast again. It’s lunchtime and I’m hungry! I guess I’ll just have some tortilla chips and chocolate.

But here’s the thing – if someone (Your mom? Your homeschooled teen) put this delicious salad in front of you at lunch with homemade dressing, you will love it! You’re just not organized enough to figure out how to get all the parts moving in one place.

The HOW of making a green salad will be discussed another time, but for now, open up your eyes and realize – eating green salads for lunch is – BLEEP! – (You don’t swear remember?)* awesome!

3. Veggies and dip for snacks. OK, this is the thing about cut-up veggies and dip. If you have a delicious, appetizing dip, and the veggies are right there, it’s amazing how many vegetables our kids will eat! Try it!

Oh – One important caveat –they’ll eat it all day long IF we hide the chips and candy, that is. The trick is, basically if they’re starving and you don’t offer them any other food, they’ll eat their veggies! It’s like magic!

And just like my dog LOVES to cuddle, your kids will LOVE eating vegetables too!

Why do you spend your money on junk food, your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?

THE MESSAGE

The point is that what you WANT is green stuff.

It’s not your desires that are off.

It’s just that your organization sucks.

Making green smoothies, having everything ready for a delicious salad at lunch, and seeing a veggie tray with delicious dip waiting to greet you each morning is not as easy as it seems.

Now that you’ve realized what you like to eat (and if you still don’t LONG for green food, read this), we’ll talk about HOW to have green food ready to bite into with thankful and glorious abandon in a future blog post.

Proof you LOVE feasting on green spiritual food (as well as green physical food) will be discussed in a future post.

Blogpost Footnotes

* Do you want a cupcake?