Some thoughts on food

Source: flickr.com via Mike on Pinterest

(i)
There is a paradox raging in my body. As much as I am fighting to eat three meals a day and love this God-given, God-made body, my body is fighting back. Food allergies and intolerances are making their presence felt, and it just seems so unfair. Strawberries are the latest addition to the list (which also includes nuts, lemons and dairy) - I chose them as a healthy treat yesterday, and what happened? HIVES.

(ii)
I was eating sweet tomato and saffron soup yesterday (the other options were Icky Mushroom or a chicken-y something with a load of double cream) and it was not nice. I ate the thing because I was hungry/don’t like waste, but it was hard work to the last spoonful. As I was eating, I could not escape the thought of how costly saffron is. As spices go, it’s the most expensive. Its colour is so beautiful, and it is somehow rich and beautiful and exotic, but I cannot stand the taste.

(iii)
At the weekend, I shared chocolate fudge cake (allergies be damned) and red wine with a friend. It was a holy moment, a communion-eucharist moment, an all-is-grace moment where I got to show her a little of how she is loved. And she is so loved, and so unaware. There is something elemental about the sharing of food. It’s a way of choosing to stop and see someone, and spend time with them, and honour them, and listen to what they are saying with their heart and soul and body, what their words might not be saying, but what they want you to know anyhow.

Storytelling

Source: wordsoverpixels.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

I would call this week a Good Week. Yes, I skipped a meal here and there. Yes, there was that morning where the great grey elephant sat on my chest and I couldn’t get out of bed and ended up being late for work.

But

(and it’s a glorious but)

I ate three meals nearly every day. And when I didn’t manage a proper meal, I at least ate something. The day I was late for work? I was only half an hour late, and didn’t miss the day. Our church celebrated the first birthday of its Christians Against Poverty Debt Centre, and the stories and the redemption made me weep. More Lord.

I flirted with a lot of blue eyed boys (all aged one, no need to get excited)

I had dinner with a precious friend who is growing a person and buying a house and starting a business and raising two toddlers and is still laughing.

I submitted three funding applications at work, returned to our lunchtime clubs after the Christmas break and spent some time with our gorgeous teenage girls, and spent some time with a client so that we could bless her with the items she needed for her imminently-arriving baby.

I started learning some sign language and making new friends (one of whom is also growing a person - there’s a theme at the moment). I realised I find signing odd because I cannot write it down or make notes in any conventional sense, and it strips back the words we’d speak to make communication spare and beautiful. I love it, even if I can’t string together a sentence.

I was given a free cup of tea at my favourite coffee shop.

I started reading a flesh-and-paper book because I’ve taken against my kindle (for no sensible reason)

I found a house for the next six months, and the situation was pulled together by hands Much Bigger than mine.

I read this SheLoves piece by Kelley Nikondeha and it somehow gave me permission to breathe out. ‘The prophets, energised by the Spirit, never dreamed of anything less than a new world.’ I am allowed to dream of and pray in the Kingdom. Swords into ploughshares, baby. Prayer is powerful, and I choose to enjoy the secret prayers in the quiet place. One day, I might get to go to Amsterdam and Durban and India and New Zealand and Thailand and Israel and Cambodia, but for now, I will be a-praying right here.

I listened to Emily and Preston (having opinions). You should go listen too. They have excellent opinions.

A friend I’ve not seen since her wedding in July booked to come up and see me next weekend. ALL THE JOY.

I did not have blood tests or faint (marked improvement from last week)

My friend from Oop North made it down for a visit, despite the snow. She may, in fact, be snowed in here for a while. What a shame that would be.

In related news, today has become a SNOW DAY.

And that is my story this week. There is joy and grace in every day.

2013: Free

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My word for 2013 is Free.

It is for freedom that we have been set free.

The radical, grace-laden, completed work of the cross brings a freedom that cannot be comprehended, and one that I frequently devalue in my choices. There are broken elements of my life which I have laid at the foot of the cross time and again, but which I take back, pick up, try to redeem out of my own strength. It is high time I learned that this ransomed life should not be lived that way. Who am I to declare my sin too big for the cross to have dealt with? The hubris is enormous.

I struggle with depression, but that does not define me.
My family are broken, but that is not my identity.
I have a quiet presence and am softly-spoken, but that is not who I am.
I have never yet dated, but that is not the make-or-break of my life.
I struggle with low self-esteem, body image, food, anorexia, but I do not have to live in those.
I am a woman, and that in no way disqualifies me from Kingdom work.

I want to live and thrive in the freedom of what God speaks, rather than crumple under the weight of the labels and burdens I have taken up for myself.

There is a choice in this, and there is a commissioning. There have been hard things to deal with in my 24 years, but I choose not to live as a victim of those. I choose to believe the words and the encouragements (more in faith than fact right now, but it’s only January...) that have been spoken, and I choose freedom from the lies. I choose to repent of believing the lies of being unlovely, unloved, unlovable. I choose instead to believe that I am wildly loved and wildly free, and I accept the commission to love as Jesus loved, to be His hands and feet, to run through the world fire-filled and hungry for justice and mercy.

I have a voice. I have fire and passion and compassion, and my heart bleeds with it.
This is not easy. But I am pretty sure it’s worth it.