Journaling - Is that a word?

I had another post all lined up for today, but it dwelt heavily on my sin issues, and after yesterday, I figured I should keep it light. Otherwise I might wake up tomorrow to my Mom standing over me staging an intervention because I felt bad about myself. But don't worry, Mom, I'm ok.

What I love about blogging is having to wrestle with all of these habits/issues/dilemmas in a healthy way. I have lots of thoughts flitting through my head as I go about my day, but when I have to write them down, I have to slow down and be a bit more thorough, following my sin-warped logic to its conclusion. When I realize that what I am typing doesn't make any sense or doesn't line up with what I know to be true, it forces me to mentally go back and search for where I left the path, so to speak.  The same holds true regarding conversations about life, spirituality and matters of the heart; sometimes it takes saying the words out loud to realize they might not be true.  Discussing these things, even if doing so brings out some doubts or uncertainties, is helpful. So is reading your Bible and praying through whatever you're wrestling with.

I envision myself reading this blog as a stranger, and I think about all of the questions or arguments that might come up. I don't always get it right, but at least I'm more mindful of who I am, who Jesus is, and how we relate to each other. It is good stuff, even if it's a little messy. I guess that's why journaling is so helpful; I am just journaling in cyberspace for all who care to join me.  I figure if I'm thinking about it, someone else probably is too, so why not process life together?

I believe; help my unbelief

Today a friend emailed pictures to Justin from our first Sunday morning worship for Grace Church (it was two weeks ago; I should have blogged about it, but I was too busy having a little breakdown. I'll save that for another post.).  He forwarded them on to me, and as I looked at them, all I could think was, "Man, I have really gotten fat."  And it's true.  Since 2008 I have gained thirty pounds, and in 2008, I was trying to lose fifteen pounds, so that is saying something.

Weight loss is always a hot topic for Americans, and certainly for women.  Get any group of females together and eventually, the conversation will find its way to eating, exercising, and different dieting techniques.  This is true even in Christian circles: in fact, a recent study showed that Christians in America may actually be fatter than their non-Christian friends.  Maybe it's just too many potluck fellowships on Sundays after church.  Some folks chalk it up to Christianity being prevalent in the fried-chicken, mashed-potatoes-and-gravy, banana-pudding-eating South.  Who knows.

Body issues and general self-consciousness can rule people's lives.  We live in a culture that esteems slim and trim figures almost as much as we love our soft serve.  Not quite, though; therein lies the problem.

 Anyway, I spend alot of time thinking about my weight.  I think about it when I drink a slim-fast shake, and I think about it when I eat an ice cream sandwich.  I think about it when I exercise, and I think about it when I veg on the couch and watch TV.  I think about it too much. I think.

So what is an appropriate perspective on body image?  Should it matter to me what astronomical figure glares back at me from the bathroom scale each morning?  Well, of course the answer is yes and no.

I can't say I've figured out what I should be thinking about my body, but I believe I've laid some groundwork.

So my answer to the question above is no because:

•  My self-worth does not come from what pant size I currently wear (don't ask), because my identity is in Christ, not in my own self-discipline.  My hypothetical works of eating healthy meals and logging 20 miles on the treadmill each week can never ultimately satisfy my need to feel good about myself, because there is nothing in me to feel good about. That's why I need Jesus.
• I was an itty bitty thing when we got married 16 years ago, yet I looked at honeymoon pictures and bemoaned my wide hips.  I don't know that I ever was completely happy with how I looked, and I know now that I can't expect all of my life problems to resolve themselves once I reach my "goal weight." My happiness cannot find its ultimate fulfillment in my appearance.  It won't work.

And my answer is yes because:

• I overeat.  My god has been my stomach(Phil. 3:18-19) and I have believed myself incapable of resisting the temptation to eat more than is healthy, contrary to what the Bible says.
• One of the fruits of the spirit is self-control.  As I walk in step with the Holy Spirit, relying on Him to sustain and help me, I have the power within me to control my habits and desires.
• I Corinthians 6:19-20 says "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."  My body is a gift from God; I want to honor Him by how I eat and how I move and how I spend my time in it.

I have never been able to sustain a weight-loss effort more than a few weeks.  I am pitifully weak when it comes to food. I almost don't believe that I can get in shape now; I feel as if I will be saddled with this extra weight for the rest of my life.  I give up easily.  And honestly, I don't bring it before God that often because I am ashamed that it is such a big problem in my life.  I should know better than that, being a pastor's wife and all, but there it is.

As for how much of body image anxiety should make up my thought life, I would say zero percent.  But it is there, nagging me all the time, distracting me from more profitable thoughts.  So my answer to this is the same answer to pretty much any idol that needs de-throning: prayer and meditation on key passages of Scripture.  I have to remind myself often that God is for me, and that he has set me free from the guilt and power of sin.  My focus will largely be on portions of the Bible that affirm these truths.  And on staying out of the ice cream sandwiches.

Death-wish Frog

This may feel like a re-run, because the frog has leapt onto the pages of this blog before, but I tell you what...

He outdid himself today.

The backstory:
Said froggy currently resides in a second-hand goldfish bowl in our kitchen. For more of his murky history, you can read this.

Jack and I were emptying the dishwasher while I chatted on the phone with my sister.

Earlier that day, I had cleaned the frog's bowl and given him fresh new water to swim around in. The water was dangerously close to the top of the bowl, and the frog had even gone so far as to try to grab my shirtsleeve when I reached across the water's surface. For more sensible moms that would have been a signal to empty some of the water, but not me. I just said, "Stop it, you freak!" and moved on, figuring I had showered the frog with enough attention for one day.

So...talking on the phone, emptying dishwasher...I told my sister jokingly that one day that frog will jump right out of its bowl. As the words came out of my mouth, the prophesy came true: right before my eyes, that slimy little critter came up out of the water, scootching across the counter top towards me. He slid right off the counter, plinkoed around in the top rack of the dishwasher amongst the clean cups and dropped to the bottom rack, ultimately landing in the very belly of the dishwasher. I sprang into crazy-mom-ninja action, shrieking into my poor sister's ear and hopping around the kitchen. Jack vanished; who knew that kid could move so quickly?

The commotion brought the rest of the family running; I pointed at Will (the frog owner, ostensibly) and Justin and commanded them to retrieve the frog. Justin helpfully offered to shut the dishwasher and put it on the "pots and pans" cycle. Then he got a stadium cup to try to scoop the frog up, but the space was too tight.

There was only one way to get that frog out, and it was with your bare hands.

Justin, Will and I all simultaneously declared that we weren't going to touch the frog.

Well, someone has to touch the frog.

So Justin removes the bottom rack of the dishwasher and I get down on my hands and knees and go in after that blankety-blank frog. I have it in my hands once and it wriggles free, but I grab it a second time and Justin offers the stadium cup as a frog depository. He pours the frog back into the bowl and then scoops out enough water to render the bowl an effective prison once more. Will, who has the phone now, gives my sister the play-by-play.

After the excitement, I ask Will if he really still wants that stupid frog. He shrugs; the only way he would care about the frog at this point in his life is if the frog put on a Braves jersey and started batting .317. And could scores us tickets behind home plate at Turner Field. Justin and I look at each other and contemplate assisting the frog in taking a long walk off a short pier, but what stops us is knowing that Jack (our resident St. Francis of Assissi)would be devastated if we offed the frog.

Plus if we throw the frog in the creek, it would probably grow to be eight feet long and hunt us down and eat us (except Jack, of course).

Best to keep him in the bowl.

The Many Faces of My Beloved

Justin turned 40 in March.  It was pretty anti-climactic, all things considered.  I had given him a surprise party last year that involved some pretty elaborate evasive techniques, and I wasn't up to the drama again. 

Italian Cream Cake with 40 candles.  Can you say "waxy frosting"?

I wanted to give him something amazing or take him on a fabulous trip, but nothing really came to mind.  Plus since we're a one-income family (and he's the one income), it would be like, "Hey, I got you this cool new elecronic gadget for your birthday!  I just put it on the credit card; I hope that's ok.  Love you! Happy birthday and good luck making this work in the family budget!"  So I got him a hammock, a day late, and made him shrimp, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, since his favorite seafood restaurant was closed on his birthday.  No, it's not Long John Silver's. 

What more could you want?  Oh and an italian cream cake, his favorite.

While I was preparing the birthday meal extravaganza, Emma was playing with the camera.  I'm so glad, because here is what she captured for all of posterity (and modernity) to enjoy:

  I love my husband.

Thunderstorm

This morning, the power went out at 1 a.m. I know because the silence woke me up. It was silent inside the house, but very noisy outside the house. More on this later. My husband and I like to sleep in a wind tunnel-like atmosphere with a small portable fan on his side of the bed and then the overhead fan doing 90 mph just as an extra precaution. Not for the air flow so much as for the noise. When it's completely quiet, I can hear ringing in my ears. I'm not sure why that is, but I would never go to the doctor for it anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

The power went out because there was a thunderstorm raging outside. It was quite toasty in the house with no electrically-powered a/c to cool things down, and there was no sleeping with great crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning without all of our fannage to muffle the noise. Sleep eludes one in a hot and uncomfortably noisy atmosphere, I have found.

Justin and I both were awake, waiting for a child or three to show up needing comfort. Instead we got the dog (already not my favorite member of the household - see yesterday's post). She went to Justin's side of the bed first, and I heard him take her jangly collar off. Then she came around to my side and I could feel her chin on the covers as she stared at me intently. I pretended not to notice, but the motion of her wagging tail was coming through her body into her jaw resting on the bed and making the mattress sway slightly. Hard to ignore.

I got the extra blanket off the foot of the bed and spread it out on the floor for her. She promptly circled and got into the doggy equivalent of the comfy position, all curled up with her nose on her hind legs.

Jack, who is normally our go-to worrier, never even showed up. We all compared notes in the morning while getting ready for school and all the kids woke up when the power went out, but managed to go back to sleep by themselves. Jack had been up with us until close to 11:00 p.m., stressed out because at the lunch table earlier that day, the girls in his class said that ghosts were real and if you didn't believe in them, they would come and find you and haunt you until they did. Powerful incentive in Jack's mind. Justin asked him if he was going to believe a bunch of second grade girls or his parents, and I think he was a little bit on the fence, but ultimately he came around to the parental viewpoint. Still, we had to watch Charles Barkley on the David Letterman Show to distract him from ghostly thoughts. Sir Charles did the trick, and Jack trooped back upstairs to bed. Not even a thunderstorm could bother him.

Maybe Tomorrow

It is a beautiful day here in Sparkle City, South Carolina. The wind is blowing, and the birds sound like the soundtrack to The Masters Golf Tournament.

I read somewhere that when networks are showing golf and the birds aren't singing up to par (get it? Up to par?), they will pipe in additional bird chirps and tweets. Bird watchers all over America were up in arms one time because the birdsong that accompanied the golf broadcast came from a bird who didn't live in that region of the country. Evil TV networks. I totally side with the birdwatchers on this one.

Anyway, it's been about three or four weeks since last I blogged, and I was finally feeling inspired, so I came outside for a little time alone with my thoughts and the iPad. I had just formulated something brilliant which I would record for future generations when my daughter came out with the dog and said she (the dog) just threw up all over the rug.

So instead of blogging, I will now go inside the house and do what I And many other moms do best: Gripe while cleaning up someone else's mess.

Don't ruin my joy

Lately I've been very sensitive when it comes to my TV shows. I love reality TV. My favorites are:

I cry at least every other episode when watching The Biggest Loser. I want them to believe in themselves! And then I want to tell them that even being at your goal weight does not solve all of life's problems. But they'll figure it out eventually.

Anyway, I was watching The Biggest Loser (or maybe it was American Idol; as much as I love them, these reality shows all run together for me.  All of them generally have the same theme:  I was wallowing in mundane life, I got picked for this show, now suddenly my life has meaning and purpose.) last night when my husband came in to be with us. I say "us" because the kids were all in there with me. I could watch an infomercial on documentaries about the prehistoric era and they would all plop down and watch with me. They're just so happy to have the TV on. Sometimes I wonder if we're too strict about limiting TV time and then I watch their little eyes glaze over whenever it's turned on and notice how they can't complete sentences or follow basic instructions because they are so fixated on the screen in front of them...and then I decide we're o.k. on that one.

So the husband sits down, even though he does not love what we're watching. And I get anxious because he often makes fun of my shows. And then he of course says something trifling, but obnoxious...the exact words escape me now; I turn to him and tell him (in all seriousness) that he is robbing me of my joy in my TV show. I tell him it's no fun to watch with him criticizing.

 And now I don't remember his response to my protestations; all I remember is that later on in the show, one of the contestants starts getting whiny and Will starts mimicking her voice. And I say, "Well, she is being a whiner, isn't she?".  Justin immediately responds with, "Why are you criticizing her? You are robbing me of my joy in watching this show!  I am trying to enjoy this show!"

I had to laugh, because it was kind of silly.  You know you've crossed some kind of line into ludicrousness when you're getting offended on behalf of your favorite TV shows.