Yall know how much i enjoyed the juice fast. I felt a
freedom from food. I did not need any particularly food, so instead of
asking 'what do I want?" I have
began to ask "what should I eat", and actually eat it! This began a growing
desire to start from the beginning, what am I actually eating. I looked at
paleo, that seemed a little nutty to me, eating clean however looked more
doable. For our family living in a county that would eat red meat for breakfast
lunch and dinner. Our food culture needs to be flexible, about what we choose
to enjoy, not about what we will not eat.
So I bought the kindle booked called "cooked" by Michael
Pollan. The Author is like who's who in the clean eating and slow food movement
world. After being an author and journalist for health, community, and the
environment he said he found the answer to many of the questions he has been
pondering for the last 20 years?
How do I build community?
What single thing can one parson do for their long term
health?
What one activity that every American would do could help our
environment dramatically?
COOK.
So he gets back to the basics, lots of research and history
about how and why we as a nation stopped cooking. It is fascinating! He
mentions that most of us see cooking as hard or expensive, or just plain
otherworldly. In fact, many ancient words for cooking derived from the word
magic. (he did tons of anthropological research which I loved) He breaks it
down to the elements...fire, water, air and earth. I am only through fire, and let's
just say me and Jesse just bought our first grill. We had chicken kabobs, it
was epic.
How did we go from 'Ya eating better would be nice" to
"Man, that was an awesome carrot"?
1. for us, the juice fast was essential, it changed the
DRIVE behind eating crap, freedom to actually make a decision instead of
running for bread, bread, and more bread! It gave us the fuel to beggin new habits like eating 30-45% fruits and veggies, whole grains, and fish and chicken occasionally.
2. I stopped looking at
serving my family as a chore, and started looking at it like Disneyland.
Commercials are constantly telling us that convenience is life! but what are we
in such a hurry for, so we can watch another episode of CSI Miami? LIFE is LIFE! chopping
up veggies by hand is a beautiful moment in time, a peace giving, grace
awakening act of meditation, worship, and service!
3. After that, I just don't buy it anymore, limited my
options. necessity is the mother of invention, if you have crème of chicken,
you will not make a rue. This works great for us, because processed food is
pricy in Montenegro, A tiny can of spaghetti sauce will run you about $3.25 all
my quick easy American meal are disastrously expensive here.
4. Get organized...this is the fun part! I asked Jesse if he
could give me a day to organize the kitchen to that cooking clean is fun and
easy, he is the most amazing man ever so he let me roam around some stores make
a horrible fool of myself trying to explain things like lighter fluid in Montenegrin
and the end result is this...
It's utterly unpredictable the things God uses to bless and refine us.
I am really grateful. You know how you have this image of who you want to be, then you remember you are a sinner, then God asks you to take both your 'heavenly dreams' and you 'sinful reality' and slap both your dreams and insecurities on the alter of His grace, then you have no idea who you are... except His.
Life becomes this awesome waterside of grace. I know it's a weird analogy, but when you were little and you waited in line so long, then your sitting at the top of the slide and the lifeguard blows the wistle for you to go, and you LET GO, and it's awesome.
as you are splashing through the turns and drops, every once in a while, you can see where you are, and where you came from, but your just riding the water, it has nothing to do with you.
Can't wait for heaven, when the invisible will become visible, the ultimate submersion of Grace at the end of this slide.
