Whew, yesterday was busy. Its days like yesterday that make it easy to discard the plan...to abandon this work God and I are going together to change these behaviors. I had back to back clients starting early in the morning til 5pm. I allowed myself no time for a decent breakfast and time to focus in the morning..no time to take a break mid day for a decent lunch and some more focus time. By the time I was done at 5pm, I was over hungry and light-headed as I headed off to a family birthday Dinner of Pizza and salad. this didn't stop me from stopping to get something on the way because I felt like I was going to pass out...then eat Pizza and Salad...and a piece of birthday cake with a little bit of ice-cream. I was able to fight the urge to eat that second piece of Pizza and keep the piece if cake a decent size without seconds but the desire was strong to eat more. I kept thinking about having to stop off and "fill-up" on the way...would I have passed out? Why did I not plan better? Why do I not even make planning my food a priority. All I ate throughout the day was a granola bar and a slim-fast shake. I grabbed these this morning as I was running out the door.
I think God is telling me that I just need to make time for lunch. I believe that I should schedule a break mid day even if that means seeing one less client during the day. I need to go into the kitchen and get away from my desk. I need to sit down and eat, just do nothing but eat. I realize now that I most often eat as a second activity. The meal is in addition to whatever activity I am doing at the time, watching TV, working on the computer etc.. for me to really savor the food and eat slowly and control my potion size, I actually need to focus on the food that I am eating. I shake my head in disbelief as I am writing these words. This is dieting 101 stuff but I am finally hearing and embracing these basic concepts. Why? What took so long? Why is this all so hard for me. I feel like this is all embarrassingly stupid at times and that I am making too big a deal of this process. ..putting me first, the feelings of embarrassment, the running, the lack of planning...all reasons to stop, right? Maybe before but I am going to take a step of faith and keep going, pushing past all these feelings and obstacles. I am going to work to slow down, to not care about the embarrassment, to make time for meals as I described above and to maybe plan a little bit more each day..please pray for all of these things...they are all familiar but new territory... for me. I have no past successes here to fall back on. I feel completely unable to do these things...God please hear me. I know when you hear you will act, lovingly on my behalf..you only require trust.
So, the Manna Principle from "Running Scared" by Ed Welch...do I sound scared? Its a teaching on God's faithfulness. How he hears our groaning and rescues us. I love what he wrote about "when God hears he acts". These people really felt like they were starving and as their food supplies dwindled, they did not know where there next meal was coming from. God heard and he acted by providing meat at night and then bead in the morning. Just enough, exactly when they needed it. I provided for myself when I stopped yesterday to feed myself even knowing that in 30 minutes I would be able to eat my fill of Pizza, salad, cake and ice cream with family. No, I chose to stop off and feed all by myself, in secret except for the guy at the take out window.
As I read further, I read about the concept "only enough for today". These people were instructed to only take what they needed for this meal and no more. Well, of course some of them tried to hoard and what they hoarded was rotten in the morning. This is a clear picture of the uselessness of the extra food that I put in my body. All I really need is my portion..the rest is rotten and a detriment to my body.
God is stripping me of these old habits, behaviors and thoughts and the process is hard and painful. What is on the other side of this stripping process is Manna from Heaven...I want that!
This morning I consciously ate my portion and did not eat more.
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30 days to form a habit. Your commitment is 40 days. Off to a good start in my opinion. I keep telling myself I should greet my grandson immediately when his father drops him off. Most times I take him like a bag of groceries, tell his father the information I want to convey, and greet him after his father leaves. I'm gonna keep trying to remember--another example of what seems so obvious but is somehow hard to put into practice.
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