World's worst Cook

I have a confession to make. I cannot cook. My inability to cook is legendary in our home.  I can bake. I get compliments every time I make Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I’m an excellent baker. However baking & cooking are NOT the same thing.

One time I burnt the chicken for dinner so bad we not only had to have McDonald’s, we had to eat it on the deck because the house was too smoke filled to see.

Luckily for my children and I, my husband is not only a good cook he also truly enjoys cooking.  Which worked out well when we both worked. Most nights he would cook dinner while I did the other parenting duties or straightened up around the house. But when I became a stay at home mom and he took over the earning, I needed to step up and take over dinner.

Before my husband and I got married my oldest sons and I ate from fast food drive thru windows a whole lot.  It was so bad once I pulled up to the bank teller and she asks how she can help me today and my then 3 year old son yells “Chicken Nuggets and French Fries.”

I may have had a problem.

I am much older and a little wiser now. My youngest daughter sees Santa Claus more often than a drive thru.

Today I was walking with the woman who teaches Ben and Sarah (and who has become part of our family) while Sarah was at horseback riding lessons.

I told her that people were telling me I was inspiring them with my weightloss journey. So she asks “How, are you walking with them? What are you doing?”

I responded with “No they are just reading my blog and finding it helpful.”

“Well that doesn’t work for me I hear about your weight loss journey EVERY SINGLE day and all I’ve done is gain weight.”

She says after a few moments,  “But yeah, it’s not you, If you cooked everyday we’d all be skinny.”

“Ouch.”

And then she laughed realizing how that sounded. And finally after I felt like the worst cook in the world for a sufficient amount of time, she stopped laughing and explained.

“No what I meant is you make healthy food. Like we would have a plain baked Chicken breast with brown rice and 5 different vegetables every night for dinner. The kids would only get fruit for dessert, we would never eat out and there would be nothing in the house that was processed, non-organic or even remotely unhealthy. Except your bag of chocolate you keep in your closet that nobody is allowed to touch.”

“However Brian cooks bacon and beef. He uses cream and butter and salt. And he precedes most meals with a cheese course and some kind of decadent but calorie laden dessert masterpiece. You don’t even like ice cream or cheesecake. And when we go out with him geez I can't breathe and I'm sure I'm going to get sick on the drive home.”

Which made me feel like NOT the world’s worst cook, but the world’s meanest mom. 

And definitely not the fun parent, but I already knew that part.

Shocking

That picture yesterday bothered me. Technically both of them did.  Actually bothered is not a strong enough word. Disturbed is much more fitting.  It was painful to post them. It is painful to look at them.

The first picture disturbed me because I could not believe I not only allowed myself to put so much weight on but that I carried it for so long. I was tired all.the.time. I didn’t want to do anything. I felt unattractive. I was ashamed to be photographed. I don’t wonder why I was so unhappy with myself. I just wonder why it took me so long to admit I needed to change.

The second picture bothered me because I know I can’t wear the dress in that picture. As a matter of fact I don’t even own the dress anymore. The dress ripped when I last tried to put it on. That was 4 months ago and  8 pounds less than I was on January 2, 2015. And that was not a wake up call for me. That did not move me back to relying on God. That did not cause me to realize I can’t do this alone.

I’m reading a few books by Lysa Terkeurst  Made to Crave and the companion Made to Crave Devotional: 60 Days to Craving God, Not Food. In addition I’m reading Unglued: Making Wise Choices in the Midst of Raw Emotions. Each day I find some nugget of truth, some wisdom I needed. Ironically yesterday in Unglued, I found a truth I’m applying to my weight loss journey, but it’s so much more.

“Oh God, chisel me I don’t want to be locked in my hard places forever. I want to be free. I want to be all that you have in mind for me to be.” (Unglued, 36) This quote and the accompanying story had me visualizing how God is described in the Bible. We often portray God as a potter molding the clay. Molding implies a gentle, soothing almost painless process. The process is silent and reverent except for a gentle whirring of the wheel. God’s hands hold the clay and with water gently washing over us we are formed into what the potter sees.

The visualization I got from the chisel quote was hard and harsh. It was loud and painful. I could hear the clink of the hammer striking the chisel. I became the rock and added my moaning and crying out to the cacophony of noise in the workshop. But just like the sculptor chiseling at the rock, God’s chiseling creates works of art.

The parts that are unnecessary are left a pile of rubble on the workshop floor. While the beauty within rock, at one time seen only by the sculptor, becomes apparent to even the most casual observer with each painful, shocking, noisy bang of the hammer.

“Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” –Jeremiah 23:29

Once a sculpture is finished, the outside world should no longer see the rock. Yes, the veins and bits contained in the rock are still visible, made more beautiful but the sculptor’s hand, but the appreciator doesn’t say “What a beautiful rock.” They say “What a beautiful Sculpture, the Sculptor has made.” And so I move forward hoping that in my journey people see less of me and more of the creation the Creator has made.

Awakenings

I’m on a journey.

Aren’t we all?

I like to look back at moments and think “Yes, that’s where my journey began” but often times it’s not. It’s just where a leg of my journey began. Because everyone’s journey begins the moment they breathe the air of life. At birth that first gulping breath of air begins the journey. Sometimes that journey is a thousand steps in the wrong direction and then you have to take a thousand steps back to get back where you started.  But those two thousand steps hold a gift. It’s invaluable. It is knowledge and wisdom.

In December of 2012 I began a weight loss journey. I decided I needed to take some weight off before I reached a point where it was truly affecting my health.  Just like my last major health journey when I quit smoking, I turned the battle over to God. I prayed and I told him I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this on my own. I wasn’t strong enough.

So God helped me, and through his strength alone I was able to follow the Weight Watchers program and lose 48.6 pounds in 10 months. That’s a whole lot really fast.  I dropped 5 clothing sizes so fast I couldn’t even keep up. I was exercising following the Points Plus Program and eating right. I felt good. I was invincible. I could totally do this.

Then, I lost sight of the fundamental truth in my success. I forgot the one mantra I knew going into the fight. The mantra I said over and over for months after I quit smoking. The one prayer that got me through, “God I need you. I can’t do this alone.” I wasn’t invincible. I wasn’t strong. I couldn’t do THIS alone.  I stopped losing weight.

From October 2013 to April 2014 I gained and lost the same 8 pounds time and again. Then I added a few more to that, and then ten more. And then I had to go buy clothes in those in between sizes that I had skimmed past before. And that was humiliating. And yet I kept going up and on January 2, 2015 I had gained back 26 of those pounds I had lost before. I felt defeated. I felt weak. I just didn’t know what to do. If this program can’t work for me, how can I do this?

And then I remembered, it’s not the program, it’s not me. I am weak.  And as Paul so eloquently states, when I am weak I must admit I need help and God is strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰That is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God, the Creator cannot be defeated. Nothing can defeat him. And only when I am separate from him, only when I choose to live apart can I be defeated. And more often than not, I am defeated by the person I hold closest, me. My actions defeat me. My behaviors defeat me. I tell myself I’m good, I’m strong, I’m victorious, but I am not. I am weak. I am selfish. I am defeated. When I choose to rely on my own strength. When I chose to fight my own fights. When I believe “I’ve got this.” I don’t. God does.

So here's where I've been. Now onto where God is taking me.