Thorns

 To say this has been a long, trying week would be an understatement. I am thankful to God for getting us all through it. A week ago today, as I was making my plans for this week, I was also in contact with my cousin, Jim, whose mom was failing fast. My Aunt, Nancy, was my last living aunt on my mom's side. Wife to my last living uncle, Kenny, my mom's last living sibling. My mom and Kenny have always been very close, they were the two youngest, and when Kenny and Nancy and my mom and dad were younger, they spent a lot of time together. Over the past several years, I would try to take every opportunity I could to let Mom and Kenny see each other, this was usually in the form of trips to wherever Kenny was doing flea markets. So, I felt like I needed to get Mom to Kenny and Nancy's for a bit. I had told Jim on Saturday evening that I was off Wednesday for another function and that I would take Mom that day, he told me he didn't feel like that was soon enough. So Saturday evening, plans were made to make a quick trip to Decatur on Sunday. One of those things I will never regret, as Nancy past away on Monday evening. That brought to the forefront that I knew Kenny and Mom will follow in those footsteps one of these days, and I did lots of overthinking, and not sleeping. 

Meanwhile, one of the things I handle with my marketing hat for TEAM ITS is Chamber functions. We were hosting Coffee and Connections at our office Wednesday morning and I was to do the cooking. In another stage of my life I cooked for a living, running the kitchen at both Richard's Farm and Richard's Refinery, so it is fun to step back into that role for a day or two at a time and cook. This is the second Chamber event I have cooked for and the second time I have been asked if I would please cater. My answer is a solid no. If you have never worked in a restaurant, especially if you have never managed a restaurant, I will tell you, it takes over your life. People think I work a lot of hours now, it is nothing compared to what I worked at the restaurants. I would be at one or the other by 6 in the morning and get home at midnight or later, most of my days off, I would be at one or the other for at least a bit. Catering would get out of hand very quickly so I cook for fun, for the things I want to do and we leave it at that. 
While I was talking to one of the ladies from this event is when she made the statement, the one that changed my week and gave me even more to ponder. 

This tall, thin, beautiful 30-40 something said, "you are one of those people who does everything well". I just laughed and said thank you, as I learned many years ago the best way to appreciate someone's compliment and make them feel appreciated for saying it is to simply say thank you. My head was exploding though. I wanted to blurt out, "are you blind? do you SEE me?" And I seriously began to wonder if not everyone sees my weight problem the way I see my weight problem. 

If you have read my blog long, you know that my weight is a huge problem to me, and I have struggled with it my whole life. Since 2011 when I was diagnosed with UC though, I can't seem to find anything that can bring any lasting results. I work out a lot, and I mean sweat dripping, hair wet, working out, I eat right and here I am. And then stupid things happen like the eye ulcer and there were steroids in the eyedrops, so guess what, I gained 7 lbs over a weekend. So then I spent the next two weeks trying drinking grapefruit juice before every meal, in fact it was my meal for breakfast, eating 3 ounces of meat and vegetables for lunch and 5 ounces of meat and a salad for dinner and I lost 12 lbs. in a week. I do the same thing the next week and gain 4 of it back. Anyway, anytime someone makes a statement about me doing everything well, it is immediately like, "doesn't matter, the one thing I want the most, I can't do well at all, in fact I fail daily".  

So, because this blog is titled "Louder Than the Voices", I need to redirect and find lessons learned in this. I was with my cousins yesterday at my aunt's funeral. One of my cousins has been through cancer and a heart attack, I remember times he looked so bad and I was so afraid he wouldn't make it, but he is the poster child for beating the odds and he reminded himself daily to never give up. Wise words. I had thought to myself, "I wonder what I would look like if I didn't exercise and watch what I eat?" For a few minutes I though I would just try it. I have NOT worked out this week, and I have not watched what I eat as close as normal, but that is as far as I can safely go. Not sleeping and early mornings messed with workouts but I know tomorrow morning I will be back on track. 

And then I have to turn to my Bible and see what God says. Psalms 139:14 reminds us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  I do not know why God makes it so easy for me to pull off some of the things I do at work, and even things like the event Wednesday morning but makes something so important to me feel so impossible. I remind myself of Proverbs 31:30, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised". And that maybe I need to reevaluate just how important it is to me to be smaller ( I started to write thin, but I had a flashback of being about 6, sitting in my doctor's office with my mom and my doctor saying, "she is never going to be a Twiggy," but I would settle happily for "non-plus-sized"). Is this actually getting in the way of my service to God because I am so obsessed with it? After all, there is a huge debate about how I "can't" be healthy at this weight but my blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, A1C--everything is normal. So is healthy what I should really be paying attention to? 

I want to add, this is a personal battle, I have friends of every size and I truly believe they are beautiful. I have taken the implicit bias test for fat vs. thin, and it definitely shows I am biased against fat, but I know it is because of my feelings about myself, not about any of my friends. My friends who are heavier, wear it better than I do.

I also ponder Paul's "thorn in the flesh" and wonder if my weight is the work of Satan, or moreso, as the "love of money" is the root of all evil and not the money itself, is my obsession the work of Satan? Most of the time when thorns are mentioned in the Bible, the rest of the story is that it is from Satan. When Paul mentions his thorn, he actually say, "there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure". There are several different theory's about what Paul's thorn actually was but we know it was something that caused him pain, and reminded him daily that he was not perfect, and also reminded him daily that he needed God to help him deal with it. 

Lots of lessons learned this week. We aren't promised tomorrow, never give up, and I need to work with God to take care of my attitude about myself, but never stop trying to make things better.

Yesterday my mom made the statement (not about this) that beauty is as beauty does. I need to remember that every time I make someone smile, every time I make someone's life easier, every time I do something that blesses someone,  it is more important to God than what size my dress is. And deep down, maybe I believe that a little more right now than I did a half hour ago.  Maybe someone else needed to hear this too.

And all through this post, MercyMe's Beautiful has ran through my mind. 

Hope you all have a good week and take some time to focus on what is important to God in your life. :-)