Hindsight is 20/20 and weighs more

Hunger shouldn't take you by surprise.

You don't go on your lunch break and suddenly think, "Well my goodness!  This is odd.  I suddenly feel like eating something."  And it's really not that strange when it's mid-afternoon and you've skipped breakfast and barely eaten any lunch and suddenly you're gripped with hunger which leads you, logically, to the candy machine.  Or, worse, you haven't eaten enough during the day and come home and raid the kitchen cabinets where no one is watching and you have all the time in the world.

Hunger doesn't sneak up on you.  How many times have you regretted eating something?  And how many times was that eating precipitated by being so hungry that you couldn't think about anything else but eating that food?  It's pure science, really.  We are designed to need food.  Our body is going to get it one way or another.  Either you're going to plan ahead and feed it before you hit "the point of no return" or your brain is going to go right past that mark and make you eat a whole bag of chips before you even realize what happened.

Plan ahead.  If you go home from work everyday starving and you tend to overeat once you're there, you need to eat an afternoon snack before you set foot in that doorway, preferably 1-2 hours before you hit the doorway.  Or if you constantly find yourself at the snack machine because you haven't eaten a big enough breakfast or lunch, you need to 1) eat a bigger meal and/or 2) bring your own snack.

When I'm at work, sometimes people will offer me snacks or desserts in the middle of the afternoon, and I usually decline (but definitely not always).  It makes me laugh when they say "Oh, she's so disciplined.  She doesn't eat that stuff."  I don't say "no" because I'm "so disciplined" and I'm having to fight back my true desires.  Ha!  The true story is that I'm not hungry because of the nice little snack that I had planned and brought with me.  It's much more enjoyable to plan ahead and feel good about your food choices, then to look back and regret that doughnut that you ate because your stomach was growling and you didn't have anything else to eat.  Hindsight is 20/20 and weighs more.

What about you?  Are you good at planning for that "point of no return"?  What's your favorite healthy snack?

How I Learned to Be Awkward

A few weekends ago, I went back to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for a wedding shower for my sweet friend and former roommate, Brooke.  Besides Brooke, I got to see some of my very best friends in the entire world - Morgan, Katie, and Kristen.  I also had a fabulous Starbucks date with my friend and former discipler, Sabrina.  My heart wells up everytime I go back to Bowling Green.  Not because I went to school there or met these girls there, but because I became a Christian and fell in love with Jesus there.

And these women had absolutely everything to do with it.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller (love him or hate him) says, "Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself."  I didn't really know what it meant to love the Lord before I met my friends at college.  Sure, I grew up in church.  But I did most of my growing during the six other days of the week and God was pretty much contained to Sundays.  At first, I remember how awkward it was to hear my friends say things like, "God is teaching me this right now."  Or "Look at this verse.  What does Jesus mean right here?"  Or "The Lord is so good.  Look at what he's provided."  Or even "Will you pray with me?"  It was awkward because I had never heard God talked about in day-to-day conversations like that.  God was this far-off thing that didn't really have much to do with daily life.  But to hear my friends talking daily about how God was working in their lives was fascinating to me.  And now I suppose I'm just as likely to have those awkward conversations (though not at all awkward to me now).
The whole weekend in Kentucky made me reflect on how the Lord used these Godly women and several others to shape me and teach me.  And it wasn't really that I attended bible studies or church with them.  Yes, we did those things together, but I learned the most about trusting God from the day-to-day living with them.  I learned what they struggled with and I watched as they responded by clinging to Scripture.  We laughed and we cried together, and slowly but surely, I learned what it meant to love the Lord and to trust Him.  By his grace, the Lord started a work in me at 18 years old.  I look back at that time and stand in awe.  I am so thankful for the people that He placed in my life then and those that he has given me now.  Because this sanctification thing is certainly not over.  The weekend made me realize how I still have to be intentional about friendships and community.  Yes, I keep up with my BG friends, but he has also given me new people to learn from and do life with.  And. praise the Lord, I am "confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6). 

I don't know why exactly I felt like sharing this on here.  Partly because I was just so overwhelmed with gratitude to God that I needed to write about it  and reflect on it.  But I also wanted to encourage anyone reading this to seek out community.  I have read several books lately that encourage you to make an effort to spend time with people who you know love Jesus.  So often we can think to ourselves, "well they didn't invite me to this" or "they didn't talk to me", so we blame our lack of effort on the other person.  I encourage you:  put yourself out there.  Be the first to start a conversation.  Invite them to do something with you.  I know that the Lord will provide community for you.  And your life will be so blessed because of it.

1 Thessalonians 2:8 - We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, becaue you had become so dear to us.

Spring Garden Update Week 5

The rainy weather has prevented me from taking many pictures of the garden lately.  I took advantage of the break in the weather to record the progress.





Carrots



Turnips



Sugar snap peas

Potatoes

Beets

Earlier this week, my mom told me that I needed to come pick some mustard greens.  The night I stopped by, she wasn't at home, so I ventured out to pick some of the greens which I have never cooked before.  I knew what the collard greens looked like because they conveniently had a label:





The plant to it's right looked similar so I happily plucked off some of the leaves and went on my way:

In case you are ever in a similar What plant is this again? dilemma.  This is what mustard greens look like:





Oops!  Thankfully, I realized my mistake before I fixed sauteed Brussels sprouts leaves.  But Mom and I had a good laugh.  She thought a rabbit had destroyed her plant.  Nope.  Just me.







Note to self: Don't wear flip flops in the garden.



This weekend we fixed the mustard and collard greens, so look for that recipe later this week!