Missing babyMicah

With the housemates on Mission in Malaysia, and a break in work due to a lapse between scheduling and my recent new-job-sabbatical, life has been...still. It's been lovely.

I've been working, very slowly, on a canvas.

I've been reading, A LOT, and listening to music from Bethel worship leaders on serious repeat since I had the privelege of scoring a free ticket to the Ultimate Worshiper dinner last week. I got to see Brian & Jenn Johnson, Jeremy Riddle and William Matthews speak and play, just a few metres from my seat! It was an incredible experience, and I've been just soaking in God's presence, since.

I am loving my new job, training in the bookstore on my off days from the cafe, and the down-time with Danny has been amazing...but still, I find myself really missing this little guy:

Whenever I walk past our guitar, or hear someone clapping, or find a tiny item of clothing floating around the laundry, it pulls at my heart strings.

 

 

 We miss you, babyMicah. I can't wait to squish your little face up against mine again, early next Tuesday morning on my airport run to meet you!

At War with Ourselves

  Is body image something that every girl struggles with at some stage? Things that are too big, too small, not quite right about ourselves that seem to cause infinite anxious musings and idiosyncratic insecurities...The way my body looked never really bugged me in a big way until after I got married.

A combination of birth control hormones and a good, relaxing dose of newlywed lets-sit-on-the-couch-and-gaze-adoringly-into-each-other's-eyes caused my first experience of weight gain. Googling told me that I was still a healthy BMI, but the sudden change unnerved me. I didn't look or feel like me anymore. I felt so out of control regarding the way I looked for the first time, ever. Maybe it was just one dress size, but it changed a lot about the way I saw myself. Sure, it's shallow and vain, but it was a big deal to me. I haphazardly exercised a little, Danny and I made countless new-and-improved Healthy Eating Plans, but nothing really changed, inside or out, until recently.

I got a new job. That job didn't work out. It just wasn't right, and I was fortunate enough to go back to my old job with a new, and joyful perspective on work. But the interim job that didn't work out was, in the mean time, pretty stressful. When I am stressed like that, lots of me goes into shutdown: I was too anxious to be able to eat much, and I wasn't sleeping very well, and then I wasn't eating or sleeping at all. It sounds kind of extreme when it's written down like that, I guess, but those reactions weren't intentional on my part, and I have a wonderful husband and support circle who ensured that I wasn't living in that environment and experiencing those things for very long.

It took a few days to recover from the anxiety, and get back into normal eating and sleeping, which was fair. But the strangest thing happened on the first day of my newly unemployed life. When I tried on my regular, everyday jeans, they didn't fit right. It turned out that I had lost seven kilos. In one week. Can you believe that? I couldn't. I thought that those kind of things only happened when people were seriously ill and was seriously shocked. I was more shocked, though, by my own reaction. Before I could even stop myself, the thought slipped out: What can I do to not put it back on. I want to the THIN. 

I hadn't realised just how much I was judging myself over my size and shape over the last year or so. I had come to be dilligently fighting myself. As much as I am currently struggling to find a balance of healthy diet, body image, exercise regime, self-esteem, and  all of those other catch-cries of not lapsing into an unhealthy lethargy of inactivity again...I can't get over how insidious this way of thinking is. I LOVE eating. I eat way too fast, and have way too many hang ups about discipline and self control. I'm starting to see that with food as an idol, gluttony can be just as bad for us as trying to control how little we can consume. With the kind of personality I have, striving for control in this area could easily control me.

I know that my situation is far from extreme, but my recent experiences have begun to open my eyes to what life is like for so many women. What my life could look like if I let myself keep thinking that way about how I look. I don't want to be like that. So I looked into the Bible a little for some divine wisdom. I wanted to hear God's voice about food, and be reminded about how He thinks. So here it is, a tiny part, that happened to strike me straight through the heart:

Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

My body is a home for God. It doesn't belong to me and I must therefore not desecrate it. I am a holy and living offering to Him. Maybe this realisation and these thoughts are hardly more than a dot on the intellectual landscape of the big, wide world and I was a little hesitant to post this at all.  But I know these thoughts are important to the one who made me and leads me. I am learning to honour this vessel that God has first honoured and I can see, so clearly, that I must not be at war with myself. Seeing it this way? I can hardly understand how I ever let myself start fighting so hard.

Monday, How I Love You

 

I am reading: the first pages of Matched, by Ally Condie. (Even though I should be reading the latest Ann Brashares in order to pass it on to Danielle, since she selflessly spied it, but let me take it home from the library first).

I am drinking: White tea. From the beautiful teapot that my workmates gave me as a good-bye gift when I left Koorong...and before I went back to work there last week!
I am listening to: Iron Man 2, in the background.

I can hear: The traces of the Bill Johnson sermon (The Gift of Courage) that Danny is listening to. It's a totally brilliant message, too. It's the first time I've heard Bill Johnson's preaching and I am in love.

I can see: BabyMicah digging new 'toys' out of the recycling bin while Susie gathers more items to pack for Malaysia. I can't believe that they leave this Thursday. It's come so quickly.

I am interested in: Operation Homefront. An organisation dedicated to supporting military personnel in loving, homey ways where they may not be able to connect with a regular support network.


I am thinking about:  All the wonderful books I have in my posession to read; The Unplugged signage I intend to make this week for our Unplugged church services; How much I love babyMicah and exactly how much I will miss him when he goes to Malaysia on Thursday.

Employ

The big deal around these parts lately has concerned my job. An old one, a new one, a newly old one, the old one is new again. Seriously.

I'd taken some time off to enjoy holiday-life after I finished school last semester but I couldn't seem to work out what exactly I was supposed to be doing. I was secretly ashamed of being just a waitress and figured that two degrees should surely negotiate something a little higher on the rungs of life than a nametag and hands that constantly smell of coffee grinds.

Eventually, I started a fast. And on the very first day, it was like the clouds opened, shining a direct beam of light on an opportunity for a new job that sounded just right. All ye who tread the seekers path, beware! Not every opportunity will be the right one, even if they sound good! I thought this one checked all the right boxes, and I was lured by the prospect of a full-time job with a full-time paycheck. It sounded so much more grown-up than my current situation. So I jumped in.

It hurt to leave my old job because my I was comfortable there and deeply connected with those that peopled the working landscape.But I thought for sure it was time to move on. Maybe the new job wasn't 100% perfect, but it sounded pretty close to it. I was sure I'd be able to do it...until I tried it.  There were a few loopholes I wasn't aware of going into it and I (read: Danny) realised pretty quickly that this was too much to ask. I couldn't do it. Not unless I wanted to compromise my emotional and physical health, and that wasn't a compromise we were willing to make.

So when I called my old boss, asking her to take me back? She did. Can you even believe that? Do things like that really happen in real life?

So here are the life lessons I have learned in the last week-and-a-bit:

1. I have an incredible, and very loving, support-crew. I have seriously excellent friends and family. These people know how to rally.
2. Having lots of money isn't everything. Especially if it means living a life that doesn't fit with my values.
3. Trying something that doesn't work out doesn't equal to failure.
4. It's ok to be a Christian and still not be able to push through every situation. People don't seem to judge you more harshly if you can't do everything.
5. Danny thinks it's really cool that I make coffee. He was disappointed when he thought I wouldn't be a coffee-chick anymore (His words, not mine). I can't believe how much his perceptions changed my own and how I saw myself.
6. I'm very excited about where life is headed; At my same old, same old job that I have gratefully run back to with JOY; In the future of our church family; right here in the Lambvenden House.

Really, a little direction was all I ever wanted. Instead, my souvenirs are a resoundingly mucousy cough, a ridiculously sudden weight-loss and most importantly, that highly sought dose of perspective. I praise my God for that.