Craving Solid Food Instead of the Bottle

I always promised myself I wouldn't be one of those people that shared pictures of their kids and grand kids. It used to annoy me when people would whip out those tattered photos as if the world just couldn't wait to stop and stare at the strangers in the snapshot. So here I am sharing a picture of the new love of my life...our grandchild Reese. She's 9 months old and absolutely captivating.

As I watch her grow and interact with the world, I am struck by the process of maturing. When she was born she couldn't function without constant care and nourishing. She mostly slept her life away in a daze of sucking and nuzzling. As she has grown, she can now hold her own bottle, move around independently, and her doctor has said she can eat solid food for every meal. Gasp... She's not a little baby anymore. She's in a new stage of her life.

I'm reminded how God desires for us to grow up too. It's amazing how many grown-ups walk around with spiritual pacifiers still stuck in their mouths. I know- because I was one of them! Wanting to grow up and mature, but not sure I could live without my pacifier in hand.
The apostle Paul says "For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of God, and have come to need milk, and not solid food."

Goodness knows there's nothing worse than wanting to bite into a delicious sandwich, but instead needing to suck your food out of a bottle. There comes a point when we have to decide to grow up spiritually. I remember when the desire to be fed and entertained on a spiritual level began to turn into a desire to grow, shed off immature behaviors and habits, and love others. My habits and behaviors with food constantly got in the way of maturing because of the mental space they took up in my head. The constant focus on food didn't leave room for true growth and adventure with the Lord.

When I began to shed the immaturity- reading and studying God's word, letting Him redefine and recreate my babyish ways- a mature woman began to form. OK- so I still have my moments of "teen-age" incoherence at times...but the pay-off for maturing is remarkable. Solid food always beats baby food jars of green peas and sweet potatoes. We can exchange our pacifiers for true security and identity.
Blessings!
Gari

From Tears to Treasure

As I sit in a coffee shop, lap top in hand, I'm thinking about the group of ladies I just left. Women from different age groups, hair color, and pant sizes- yet we share one common bond--we want to be free from the traps and heartache of bondage to food compulsion.

The ladies had a different look in their eyes today then they have the previous 6 weeks that we have met and shared time together. They are now fully aware that their lives weren't so carefully covered in Saran Wrap as they thought. It's all unraveling- and you know what? It's a good unwrapping!

When we finally come to the end of our excuses, blandness, and numbing- we can move towards freedom. In the gospel of John Jesus asks a man that has been 38 years in some kind of infirmity (most scholars think he was paralyzed) "Do you wish to get well?" The man quickly answers that he does want to get well, but there are some things keeping him from getting there. Jesus then profoundly tells him to get up, take up his mat, and walk. Essentially, Jesus tells him to stop laying on the dirty mat that has defined your thinking, and get up and walk towards a new life.

From tears to treasure...this is how God can change our lives when we choose to get up, take up our mats, and walk.

May you see your beauty as God does today.
Blessings...
Gari

Waking from a Dangerous Slumber

I love to sleep. Most people do! Yet for years of my life I struggled with the pursuit of good sleep. When I was in high school and college there was the constant pull of exams, activities, and noise that kept me awake. After I had babies the pursuit of sleep intensified as I functioned in a zombie-like state after soothing their nightly needs until they seemed to reach the age of three! Don't even get me started on the teenage years filled with sleepless nights waiting for them to come in safely. I finally thought I might be in for some good rest when they went to college, but that's when hormones seemed to move into my bedroom and we all would tuck ourselves in to bed at night hoping for a good snooze- but anticipating some nightly drama. My theory is that we want sleep, we need sleep- but sometimes it will escape us no matter what we do to try and enjoy it.
This week as I prepare to teach at church on Sunday I am studying a scripture in Ephesians that reminded me of my plight with sleep. Paul says three little lines that were probably a part of a hymn that the church in Ephesus sang together. It goes like this...
"Awake sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you."

I realized when I first read this that Paul was saying something powerful. It's about our spiritual slumber- and how we live.

I remember feeling a bit like a sleep-walker in my relationship with food. I would numbly grab for food (or restriction of it when I was on an anorexic swing) and like a person in a deep sleep, compulsive thoughts of food would lull me like a bad lullaby.

Paul's words are an invitation...no...more like a command. He's saying "Get up! Wake up! Don't live like you're dead anymore!"

Why?

So that Christ will shine on you... His shining is like the rise of the sun after a perfect night's sleep. His shining fills, protects, and enlightens us. His shining melts off the deception and crust of our sleepy eyes.

Let's wake up out of our spiritual sleep- whatever that may look like. Let's live in the expectant hope of a Savior that is the ultimate alarm clock.
Blessings...
Gari

Letting go of Image Upkeep

This picture was taken of Brooke (our oldest), myself, my husband Bobby, our grand baby Reese, and our son Colton (our other daughter Ally was out of town and we graciously got to kidnap her baby for a few days!). In the middle of our picture is the team mascot for the Houston Astros. I have absolutely no idea why a rabbit is connected to the Astros...but it is. So there in the middle of our picture is a giant rabbit. We know that inside that costume someone is moving and breathing. Shaking hands and acting like a friendly, buck-teeth bunny. What we don't know is what that man under the costume really looks like. What is he thinking? Is he irritated with the costume, and uncomfortable moving around in it? Does he wish these annoying people would go away so he could take off his costume and drink a Diet Coke?
I remember living so many years of my life like this costumed bunny. Presenting a picture to the outside world that look friendly, sweet and inviting- when really I felt closed off, isolated, and bland. Food became a tricky substitute for the real engagement of relationships and Christ's love. In the book of Ephesians Paul talks about laying aside the old self. He says "...in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind."

What a joy it is to know that we don't have to live with fake rabbit heads covering us. We can choose to lay aside the old self- and shed our costumes. Paul goes on to say "...put on the new self, which in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." I'll take that over buck teeth and fur any day.
Blessings...
Gari

Banquet with the King

I just finished teaching a Truly Fed class in my new home state of Texas. The last class of Truly Fed is always a bit emotional. We leave the room we start the class in, and move into a room that I have set up to look like a beautiful banquet table. I bring in real colored glass goblets, candles sparkle across the ivory lace tablecloths, beads and jewel looking strands grace every corner of the tables. I also take antique dishes and attach this scripture to them "'Behold, the former things are past. I declare new things' says the Lord. 'Before they spring forth I declare them.'" Isaiah 42:9

As we sit at the table, share communion, and reflect on the healing God designs in our lives I am reminded of something I once heard author Larry Crabb say. "Though we are created to sit at the banquet table and dine with the King, we often choose to crawl on the floor under the table looking for crumbs."

This is he perfect description of disordered eating. Crumb licking... Instead of enjoying food and functioning in a normal capacity with it- it crowds our minds and mental space, pushing out even the scent of a graceful God who never tires of inviting us to the table.

This day may be choose to eat with the King. I love you sweet sisters...

Overcoming our Spiritual Hysterics

Hello sweet blog friends! I'm so sorry I disappeared for so long!

In the past 5 months I wrapped up a career in educational consulting, spoke at various speaking engagements around the country, sold and moved out of our home in Colorado, drove a huge moving truck to Texas with a girlfriend (we affectionately nicknamed it "The Beast"), worked in Uganda for most of June, and settled into a new home and life in Houston! Whew...I"m tired just typing about it!

In the months that followed this blitz of travel and chaos I came into a time of mental fog. It seemed that every time I sat down to pray and read the Bible I felt like I was tunneling through an iceberg with a blow dryer! Why couldn't I get back to the mental sharpness I was used to functioning in? Why did I feel like I needed to go back to Christianity 101 to reign my tired brain into submission?

It was during this time that the Lord spoke so sincerely to my need for chaos and challenge. He said "wait"... Wait? Are you kidding? I'm a mover and a shaker. A believer in healing, goodness and inspiration. "No" He said..."Just wait."

Oswald Chambers, the brilliant writer and preacher from the early 1900's said something that I still read each day. It's written on a sticky note above my kitchen sink- now wet and stained. It simply says..."Are we detached enough from our own spiritual hysterics to wait on the Lord? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told."

When our spiritual hysterics are screaming and pushing. When we are addicted to challenge and chaos. Or when life simply seems to spiral in directions that are unexpected- we wait on God. Our kicking, screaming, fretting and manipulating does no good. We wait... And it's in the waiting that the spiritual fog lifts.

Blessings...
Gari