::side note, if you have been keeping up with this and feel like you have strangely missed part 13, you will find that I had misnumbered and counted 11 twice, my bad::
I want to be perfect.
I was vacuuming my house and yelling at myself inside my head. If somebody would have walked in on me that moment they would have thought I was perfect. Here I was, on a Friday afternoon, vacuuming and cleaning.
I don't know what it is, maybe it is that I just came off of this cleanse, maybe it's the fact that it's that time of the month, maybe I don't have the right kinds of foods in my house, but it has not been a graceful re-entry into the world. This afternoon I just didn't care what I ate. It was like a throwing out of all the rules, kicking them out and completely going in another direction. That's why I was so angry at myself that afternoon. My anger spilled out onto Ben, onto Levi and onto the world. I wanted to do right, but instead I would do wrong. What is wrong with me? I was asking myself, I thought I was FREE from this? I wrote a whole series about how I am free. I'm going to explode out of my jeans in a few weeks, I'm going to look bloated and chubby again! Ahh! Those were the thoughts running through my head.
What was weird is that I didn't even care. It was like I just wanted this other food that was calling my name in the pantry. I could have thrown the food out, but I feel like I would have just gone to something else instead. Am I crazy? Yes. The whole time I'm thinking, what is going to bring me out of crazy land? I called Ben and told him about what I had done. He kind of laughed actually. It's good, because I take this stuff so seriously like it's life or death and he helps me to have some perspective. He asked me why I did it and I said, "I don't even know." Was I trying to get back at him again for leaving the brownies behind? No, that wasn't it. "Well, Jody, you have a choice." I HAVE A CHOICE?! It doesn't feel like I have a choice sometimes. Why doesn't it FEEL like I have a choice?
Maybe it's because I feel alone and I am weak when I am alone.
I want to live in community. Not to be co-dependent and only run to others with my problems, but because I tend toward isolation. I love people, but I tend to isolate myself, especially when I'm in sin. I feel as though I have a tremendous lack of friendships. Not the ones on Facebook and stuff like that, but friends who come over without notice, who call for no reason but just to talk, who come over for dinner or who invite me to come over at any time. Friends who share deepness from their hearts, their walks with God, who ask me to come over so I can pray with them... I'm not blaming anyone for this lack of friendships other than myself. I long for community. I long for a brotherhood, sisterhood... not just to go to the same church and see people each week to smile at them and say I'm doing fine, but to really love on and pray for them and when things are not fine to say that their not fine and could you please pray with me or talk through something with me... I long for community.
I have so much more to say on this subject. So much more that is coming out of my heart and spirit on this. I wish I lived closer, I wish I reached out to my neighbors down the street, why do I not just walk over there? Why do I not have them over? When is it that I don't just get in the car and drive to my friend's house? Okay, so much more. So much more about how I am sick of the American way and the American culture and our white picket fences and perfect neat little schedules and manners and politeness.
I'm going to come full-circle back to the whole eating thing... I think this is why I am never going to go on a "diet" again. Crashing is too much. I don't need to live my life on a roller coaster of "good eating" and "bad eating" I want to live my life on a journey towards the Lord. I want to follow Him and not try to do things on my own anymore.
Lord, please take this broken, messed-up vessel and use it for Your glory. Help me not to be distracted by me. Teach me to follow You with everything that I am.
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