It's true, you do turn into your mother.

I didn't want to. I desperately didn't want to. I saw her as a super overboard health nut. I wanted a normal life. I wanted to be like my friends who ate out constantly, looked great, and were enjoying everything that your average 20 year old body is supposed to do. 

But, normal isn't an option for everybody.

For what feels like my whole life, I have been anywhere from 15-45 pounds overweight. I've done weight watchers, atkins, south beach, HCG, juicing, fasting, every end of the diet spectrum, each having less and less results, mostly just doing damage control.

I got some answers in summer 2009: likely moderate hypothryoidism, likely mild PCOS, + a nice dose of gluten intolerance, all of which are not 'curable', just controlled with dietary changes and thryoid supplements (which, I don't take because it's very expensive to get the correct dosage figured out, not to mention most normal doctors aren't willing to concede that I have a thryoid problem because technically I am in the normal range. But, that's another discussion). At any rate, both disorders/syndromes/whatever the correct word is contribute to low metabolism and weight gain, among other things. Thanks a lot body.

I was angry at God. I was angry that I couldn't have a cookie every day at lunch, angry that despite several concentrated efforts where I was really disciplined for a long time that there were no results, angry that I wasn't like everybody else.
But God has been working on me. He's been pointing out the older generation to me. "Look at them. Heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, all these preventable diseases are now their normal, because they were normal when they were young. I am trying so hard to keep you from being normal."

That blew me away. God gave me this mother who loves me so much that she dragged me to all sorts of doctors, pleaded with me to be healthy, and I am finally listening to her, though several years too late. I thought losing weight was about embarrassing her, this ugly, fat, daughter, but God has shown me the truth.  I've been 80% grain free/sugar free since January 20th. The weight isn't coming off, but that's not my focus anymore. It's not about being thin and pretty. It's about feeling like I have life in my body, today and in the future.

I wrote this so that you, my dear friends, would a) understand me a little better and b) would think a little bit about your normal.

I am more than happy to talk more about this with you, but I'm not interested in listening you telling me that "Grains are fine! Healthy even!" Yes, for you. The point is that I'm not normal and they are not fine for me. If you're interested in what I'm doing because you think it's awesome, then let's chat. I don't really plan on writing about it much more, there's plenty of blogs that already do. Just please don't ask to chat over cookies, unless it's one of my almond flour ones ;)

I'm going to apologize in advance for what I'm about to say. A lot of it will seem like boasting or you will view me as a pathetic human being who has no right to ever complain, but I hope that I'll write this well enough that you will focus on my point. Also, I started this a few months ago and never got around to posting it. I don't know why I just told you that. Anyway.

Many people think that all they really need is _______. More money, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a good grade, be prettier, a ring, more muscles, time to move faster, or slower, and then they'll be happy. That once they have _____ it'll all be better.

I'm going to tell you that it's not true. You say, "I've been told this before. But I see so-and-so who has these things and they seem to be happier than me." You're still wrong. I know this because my life has or has had just about everything you could put in that blank.

I am married (the pinnacle of human life, right?, have money (the other great pinnacle of life), and have a great job where I can even wear my pajamas (now seriously THAT is the pinnacle of life). I have the world's most adorable dog, a great car, legs that move, and tons more to be thankful for. According to the world, I have everything a person could want.

And yet, it's still not enough. My happiness has never been complete for more than a few days, and it never will be.  No matter what I obtain, lose, or do will I have complete happiness forever. Why? Because while companionship, security, and work are legitimate desires in our lives, they are still not enough, and what's more, they never will be.

That's terribly depressing. Why chase after these things at all then? Why do we desire them even when they don't bring everlasting happiness?

We chase because that's what our hearts tell us to do.  Not on purpose though; they don't know any better. All they know is that's what they want, and yet getting it is not fulfilling either. Our hearts know we're supposed to be moving towards something, but all the things that we have moved towards have failed us. But you know what doesn't fail you? Jesus. That is why I have to have Jesus. Because I will never get this life right on my own. I will continue chasing the wrong things, hurting people, and hurting myself. Jesus helps me to focus on the right things, he helps me to hurt people less, and keeps myself from hating myself (most of the time).


I have often said that my life is ridiculously blessed. I realized yesterday that I've said this in the wrong way. I've always said this because my life is great in a worldly sense. But even if I wasn't ridiculously blessed in a worldly sense, I am still ridiculously blessed. Why? Because I have forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

Psalm 32: 1-2:
Blessed is the one
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
² Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord does not count against them
    and in whose spirit is no deceit.

*sheepish look* Oh hey Blog. How you been? Lonely? Oh. I'm sorry...

A few weeks ago I was reading an article in The Echo that detailed a one student's desire to quit church. The headline intrigued me and as I read, I found myself nodding my  head in agreement. Why was he quitting? I don't remember exactly, but it had something to do with being fed so much at chapel and having the Taylor community, it seemed overkill to also go to church on Sunday. I'm probably slightly off base and impressing my own feelings upon the article, but that was what I got out of it.

When I think about my week, I am absorbing an incredible amount of spiritual information. First, there's chapel 3x a week of which I am a faithful attender and note taker. (Shout out to go follow @TUChapel! ) Then, I have small group once a week. In addition, I'm involved with the ministry called One-on-One. Sometimes I go to a Calvinism discussion and Selah, which is my floor's devotional time. There's also daily Bible Reading and devotionals. I also live with talkative roommates who enjoy talking over Spiritual things as well. All of which are awesome things.

And now you want me to be fully involved with a church? I'm not saying that we aren't to have every aspect in our life immersed in God, not at all.  But the problem that I see is that there's very little "doing" happening. I do a lot of listening, absorbing, and talking, but what am I really doing with my life? Honestly, just my homework really.

Well, that makes me feel pretty inadequate.

So I took some time out to look at a week in my life and see where I could fit some "doing" time in. I can accurately do this since I chronicle my life like a freak in Google Calendar. Don't believe me? Here's a screenshot. I can pretty accurately tell you what I was doing  at any point during my Taylor career. Now I'm not showing you  my calendar to be all impressive, I'm really  just neurotic, but what I noticed was what a huge chunk of time church was


I'll give you a little time to make fun of me.

But look at that! Church is roughly 4 hours of my life every week. That's a lot of time I could be doing something. Something like programming a new mobile app for a mission organization; working on website for churches, designing things for churches, working on someone's house, spending time at a coffee shop and talking to people. I don't know. Just doing something.

Then I began thinking about life after college. Thinking about the average American Christian's week, they work 8-5ish Monday - Friday, hopefully spend time with their families in the evenings, and catch up on life with bills, cooking, cleaning, chores, errands, etc. Weekends are reserved for fun and church. Let's face it, the American Christian rarely has an actual Sabbath. Furthermore, when do we have time to do things? We are so exhausted by life itself that even thinking about joining a ministry or organization or volunteering in our church sounds hard.

But what if we made that church time our volunteering time. What if, a whole congregation could band together every other Sunday during their regular church time and do something for the world? Things like taking care of our church building, going out to someone's house and doing a deep clean for them. Serving at a soup kitchen for the afternoon. Picking up trash around our community.

I think it could be awesome. In a truly God awesome way.

I know. I'm messing with our current church paradigm of worship, fellowship, donuts, sermon, offering, go out for lunch. But I'm not sorry. I'm restless and tired of just listening about being the church. I want to be the church.

I don't really know what this means for me right now. I'm not inclined to be all radical right now because I have a lot of life happening to me right now. I only have a few more weeks at my church here at school and I  don't want to give that time up because it is so short. But it's something I'm thinking about and I want you to struggle with it too. It's something I'm thinking about implementing with I move to Texas. If you want to do it with me, I hear housing is cheap in Texas. ;)