It’s the Simple Things.

I currently have bread rising and a crock pot of chicken broth brewing. The bread was made with freshly ground wheat flour and the stock with one of our homegrown chickens we put in the freezer a year or so ago. And I didn’t feel like it was a waste of time. Both are delicious and nourishing. Something I’ve been pondering a lot lately. Recently, I heard a quote that intrigued me, “Clean eating is not necessarily nourishing. You need nourishment more than you need clean.” Probably didn’t get that word for word, but the point is still obvious.

I have been obsessed with health since the beginning of my teens. There are many factors that played into this: I was 13 when Covid hit, I have struggled intensely with acne and gut health, my mom is a registered nurse and has a chronic autoimmune condition, which she mostly managed with a gluten-free diet, and being homeschooled for the majority of my education years. That and being highly perfectionistic led to a perfect storm.

I wouldn’t have considered myself to of had an eating disorder, but my eating and diet patterns certainly were disordered for the majority of my adolescent childhood. I was constantly jumping from one extreme to the other, poring over research and books, listening to podcasts, talking about my health to anyone who might even possibly be interested. Ironically, I felt horrible and I didn’t understand why!

I would beg God for clarity. Yet follow my own ideas. Learn something new and start panicking over my seeming inability to work on it. Make lists about my plan for next week, next month, next year, and it would all just fall right through.

Until a couple months ago, this was the roller coaster I lived on. One of my own creation and yet it sickened me. There was absolutely no way I could do anything about it, and I knew it. I was stuck and being crushed beneath the weight of these monster expectations and failures.

So, I signed up with a health coach. Yes, me who scorned at people asking for help for something as simple as taking care of one’s body, and pridefully thought myself more than capable to keep working on myself. It helped me in ways I didn’t even think I needed help.

It wasn’t the health coach who helped me, it was God, but He most certainly used her! Mentally and emotionally were the biggest things I needed help with.

A lot of the turmoil surrounding my attitude about food and its preparation was rooted in the view that it felt like a waste of time. Same with sewing, and laundry, and cleaning. It felt like I had more important things to do, and so couldn’t afford to just be in the moment with the task at hand. Granted, I am not mistress and keeper of my own home yet, so maybe that played into it as well.

When I realized just how vital it is to nourish my body properly, the other things gradually fell into place. Mentally. I knew how to cook and to sew (some) and to do laundry, but I would feel panicky doing those things. Those verses in Titus 2 about women being the keepers of home, I used to think of it as this theologically correct position and so it should just be that women stay at home.

Now, I’m coming to understand that to be the keeper of the home is a privilege, not to be a hard, warring duty, but instead a gentle, renewing gift. And, yes, as I previously mentioned, I do not have my own home at this point in my life, however, I still live in a home, where these daily upkeeps must be kept up for life to function properly and calmly.

I want to steward well this time of my life, not with the primary focus to be on “preparing to be homemaker” but on embracing my femininity and womanhood, to allow my soul to be enlarged with the blessing and goodness of God’s gift and design.

A woman who studies the Word of God, not for knowledge, but for deeper, sustained intimacy with the Creator and Redeemer of my very being. A woman who stops to visit with an elderly neighbor, not out of obligation, but out of a heart of compassion and to share the love of God. A woman who only speaks grace and kindness, from a heart of reverential, awestruck remembrance of the grace that has transformed my very heart. A woman who rises early to spend time in prayer and communion with the lover of her soul.

All of these things, from a pure heart of love received and given selflessly and wondrously.

Have I done all of those things consistently? No.

Do I still think and act selfishly at times, ok, a lot of the time? Yes.

But my prayer is that I continue, moment-by-moment, to grow up into the salvation and grace of my precious Lord and Savior.

I am not perfect. I will never be perfect until I lay my crown before Him in Eternity. The good news, the Gospel, is that I don’t have to be perfect. Jesus is enough.

Even when I feel like a hypocrite. Or like giving up. Or when I stumble in sin. Or anger is my response.

Jesus is enough. And it’s on His basis, that I can continue day by day, in redemption and grace and freedom from sinful shackles.

I can trust Him. You can trust Him. He will always be enough.

–LIZ