My Whole30 Story

A few years ago I wrote this prayer in my Bible:

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And Wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

As it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

If I surrender to His will;

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life

And supremely happy with Him

Forever and ever in the next. 

Amen 

I wrote it after my first counseling appointment. I had made the appointment a month prior when I felt at the end of knowing how to cope with anxiety, fear, and depression. Most of this stemming from health issues that seemed to have no answers and feeling alone as doctors disagreed or told me it was in my head. I wrote it after years of eating “healthy” foods (brown rice, whole grains, fruits and veggies) and running half marathons, lifting weights, and still looking in the mirror to see a bloated stomach and face without the scale budging.  

By the time my appointment arrived, I had developed a rash that had spread over my whole body that was painful and itchy. Though the good news was that it was not contagious, the doctor told me the bad news was that it could take weeks or months to go away and there was no cure, I just had to wait it out. 

Over the past five years I’ve struggled to find hope in these words, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference.”

For me, doing a Whole30 is the Courage part of my story and my faith in God and His plan is my Serenity Story. 

I remember driving home from a conference in Colorado a few years ago. I had found out I had a rice and rye allergy and had eliminated those from my diet, which helped immensely with the fatigue and bloating. But I found myself still stuck with so much extra weight, struggling with my mental health, and wondering if this is just how my life would look. I wondered if I needed to accept this new reality and move on from hoping the doctors would find more answers.  As I cried in the front seat feeling hopeless it was then I decided I would do it. I would do a Whole30 and stick to it. I would stop making excuses and see if it would help. 

My first Whole30 I felt better, lost weight (even without working out much that month), and tried new foods, though I didn’t gain energy. I realized eggs might be a problem. So, the second Whole30 a few months later I eliminated eggs as well. This wasn’t easy at first, and it didn’t feel fair. If there is nothing else I’ve learned (though there is), it is that life isn’t fair. I tell my kids this all the time, but accepting it myself is not easy.  

I’ve slowly over the past year lost 20 pounds. I still have a ways to go. While I used to spend all my extra time and energy at the gym working out, I have refocused all of that on food and recipes and cooking. I’m finally in a place now where I feel like I can do both again, though I realize that I can spend hours at the gym, but if I don’t make these significant food changes I won’t see results or feel good internally.  

All of this brings me to why I did another Whole30 this January. I wasn’t planning on it because I travel so much for work in January, but then on Christmas Eve I found myself in a puddle of grief as I was having a miscarriage. Here I’d been doing research on how to eat Paleo while pregnant and was excited to focus fully on health and not losing weight, and in the blink of an eye plans change. It’s hard to believe this was just over a month ago. 

As I cried out to God, prayed, and turned to Him (though it was more like fighting with him than running to Him), I also tried to find something to comfort me. The only foods that sounded good were chocolate, ice cream, and bread (or things in this general category). I didn’t want to eat a carrot while I cried on the couch, I wanted a pint of ice cream.  I don’t feel guilty that this is what my week looked like.  But as I looked at my calendar and erased the pencilled in weeks I had written to keep track of my pregnancy, I realized I had a choice. “Courage to change the things I can.” I could do nothing and make decisions on the fly, or I could commit to my FB group of 99 people that I was doing another January Whole30. 

This wasn’t the January I wanted or had looked forward to, but it was the January being given to me. “Serenity to accept the things I can not change.”

I know what depression feels like, and I know that oftentimes it is out of my control. But I also know that the foods I put in my body drastically affect me. After my second Whole30 I was able to go off of my antidepressants and have been able to stay off of them. Though I know this will not be everybody's story and sometimes foods and diet won’t help with this so please no one reading this feel like I am saying I don’t advocate for medication to help with mental health because I do! 

I decided that if for one month, while I let my heart feel all the pain, I fed my body with healthy foods than maybe, just maybe I’d make it to February and be in a better place. 

I’ve made it to February, and I completed my JanuaryWhole30. I’m still grieving. I’m still asking Jesus to help comfort me and help me put one foot in front of the other each day, but I fully believe I’m in a much better place than I would’ve been had I not done a Whole30 this January.  “Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world As it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right If I surrender to His will; So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him, Forever and ever in the next.” 

So this is why for me, doing a Whole30 is the Courage part of my story and my faith in God and His plan is my Serenity Story. 

Wrestling with the Good and the Bad

I grew up playing soccer on a girls team. I was slow, awkward, and unconfident. Living in Wexford, Pennsylvania there were a lot of girls that played soccer. I was one little fish in a giant ocean of graceful, confident, talented little super stars…or at least that is how it felt. Then, at the awkward age of twelve (8th grade) I found out we were moving to Bridgeport, West Virginia.  

I can still remember my mom delicately telling me that there were no all-girls teams in Bridgeport and I would be trying out for a co-ed team. I could feel my palms start to sweat and my stomach churning. I wasn’t even that good on a girls team, how in the world would I compare on a co-ed team? Well, the truth is, it was a “co-ed” team because I was there. If I had not been there, it would have been an all-boys team. If it weren’t for one of the boys saying hi (he had just moved from out of state and did not find it odd that a girl would play soccer) I am not sure I would’ve made it onto the field. 

Thankfully I made the team and had an incredible first coach. He believed in me and began to see areas of strengths and fit me in positions that worked with that. There was something freeing in some ways being in a place where “people” (fans, opponents) didn’t seem to expect much out of me, but my coach and teammates did.  The guys on the team became like brothers (which quite honestly made it hard to make girl friends once we started school that fall), but I felt like they had my back and trusted me. 

By the start of High School I had the option of trying out for the boys JV team, or not playing. Three of us girls decided we would try out, and thankfully we made the team. “Thankfully” because we didn’t have to stop playing, but it was in many ways an awful experience. For the most part it wasn’t the other players, nor was it most of the parents, it was primarily our coach. I can not even count the number of sexist remarks our coach made throughout that year. He would yell at players and call them a bunch of p*ssies. He would tell them to stop kicking like a bunch of f*cking girls, and then he would have me take the kick (which was so weird and confusing). There were a few times he had me go in drills with some of the varsity boys, for no other reason except to let them know it was humiliating if I did anything good against them because I was a girl. The few times I boldly told him I did not appreciate the words he used or how he talked to me or the team, he would smirk and stare right in my eyes and tell me I could go start my own girls team if I couldn’t handle it with the big boys. Yes, a 30something year old man twice my size would look at me ice cold, and the next minute around the parents he would smile and pretend that he was kind and great. I won’t even go into details about some of the comments opposing players made about my body or other comments while I was defending them, or the parents who were appalled I would play because they thought I would get hurt, or knowing that one of my boyfriends parents didn’t seem to like me because I was a girl on the boys soccer team. 

My mom and I did go on to start a girls soccer team at our High School the following year. We realized there were a lot of girls that might play if they didn’t have to play under the conditions we just had to.  Our team comprised of a few girls who had played soccer, a majority of athletes from other sports, and a lot of girls who had never played a sport but wanted to try it out. The rest of this is for another time and place, but I am proud to say that the Bridgeport High School girls soccer team won the State Championship in 2012. I’m sure most of those women have no idea what it took to get a girls soccer team started, and that’s okay. 

So, what is my point?  

Every person on this planet has a story. Since we live in a fallen world full of sinful people, there is pain, abuse, loneliness, isolation, sexism, racism, and the list goes on and on. I would say in the grand scheme of life, my experience was so small compared to the hurt and injustice other women (and men) have experienced. However, that doesn’t mean that my story and pain didn’t happen or should be brushed aside. 

I understand why so many people marched yesterday. It just makes sense for so many reasons (my soccer experience being one of them) and I am proud of my girl and guy friends that did. I also think it makes sense why it seems so unfair for a pro-life organization to be pulled from being a sponsor (I am pro life). I think this is part of wrestling with the good and the bad. 

Hypocrite is a word I’ve seen thrown around a lot recently, and I totally 100% agree with it. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that every single one of us is a hypocrite. Haven’t we all lied or pretended to be something or someone that we aren’t all of the time? I know for me it is much easier to point my finger at someone else to show what they are doing or saying that is wrong than to take the time to investigate my own heart. Sometimes lately I feel like I am watching a bunch of toddlers saying “oh yeah, you think that about my person, let me tell you about your person.”  We want to view all people, all politics, all decisions through a lens of things or people being all good or all bad. I just don’t think it’s that simple. 

Here is my disclaimer: I do believe in absolute truth. I am a Christian. I do believe that our choices are either glorifying to God, or not. I believe that we all choose to follow Christ, or we reject Him. I do believe that the gospel (the good news) of Jesus is that out of his love, Christ died for our sins, He paid the penalty for our debt, and it is His grace (not our works) through which we are forgiven, have a relationship with God the Father, and are able to live a life of freedom (free from needing to live up to someone else’s standards, free from loneliness and despair, free from our sin). Following Jesus is not the easy life, but it is the best life, and the only route that leads to eternal life. Yes, my views are exclusive (in that I believe Jesus is the only way), but inclusive (in that not one of us deserves it or has earned it, and that anyone who believes can be saved). I get that just saying this will discredit many from listening to me. Being a Christian isn't just my "religion" it is more real about me than anything else. It is my identity, because in Christ I find who I am. 

The question remains, what do I do with this? How do I enter into discussions going on? Do I? I don’t have the answers. Can I be offended, but respond in love? How can I boldly proclaim the truth about Jesus, knowing it offends people, but do it also with compassion? What does it look like to not be silent, but not be aggressive? 

It seems like the more polarized we have become, the more “all good or all bad” we think people are, the more we are losing touch with the ability to connect with people different than ourselves. I am not an expert, I have so much to learn, in many ways I am such a hypocrite. 

Sometimes what I want is someone to listen without interrupting. I want someone to hear how I’m hurting and instead of telling me how it isn’t “that bad, “ encourage me to look on the bright side, or ignore me…I want someone to just simply say, “I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Isn’t that what we all want?” I would imagine that the most loving thing I could learn to do is to listen to other people’s stories, learn to empathize, and apologize for any ways I personally (or “we” corporately) have hurt them. 

Thinking to the future, I pray that I would be able to boldly walk with Jesus, that He would enable to me to more fully live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control. 

Christmas Mourning (12.25.16)

When I was a child I loved Christmas Eve. The anticipation of Santa visiting and presents was almost too much to handle. Tonight at church as we celebrated the birth of Jesus and people around me laughed and hugged and rejoiced, it was almost too much for my fragile heart. Tears streamed down my cheeks through the songs and scripture reading. My sweet 7 year old daughter held my hand and rubbed my arm. I told her she could stand and sing the songs with everyone else, but she told me, “No mom, I want to be with you.” I had debated all day about going, but I have been looking forward to Christmas Eve service for months and didn’t want to stay home. So instead I sat there and cried, controlled enough to not let it turn in to full on weeping and made it almost to the end. We left when everyone was going to come together and sing Joy to the World and light candles. This is usually my most favorite part. I truly believe that Christmas is a celebration of joy as the light of Christ has entered into our dark sinful world. The birth of Jesus is the greatest miracle, and Jesus is the answer to loneliness, despair, brokenness, sin, hatred, evil, and death…yes, even death.  

As it nears 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning I am sitting here on my couch in darkness. I was laying in bed watching the clock change from Christmas Eve to Christmas morning and I couldn’t stop tossing or turning. My heart hurts. I have been so joyfully anticipating this Christmas morning as I imagined giving my kids one gift that they would not be expecting. One month ago I bought an extra stocking for the new baby I was expecting this summer. I had planned on writing my 10 year old son and 7 year old daughter letters about how God has heard their prayers over the past 7 years and He has answered them. I was so excited to tell them that they would be such a great big brother and sister. I was going to video them seeing the extra stocking and reading their letters, and that was how I would tell our families the great news. I have imagined this scene over and over, but never how it will play out in a few hours. After 7 years of waiting and praying, infertility, a chemical pregnancy, health issues, and surrendering what my heart desired, it had happened and been such a wonderful surprise. It seemed so sweet of the Lord to orchestrate a miracle baby and little by little I have let my heart get excited for the reality that a life, a precious new life is really in me. That was until yesterday afternoon when the doctor confirmed I am having a miscarriage. 

Besides my broken heart, a day of weeping and anger and wrestling it out with the Lord in a very raw and uncensored way, it isn't just the emotional pain keeping me up. When the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat at my ultrasound on the Eve of Christmas Eve, and I started bleeding, my blood work confirmed that this baby will not end with a sweet child in my arms, but in a miscarriage. She gave me the option of having a D&C on Christmas Eve or letting the baby naturally miscarry at home. I chose at home because I could not bear to spend Christmas Eve in the hospital having this procedure done, and so my body aches and is cramping. I have tried to fall asleep, but I have waves of pain. She said this could go on for over a week.

I go on Facebook and there are so many happy announcements about babies on the way, pregnant bellies, happy smiling faces, and it hurts. I am so happy for those friends and I am so very blessed by the two sweet kids I have, and there is so much to be thankful for, and yet there is something extra lonely about grieving in the early Christmas morning while the world seems to be rejoicing. I vacillate between feeling hopeful and at peace, thankful that I got to love a little baby if only for a short while, expectant to meet this child in heaven, and then moments of weeping and despair, anger at the Lord for what feels like a cruel joke and cruel timing. 

I have spent years letting go of my desire for more kids, convincing myself that I am so blessed already and focusing on all the benefits of my two kids being close in age, past the diapers and napping and sleepless nights. I have made mental lists of all the pros of being done with trying for a baby. This is how I’ve moved on. However, this past month I had begun to dream again and could imagine holding not just a baby, but MY baby. We talked about how to turn our front room into a bedroom, and I began thinking about my growing belly, and got so excited thinking about another baby shower. I could actually visualize my son and daughter holding a new baby and the smiles on their faces. August 1st seemed so far away, and yet so close. 

The doctor spoke to me about all the hopeful things about this pregnancy. She was sensitive and sad with me, but said it is really good my body can get pregnant. For years it wasn’t happening, and so she sees this as a very good thing. I suppose in a different scenario I would find some hope in this reality as well, but right now it just feels so empty. For the past few years we had come to a place where it seemed we were supposed to move on and not try for more kids. So what does all this mean now? Is the timing right again since we got pregnant? Do we try again for another child, or was this just pain and heartache to remind me of a desire I must re-surrender all over again? Can I trust the Lord to try again, or will it just end like this has ended? Can I trust the Lord to re-surrender if we don’t move forward with trying to get pregnant? 

These are the thoughts that are running through my mind as I’m having labor-like pains in what feels like a very surreal and dramatic ending to this pregnancy. Dramatic because while I sit here grieving the reality of death and loneliness, I know all those years ago Mary must have had a million thoughts running through her head with her labor pains. I imagine there was fear and loneliness and wondering “why me,” but also a very real sense of the Lord’s presence. Her pain ended with baby Jesus in her arms, but her role as a mother wasn’t without it’s own heartache and pain. 

Right now I’m praying I can hold onto the truths that I know in my head, and that when my heart stops bleeding I will rest in the intimate knowledge I have that my God is good, His plans are good, and that though I do not understand His ways, He is trustworthy. I’m okay that for now I’m angry and telling my heavenly Father about it. I’m okay that I don’t feel the need to pull myself up by my bootstraps or tell myself a bunch of fluffy “Christian” sayings, and I’m okay grieving and not comparing my pain to what others are feeling either to minimize my pain or others. Being angry and sad doesn’t mean I’m not thankful for all the Lord has done, nor does it mean that I am not aware of people around the world suffering immeasurably more painful realities this Christmas Eve than my own. However, as I sit here with my body cramping, my heart broken, and my dreams crushed, I’m also aware that in a few hours my kids will wake up and be excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus and open presents… and I will be exhausted, but I will be present even in my Christmas mourning.