God of all comfort

A verse that I have been meditating on lately is 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, which reads:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too." 


Recently, we had a challenge with Buggy's health that required him to undergo surgery. It wasn't for anything directly life-threatening, but it was a condition that would cause significant complications for him down the road if it was not dealt with quickly. At first, I felt like I was not worried at all about the surgery--as a former surgical nurse, I saw thousands of patients go off to sleep under the anesthesiologist's care, and what goes on inside an OR suite is no mystery at all. But then I had a few nightmares about Buggy's surgery and I realized that deep down somewhere I was deeply unsettled, belying the peaceful exterior I was presenting.

I worry a lot in general. Hubby, on the flip side, is definitely blessed with the spiritual gift of faith. He is so solid and unswerving in his absolute belief in God's power, in his provision, and his faithfulness. It almost seems superhuman sometimes. I love this trait about him, but I am also jealous of it and sometimes it even makes me angry, which just goes to show the depths of how selfish I can be. I literally have gotten angry at him that he is not freaking out alongside of me when something stressful or bad is happening. It makes me angry because then I feel even more alone.

Over the last few weeks, it has become clear to me that this pattern of worry is deeply rooted in my unbelief.   This seems like a pretty simple concept, but the realization was quite revolutionary for me. I have whined and despaired in the past because my attempts to stop worrying are always met with failure and it is so tempting to fall back on the excuse that "this is just who I am." But I realized recently that by trying to just fix the worrying, my focus was entirely in the wrong place. My focus instead should be on continually striving to run after Jesus, to spend more time at His feet in prayer and in His word. When you know someone intimately, fear disappears and my fear was the result of falling out of touch with my Heavenly Father.

God was very merciful to us during the experience of Buggy's surgery and he has come through with absolute flying colors. I felt very at peace when the crucial day came and that sense continued through the day as we waited at the hospital. I definitely experienced God's comfort that day.

This is a relatively happy story and so it seems so easy to apply the verse and the concepts of God's comfort to it. But I find that is not always the case. There is a lot of crappy stuff that happens in the world and God's children are definitely not exempt from the storms of life. There are so many instances that just shatter your world--finding out you have a terminal illness, the death of a child, the tragic or unexpected death of a loved one, the senselessness of a violent crime committed against you, finding out you will never be able to have children, or just waking up every single day and feeling absolutely alone in this world. Does this verse apply even to these situations? Although it does not make sense when these things happen to us, I have come to believe that there is no life event that is bigger then God's mercy and His love for us.

And no matter what else happens, that is a very comforting thought indeed.

It's hard to trust your body!

I have always tried to live a pretty healthy lifestyle. In high school, exercise was something that I did every day after school, and it was fun. I felt pretty comfortable with my weight and didn't restrict my eating habits in any way. When I went to college, my workout frequency dropped quite a bit but my weight continued to remain stable.

After meeting my husband and getting married, my husband started a great workout regimen and it inspired me to recommit myself to regular physical activity. Over the course of a year, I lost about 15 pounds through reducing my portion sizes and working out 3-4 times a week. I sustained that weight lost for about two years, continuing what I thought were very healthy habits. Family, friends, and coworkers often exclaimed over how skinny I was--a couple of coworkers even "checked in" on me, because despite the fact that it was only fifteen pounds, the change in my appearance was pretty significant and they wanted to make sure I was okay, that I wasn't doing anything drastic. I was able to wear much smaller clothes then I previously had and rejoiced in the new fashions I could wear that I had never been able to fit into before. To celebrate, I invested in a couple pairs of high-end jeans and pretty tops that I truly loved.

Then, I got pregnant with Buggy. I knew that with pregnancy came weight gain. I knew several friends who became pregnant, gained a lot of weight, and a couple of years later still had plenty of extra pounds hanging on their frame as a souvenir. That scared me. I wanted to be healthy during the pregnancy, but I also wanted to be thin afterwards! I still wanted to look pretty, be attractive to my husband and not morph into a 'frump mom.' I wanted to be able to go out with my friends that did not have children and look like 'the mom' compared to the rest of them. I wanted to fit back into the pile of beautiful clothes waiting patiently in our linen closet. I wanted to be able to play with Buggy without being winded at mild physical exertion. I checked out several books from the library on prenatal fitness and read scads of articles online about pregnancy and postpartum fitness. I was determined to conquer this challenge. So determined, in fact, that I made an appointment with a registered dietitian to discuss my diet after I delivered.

This appointment ended up being a major turning point in my life--it changed the way I viewed food, health, and exercise. She works with a lot of clients who are recovering from eating disorders, but I found her through some local "mom" websites, where people were recommending doulas, midwives, etc. Most of the experience I have with dietitians involve them examining a food diary that has been kept with meticulous detail (including not only what is eaten, but how much, at what time, the location, hunger level, and the emotional feeling you were having when you ate) and then them recommending a calorie goal you should aspire to and then suggesting foods and snacks that help you reach that goal. This dietitian ascribed to a totally different ideology, one that is explained in the excellent book Intuitive Eating. I can't do this approach justice in a short blog entry, but it basically flies in the face of our culture's views on dieting and nutrition. In short, it teaches that your body has the ability to use hunger and fullness cues to self-regulate your weight, and that practices such as food restriction through dieting cause us to lose our sensitivity to these cues. It also teaches about how dieting DOES NOT WORK and in fact is very harmful to our bodies. It includes any type of food restriction under the dieting umbrella, and outlines all the many ways we try to manipulate our bodies. It talks about redeeming our relationship with food, so it is not our enemy but also not our best friend--so that we can enjoy the pleasures that come from food without guilt and also without living in fear of our food. She spent most of my appointment asking me questions about my family, my attitudes around eating, and how I related to food. This was an incredibly revealing process.

As a result of talking to this dietitian, I realized that many of the habits I thought were so healthy were actually quite insidious. For instance, before pregnancy I wanted to get my portions under control, so for a time I weighed and measured my food to reacquaint myself with what a correct portion size really was. This is not a terrible idea, but what I ended up doing is that I would give myself and "acceptable" amount of food and after I finished it, even if I was still hungry, I wouldn't allow myself to eat more. I remember feeling hungry ALL THE TIME and I felt guilty for this, because I knew that the amount of food I had measured out really "should" have been enough. When I did allow myself to eat, I was so hungry that I gulped my food down crazy fast, and I always ate the entire portion that I did allow myself. While I proudly announced to my coworkers that I wasn't on a diet and gloried in the fact that I was not limiting carbs or eating low-fat or fat-free foods, I was indeed having a restrictive approach. If I ate a slice of cake at work or ate more food then I thought I should have, I felt totally guilty. I would even think, "I'll have to work out longer because I ate this food item." The fact that I felt guilt shows that I was indeed dieting, despite what I thought.

When I got pregnant, I knew that I couldn't deny myself food when I was hungry, because I was afraid of causing harm to the baby. So I ate when I was hungry, and was alarmed when I gained weight. The dietitian encouraged me to continue to follow my hunger signals, and explained that I needed to continue this approach when I was breastfeeding. She explained that healthy weight loss after pregnancy is slow and gradual, and encouraged me to be patient with myself. She reassured me that my body would let me know when it was time to start exercising vigorously again, and to give myself grace as I eased back into routines.

I ended up having a superbly healthy pregnancy and gained the exact amount of weight that is recommended, no more and no less. A lot of weight came off without me even trying after Buggy was born, and now I find myself about fourteen pounds above the weight I was at before becoming pregnant. I resolved to weigh myself only once a week and for the past several weeks, the scale has been stuck a the exact same number. On one hand, it is good that I am not gaining more weight, but on the other, I have to admit it is disheartening that I haven't continued to lose. The old temptations are definitely creeping in--to restrict, to not eat when I am hungry, to amp up my physical activity. But between extreme post-baby fatigue and the fact that I am just plain hungry most of the time (still breastfeeding!) I have been able to stay the course and not give in.

I do feel, though, that my body has finally sent me the long-awaited message. Buggy is sleeping better and so am I as a result, leaving me with more energy. I am getting tired of my larger jeans, which are wearing out and with Hubby and I's financial situation I do not look with joy at the prospect of spending precious money to buy things in this larger size. But as the dietitian taught me, the most important thing is not that I can get back into those cute jeans and fashionable clothes--instead, it is that I am healthy, which is so much more important then just a jean size.

So, despite the fact that the weather outside was crummy today, I decided that I was going to work out! While Buggy slept, I marched up and down the stairs in my house. After about three minutes of this I realized that there was no way I was going to survive a half hour of this. So I decided to alternate two minutes of stair climbing with two minutes of marching back and forth through the house. I got through my workout with plenty of heavy breathing and my heart was beating like crazy, but I did it! It was the first time I have really done anything more vigorous then walks around the neighborhood with buggy and it felt really good. Now I just have to stay the course--being faithful to my health by exercising, yet continuing to feed my hungry body and in the end, keep trusting my body that I will end up the right size for my health.

Photo credit: http://princessbeautylounge.blogspot.com/2010/05/workoutshealtier-you.html