introductions and those kinds of formalities

Here's how I used to live life. Boxes. Mental health--one box. Spiritual health--another box. Physical health--box no.3. I don't know what I was thinking, because it all sounds so dumb in retrospect, but I essentially thought that what only mattered was that I was spiritually healthy. I ate like crap, felt like crap, and looked like crap. But none of that mattered because I was doing things like reading my bible every day and working in a 'spiritual' job. And in God's economy, that was all that mattered.

Looking back, I'm all like, WHY THE FACE.

I listened to lies like:

- you only live once. eat that sh*t because that's how you'll really enjoy life.

- other people might go to the gym and exercise, but I'm spending my time how it really matters: __(insert "christian" activity here)___ 

- health nuts are all boring people who can't eat wheat, dairy, meat...basically anything fun. no way I want to become boring and whiny and all, like, "my stomach hurts because I ate one bite of half a mcdonalds fry."

- I don't have time to exercise, but that's okay, because I sometimes walk places.

And in that time that I listened to those lies, a few things happened. I slipped into a great depression. I was tired all the time, I was moody all the time. Even while this was happening, I was in denial. No way this could be because I ate mcdonalds 3x/day (seriously) and drank my weight in sugar. This was purely a mental thing. And it could all be solved with some nice, little, oval pills. I blamed my depression on situational factors (where I was living, the people I was surrounded by, my genetics) but there was no way it could be more. I compartmentalized. 

The pills helped. They truly did. (I'm all for modern medicine, ladies). 

And I told myself, "See, mental health= back in order! Check!"

But then we had a miscarriage. And it flipped my world upside down. Here's the reality: in the Christian world, we tend to try to parse our health into boxes. There's physical health, spiritual health, mental health, etc. We tend to focus on keeping spiritually healthy and mentally healthy, at the expense of our physical health. At least, I definitely did. The reality is, though, that life isn't really parsable, now is it?

The miscarriage was physically painful. It was mentally painful. It was spiritually painful. This physiological, biological, physical process impacted so much more than just my physical health. And it made me really think about how my cavalier attitude towards my physical health not only impacted me, but the people around me: it impacted my relationship with my husband; it impacted my relationship with God; it impacted my relationships with my friends; and it would impact my relationship with my possible future children.

That was a year ago. In that time, I've made some significant changes in my life. The first change started with seeing that the life God has given me is a holistic life. It started with seeing that He doesn't only care about our spiritual life, but that He cares about the whole of us. This journey hasn't been as much about weight loss as it has been about ridding myself of all the lies I believed before. It's brought about a significant change in how I look at myself and others.

When I look at myself in these pictures from the past year, I don't just see a physical transformation, but a spiritual one as well. A holistic one. There's a change in my eyes and in the way I carry my body that has ricocheted to everything else I do in life. I mean, I'm still insecure and judgey and legalistic most of the time, but thankfully, God is on the mission of fully transforming my heart to become more like His.

Maybe as you're reading this blog, you're a bit like me. Believing in lies about yourself, or about the way you live life. Maybe you're tired of eating like crap and feeling like crap. Or maybe, you're super healthy and are excited about health. Wherever you're at, I would love for you to join me on this journey towards a holistic, image-bearing, beloved life.

Yay!