And I Fell Back… – Healing Journey Day 48

Journal:
This morning, I woke up extremely tired but excited again. I had so much good knowledge in my brain from the convention the day before, and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it!

I didn’t get a chance to make a smoothie first thing in the morning, but I did make a smoothie at lunch time that was simply bananas and Barlean’s strawberry-kiwi green powder. This greens powder is DELICIOUS! I highly recommend getting that brand and flavour if you’re looking for a good greens powder. I went through that smoothie fairly quickly.

School went so well! The programs I wanted to start implementing were taken on by my students and they ran with them! I was so impressed! I’ve made a pact to not yell in the classroom, and I had several students come up and tell me they didn’t want to yell anymore either. I had a student use a tool in PE class when I haven’t even a poster to show for anything in my classroom. I was being impressed left and right and am getting others in the school motivated to make changes too. I’m taking on the personal challenge of changing the way our school teaches and disciplines. Pray for me and/or wish me luck!

After school, I had a meeting for an evaluation that our school is getting done, so I didn’t get to make another smoothie until after 5:00 pm. When I finally was able to make a smoothie, I made it out of bananas, peaches, celery, and romaine lettuce. This was interesting… I don’t think celery and banana are my favourite mix. But I drank it anyway.

Now, after this smoothie was our monthly ladies’ craft night at school. I had not brought enough fruit with me because I’m still having an issue with bananas not ripening. And of course, this set me up for a bad-eating night. Mind you, my housemate who got me into crafting in the first place, made a vegetable and pasta dish with no dairy whatsoever just so I could have some. So I ended up eating some of that along with some chips and hummus and salsa. Ugh… I actually think it would have been better if I had just skipped the chips alone. But I could tell the next day was not going to be good…

After our craft night, I went to bed. We almost always stay late, talking to each other and hopefully getting some type of crafting done. Some people bring work and just enjoy the social aspect. It’s honestly a great time, but next time, I gotta fix the food situation. It can be conquered!

Review of Symptoms:
-Acne is improving!
-Stomach feels like a rock is sitting in it after cooked foods…
-Tired
-Happy and motivated.
-Hair is doing SO WELL!

Weight at the end of the day = 173.2 (up 2 lbs from yesterday… I thought it was going to be worse than this)

Total Calories = 2295 (79% carbs, 14% fat, 7% protein… honestly not bad!)

Day 2

This morning, I was very tired when I woke up… mainly because I went to bed after midnight… way too late! This is something I need to work on!

I was rushing around this morning, and only took my multivitamins and green chews.

After I got to work, I then drank a bottle of water and took my other supplements. I began to feel very nauseous, with nothing in my stomach and already being awake for a few hours. The mixture of supplements in my empty stomach were also not a great idea. So I opened up some organic medjool dates and ate away. I forget how many I ate (in the 8-15 range) and felt much better.

I’ve been pretty busy all day and have not been eating as much as I know I should, but at lunch, I ate two organic apricots that I got in my Organic Box yesterday, and 2/3s of a container of organic blackberries that I also got in my Organic Box yesterday. Fresh, juicy, and delicious!

For an afternoon snack, I had a Larabar in the flavour of coconut cream (it’s vegan, no dairy!). It’s basically a blend of nuts, dates and coconuts. Maybe I’m going a little “nutty” today! 🙂

At the end of school, we had a serious mix-up that caused me to not even allow my students to leave for an extra 10 minutes after the final bell. My students are singing for IMPACT 2015 (a huge outreach event, saving souls for Jesus) on the weekend, and our principal ordered shirts for them to wear. However, when she was handing them out, the different shirts got mixed up somehow. The grade 3/4 Choir is singing Saturday morning for church service. The boys are wearing white short-sleeve dress shirts. The grades 5-8 Choir is singing Saturday evening for the evening service and are supposed to be wearing white long-sleeve dress shirts. 11/13 of my boys had short-sleeve, and only 2 had the proper long-sleeve, so I had to go up to grades 3/4 to switch the shirts as they were given ours. Oh what a mix-up! Chaos at the end of school.

After that was finally sorted out, and the kids were sent on their way, I had to quickly clean up my desk, pack up my stuff, and be on my way to meet some people at the mall. I ended up being at the mall for a half hour. And as I was there, meeting the two different people and mailing a package, I was STARVING! I was considering buying something to eat at the mall, but decided I would rush home to my husband who was waiting for me. But then I made a mistake…

My husband is starting a new job on Monday, and I wanted to celebrate with him. Since we were both super hungry, I decided we should celebrate by going out. The problem was, we decided to go to a restaurant we used to have so many fun dates going to. What I didn’t realize was that the vegan options were minimal (their garden salad quality is not that great to me), and so I decided I would just suck it up and have a bit of dairy for the night. I knew I would be paying for this later…

For background knowledge, we were so hungry that we were at the point of feeling sick – a bad place to be when ordering food. We ate deep-fried jalapeño bottle caps, cheese quesadilla, and pancake puppies (deep-fried pancake balls). I had a veggie burger (not bad) with some seasoned fries. My husband had a beef burger with regular fries, chicken strips, and a piece of cheesecake. Now, we did not finish everything, but we did eat a lot. I could tell afterwards I was going to pay for what I ate. I never wanted to touch another piece of deep-fried food again!

We didn’t even go to the gym. Instead, we just spent some time together and went to sleep. We definitely “party” when we celebrate… lol. Neither of us drink or dance, so that’s almost as exciting as it gets for us. 🙂

Why Go Vegan?

Hello everyone!

This is a huge decision, as you can imagine. I want to explain myself as to why I’m choosing this venue. Let me explain my history.

My father was very young when his family went from Quebec to New Brunswick. Speaking little to no English, they struggled for awhile to because accustom to the new province. My grandfather was a woodsmen complete with a team of horses and later big machinery. My father quit school after grade 9 to work with my grandfather. And so the lifestyle of “meat and potatoes” began. Whatever they shot was their meat, and whatever my grandmother grew in the garden was their produce. A very simple, carnivorous life.

Naturally, I grew up eating A LOT of meat. Not because we didn’t go shopping, but I was still a hunter’s daughter, and meat was a regular, every-meal thing. When I was young, it would be no big deal for me to sit down to a pound of bacon myself. It’s a miracle I wasn’t obese!

When I met my first vegetarians in grade 8, I was amazed. This concept that I believed to only belong to celebrities belonged to real life people! I was the only vegetarian in my area, and the lack of knowledge was evident in a quick trip to a hospital with extensive stomach pains. The doctor then informed me of some vital nutrition I was missing, and instead of telling me to eat meat again, told me some vital vegetables I needed to be sure I ate daily.

I was vegetarian for around 10 years. I quit meat cold turkey. My grandfather of course was convinced I was going to die, and was continuously trying to feed me meat. My only family was shocked, but my grandmother on my mother’s side, who has always had an interest in health, was happy. She basically went vegetarian with me! (She never was much of a meat eater).

When I met my husband, he was vegetarian and had been his whole life. My university graduation had led my brother to convince my future husband to try the “real stuff”. From then on, he was hooked.

Eventually, it was the smell of beef jerky that won me back. That smell in my very house all over again won me in. In fact, it opened up the whole new realm of macro counting with my interest in fitness peaking too. With the high levels of protein “needed”, it seemed as if I couldn’t survive without meat. And so I ate meat again for roughly 4 years.

Now, I’ve done so much research. And to keep it short, there is so much evidence that a plant-based diet is the way to go. I would like to think of myself as “getting back to the basics”, naturally. The world of fitness and diet will continuously battle itself. All information can be conflicting. But nothing can deny the way you feel both mentally, physically, and spiritually. Mentally, I’m not hating my food, I’m not worried about going over my “macros”, and I’m not worried about having to stop myself from eating while still feeling like I’m starving. Physically, I feel better. I don’t have to worry about eliminating things to figure out what’s wrong with my body, I get to look forward to younger, more flawless skin. And spiritually, I can feel good about being accountable for selecting the best foods that I can. I can also feel good about my choice not to inflict pain on animals that I myself could not kill. If I couldn’t do it, why do I take part in the process at all?

Some things I’m going to be doing are:
-Trying to buy as much organic as I can
-Continuing my workouts
-Drinking 3L of water a day
-Learning more about, and sticking to food combining rules
-Cutting processed sugar 95%
-Eating mostly fruit until supper
-Eating raw 90% of the time
-Eating until I’m full!

I will keep you posted on my journey! I’m excited for this new phase 🙂

Week 8 Day 2

Today was another long day. I can successfully say that after last week of not getting much curriculum taught, we at least hit the books hard today! I think we came up with some well researched answers last week that helped truly answer some of their questions. Now to move forward with that knowledge!

We’ve also started studying the book of Revelation. My students are interested in learning what God warns for the ending of time and what God tells us to do. So I’ve quit my plans for worship, and have taken on this study. I have great hopes and purposes for this study!

I also found out this morning that I have a meeting right after school and that there is another super important meeting tomorrow that I’m going to have to miss and catch up on later as well as a mini-meeting the day after and a long training meeting the day after. Catch my drift on all of these meetings I’m expected to be part of and yet somehow still function as a regular teacher and wife and mother to our animals? I can’t seem to keep up!

Today’s IT meeting did go fairly well. Expectations were laid out which means I have yet more work to do. Somehow, somehow I need to get caught up and stuff done. My life needs to get back in order.

My workout this evening was much anticipated. I needed to get some stress out. It was my first leg workout this week, and although there were a lot of hefty things I hate doing, I looked forward to it tonight. It was an excellent workout and I left very sore.

A new exercise I had to do was called “20s and 2s”. This is basically how it goes:

20 leg extensions, 2 leg curls
18 leg extensions, 4 leg curls
16 leg extensions, 6 leg curls
14 leg extensions, 8 leg curls
12 leg extensions, 10 leg curls
10 leg extensions, 12 leg curls
8 leg extensions, 14 leg curls
6 leg extensions, 16 leg curls
4 leg extensions, 18 leg curls
2 leg extensions, 20 leg curls

Can I say ouch? That’s definitely how I felt at the end! I was so happy to go to bed and rest up my legs tonight!

The Difficulties of Unconditional Love

My all-time favourite Bible verses are 1 Corinthians 13 (taken from Biblegateway.com).

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part,¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhoodbehind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It’s such a descriptive example of what love is. There is no denying how we are supposed to love others. There is no ability to say, “I didn’t know what love meant.” This chapter says it all. This verse has all the details you need to know.

Now imagine if we took every child in the world and taught them that this is what love is. Imagine if we were to somehow impart this knowledge to the sons and daughters of the world before they embrace the dating scene. Imagine if they knew what we were saying when we looked someone in the eye and said I love you and actually meant it. Not just saying it, but actually acting that love out. This knowledge, if successfully translated in a way that children could understand, could potentially save them from experiences that could affect the rest of their lives. Mistakes that we’ve made, and hope for them to avoid.

Diving a little deeper into the “Love Chapter”: What does it really mean to love people in this way? No, it doesn’t just mean loving our spouses or family, but also the people around us. You see, Jesus did not simply pick the people He wanted to love. He loves us all. Unconditionally. And we are to become closer to His character. Which means…. we are to love all of His creations as well. The pesky neighbour, the vandalizing gang in the neighbourhood, the murderer in jail. All of them are loved by Jesus, and we are called to love and forgive them too.

Sometimes this love is so hard for me. When I have a defiant child in the class that will outright lie, ignore and challenge you. When I have an argument with someone when I know I’m right. The times that it seems others are being selfish and not thinking about the effects it could have on me. All of these things make it hard to love someone the way God calls us to.

But those verses remain. They don’t change. Sometimes it’s the patience that I need. Sometimes it’s giving up the grudges that I hold. Sometimes I need to let go of that pride, that selfishness, that anger. Sometimes I need to think of the other person before myself. And sometimes, I need to just put myself in their shoes.

Sometimes this means that I need to take a moment to myself. I need to take a few deep breaths and close my eyes. I need to remember the stupid things that I do sometimes, and the way Jesus would sit there with open arms and tell me He loves me and forgives me. Then I need to look at that child or that person through God’s lenses. That doesn’t mean discipline may not be required. But it does mean I need to love that child/person the same way God instructs me.

Unconditional love is not easy, but it is called for. I may never be perfect at it, but I must try. Our human nature is so quick to go the wrong way, yet Jesus calls us back. He calls us back into His arms to first make us feel loved so that we can share that with others. 

I encourage you to take the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 and start working on them for yourself. Not necessarily all at once, but take one part at a time. Apply it to your everyday. Apply it to the people you interact with and notice the difference it makes. 

If the world was ruled by love, there would be far less war. If the world was ruled by love, we would live in the most amazing place. You may not be able to change the whole world, but you can change a part of it. Be that change God calls you to be, and the change that people need to see. Go out and share God’s love today.

 

I Remain Humbled…

So, here’s a little story of what happened last week, not once but unfortunately twice, that has taught me a monumental lesson.

At Outdoor School with my students (school in the wilderness for 4 days), I was chosen to instruct a class called River Rush. River Rush teaches the students about finding an average, volume, and depth. The goal is to learn these things well, then to go to the river and calculate the amount of water flowing down the river every second. It’s actually a pretty easy class to teach, except it decided to rain everyday this year. But our last day was the worst. An absolute downpour. So of course, we had arranged for a bus to come sit by the river so that it was warm for the kids to get in and warm up. No chances of hypothermia were going happen if we could help it!

So anyways, this camp is designed for grades 5-6. We have our regular school kids, but then we also invite homeschool kids as well. These kids come with their parents since they technically have no teacher. And one of these homeschool kids came down the bank in a pink poncho with La Vie en Rose on it. For those of you who don’t know, that’s the name of a lingerie store, and this was a boy. I couldn’t believe that a mother would send her son down in that. He was already a homeschool kid, and to put that on top? My immediate thoughts went to him getting bullied. I felt so bad for this kid.

I made a point to reach out to him, got to know his name, and figured I’d keep an eye out for him just incase. But what happened set me back in my place. This kid not only seemed not to care what he was wearing, but 3 times that day we almost lost our rubber duckies down the river. And 3 times this kid suddenly appeared down river to catch all 3. No other kid even attempted that. This was one hardy kid who received several applauses for not only his courage but his pure skill. I don’t even think I could have gotten down the river that fast. Needless to say, I was reminded of my puny knowledge and judgement in a God-created world.

Second instance happened that same day, the night I got back. It’s almost as if God thought I needed more than just the one reminder I had gotten, and I took it.

My husband and I had been out late taking our one dog to the airport for my step dad. So on our way back, we went to Denny’s for something to eat. Directly behind us sat a woman and a man probably in their later 20s. She was obviously drunk (he was not) and she was saying some of the strangest things: “Oh foooooood! You know sometimes food makes me happier than sex!” for example. “I’m not being loud am I? No I don’t think so!” Yes, she was. But that’s beside the point.

I couldn’t help but think of how loud and obnoxious she was being, and how much quieter of a time my husband and I could have to eat. I grew up with drinkers, but myself don’t drink. I was used to the behaviour, but did not understand how people could enjoy making themselves look ridiculous like that. But then I got put in my place again.

After awhile, she began to speak her heart. She was continuously asking the man if he was mad at her to which of course he said he wasn’t. These two were obviously not in a relationship, but he was simply someone she knew and could lean on in a time of need. She said how she had been drinking since Sunday (it was Wednesday), and that she was meant to love. That some “idiot” had told her she wasn’t (or wouldn’t?) ever have children. That she was meant to have children and to love them with all the love she could.

Talk about eating my thoughts. I had judged this poor woman to be another obnoxious drinker with the things she had been saying before, and yet out comes the pain that is on her heart, and it all of a sudden makes sense to me. I wanted to turn around and tell her God loves her and He knows that she is meant to love, but the situation was just not right for that. The man was trying to get her to hurry with her eating and contain her the best he could. I do give him kudos for the nice and yet firm way he was handling her. It’s necessary when you’re that drunk. But at the same time, I wish she could have felt as loved as she sounded like she needed to feel.

My husband told me later that at one point, when I had gotten up to use the washroom, she did speak of God to the man. She did believe in Him and that gave me some assurance. God can find a way into her heart and hopefully He’ll show her a better way. I hope to see this woman in Heaven, and I pray that she experiences the love she seeks.

Until then, I learned a double lesson that I needed. I am not a judge, and the only true judge is God. I cannot take His place for my judgement’s are wrong. I always considered myself to be slow to judge others, but twice in one day I was proved wrong. I am quick to defend some people, and yet I create my own thoughts about some people too, sometimes without noticing. That’s something I need to work on, and maybe you do too. I’ve always admired the quote, “Don’t judge a person until you’ve walked in their shoes” and yet was I really applying it 100%? Obviously not.

Don’t judge others.

Matthew 7:1-5 speaks loud and clear when it comes to this topic:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Ouch. I’m human, and I make mistakes, but nothing will stop me from trying to overcome my judgemental side. I expect people to have no idea of the past from which I come, and yet here I am judging others without knowing theirs. I remain humbled as I’ve learned from a God who loves us all so much that nobody can do what He does, and nobody knows what He knows. I place my trust and renew my faith within Him because I know that He will make no mistakes, and His judgements are just. I continue to look forward to the day of His return so that I can be by His side and learn from His ways to live the joy of life that was originally created to be. A life free of my mortal judgements.