Today while I was taking the trash to the edge of my driveway to be picked up, I was stung by what I think was a hornet. I turned into a four year old. Fortunately, I'm not allergic. Just a baby.
I love my dog and all the cute things she does. Especially when she rolls all over the carpet and rubs her face against the floor after she eats a yummy meal, or when she makes cute little noises when she's stretching. Someone close to me once said, "If you put Taylor in a room full of animals, she'd probably explode." That is probably one of the best descriptions of me that I've ever heard.
After feeling a bit better after my wasp attack, I made chili rellenos on our new gas stove. As you can see, the peppers charred pretty nicely. The meal was pretty delicious too.
I'm getting pretty tired of being such a slave to my own vanity and self-absorption. More on that later.
From the time I was fifteen until I was about eighteen, I struggled with bulimia. Almost everyday, I would stuff myself with terribly unhealthy foods and then throw them up in order to eat the next delicious and extremely unhealthy meal so that I could later throw that up too, all to fulfill my obsessive desire to be thin and attractive so that boys would look at me and so I could stand to look at myself in a mirror. Thankfully though, God has shown me what true, feminine beauty is and it surely isn't all about what you look like on the outside (as cliche as that sounds). I've been healed from my eating disorder for about a year and a half now. I did, however; gain about twenty pounds when I gave up making myself sick in order to be pretty. While the bulimia was gone, my unhealthy eating habits were not and to me, that was just as unhealthy. Lately though, God has given me a gift of cooking which has in turn, brought me to a healthier place in the way that I look at and consume food.
It all started when I became a couch potato a couple of summers ago. I began watching the Food Network daily and thus, began learning neat cooking techniques. I soon started moving from the couch to the kitchen and began learning how to create fun, delicious and mostly healthy dishes for myself, my family and my friends (I'm still a sucker for pizza and Kimchi Ramen though!....and ice cream...sometimes). My favorite dishes to make are pastas, barbecue chicken, tacos, potatoes, salads and espresso drinks.
Through this new love of cooking, God has shown me what a blessing food is and that instead of it being an addiction or a burden, it should be something that I enjoy and experience God through. Through it my body is nourished so that I can experience and accomplish a number of beautiful things and I am doing something that has to be done in order to survive and it is fun and tastes good. What a blessing! It's also an awesome way to bless others (especially when they haven't been fed in a while), engage with family and friends, build and start new relationships and experience God's creation and creativity through senses other than the eye. Food is a beautiful thing and I hope that someday soon I can be completely healed of my idolatry of it.
On a similar note, I've begun resenting my obsession with jewelry and appearance. I know that I grunt and complain about it all of the time, over and over again, but it's something that I deeply struggle with. There are women in this world who in my opinion are so beautiful and so precious to the Father and they don't need a nice outfit or cute pair of earrings in order to be fulfilled, happy or accepted by Christ. I so admire those women who are not only respectable, but are completely gorgeous just because of their kindness, their gentleness and generosity to others. Their hearts for people and their desires to please and to be like God. I'm praying for a growth that looks like this. I'm praying for a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone. I'm hopeful that one day I will be a woman who lives to treat people and the Father as Christ does, who isn't annoyed by other people's needs, but is excited and willing to meet them. I'm hopeful that one day I will be more comfortable with simplicity rather than luxury, more fulfilled by giving and helping rather than receiving and being pampered. I hope that one day, I will become the woman that God initially created me to be. That my life will serve as worship to Him and a reflection of the Creator to the rest of the world. Because like all of us, the image of God that was imprinted on me from the Beginning was broken and shattered when this world fell. I need my Savior.
I am wounded by the sickness that I've dealt with all of my life that has made me believe that my identity belongs in what my hair looks like and how my clothes fit. I'm exhausted from how much energy I have put into this idol. It's time to do away with it.
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