The Wedding Portrait

Well, this is it. I'm 30. I've got lots to say, but no time to say it today - so I thought I'd post a kind of short story I wrote a few years ago (the day I turned 26...even though the girl in story is 28). Enjoy!

Twenty-eight. It was hard to believe. In many ways she still felt like a teenager--wet behind the ears and timid in her own world. Twenty-eight and she still didn’t really know what she wanted to be when she grew up. Something artistic, she felt. Something creative like a writer or a painter or maybe even a gourmet chef. For now she’d have to settle for meager compositions of grocery lists, sidewalk chalk drawings and meatloaf. One day.

If they were going to leave on time for her birthday “surprise”, she’d have to go ahead and take a shower. As the water heated up, she undressed and looked down at her somewhat unflattering body. For the first time she noticed new spots and blemishes where there once was the perfectly tanned skin of an athletic child, and a few more droops and sags than there seemed to be the day before. It was as if the clock struck her twenty-eighth year and her body instantly changed. She knew it wasn’t true -- that these changes had been in the works for years -- but it sure seemed that way now.

She stepped in the shower and began to think. Twenty-eight. This must be it. This must be the year that you start feeling committed to getting older. Like the day you mail out the invitations for your wedding. It’s really real. It’s really happening. No turning back now. Soon everyone would know that the day is inevitable. Perhaps then thirty-five would feel like the rehearsal dinner, with that same fog and confusion of making sure everything is in order for the big day. So many people in attendance to please and humor, and so many last minute things to do and feel.

Somewhere around forty-eight must be like getting to the church for the pre-wedding pictures. All those nerves churning inside you, all the internal voices nagging you about whether or not you did everything right. Too late to really change things, but a nice time to try and see everything as perfect just the way it is. The stage is set, the people are gathering, and you’re doing your best to hide until the great unveiling.

Then somewhere a little past sixty you walk down that isle in all your finest splendor and say “I do” to old age. The thin veil of sparsely placed grey hair is brushed from your face as your committed groom welcomes you to your place on the altar with a gentle kiss on the cheek. You take his hand and settle in to the idea that everything is happening now, just as you had planned for it to. Though the ring bearer is wiggling against his too-small shoes and the flowers you ordered aren’t exactly what you expected, it’s all perfect. It’s perfect because it’s your time, your life. The only one like it you’ll ever have.

A short time later as you approach your seventies, a bit of confusion hustles its way back into your life as you reach the reception. So many people to greet that you wonder when in your life you ever had time to make so many acquaintances. Once again it’s a slight whirlwind of emotions and time as you pass from person to person receiving their blessings and praise before moving on to the next. All eyes are on you for a moment as you twirl around the dance floor with your new partner in life. Your age is a golden gift in the spotlight to those watching you, seeking to join in your happiness and joy. For this day in time you are the most important thing to everyone there. Each person is there to celebrate you.

Finally, after gathering your things and making sure everything else is taken care of, you rush off to the best part yet: the honeymoon. You’re now seventy-five and it’s time to retire to a quiet, private life with your new spouse. No job to worry about, no expectations to fulfill. Now it’s time to rest and enjoy. It’s finally time to stop and think about all that’s just happened. You laugh at the questions you asked yourself at twenty-eight. You smirk at the time and effort you put into the details at thirty-five, and the resolve you felt at forty-eight to enjoy the results, even if it wasn‘t what you‘d hoped for. You smile as you remember sixty, and try your best to put together all the pieces of conversations you had at seventy. You think of all those people along the way and you want to kiss them and say thank you for being there, but you realize the moment has already passed and you’ll never have it again. Maybe you’ll tell them thanks next week, you decide. Maybe you’ll write them a note.

Then, all too soon it’s time to go home. Only now your home is someplace new, and you’re filled with a wonderfully nervous excitement about going there for the first time. As you close your eyes and lay back for the trip, you have to smile at how oddly safe you feel. Safe because you know you’ll open your eyes again to a new life. And safe because you know it is perfectly right. For this is not the end of one life, but only the beginning of an eternity with your Perfect Match.

So many thoughts to ponder for a mind that had only just become twenty-eight. April stepped out of the shower and thought back to the day she had spent addressing the invitations to their wedding. She remembered the anxiety and the questions, but then she allowed herself to also remember the unexplainable peace she felt as the last envelope slipped into the outgoing mailbox at the post office. That was the feeling she wanted to hold on to today. That peace of knowing that she wasn’t slowly grinding to a halt as some described the feeling of getting older, but that she was embarking on a wonderful new journey that had so much more in store for her. She walked to her closet to pick out some comfortable clothes and couldn’t help but smile as a picture from her wedding day caught her eye from the top of the dresser. It was going to be a good day.

Knock Three Times...

I thought I was dying Thursday night. I’m not even joking or exaggerating – I really thought my time had come. And no, it didn’t have anything to do with the post I had written just hours before in which I talked about turning 30 this week. 30 isn’t that old.

What happened was that I had just finished dreaming a boring, yet probably chocked-full-of-Freudian-meaning dream, when I rolled onto my left side and stretched before falling back asleep. I don’t know how much time passed or how far I had drifted back into slumber, but suddenly my heart beat three times so violently that it shook my entire body in intense jolts. I was aware that it was happening, but it wasn’t like I was totally awake. It took a minute to fully come out of the sleep fog. I then found myself in a hyper state of wakefulness, a strange tingling sensation running throughout my body and a seasick nausea rolling in my belly.

After a moment I sat up in bed. I took a moment to try and gather my thoughts around what had just happened before my mind turned to an unexpected connection with the Lord. The night had actually crept into the wee hours of the morning on Good Friday by then, and it suddenly became significant that my heart had pounded so intensely exactly 3 times.
3 times…I thought.
3 nails would violently jolt the body of my Lord by the end of the evening.
3 times…
3 defiant denials would come from the lips of His beloved friend Peter.
3 times...
3 days of darkness would pass before His glorious resurrection brought us life beyond measure.
3 times…

Eventually my husband woke up to find me sitting up in bed and I told him what happened. We talked about it for a while (at which point we both got the song “Knock Three Times” stuck in our heads), then I got up and went to the bathroom. That’s when the thought of dying hit me.

My heart still felt like it was “skipping” beats (and it would feel like that for the rest of the night and well into the morning), and I grew nervous about going back to sleep. What if it happened again? What was this strange sensation I was still feeling? Was it all some kind of warning from my body that I was missing?

I know the tiniest bit enough about the heart issues of other family members to realize that it’s quite possible what I was experiencing was some kind of vagal response. Given our family history, part of me felt like I was very justified in being nervous about going back to sleep. But I realized that it was all up to God whether something happened or not, so I sat in the bathroom and prayed.

I thanked God that if it was the time to go that I had shared a very special day with my kids at the zoo Thursday. I thanked him for the time my husband and I had shared that evening hanging out, watching Lost (it’s an addiction, I know) and just being together. I prayed for some of the people I’d be leaving behind, and admitted that I was a little confused – not feeling like He was quite done with me here, but realizing that evaluation wasn’t up to me. It all sounds quite morbid, I know, but it really wasn’t. I did cry a couple of silent little tears, but I don’t think I was really afraid. It was surreal, really.

Well, I don’t mean to be a end-of-the-story killer, but I think you know what happened. I didn’t die. I did feel quite weird the rest of the night, but alas – I’m still alive!

Who knows what happened that night. I’d like to think no one will ever get the chance to know because it will never happen again for them to study, but that’s not really up to me either. I do know, however, that I had a single, repeating thought all throughout the weekend leading up to Easter: 3 times…

***On a side note: for those of you who were wondering, no I didn’t make it through Lent without complaining. Sadly it proved too difficult for me (yes, I am actually complaining about it). I had a secret backup plan, though, that I was able to stick with. My backup was to not set foot on a scale all of Lent. I had no idea, really, that I did this at least twice a day out of habit. It was a good exercise of will and thought for me. Several friends who knew about it said that I would probably be surprised to find that I lost a ton of weight during that time. I did indeed loose weight. How much? A whopping ½ a pound. Oh well, maybe if my temple tax box wasn’t full of dollar bills (and a 5 or two) that number would be bigger…

Ponderments (I just made that up)

I told you I’d be back. I guess you could have taken that as a warning, but I’m glad that you didn’t. It’s Thursday, and in exactly one week from today I will be turning the big 3-0. Some of you just read that and thought, Wow, that’s seriously old. On the other hand I know there are at least a few who pondered the fact that I’m practically still a child. Speaking from the point of social science, I guess the second half of you would be closer to the truth. Why do I say that? Because I just sat in on a class at the youth conference last month which taught us that it is now believed that adolescence doesn’t fully end in adulthood until somewhere around the age of 25 these days. So, in that sense, I guess I am still very green as an adult. I’d like to think that anyway – it makes me feel better when I “mess up” at being a responsible member of society (or whatever it is that marks us as grownups).

Well anyway, I suppose it’s due in part to this nearing birthday that I have become rather contemplative lately (as if you couldn’t tell by the tone of that last paragraph). I thought I’d share with you some of the things that have caught my eye over the past week or two. So here it is – a few of the things that have made me go Hmmm… (if you’re at all a product of ‘90s music culture, feel free to insert a little C & C Music Factory dance here).

A dry-erase board at the garden check out of a Wal-Mart in Gainesville, FL caught my attention with this bold proclamation: “love is never ENOUGH!” I can’t be sure, but I think the same thing may have been there the last time I visited the store almost a year ago. I wonder what made someone write those words. A bitter divorce? Bankruptcy? Why would someone write that? And could it be that they really think it’s true? Could the Beatles have truly had it all wrong and we’re all about to find out that love isn’t actually all you need?

The more I thought about it, though, I guess whoever wrote that might actually be on to some thing. “love” isn’t enough – not with a lowercase “l” anyway. Human relationships in and of themselves will never be enough. Why? Because we weren’t created to be in primary relationship with each other. That kind of love is part of the plan, but it’s secondary to capitalized “Love”. God is Love. He is the Love we were created for. When you think about it that way, Love is always enough. And it is most certainly all we really need.

On our travels last week we drove through Flippen, GA, and I thought about how cool it would be to live there. I mean, think about it:
“Where are you from?”
“I live in Flippen Georgia.”
“Oh, sorry I asked. Don’t you like Georgia…?”
Or how about this one:
“I parked downtown yesterday for 35 minutes in a short-term space and can you believe that the Flippen police gave me a ticket?”
Or another personal favorite could be on a church mail-out:
Jesus loves you. Want to know more? Then why don’t you try going to the Flippen Church of Christ!

Oh, how the list could go on and on. The people in that town don’t know the treasure they have just in their flippin’ little address.

A car passed us the other day while I was in the middle of a rather boisterous (yet silent) pity party. I had just been praying / whining to God about having had my feelings hurt, and I had let it spiral to that out-of-control place of feeling like I am the sorriest soul on Earth when he whizzed past. You know what his license plate said? “WE R OK” (notice I said “he” there – that was on purpose. That sounds exactly like something a man would say). At first I just sneered and thought, Oh, really… But then I thought about it some more. We really are ok. That’s not to say that we’re not all messed up and in serious need of being saved from ourselves, because that’s totally true. The thing of it is, though, that we already have that salvation. Jesus died to make us “ok”. We might not feel ok, but ultimately – thanks to Him – we are.

Also when we were driving on our recent travels, we found ourselves driving next to a semi with a logo bearing our oldest son’s name plastered on it’s side in larger-than-life letters. At the same moment we were also passing a billboard that boasted our youngest son’s name. I commented to Shane how unique that was, and he said that maybe we should name our next child something we could see at that very moment. The next thing I read? An advertisement for an attraction hosting some animal named “Hogzilla”. I don’t think we’ll be using that one, but I’ll let you know if something changes….


Anyway, I think that’s enough rambling for now. I just wanted to pass on some of the random thoughts that have struck me as either profound or funny (or both) lately. I’m looking forward to Easter and taking some time to ponder His death and resurrection. With any “luck” it will be something else that makes me stop and go Hmmm…

I'm Still Here

For those of you who might be wondering, no I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I'm still here - we've just been traveling and preparing for house guests. I have some fun things I can't wait to share with you and I hope to be able to get around to posting soon. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still around! I'll be back in a day or two with something substantial!

The Holy Spirit Doesn't Need A Sales Pitch

So I had to get new glasses the other day. My prescription was two years old and I had been waiting for our flex account to kick in before I renewed it. It was the end of February and I was out of excuses.

Being the bargain shopper that I am, I couldn’t just walk into any place and ask for new glasses. Oh no – I had to hunt for the best deal. I thought I’d found it, but instead I think I found something a little more valuable – a frustrating lesson in the truth of the fine print.

The place I found was a little out of the way (ok, kind of like a 45 minute drive from my front door, but who’s timing?), but the starry promise of a too-good-to-be-true deal lured me in. A complete pair of glasses, 2 free boxes of contacts, two bottles of contact solution and a free pair of sunglasses all for about $170. Amazing, right? I know! If only it were true! My lenses, of course, weren’t covered under the deal, so we had to add on for that. Then the contacts they wanted me to get weren’t covered either, so it was going to be an additional 20-something dollars a box (I gave the trial pair a go, but switched back to the “free” brand). The bottle (yes, count it – the one bottle I actually received….) of contact solution was one of those “Approved For Airline Travel” 3 oz deals. Hmmm. And the sunglasses? Don’t even get me started on those. It should have told me something when the people in the office laughed when I brought them up. They really should have paid me to take those off of their hands….

The saga of the eyeglass place continues to this day, by the way, since the lenses they gave me in my new glasses keep scratching even though I paid extra to have a “scratch resistant” coating on them. The first pair scratched the first day I had them, plus the left side had a bubble defect. The second and third pairs they scratched themselves before I even made it out of the store, not to mention try #2 also had bubble defects. I really just want my money back at this point, but they insist that nothing is wrong with the lenses and want to keep trying. They have one more shot and then I’m going to get ugly….Christian ugly, but ugly nonetheless.

But the glasses turned out to be the first in a line of dupes or near-dupes in my recent history. There was the environmentally concerned water group who wanted to “test” our water, which was apparently code for “door-to-door company that wants to trick you into buying a several thousand dollar filtration system you have to pay for with a massively high-interest loan that won’t even be paid off until your five year old is in middle school”. Then there was the haircut place that insisted I had to buy $26 in shampoo and conditioner when I was only there in the first place because their cuts cost 10 bucks (you do the math….why did they even ask?). Not to mention the tv/phone/internet service deal we were offered, then refused, then offered again, or the vitamin supplement I bought because it was supposed to help stabilize your blood sugar only to find out that it also helps kill your kidneys (minor trade off, right?).

So it is that I have come to realize that nothing is sacred – especially not the truth – when someone has something to gain from you. Some people really will tell you just about anything to gain your trust, especially if it results in a little access to your wallet. It’s really disgusting when you think about it.

Then I started thinking about people who don’t know Christ, but have already figured out that this is the way the world operates. With so many people out there trying to make a buck off of bent truths and loopholes, who can you trust to tell you the truth? And why would you not be tempted to see Christians sharing the gospel of Christ as just another bunch of salesmen out to gain something?

Let’s face it. The Gospel of Christ really sounds too good to be true – that’s the nature of divine mercy and grace, after all. It doesn’t really make “sense” a lot of the time, and there’s no real way to tangibly explain things like faith and prayer. So I think sometimes we try to come up with convenient, attractive and easily distributable packages to present the truth of Christ to others. It makes our task seem easier when we have a well thought-out plan of evangelism under our belt, because this stuff isn’t easy to explain to people! But I realized all over again this morning that I have nothing to gain from “selling” the Gospel, and I shouldn’t give anyone a reason to think that I do.

If the jaded non-Christian (I say “jaded” because I realize not all people think this way) knows that she can’t trust the guy at the electronics store to shoot straight with her if he has more to gain from her buying one product over the other, might she also be weary of us when we try to tell her the Truth about eternity? I think our culture is doing a great job of breeding skepticism in our hearts at every turn. It’s somewhat understandable, then, that people might question what we have to say about Jesus!

I think we need to take a good step back and make sure that we aren’t acting as salesmen on Jesus’ behalf. For one thing, the Holy Spirit doesn’t need a sales pitch. The love of Jesus is more attractive all by itself than anything we could ever think to do to dress it up. And the brutal truths of His death and our sinfulness have a beauty and power of their own that we don’t need to apologize for or try to soften up!

I guess my point is that the gospel of Christ isn’t a “product” to be sold, and furthermore we aren’t salesmen who work on commission who need to worry about pushing it just right. Sure, we’re commanded to tell others about Him, but we shouldn’t feel like we have to “sell” it in a way that will make them buy into Christianity. It isn’t necessary for us (or for Him), and it’s liable to make those jaded skeptics out there dismiss it as one more sales pitch with a hidden catch. If we just tell our story and let the Holy Spirit do the rest, the Truth will be revealed in ways we never could have crafted in the first place.

I’m reminded now of Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:19-20: “Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” The burden of conviction doesn’t rest on our tongues. It isn’t up to us to construct some formula of words that will make them “get it”. Our job – as ironic as it may sound – is to show up and then get out of the way. We’re just His tools, and no tool is ever meant to do the job on it’s own. (By the way, if you’ve recently bought a tool because the salesman promised you otherwise, you might want to go back and re-read the beginning of this post…)

Father, I pray that I’m not standing in the way of someone coming to know you because I’m trying too hard to “sell” your love. Help me, Lord, to rely on the truth and beauty of your Holy Spirit to speak for itself. Maybe there’s a reason why Your grace and mercy are so hard to explain with mere words….

Super Nanny - Dr. Phil Meets Mary Poppins

I was watching Super Nanny tonight on ABC and had a revelation about my life as a mother. The family she was helping were the Prescotts (I’m assuming that’s how you spell it). The mother is my age – we graduated the same year from high school if the year on her cheerleading outfit they showed was an accurate indicator. Her husband is a couple of years older, so it’s a lot like me and Shane. The BIG difference, though, is that they had 7 – count it, seven – kids in eight years, starting when she was about 20. Nuts. I mean – good for them…I’d be certifiable at that point, but she’s really doing great.

So we already had the age thing in common, but then it showed her interacting with her family pre-Jo. You know what? She sounded just like me! Same exact tone of voice, same yelling, same frustrated tirades. It was like they were filming in my house (except it was much bigger, a lot nicer and a whole, whole lot cleaner)! I had to watch to see what kind of “duh” brand advice Jo would give her to solving her communication problems (Jo always gives advice that is so simple, yet profoundly life-changing). I wasn’t disappointed, but I was definitely surprised.

Kadi (the mom), it seemed, was putting herself under tremendous pressure to perform the task of being a mother perfectly. When she felt like she was failing (i.e. the kids were screaming, something wasn’t getting done on time, or it wasn’t the perfect little Disney land it felt like it should be), that’s when she would lose her temper. And Jo was quick to figure out that it had everything to do with her fear of being abandoned.

I won’t go into Kadi’s story, but let’s suffice to say I can’t relate to it at all. What I can relate to (I realized) is the insane drive in my heart to do everything perfectly so that my husband won’t give in to my biggest fears and abandon me. It sounds so silly when I write it out, and when I talked to him about it he said for the millionth time in 8 years that he’s really not going anywhere. I believe him, and yet I still panic over doing things “right”.

I realized tonight that it’s making me just as crazy as it was making her. She wasn’t yelling because she had seven kids – just like I’m not yelling because I can’t handle two. And I’m not snapping because I have an incurable “bad temper” (I’m not denying that part necessarily, I’m just not using it as an excuse here). No, our anger and frustration is really coming from our fear that we aren’t doing things well – that we’re failing and that there might one day be a big, fearful price to pay for that.

Ok, so sometimes I lose it because I really just can’t handle hearing the same button being pushed on the same toy 20 times in 30 seconds (it’s that repetition thing again…but I’m repeating myself so I won’t go into it…). And sometimes I really do get crabby and somewhat impossible after I’ve eaten something with a lot of sugar in it. So I’m not saying that every shout and every word forced through gritted teeth like seething, angry Play Doh (I know, not the best analogy, but it’s the picture in my head right now) has some deep psychological meaning behind it. But I really think that a lot of it does relate to this one single fear.

Wow – what a revelation. And I didn’t even have to lay on a couch or shell out major hard-earned cash! It’s no coincidence that this particular episode came on tonight and that we actually watched it for the first time in months. The Lord has presented me with this on-going theme lately of my fear of being abandoned, and I think this is all part of that lesson. I know where it all comes from (at least I’m pretty sure I do – I’ve spent a lot of time and money thinking about it), but I’m just now starting to put together what it all means. This really could be a defining season in my life!

Anyway, I know I’m being pretty vulnerable in admitting this in fairy naked fashion on the internet, but I figured that I might not be the only one (besides Kadi, of course) who struggles with this same anger-out-of-fear issue. If I am all alone in my delusions, don’t tell me…I’d rather believe that some part of me is “normal”.

But since we’re talking about abandonment issues (yet again), I thought I’d share a song with you we learned in Cincinnati last week. It’s by a great guy named Tim Timmons and it’s called “You’ll Never”. The thing is, I can’t find it on the internet and I don’t know how to post it on here otherwise. I’ll be working on that. But for now know that it reminds us of a precious truth – God will never, ever abandon us, forsake us or disown us. He cannot and will not break His word. I love that.

Praise You, Father for loving us so permanently that we could never do anything to mess it up!

Temple Taxes vs Taxing the Temple

Ok, now where was I? Oh yes, the temple. I think it all really started with the conversations I was having in the car with the two women I drove up with. Both of them are avid gym-goers and were discussing different workout techniques and things they enjoy about gym life. When they asked me if I too go to the gym, I simply replied that no, I don’t, but I do walk really fast in the grocery store and I have been known to do a crunch or two in the ridiculous hopes that it would even affect the leftover baby flab that makes me a size 10 when everyone else swears I should at least be an 8.

I then argued that I can’t afford to go to a gym with childcare, and I don’t have anyone to watch the boys if I use the free gym at the church. Oh, excuses, excuses – I don’t think they were buying them any more than I was. Eventually we started talking about family medical histories and I became aware of just how necessary it might be for me to drop the excuses and start coming up with some solutions that work. I don’t think it’s good for me to just sit around and do nothing, but I’ve yet to figure out a great answer to my time/childcare issues.

So anyway, we got to the retreat center and started our solitude. You already know a little about what happened next, but then it was time for dinner. Last time I went on this solitude retreat you might remember that dinner was a very moving experience for me. This time I was faced with an interesting dilemma: eat fried fish for the first time in 20+ years or suffice with side dishes and call it even. Have I ever mentioned that I hate fish? Well, I do. But guess what? I ate that whole stinkin’ fillet – and it was a big one!

Back in my room I found myself snacking on everything I could get my hands on – chocolate, hot chocolate, a banana, popcorn, Oreos…the list went on. Some of it was to get the taste of fish out of my mouth, the rest of it was just because I knew it was there. Then I found myself asking a very obvious question: why in the world did I eat that fried fish? Was I really that hungry? No, I wasn’t. Was I really that scared of getting hungry later in the night? No, not really. Then why? That’s when it occurred to me that I’ve developed this habit of eating things just because they exist in front of me – regardless of whether or not they’re good for me, I’m hungry for them or if I even like them.

I spent quite a lot of time that night talking to God about my disordered eating (not an eating disorder, mind you – just eating that’s really out of whack). The verse “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) came to my mind and convicted me to the core. I definitely haven’t been taking care of God’s temple.

I looked up the Greek word behind “temple” in that verse and found that it (“naos”, I believe) is the same word used to describe the Most Holy Place in the physical temple of God visited by His people in the Bible. The Most Holy Place (or Holy of Holies) was the innermost room of the temple where the Ark of the Covenant and God’s Mercy Seat were housed. This was the place where God dwelt on this earth until Jesus died on the cross and the curtain separating His presence from the world was torn. No place on earth was more sacred to a believer than the Holy of Holies. That’s the same word He chose to use to describe my body, and here I am treating it like common junk. Ouch.

The more convicted I became, the more I realized that a big issue I’m really facing is that I’m really lazy. Yes, there are other things that stand in my way of eating better and exercising (like money – who wants to spend $20 or more on a meal of fresh vegetables and lean meat when spaghetti with sauce out of a jar can easily be put together for $1.50?). But the biggest issue is that I’d rather swing through a McDonald’s than go home and make a salad, and I’d much rather sit on the couch and watch a movie than jog during my free time. I really need to find some motivation, and I’m really hoping that the thought of vandalizing God’s very own house will be enough to do the trick (you’d think, anyway).

Things need to change, and it really needs to start with paying attention to what I’m eating. I have been more aware of things, but haven’t set a strict diet or anything (not so good of an idea with my track record). But I’ve very quickly realized that I’m not good at saying no to things like sweets that I really, really want but really, really don’t need. I am, however, very aware of how much money I spend. SO, I’ve put some things together and come up with a solution: the temple tax.

I’m going to start a fund jar that I’ll keep on my dresser or in my kitchen (I haven’t decided which yet). Whenever I eat something that is truly in excess (I’m not talking the occasional cookie after dinner – just the extra 5 that usually follow or the two scoops of ice cream that I consider “second dessert”), I will have to pay a temple tax to the jar. I’m thinking maybe I’ll start with $2. That way, the milkshake that already was going to cost me a whopping $3.85 really won’t be worth it at nearly 6 bucks. And if I do cave, that $2 will go into the fund for some kind of exercise equipment or vitamin supplement – something to better the temple that I wouldn’t buy otherwise.

I’ve also thought about imposing a partial tax for every time I look at myself and think or say something mean about the way I look. It’s God’s house, and any state of disrepair is my fault anyway. Insulting it isn’t helping me and isn’t honoring His feelings at all. So maybe a $1 would be in order….then again, maybe $.50 would be less likely to bankrupt us until I get the hang of being a little nicer to myself.

So there it is – the temple tax idea. Now that I’ve put it out there for all the world to review, I think it’s about time I started really implementing it and not just thinking “Wow, this would be like 4 bucks in temple taxes…” and eating it anyway. Wish me luck. Shane’s already picked out the first item to be purchased with the tax money – the “Crunchless Abs” video we saw advertised on TV the other day.

Sweet. I can hardly wait.

Speaking of sweets…there’s some Cookie’s N Crème ice cream calling my name from the freezer. Too bad I gave out all my extra cash at the Missions to Mexico fundraiser at church today… Oh well, I really wanted a banana instead, right?