Only Cookies…

Yesterday afternoon I sent Marnell a confession in the form of an email.  I am…trying to decide if I have the energy or motivation to do much tonight, which might be directly related to the fact that so far today I’ve eaten only cookies…

And by afternoon, I don’t mean 12:03 pm…it was 4:53 pm.

To my online weight loss group, I wrote the dire comment, unfortunately, I’m one of those who overeat during stress rather than quit eating, after my weight report for the week: +1.08%.

My mentor Barb can attest to the fact that early in the week I dug into a raspberry danish at the coffee shop with the words, “I don’t care”.

It’s interesting, but since we got engaged, I’ve talked to a number of people, and it appears that almost no one actually enjoys planning a wedding.  I shouldn’t quite say it that way, because it is an exciting time, but almost everyone reported to me that they felt relieved after the wedding was in the past, and not only that, had moments after they got engaged where they wondered if they should be getting married at all.

Perhaps this is why my head feels like a large Tupperware Fix and Mix bowl, with random pieces of life rattling around in it, slamming against the sides of the bowl and getting bruised.

There’s little Lucia in Milwaukee who I don’t seem to find a good time to go visit, recovering from Monday’s heart surgery and wrapped in all the garb that it seems only adults should have to wear. 

There was Marnell’s accident last week and his vehicle that’s been totaled and the need to find a new one.  There’s my front room torn up for remodeling.  There’s the notice I turned in at work, and the job interviews I’ve had with limited good options, and the stress of wondering what on earth I should do next.  There’s the unidentified bug I found in my house, currently on my coffee table in a Ziploc container.  There’s my wedding fund which somehow seems even smaller than I remembered it in comparison to my expenses.  There is the Douglas Street house and the Brady Street house both of which need to be cleaned and organized. There seems to be a thousand wedding details that I haven’t decided yet even though I feel like I’ve decided quite a few.  There’s a growing pile of wedding items in cardboard boxes in my house.  There are books I should read, and pieces I should write and people I should visit and cards I should send and unhealthy food I should quit eating as if it were my drug of choice to distract me from the rattling in my head.

“I really have to face up to my eating problem because I’ve given up,” I confessed to Marnell this morning at breakfast.

“Really?” he said.

After a few quiet moments, he said, “Does it help if you think about what the focus is?  Why you don’t want to overeat?”  He pulled out his phone and shared a Bible verse with me that he had read this morning: I Corinthians 9:26, So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

He’s really, really good at listening and reflecting if you haven’t noticed.

While I grapple with this issue, let me list a few things that I’m grateful for, since that always seems to help me gain perspective.

I’m so grateful that:

1. Lucia is beginning to eat and lose the tubes and wires, and her sister Alaina has joined her in the big city of Milwaukee! Lucia’s update on Caring Bridge
2. Marnell wasn’t hurt when he wrecked his vehicle.  Even though his good leg hurt for awhile, it seems to be healing well.  (First accident he’s ever had, by the way!)
3. Hector, our go-to remodeling person, came and worked on the dry wall in the front room with almost no notice, even though we asked him to do something he didn’t recommend.
4. The bug in my container does NOT appear to be a bed bug.
5. Several dear friends told me they were praying for me and sent me encouragement this week, and I felt their prayers at a very stressful time.
6. A dear friend gave me table skirting to use at the wedding, a huge blessing! Other friends and my brother and family met us at our reception hall venue to help formulate plans.
7. Another dear friend from out of state text me and offered to help with plans.
8. Marnell took me to Venturi’s in Goshen last night where we had delightful bruschetta and old world pizza baked over a wood fire.                                                                                
9. After several dead ends at finding a train for my cupcake baker to use with wedding dessert, a box arrived on my sun-warmed porch today with one that I think will perfectly capture the romance of a train 🙂
10. Marnell enjoyed his cake and my birthday surprise tour of Sonset Solutions, a company right here in Elkhart which uses innovative technology to enable missions to spread God’s Word in remote places. (“I could see you doing something like this someday,” I told him after the tour.  “That’s what I was thinking,” he said.)  The tour guide even gave him a birthday card!                                                                                                           

There, I feel better already!  There’s nothing like counting your blessings to remind yourself how many you have. Say a prayer for us if you think about it… for Marnell as he searches for a vehicle, and for me, as I search for the discipline and motivation to progress to a diet more nutritious than only cookies.

(P.S. Marnell just came back from car shopping and asked how my afternoon was.  I said, “Well, I’m just finishing my blog in which I confess eating only cookies…”  “You have cookies?” he asked.  “Not anymore!” I said. At least my weakness is good for an occasional laugh.)