Mercies and Kale

January is the reckoning. The time where the call to healthy living is in the air. No one accepts your gluttony in these chilly days. No longer do you hear the words, “Oh just one more, it’s the holidays.” Now, kale disappears from shelves and gyms fill up like they’re giving away baby Yoda dolls. 

Everyone’s determined, everyone’s hopeful.

I kind of hate dieting at this time of year, because it feels like a fad. It feels like bandwagoning. Or that I will take on dieting with the same conviction as the masses. Because for all the “this time it’s different” whispered in the air, come mid-February/March at best, the gyms will go back to having a hollow echo, and kale will turn brown on the shelves.

If I start now, I will be lumped with this group, and when they fail, so will I.

And yet I have to do something. Doing nothing leads to sickness and death, so doing something is probably better, right?

As I jump back in, I think of the year I blogged. That year I wasn’t playing around. I jumped in in earnest. To be where I am now, heavier than when I started that dream, I find myself discouraged and unable to move. My past failures are vines growing around my feet, and with each passing day they creep higher. I’m stuck to the starting line. Why will this race be any different?

I’ve mentioned that I’m reading through the book of Exodus. It’s a rich book, as I mentioned in an earlier post. And I’m in it. I wasn’t aware that I made a cameo in Exodus, and yet there I was. Now the book calls them the “children of Israel,” but they sound a lot like me. 

8 And I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD!’”

9 Moses relayed this message to the Israelites, but on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage, they did not listen to him.

Exodus 6:8-9

Am I comparing the dread I feel in starting a diet to the Children of Israel’s actual slavery? No…no…maybe. I, being a free woman in a first world country, can’t really identify. But I do know what it means to have a broken spirit.

It leads me to think, is God sending encouragement that I’m not hearing, because of my “broken spirit and cruel bondage”?

So I look further up in the chapter to read what exactly the children of Israel were being deaf to.

Exodus 6:2-6 is a beautiful account of the history of God and His people. You really should read it for yourself. But I chose to pull out the verse just before the two I printed above.

7 I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

In short, what the people were missing, what I am not remembering, is who God is. 

He is the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, Eileen and Leo, and He is the God of Stephanie too. I may consider my weight loss journey a failure, but does that mean He has failed me? And I start to look at the idea of weight loss in better light. 

If I take my weight journey as a whole, the fact that I am still overweight makes it ring of failure. 

But then I think of specific moments. When my family endeavored to learn how to cook Keto or grain free or dairy free or whatever diet I attempted in that period of time. I remember my siblings offering to go walking with me. I remember a husband who encouraged me every step of the process and comforted me when I felt like a failure. 

If I think of the people in my life as the hands and feet of God, then I can see his arms outstretched to me in many ways.

I also remember how God has used my weight to teach me things. Things about ultimate worth or what it means to need him. I remember what He has taught me about His all-encompassing grace and His relentless love.

If I look at my weight loss journey and measure it by spiritual growth and not in jean sizes, then perhaps there is some success in the failures. Success that only comes because of who God is. And that He is the God who will use all things.

He will use bondage, plagues, and desert, as well as freedom, manna, and a parted sea to teach me who He is.

“Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.”

As I look at the diet season of January, I may fret, but I need only remember who God is. Will this time be any different? Maybe yes, maybe no. But God, who never changes, will love and comfort me just the same.

I can’t let the fear of future failure dictate my actions now. I only have today. And He promises new mercies tomorrow, and fresh kale.