Team Prater vs. Dryer

 

Our dryer is broken.  Or should I say we broke our dryer.  As I type this I hear the clanking of metal, and screws, and parts.  We are trying very unsuccessfully to fix it.  At this point in Dryer vs. Team Prater it is Dryer 5 and Team Prater 2.  This is an improvement seeing as it was a shut out for a while. 

What started out as a loose belt has escalated into ---I don’t really know what.  My advice is before you start taking screws out willy-nilly Google it. It might prevent a days worth of a hard and frustrating labor.  I honestly think I am going to have nightmares tonight about being trapped in my dryer with nothing but the sound of  scraping metal ringing in my ears.    

As frustrating as it is to fix, every time we think we have gotten it right there is an unparalleled feeling of accomplishment.  That is, until we hear that metal to metal sound that makes us what to cut our ears off. 

In other, more positive news, I am in my final hours of the food month of Seven.  I was beginning to wonder if this day would come.  What have I missed most?  That would be SWEETS!  I have some treats ready to go after midnight tonight!   A cupcake from girls bible study last night, jelly beans, Canterbury eggs, and strawberries from Publix.  It took much restraint and self control not to buy out the whole store today.

I have all my meals planed for tomorrow and looking forward with great anticipation to them all.  Yes, I have probably put too much thought into this. 

Did anything good come out of this month?  Absolutely!  I have never eaten healthier.  I really think I can continue this as long as I can throw in a few sweet treats here and there : )P  Before this month I didn’t know I liked sweet potatoes or avocadoes.  They will definitely remain a healthy stable of my diet.  Especially now that I can dip some tasty Tostitos into my avocadoes.  Most importantly I learned how spoiled I am.  I have any food I could ever imagine at my finger tips,while my brothers and sisters around the world scrap by with some rice and bread.  I learned that I CAN simplify and can choose to not get distracted by all the choices.  I learned that I find Jesus in the simplicity.        

Basically this month felt like a detox.  A detox of all junk we fill our bodies with.  It has left me feeling healthier, more energetic, and lighter.  Like I have cleared out a room in my house.  There is now room for the spirit to move about.  I will splurge tomorrow and probably the day after that.  But my hope is that I don’t fill my empty space back up with more junk.  I pray that I will keep it cleaned out so that the spirit can continue to work.    

I have a couple days break before I start the next month in April.  I still haven’t decided what I am doing next.  We will see!

***UPDATE***

Dryer 5 Team Prater 6

Team Prater made a come back at the bottom of the 4th.  Who’s laughing now dryer, who is laughing now? 

Wheat Thins

Wheat Thins.  That is wheat bread right?  Sadly I think not.  I bought it anyway and now feeling some major guilt.  I thought it would taste good dipped in avocados.  It didn’t.  I guess I deserved that. 

I am starting that thing I often do when faced with strict rules like, “you can only eat these seven foods.”  I notoriously take the “rules” and push them to the limit.  Skirting around the edges of what is right and what is wrong.  Rules have always annoyed me.  In fact, one sure way to get me to do something this to tell me one of two things:that I shouldn’t or that I can’t.  I just get this burning desire to prove you wrong.   

As you can imagine this has gotten me in trouble more times than I can count.  But, on another hand Jesus wasn’t much of a rule follower either.  After all, he healed on the Sabbath.  He ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, and other various sinners.  One day he even went through the temple turning over tables like a madman. 

Don’t get me wrong.  Rules are a great thing.  God disciplines us and gives us guidelines because he loves us SO dearly.  But, I cannot let my obsession over the correct choice in the grocery store cloud the big picture point of this month.  And, we cannot let our obsession of being perfectly correct and sanitized Christians cloud the true, messy, mission of Jesus.  

Yes, it is hard.  Yes, I am so desperately tired of eggs, chicken, avocados, sweet potatoes, wheat bread, apples, and spinach.  Yes, I want to sneak ice cream, chocolate, and cookies into my mouth when no one is looking.  But, even when I am trying to cheat the system, every time I want to eat (which is often) I am reminded of my limited options.  I am reminded of my brothers and sisters around the world who also have limited options (most much worse than mine).  I am reminded of the perfect, pure simplicity of Christ and I draw near to Him.          

Day 7

 

I am seven days into the seven fast.  I have eaten seven foods for seven days.  In other words, I have had nothing but chicken, eggs, wheat bread, avocados, spinach, sweet potatoes, and apples, for seven days.  Seven days that has felt like a year.  There was a box of cookies in the copy room today at work and it took every ounce of self control in my not to eat one.  No one would have known!  Just one COOKIE!

This week has been particularly bad.  A science teacher at the school where I work gave the kids a project to do on cells.  The kids had to make a cell, out of some kind of baked good.  BAKED GOOD.  They were due this week.  Y’all there were cakes, cookie cakes, rice crispy cakes, floating around everywhere.  Everywhere a turned, CAKE!  Then she sent them down the halls to give some slices to the teachers.  I had about ten kids come to my door with a piece of cake in their hand.  I accepted two to be polite.  They sat on my desk staring at me with their beady little eyes.  Needless to say by the end of the say I was angry.    

And then I remember the people around the world who live on less than seven foods.   Foods that are way less healthy or nutritious than mine.  How dare I complain.  It is almost like I am more addicted to having what I want whenever I want it, than I am addicted to the certain food.  How disgustingly selfish.

“He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”  

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

May I not live on bread alone that leaves me hungry again, but on the word of God that forever satisfies and sustains.