How was your Monday? Mine was rough, physically. I am going through what is called “perimenopause.” Doesn’t that sound fun? The word pause in there should imply something of a restful state but alas, that is the furthest from my experience thus far. Here’s some more information on that https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/perimenopause-rocky-road-to-menopause
So yesterday was one of those days, call it P.M.S. or call it perimenopause, but I will call it no self-control, no energy, not cute and so not okay! I got through work and thankfully we are still working remote because if I had to be seen in public with the outfit I had on yesterday, I would have become a whole other kind of prayer request for anyone who knows me!
Right after work I put heating pads all over my midsection and laid on the couch hoping these cramps would be beat back by the Thermacare heat wraps, I sipped on a glass of wine (did not drink it all, and it did not help anyway!), and I broke down and ordered Baskin Robbins Doordash delivery of Pink Bubblegum Ice Cream, my favorite since I was eight years old. That’s worked in the past, the ice cream trick, some kind of self soothing with the pretty pink frozen delight, but this time it did not and I ended up throwing most of it away!! I took one bite of the ice cream and could feel my teeth screaming at the sugar and my stomach going into panic over this rush of confection it hadn’t seen in a while.
The problem….I have been eating pretty clean for about a month now and my body has been healing up from all the junk I used to eat, and I had been feeling pretty good. I recognized right away the yucky side effects of eating like this. The ice cream that I used to think “helped me” had revealed itself to be nothing more than an eight year old’s fantasy of all things good and fun.
The solution…don’t freaking fall for it next time, Sonia! Seriously though. I know all this, and I still caved. I felt so bad I was willing to try anything (well almost anything), but still. I KNOW BETTER and I STILL WENT FOR IT! I know, that’s life sometimes, but I put this out there as a reminder to not reach back to those things that used to bring us comfort.
I know that if I had just waited it out and fallen asleep I would have been just fine. Maybe I would even feel a little better than I do right now, but sometimes I learn the hard way that the old way of doing things no longer applies. I reach for the familiar, the old tricks, the known stuff to make things okay, but I am thankful that God doesn’t let me go down that road.
He got my attention using the physical and the natural to give me a little nudge in the right direction to keep me off the old path. This is a new path that I am on with Him. The old things no longer apply. Maybe that’s the same for you and if so, I would encourage some summer reading, maybe even a book like the one I just started called, “Girls With Swords” by Lisa Bevere. I just started it this past weekend and on page 12 under a heading that says, “Old Tactics” is this:
Now is not the time to draw back in fear. It is a time when we must rise up and flourish in love. When I became a Christian, I learned that God actually had a plan for my life. It wasn’t merely that I had a new destination in the afterlife. I learned my life mattered now. I had been purchased at great expense, and my life was no longer mine to squander. God wanted me to become all He had created me to be.
Well, I will sign off here for today and ask that we pray for one another that we purpose to do things the new way and live in all He has created us to be. We are not normal ordinary women. We are God’s daughters. Have a blessed Tuesday, lovelies!
With all my heart,
Sonia
john4four 