Acknowledging My Weaknesses, and His Grace

I'm not a perfect parent. I don't do paleo perfectly (whatever that means, depends on who's been asked!).

I'm not a perfect Christian. I'm a less than perfect wife.

By now you've guessed I'm a less than perfect blogger (hellloooooooo, backup of Advent and lunchbox posts...).

I'm awful at some things, like keeping up with laundry. I'm terrible at loading the dishwasher efficiently (my husband manages to pack in at least 50% more dishes, and they still get cleaner).

2 Corinthians 12: 9-10
But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly
about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I am full of frailties and contradictions. I'm impatient with my kids and my kitchen projects. I'm at one turn legalistic, the next turn, irreverent. A reluctant believer and a born skeptic. Easily distracted yet capable of hyperfocusing on the things that matter least. Irritable, yet also tenderhearted to a fault.

I am a human. My personal character weakness and my biochemistry all but predestine me to overeat hyperpalatable processed foods. Due to their engineered combinations of sugar, salt, fat, and easily-broken down carbohydrates, they are biochemically addictive and they feed something else deep in my psyche.

I grew up overweight, and after some slimmer high school years, I continued to battle weight on and off through adulthood, but especially after my pregnancies. If you have been overweight as a child, you know the pain that comes with the endless teasing. The awful moment when you realize that your gym class is picking teams again.  The panic attack that results when some school authority determines that heights and weights need to be taken, or that the skin calipers are coming out, in front of all of your classmates.

It is for these reasons - my childhood pain from being overweight and athletically inept, and my acknowledgment of my ongoing biological and emotional vulnerabilities to processed foods - that my husband and I have chosen to generally follow the paleo lifestyle for our family. I see favoring a nourishing whole foods lifestyle as giving us the best chance to sidestep that fate as my girls grow up.

Do I know for sure that paleo is the perfect way to health? No, but I can continue my research - doing my best to counter bias by reading opposing studies and viewpoints - and allow my choices to be shaped by an evolving knowledge of how human metabolisms react to certain foods. Will a paleo lifestyle forever guarantee myself and my family members everlasting health, fitness, and wellness? Nope. I could still develop cancer (as a matter of fact, I already have, prepaleo). We could meet an untimely death through an auto accident or some other tragedy. Though no fate in this life is guaranteed - except, ultimately, death - my main comfort is that I am working toward avoiding health calamities as logically as I can, which results in our paleo-style framework, based on the evidence I've read from peer reviewed studies published in various medical journals.

In the meantime, I treasure the grace promised in Jesus' arrival here on Earth - because my efforts are human and imperfect, and thus my results will never be perfect. I am so thankful that it is not me, but He who bridges that gap instead, sustaining us all along!



Merry Christmas to you all!