It all started as a conversation while running.  My friend Melissa and I were discussing a book to read together, something we like to do from time to time.  We were reading Sacred Parenting, but having just finished Sacred Marriage it felt like too much of the same.  So she mentions 7 and I admit that the premise of that book terrifies me and she agrees and yet, somehow, a mile later, we’ve talked ourselves into reading the book and doing the experiment.  I suggest that a month on each item sounds like too much but a week doesn’t sound like enough, so we settle on two weeks per “fast” (and right now, on day 3 of food, it’s quite possible her husband hates me and she may not be too fond of my either by day 12 or 13).

So she and I and our husbands (and hopefully another friend once her stomach bug goes away) began 7 on Saturday.  Tim and Mel go hard core and choose their seven food items for two weeks.  I’m just not spiritually mature enough to do that yet, so here we decide to do whole / minimally processed foods for our fourteen days.  This has been more challenging than one would think.  Like yesterday when I sat at a family birthday party and ate raw carrots and broccoli while everyone else enjoyed smoked short ribs, potato salad, and cake.  *sigh*  Or when I was trying to find a snack before church to replace my Sunday doughnut treat and I grabbed the jar of peanuts, read the label, and promptly had to replace it.  Who knew dry roasted peanuts had so many ingredients?!

Today was the first day I actually felt “deprived” though.  I had a strong craving for sugar, preferably chocolate.  And this evening, while cleaning the microwave with vinegar, I developed a desperate desire for salt and vinegar chips.  And I’m not even pregnant.  Sheesh.

Still, I struggle a bit with this whole thing.  I wanted to make a peanut butter granola this week to have on hand for snacks, but the peanut butter I had on hand had a second ingredient of “sugar” (even though it is a “better” peanut butter).  So, I went to the store and bought “even better” peanut butter so I could make my granola.  And somehow it felt wrong.  If I’m supposed to be involved in a “mutiny against excess”, perhaps I should have just done without the peanut butter (and by default – the granola). So I’m wrestling with how to recognize all we have and take for granted without losing my sanity at the same time.  I suppose this is why God wanted me to do this in the first place…

{More to come, I’m sure, over the next 14 weeks….}

For His Glory ~