I'm not sure if this post belongs on Becoming Me or Reason in the Rhyme.
It's about lifestyle changes, which puts it here, but it's also about wrestling with what I think, which would put it over there. Maybe I'll post it in both places.
It is Day 9 of Lent. It is also Day 19 of an unrelated health "challenge" I made up for myself. Present Me is now suffering at the hands of overachieving, all-or-nothing Past Me. I'm beginning to be slightly miserable. I will either break soon, or have a breakthrough soon. Here's what's going on.
What I Gave Up for My Own Eight-Week Challenge:
- "white" grain
- candy
- dessert
- unnecessary/excessive processed food
- eating directly from containers
Now, true to my tattoo, this challenge is riddled with asterisks. These are general principles I'm sticking to as much as I can. Will I have an Appalachian Cookie Company cookie when Gabe and I go to Boone for the weekend? Absolutely. Have I been eating white rice? Yes. These are "more like guidelines than actual rules," but I've been sticking to them very well on the whole and I'm proud of myself. It is getting easier and easier.
What I've Given Up for Lent:
- YouTube
- non-Christian music
- non-Christian podcasts
- solo Netflixing
- Poshmark/Mercari
The big asterisk to this list is different: In no way do I think these things are "bad" or "wrong" or "sinful." I don't intend to give these things up for life, and I don't think that I should. I have just been feeling called for a long time to strip my life of distractions so that I can get my focus back on my relationship with God.
I am one of the most distracted people I know. The mental habit of being distracted has started to feel almost like an addiction. I can't stop being distracted. If I'm watching TV, I'm also on Facebook. If I'm making dinner, I'm also listening to a podcast. If I'm having my quiet time, I'm also making a to-do list on my phone. If I'm in a meeting, I'm also sending an email.
It's not just that I like to multitask. I do, but lately the feeling has been more akin to an addiction, a compulsion. I can't just do one thing at time. It makes me restless. My mind cannot settle.
When that started to happen in my quiet time and I could not make it stop, I knew I needed some kind of mental reset. I decided to strip my life down to the basics and then add in only the things I intentionally wanted to keep. I ended up with a list of ten things that I then ranked/prioritized. If #7 is going to prevent me from being able to do #5, I try not to do it.
The things that didn't make it onto the priorities list—because they didn't come to mind when I put on the lens of "basics + things I definitely want to keep"—are the things I'm giving up for Lent.
(I modified the music and podcasts thing. I didn't think to put "music" or "podcasts" on the list of priorities at all because those aren't things I sit down and do for their own sake; they're things I do while doing other things. Since Lent is supposed to be about refocusing on God, I added Christian music and podcasts back in.)
The results have not been what I expected.
Since I'd have no other options, I expected to gladly fill the voids with prayer, reading the Bible, and journaling.
Looking back, I don't know why I expected this. Humans have never been ones to think, "Hey, you know what, let's do something hard instead of something mindless."
My quiet times have not deepened or lengthened. I do not know that I pray a ton more than I did. I do think that listening to Christian music has done a lot for my mood and mindset; that one has actually worked the way I'd hoped it would.
I dunno. It's kind of what Pastor Matthew talked about a few months ago: It's not enough to uproot your weeds; you have to plant Jesus in their place, otherwise 1) the soil erodes, or 2) more weeds grow.
For some reason—some weird form of stubbornness—I have so far chosen to uproot the weeds in my life, but refused to plant Jesus in their place. The result has been voids of bad attitude, boredom, and real sin that happens to fall technically in the realm of fair game during Lent.
I've been told that my Lent list is too extreme, like an overly restrictive diet doomed to fail. I get that. Maybe that's true. I just have trouble seeing how there is a bad way to replace things with Jesus. I have trouble seeing how any amount of sacrifice is too much when Jesus literally gave it all.
My thought process is not holier-than-thou. I wish you could hear my head-tone. It's just simple, sarcastic math in my head. There is nothing I could do that would be more than God deserves. (Again, I want to stress that I don't think it's sinful to have "non-Christian" hobbies or elements in your life. This is something that has been on my heart and that I'm doing for a season to try to rewire my chronically distracted brain.)
Even as I wrap up this post, I don't know what I'm going to do afterwards. I would like to do something healthy like pray, journal, read the Bible, read books, go for a walk. But what I really want to do is goof around on my phone in the ways I still can, like sifting through photos, reading through Notes, checking email, etc.
I honestly don't know what I'll do.
~Stephanie
