Friday Feature: Eating Healthy Made Easy

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

Summer is a great time to boost your nutritional level because of the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables available. Several women in response to my posts on eating raw expressed their desire to do so but listed a host of obstacles to eating healthier, which includes a more plant-based diet full of fresh produce. I addressed the obstacle of cost in my Friday Feature: Ways to Save and Buy on Organic. As each woman explained their obstacles to implementing better health habits their main issue was time. So today I want to deal with the obstacle of time by giving you three ways that have helped me:

Programming—I find it imperative to meditate on God’s word as it relates to healthy eating. My favorite verse is John 4:34: “Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him that sent me and to accomplish his work.” This verse speaks of God’s assignment for our lives being that sustaining force in our lives that nourishes and strengthens us and gives us direction for our daily activities. Focusing on God’s will being the strength that I need to do what He has called me to do helps me. First Corinthians 3:16-17 says: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” These scriptures are talking about the body of Christ but apply to us as individual Christians. If we destroy with bad food our temple, the dwelling place of God, our bodies will be destroyed. We will all die one day, but I don’t want to hasten my death. These are the main scriptures that help me program my mind and strengthen my spirit to do what I should for a healthy temple.

Planning—One of the worst things you can do is to have your mind made up to eat right but you don’t have the food purchased to do so. I think about what I want to eat for the week and how much food I will have to buy to execute my meal plans. This helps me not to buy ‘two for one’ when I only need one and get more than my refrigerator or budget will allow. Planning helps me save money and a lot of time. I not only save time in the market but also when I am ready to consume the food.

Preparing—You may have thought my choice to use “consume” instead of “eat” was lofty, but I wanted to include eating and drinking, by way of juicing. So many women have told me that they want to juice but they don’t have a juicer or dread cleaning their juicer after use. Many of you said you don’t have time to clean the fresh produce in order to use them when you want. First, like you save to buy a new dress for a major event, plan to purchase a juicer for your new body. Second, replace a full meal with a fresh juice and some toast. Most times I replace a meal, usually breakfast, with a fresh juice and perhaps some almonds. I am fully nourished and full and haven’t spent a lot of time preparing a meal. The time I would have spent preparing a meal I now use to clean my juicer, which takes no more than 10 minutes. Third, I clean my produce in bulk. Read my post here for how I do that. I set aside time to clean all my items and then store them in plastic bags. When I am ready to prepare a meal or juice, I just grab them and get to work.

I have given you three ways that have helped me but I want you to know that I didn’t incorporate each tip at the same time. As a recovering strong black woman, you know I tried to do them all at the same time. Doing so overwhelmed me so I decided to take one tip at a time, one step before taking the others, and now I do them all without much hesitation.* I want you to take your healthy eating journey one step at a time. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1) You can do this by first renewing your mind. Your body will follow.

*(I love my bulk method, but it can be tedious. I just remind myself of how grateful I am to have fresh, clean produce available when I need it).

The Death of Amy Winehouse

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

For days I haven’t been able to get thoughts of Amy Winehouse out of my head. The British soul singer’s funeral was yesterday, but thoughts of the circumstances of her tragic death are well alive in me. She was sad, deeply depressed and no matter how she dressed, the drugs and dreariness crept through. Though I didn’t own a CD or ever see Winehouse perform, the news of her death made me watch one of her videos. From beginning to end she walked a seedy path, never once looking at the prostitutes, transvestites, and other half naked people around her. Three times, a woman bumped into Winehouse, but she kept walking, never turning to see who bumped her or why. Interspersed with the seedy path is a shot of Winehouse in a hotel room with empty beer and alcohol bottles. Oblivious to everything that was happening along her path, she walked as if she believed she had to go through that path, resigned that debauchery would be her death. Like a declaration of resolve, she sang solid, from the depths of her soul, “my tears dry on their own.” Winehouse seemed to believe she just had to cope on her own, that there was no one who could dry her tears. Maybe she never knew that Jesus could.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.—Hebrews 4:15

Though Winehouse may not have known Jesus or His healing power, I think sometimes we, recovering strong black women, who know Jesus forget His healing power. We run to the world’s ways to mask our pain and our lives also end in a tragic death. Yes, we still may be physically alive, but our spirits, minds and relationships may have died at our own hands. We have tried to cope our way and even when we don’t get righteous results we continue to try to cope our way, like we don’t have a Godly way of escape, a way to help us to have peace right here on earth until God calls us home.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.—1 Corinthians 10:13

That way of escape may be a phone call from a friend, a song that you keep hearing again and again or a message from a radio show. God will use anything to urge you to “[t]ake my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29). Tragic death does not have to be our end. We can live mask free and abundantly with Christ Jesus, if we trust Him. He will always be there to dry our tears, never leaving us for them to dry on their own.

Also read Why Amy Winehouse’s Death Should Matter to Christians in EEW Magazine and tell me what you think.

Note: Some of you didn’t know there was a video with Monday’s post or you tried to watch the video and couldn’t because it was private. If you missed my big video announcement, click here to watch.

Breathe Again on the (in)courage blog

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

I praise God for the opportunity to spread His message to a wider audience on (in)courage: home for the hearts of women.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#151-160
Spending early time with God
Being able to skin the chicken before Justus called out to me
Giving the boys a bath
Taking a shower
Cooking most of dinner before noon
Spending three hours interacting with and teaching Nate before he watched TV
Tabitha for being selfless and supporting me so
A completed Black History Month report
Getting to watch a movie
A restful evening

Friday Feature: Roundup Five

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

This was a tough post to pull together. My goal for the Fourth Friday Roundup is to provide you with information from around the web to support you as you seek to grow in the areas of the month’s posts. But when gathering information about organic and raw foods you are likely to get spiritual information that is not Christian. This was indeed the case. I found dozens of sites that offered what I thought was great nutritional information but spouted anti-biblical teachings. For this reason, I encourage you to read the previous posts and click the links I included in those. They only detailed nutritional information:

Friday Feature: Eat Organic

Friday Feature: Ways to Buy and Save on Organic

Friday Feature: The Benefits of Eating Raw

As you conduct your own searches for information on organic and raw foods, remember that no dietary standards should dogmatically go beyond what the Bible teaches. While God in Genesis 1:29 gave plants, seeds and fruit for meat, He told man in Genesis 9:3 that “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.” And we know that Jesus ate fish and lamb (a part of the Passover feast). So while as of June 2, 2011 I am a vegetarian, I don’t advocate vegetarianism as a must because the Bible gives us liberty to eat plants and meat. As Christians, we must follow what the Bible teaches. Make sure that whatever you choose that you are being led by the Holy Spirit to do what is best for your body.

Courageous: The Movie and Womanhood

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Rhonda J. Smith

What Do You Think? Wednesday

Next week I join a panel of married women to answer questions of women who’ve been through a six week marriage class. Some of their questions are typical of those struggling to overcome strong black womanhood, such as one wanting to know if she was wrong to disregard her husband’s budget commands or another asking how she can serve her husband with a good attitude when she’s upset with him. There are no easy answers for those entrenched in a marital power struggle. But the standard answer comes from 1 Peter 3:1-6, the crux of the verses revealing that our behavior, not our words, should be used to influence our husband to believe, and therefore do, the right thing. Our actions, not our nagging, will be our best advocate.

To be a biblical wife takes some resolve, and resolve is also what our husbands and the fathers in our lives need to be the men God has called them to be. This is the premise of Courageous, a new movie by Sherwood Pictures, the same company who brought you Fireproof, the movie that started a marriage revolution with its accompanying book The Love Dare. Like Fireproof challenged married couples, Courageous will challenge men to resolve to be the best fathers and husbands that they can be. Though the movie is geared toward men, Courageous will have collateral materials for men and women, including the book by Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer, The Resolution for Women. Shirer has even begun a seven-week countdown to the September release of the movie and her book with
The Resolution Revolution Project. She is challenging women to embrace the 13 resolutions for women included in her book through weekly discussions of them on her blog. Together the resolutions cover all aspects of our lives as women, like being a champion of biblical femininity, being defined by the word of God and being content. Check out the movie trailer and Shirer’s blog and let me know what you think. Courageous may be a movie you women can see with your spouses and let the movie do the talking for you.