You decided you are going to make the change. You are going to take control of your family’s health and start making your own food or choose to buy better foods instead of convenience.
But your head is swarming with where to start. You have all these ideas and don’t know how to play them out.
Your kids aren’t cooperating and you’re constantly having to break up arguments while trying to learn something new in the kitchen.
Your schedule is so packed you have no idea how to fit it in.
So, you get irritated. You know this is important and yet you seem to not be able to do it. You only see the negative. The joy of making food from scratch that your family can ooohh and ahhh over is just a fantasy now.
I have been there.
I only saw the bickering children, the daily life chores that were piling up, the husband who works all the time, and the overwhelming amount of things to plan and make so I can stay committed to feeding my family only good wholesome foods.
I had lost my joy.
And just as I was spiraling out of control, God woke me up like he always does. He gently said, “Stop seeing what is going wrong and start seeing what is right. I never intended this lifestyle to be your god.”
And then it hit me…. Its time to steal back my joy in this. It’s time to be thankful that I have all the resources I need to live this healthy life. It’s time to slow down enough to see the joy in it all and get my girls involved in seeing the joy in it too!
So, by God’s amazing grace, I am now able to see the tasks in front of me to provide healthy foods to my family as a blessing. I am seeing the joy on my families faces again and knowing I am on the right track. I am so thankful that I have this opportunity to make good healthy choices for my family.
On this week of thanksgiving, where we all reflect on what we are thankful for, I am reflecting on where I started and where I am now and how thankful I am for it.
If you are where I was and seeing the negative only and not the joy that is in front of you… then its time to steal back your joy! But how, you ask? Here is a good place to start….
Slow Down:
If you are anything like me, you committed to making healthy choices, so you jumped right in and now you are overwhelmed. You are trying to go from all store bought and to now all homemade.
However, it doesn’t work like that. In fact, that is a sure-fire way to burn out and never stick with it. So, my advice…. Slow down! If all you do right now is figure out how to incorporate making bread from scratch every week for your family, then stick with that and find healthy choices for everything else at the store.
Slow down to the point that you can let your children help in the kitchen and still be happy about it. Slow down to the point that when you are in the middle of making something and you need to stop and break up yet another argument, you aren’t viewing it as an inconvenience.
Slow down so that whatever task you are working on brings you joy and is not a burden or just another chore you have to do.
Find your why and continuously go back to why you started this in the first place:
We all have a reason why we start making foods from scratch and changing our health. For most it’s for health purposes. For other’s it’s a financial reason. Or maybe it’s a little of both. Whatever your reason is, don’t forget it! When you are feeling like giving up and that your joy is robbed, go back to your why.
When you start focusing on your why more and the actual tasks less, your joy in it all starts coming back. You stop seeing tasks as just another check on your to do list and start seeing them as an important aspect of your life.
Pray:
I know this is a no brainer, but it is probably the most important one. Ask God to give you eyes to see your life through His eyes. Ask Him to help you see the joy and the good all around you and not the negative. Ask Him to help you view all the things you need to do as a blessing and to give you joy in it all.
I promise He will answer those prayers and slowly but surely your joy will come back.
Our world tells us to complain, to see the negative, and that we are entirely justified in feeling that way. But our world lies.
Let’s start seeing all the blessings in our life, be thankful for those blessings, and steal back our joy! Have a Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I am so thankful to all my faithful readers… I pray blessings over your families and that this blog continues to bring you encouragement and gives you helpful healthy tips on how to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle! 😊
Leave a Reply