Thoughts on Food

So have you heard of 7.
Just the number, not spelled out.
The lady at Barnes and Noble said I could have found it faster if I hadn't told her to look for "Seven"- spelled out.
It's a book.  And it's by Jen Hatmaker.
And (like others that have in the past, such as Shaine Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution) it is rocking my world.
I identify with the author in that I need God to sometimes push me into action in a radical way.  As much as I value being middle-of-the-road, I need to act in extreme ways for change.  To change myself.

So, as most of you know (or don't ;), we recently "took in" three foster children (see an example of acting extreme:).  They did not eat well before they lived with us.  Maybe sometimes not at all.  For how long I don't know, but we do know their medical condition when they came into care.  So when they came to live with us, I introduced them to my foodie-loving-baking-craziness-high-maintenance-three-course-meal-lovin' style of eating!

Fast forward a few months, and the typical daily conversations in our home are about food:

• "Mom, what are we having for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack/elevensies?"
• "I don't know, I will think of something.  Don't worry about it too much.  Maybe some tuna salad and some chips"
• "And what else?"
• "I don't know maybe and apple and some vegetable."
• "And what else?"
• "Well, we might have some dessert, too"
• "Ok, so tuna, chips, apples, maybe broccoli salad, and some cookies...........And what else?"

Noticing a pattern?!!  I have turned her into a miniature food-lovin' version of me!

So the other day, after a conversation about lunch that went something like the typical one above, I decided to "educate" my daughter on how food doesn't need to be taken for granted, shouldn't be the most exciting part of the day, there are starving kids in China.....blah, blah, blah.  Then I threw in a very relevant plug for Uncle Chris and Aunt Sarah who work with kids (in Kenya) who only eat the same thing every day and are super grateful because that is their only meal.  And as I thought I was teaching an important life lesson, my daughter (5) replied,

• "When we lived with ____ ____ (her birth mom), we ate the same thing every day."
• Me (thinking she was mistaken, but humoring her nonetheless): "Oh, yeah?  What was that?"
• "The spaghetti with the curly noodles and the meatballs that comes from a can."
• Me (now thinking, aw man, Chef Boyardee every day, and that's all???  Now not knowing what to say.)  "Well... were you happy to eat it?"
• "Yeah.  But that's all we had for a while."
• Insert my extreme humility here!!!  

She totally does not take food for granted.  She is just so excited to have it around and have lots of it!  Still- after several months of eating with us.

But eventually if we let things continue and allow food to have such an elevated place- even good, healthy food- she might become just like me.  Someone who has 500+ different kinds of food items in her pantry/ spice rack/ freezer/ and refrigerator.  (I even have an entire blog devoted to food and recipes!)  And yet, I am someone who does not think about her poorer neighbor often enough.

So David and I are going on a ten-day "7 fast".  Here is the menu:

There are many reasons why we decided to do this.  But mainly we want the Lord to move in us (mainly me, Eryn :) to not place such a high priority on things like Thai Coconut Ginger Soup with toasted homemade rice flatbread and made-from-scratch croissants for dessert!  Not that there is anything inherently wrong with all of those wonderful food items.  But they consume my day, my thoughts.  Without them, I'm hoping to make more room for more important things!

As I finish this post, it's day 2 of our 10 day fast and things are going well.  I'm not too hungry.  Although, that could be blamed on my intense allergies (seasonal variety) at the moment.

And my daughter says she wants to eat just seven foods too so she can think about those kids in Africa- sweet angel baby girl!!

I recently came across a group of bloggers doing a summer series that you can check out below: