Overeating

Yesterday while driving to work I was mentally preparing for a temptation I already knew I would experience later that day: overeating.  I could go into a long rant about food and the struggles I've had with it throughout my life, but that's for another day. 

My particular struggle yesterday was the fact that I wouldn't have time to fit in a run after work, and I was going to be attending two dinners.  Not only that, I was going to be making two desserts for those dinners.  I knew the temptation to over-eat would be great, and since Dan and I are spending the weekend at a lake house with some friends, in the back of my mind I was fighting the urge to stress out about putting a bathing suit on.

Then, in typical God fashion, He had me click on an article that a friend on fb posted.  I sat at my desk and almost lost it looking through the pictures.  The first one was of a 7 month old who weighed 7.5 pounds (shown below).  Lots of babies a day old weigh more than 7.5 pounds.

Maybe a lot of you have heard about the famine in East Africa.  You may even be wondering if I've been living in a hole for the past couple months since this is the first time I came across an article about it, but my heart is completely broken.  Here I am, concerned about the two meals I will be having and how I will "hold back" when there are thousands of people living in a famine.

I know that just because there are people starving in Africa that doesn't mean I should be ashamed that I live in America where I have never experienced the hunger pains they have.  But, it does remind me to be oh so thankful.  Thankful that I haven't had to worry about food not being in my fridge.  Thankful that I have so much food that sometimes Dan and I forget about our leftovers and have to throw them away.  It was not a coincidence that I read that article on a day when I had the "privilege" of eating two meals.

Obviously, as you can tell by this blog post, this definitely affected me, so I looked into how Dan and I can help.  There are a lot of ways, but Dan and I really love World Vision, and they have a place you can donate if you would like.

So instead of going into the meals yesterday worrying about eating too much, I went in praising God and thanking Him for how He has provided for Dan and I in abundance, and asked for the strength not to abuse His gift.