Monday, October 24, 2011

Introduction

Let me just start by saying that I am not sure why I created this blog. Maybe it's because I need an outlet. Maybe it's because I have some unknown purpose to fulfill. Maybe it will never become anything.

I have spent my whole life with my head in the sand, seeing the world the way I want it to be, not the way it actually is. Fearful of knowledge and truth and the action that I would become responsible for if I were to obtain both.

I am not sure where it started. Maybe it started when I began observing the world around me as a child, wondering where everything comes from and where it goes when we're done with it. Maybe it started 3 years ago when I decided to try spraying down my granite countertops with vinegar and water instead of store-bought kitchen cleaner (which, for the record, I no longer do now that I know that acids and granite are not a good combination). Maybe it started 1 year ago when I became disenchanted with medicine and doctors and pharmaceuticals and began seeking alternatives. Maybe it started with the homemade laundry detergent...

A transformation is happening. I am beginning to question everything I've been told, everything I've been taught by the world my whole life. My faith in God is being strengthened as I begin to give up these nagging worldly things that I realize have been forcing me to compromise my faith my entire life.

I do not know a single soul who has done most of these things. I am like a sponge, sucking up every blog and book I can get my hands on. I alternate between cycles of education and cycles of action and sometimes plain exhausted cycles of survival. But I keep creeping forward. I keep altering my routine. I keep chipping away the layers of assumptions that have been so pre-programmed into most of us that we aren't even aware they are there.

This isn't a hobby. This isn't a phase. This isn't a temporary fleeting pursuit. This is an investment. This is a lifestyle. This is taking off the blinders and looking at the ugly truth and then doing something about it, for the rest of my life. I swim upstream. I wage battles, daily. I lose some of those battles. Perhaps I lose the vast majority of them. But the victories are mounting.

What is this blog? I am not sure yet. Is it another real food blog? Is it a homemaking blog? Is it a green blog? Is it a personal journal? Maybe it's a little of each of these things. But I am no chef. I am no stay-at-home wife and mommy. I am no environmentalist. And a personal journal isn't personal if it's published on the internet for the world to see. I am a young woman who loves the Lord. I am a wife. I am an employee. I am the one who cooks around here. I no longer have the ignorant luxury of consuming resources, turning on a faucet, flipping a lightswitch, or discarding a plastic wrapper without thinking about the implications. And I can't guarantee that there won't be a personal touch to these posts. Maybe this blog will just be. Maybe it will start out without direction and purpose, and I will have to go back and refine it later. Maybe it will never have a chance to exist if I have to have all that figured out before it just is.

I have consumed countless plastic water bottles. I have thrown a lot of food away. I have eaten ways my entire life that have probably had some irreversible effects on my health. I have burned a lot of oil. I poured my youthful energies into earning a college degree so I could get a time-sucking, pencil-pushing desk job in the service industry. I married a patient man who thought he was getting something completely different than what I've become, and who I believe loves me even more for it. I bought an urban house when the market was too high. I've bought too many new cars. I've used way too much credit. I've made way too many spendy trips to big box retailers and the mall. I adopted two small, goofy, high-maintenance dogs from a backyard breeder. I have made a lot of decisions that have gotten me to where I am. I probably would have done things a lot differently if I knew then what I know now. But, if those decisions had not been made the way they were, who knows if I ever would have sought out this knowledge to begin with? This is my life, and we have a great God of second chances and clean slates. We have a great God who wants to reveal the truth to us. We have a great God who wants us to live lives of purpose and of example. We have the chance to change. We will make a lot more progress if we start with ourselves.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Leah, don't know anything about blogs, but discovered yours when in search of a raw milk ice cream recipe. Thank you. Hope to try it later today. Enjoyed reading a few of your posts (or whatever you call them) and perhaps will return to read more. Are your 13 skills keeping you too busy to blog? I, too, feel like I swim against the current--perhaps not in all the same areas, but definately not mainstream. And I wouldn't want it any other way. Thanks for sharing a portion of you.

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    1. Hi! Hope you enjoy the recipe. It's still a favorite in our house. I haven't gotten very far on my 13 skills unfortunately. Life has changed a lot in recent months. I will have to try to do a new post soon. Take care.

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