A Smoothie to the Soul…
“Maybe you have low iron?”, my housemate threw out her casual diagnosis as she watched TV and sipped tea.
I had been telling her how recently everything I did seemed hard. Loss of focus, tired for no reason, everything was an effort. I thought about her suggestion–maybe she was right. I’d heard a bit about low iron before, but mainly associated it with pregnant women. And I’m not pregnant. I decided to get a blood test and after a few days got the inevitable phone call, asking me to return and see the doctor.
“Your iron reserves are very low”, tutted the doctor. “They’re at ‘10’ when a normal person is usually at ‘30’, they’ve probably been depleted over time.”
I’ll be honest those numbers meant nothing to me – but the gist was that my iron levels needed to be restored. His advice was taking supplements for a few months and making changes to my diet. Gosh. Now don’t get me wrong I love food and I don’t object to healthy food– but I’m busy. I don’t get this whole food preparation thing – it takes hours! I don’t like small portions and I have a bit of a problem eating leaves – it makes me feel like a zoo animal. But knowing that I had neglected my health to a serious point, I paid no attention to the normal arguments circulating in my mind and made a beeline for the supermarket. I loaded my basket with kangaroo meat (no joke, I live in Australia and it’s super yummy!), chicken, spinach, broccoli, frozen fruit, bananas, a bunch of seeds and read the back of cereal packets until I found the one with the winning amount of iron contained inside. The new food sat in my fridge for a while and I got grumpy at the thought of preparing it. After a few hours on Pinterest I discovered that I could combine a few of the ingredients (minus the meat) into a smoothie – it sounded like fun. I made a lot of noise with my blender and sampled my creation – it tasted great!
A recipe for restoration of the soul:
- Learn to enjoy silence (don’t think or plan, don’t even pray!)
- Journaling/writing/reading
- Get outside and spend time in nature (don’t catch Pokémon, actually look at your surroundings)
- Playing/listening to music
- Watching your favourite sport
- Driving
- Deep conversations about life-giving topics
What pleased me the most about it was that it was portable; I could take it to work, to the shops… I could take it wherever I was going…in a cool-looking shaker. After a while I started cooking with the food too. Ever since making these changes to my diet, I feel great! To most of you reading this I probably sound pretty stupid – but life is pretty full on and it’s surprising what we neglect. It got me thinking about how so often we can turn to quick relief in many areas of our lives instead of allowing the things that God has so naturally provided to restore us. My body was crying out for nutrition but I ignored it and smothered the noise with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Our soul is crying out for nourishment too. We are heavenly beings and have a deep thirst for beauty, profoundness, silence, rest – many things that we don’t intentionally pursue. The thought of intentionally seeking things that are beautiful and restorative seems like a waste of time when we weigh up priorities in our busy lives, it’s a bit like food prep to me. It can seem easier to fill ourselves up on relationships, Netflix and those couple of extra drinks. But the truth is we need to be as intentional with our souls as we are with our physical bodies.
We need to be allowing our souls to be restored to the depth of a well, rather than finding relief in a shallow puddle.
I live and work in an international community and the beauty of my life is sometimes returning home to surprise guests. Sitting on my sofa one night was a group of giggling Papua New Guineans who were singing in harmonies with each other so naturally and beautifully. I chose to sit down and just listen. I could feel my soul taking a deep drink of the beauty of that moment, restoration was happening.
A recipe for an iron-boosting smoothie:
- 1 cup baby spinach (I promise you won’t be able to taste it)
- ½ medium banana
- 1 cup frozen berries
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 cup of chia seeds (fancy I know)
Blend and Whir!!
Check out our options for a Discipleship Training School – 22 weeks to learn, grow, refresh your soul, and serve others. To learn more, enquire on the form below!
Lucy is one of our favorite Brits from a small English village in the Wiltshire countryside. She is on staff with YWAM Townsville and enjoys tea (of course), boxing, pizza and is passionate about empowering people to live their best life!
Recent Comments