Lessons from Laura: Managing A Healthy Lifestyle
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Because of my family's health issues, I've started down the rabbit hole of living a healthy lifestyle. While I find the subject extremely interesting and have learned a tremendous amount about whole foods, specialized exercise, essential oils, and natural cleaning, I'm realizing that it's very easy to go over the healthy living edge - to focus on it so determinedly that everything else in life falls by the wayside.
While I love what many healthy-living, whole-foods-minded bloggers write about, my favorite blog on the topic is Heavenly Homemakers by Laura Coppinger. Laura understands that we need to live as healthfully as possible without becoming consumed by the healthy living movement.
There are several lessons I can learn from Laura!
1. Choose Gratitude
Laura comes across as an extremely thankful person. Her weekly Gratituesday posts, where she shares anything and everything she's thankful for, are one of my favorite aspects of her blog!
One thing she routinely thanks the Lord for is her family. Laura and her husband Matt have four boys. They don't have any daughters. Now, I know from experience that having four children of any gender is enough to garner many incredulous onlookers in the grocery store, but when all four are boys, sentiments such as "too bad you didn't get a girl" are added to the already-annoying "wow, that's a lot of kids."
I've never, ever seen any resentment on Laura's part that she doesn't have a daughter. Instead, she shares how her youngest saved Christmas; how eager she is to have daughers-in-law some day; and how wonderful it is that the family has Gladis, a little girl they sponsor from One Child Matters.
Rather than bemoan the fact that she has all boys, Laura has chosen gratitude and focuses on the beauty of having four sons. I love that.
2. Don't Obsess Over Healthy Living
Laura's journey toward better health is similar to many that I've read. She understands the importance of wholesome, whole foods, but at the same time, she also realizes that there are times when eating freshly-prepared meals isn't always going to happen. Are frozen pizzas healthy? Not at all, but Laura shares how once in a while, store-bought pizza can have a place in a healthy homemaker's kitchen (unless you need to be gluten free - that's another discussion entirely).
There are going to be concessions and compromises in life, even for the most dedicated health nut out there. We don't need to fall apart over the fact that we can't always eat everything organic or that convenience over nutrition will occasionally have to suffice when the family goes down for the count. (For a related post on this topic, I thought that Stacey Makes Cents' post "Food is Not Your God" was an excellent read.)
3. Be Honest
No one would have thought of Laura's healthy lifestyle to be anything other than a desire to treat her body as the Temple that it is, but Laura openly shared how she tried for years to do everything in her own strength. And although I haven't yet read it, some day I'd love to get a copy of her book Oh, For Real! because I think it probably expands on this topic even more. Her honesty about her try-hard way of doing things reminds me a lot of Emily Freeman's Grace For the Good Girl, another fantastic read about relying on the Spirit's help instead of one's own willpower.
A few more favorite posts from Heavenly Homemakers:
Every Good Cook Burns Herself Sometimes
Reading articles from devout health-conscious bloggers can be a great motivation for an improved healthy lifestyle, and those posts definitely have their time and place. However, I've just found that I really resonate with the realistic approach of Heavenly Homemakers. I'm still searching for that elusive balance between healthy living, financial stewardship, and time management, but I think Laura comes pretty close to finding a workable solution between those three!
Your turn: Are you trying to live a healthy lifestyle? What struggles and successes have you found along the way? What are your favorite healthy living resources?
