Great vs Good: Food & Relationships

I was contemplating this Sunday's sermon which was about relationships and my thoughts, as they usually do, turned to food and food analogies. The essence of the message was "what you put into a relationship is what you'll get out of the relationship" and great relationships like great food take time and effort. If you make a conscious effort to eat healthy, it takes time to go to the grocery store, choose the best and freshest and organic ingredients, take them home and prepare them. It's also not cheap, particularly if you hit up Whole Foods, nor is it very convenient time-wise. Think about it; you can either spend $5.47 at Little Caesar's for a "Hot'n'Ready" pizza or spend several times that amount to buy fresh produce and organic meat (and please don't ask how I know the exact price for the pizza--I never claimed to be a gourmet; I'm much closer to a gourmand!). It's simply quantity versus quality. Now, in their defense, more companies and grocery stores have made eating healthy easier with little bags of carrots and celery, apple slices and melon chunks; you can even buy grilled chicken breasts at deli counters, but we still have to make to choice to buy those items and not the fried chicken dinners with the bags of chips.

The other phrase that I jotted down was "The biggest enemy to GREAT is GOOD". We settle for what we're used to, what we think is good enough. I made myself beef pot roast a few weeks back; it was from an actual butcher's shop in Woodinville and they sell only local and organic products. It had been aged a minimum of 21 days and was beautifully marbled with fat...let me just say, I know GREAT beef now. But when you chose to eat healthy, buy organic produce or make the trek to a butcher's shop which, let's face it, is one more stop you just don't have time for...you're making your health a priority. Maybe it means cutting out store-bought coffee and making it at home, or making dessert rather than buying a container of ice cream. It's the same thing with your relationships. What do you need to cut out of your life in order to be available to the people around you? Think about this--what effect do your actions have on those people? What effects do eating better have on you? In both cases, neither one may show immediate results but your efforts will pay off in the end.

I'm going to share something personal here; some of you are more familiar with the story than others and I'm really nutshelling as it's quite complicated, but here goes--I have a friend who I've known for probably six years now, Matt. I knew from one of the first times I met him that he was the man for me, one of those gut feelings at which I always used to sneer. Until just recently, I have made every overture in our friendship--phone calls, encouraging cards, stopping by his place to make sure he was OK. That's a lot of effort, especially when he flat-out told me he wasn't interested in being anything more than friends, and even then it would sometimes be months before I'd be able to get ahold of him or see him. One thing that came out in our conversations in the past couple weeks was how comfortable Matt feels being with me and in sharing personal things (and there's been a turning point with him contacting me much more often). He told me that it's easier to talk to me about these things than his own family because I've been there for him over the past years. I don't share this with you easily; it makes me feel really vulnerable, but I'm really trying to drive home my point--you DO NOT know the effect that you have on someone's life.

That, my dears, is what has been on my mind the past couple days; food and relationships. A huge thanks to Pastor Scott for his excellent message on Sunday which inspired my contemplations and to my readers who allow me to be so open with them.

Eat well,

Holly