No, you haven’t landed on the wrong blog post. This is just me deciding to have a mostly silly post for this week. Don’t we all need a little levity in our lives about now? Not to diminish the seriousness of whatever people are suffering through during this pandemic, but we all need SOME kind of relief. Hence the title, and my obligation to fill that in a bit for you. (Watch for the serious spiritual twist at the end.)

I was having a conversation with a good friend recently and we were bemoaning the fact that it’s becoming harder and harder to lose weight as we get older. And in fact, we are GAINING weight when we are clearly doing the right things. It seems like there is no hope for us.

So in the midst of this commiserating, we also felt a bit “out of sorts” by the fact that men, it appears to us, have only to THINK about how they might want to lose a few pounds and, voila, off the weight comes. MAYBE that’s a tad of an exaggeration or generalization, but I think most of us women see the truth in it.

So, in one of my moments of insanity (?), I told my friend that maybe the best way to lose weight is to get some testosterone shots.  Yes, people, we are getting desperate! We had a good laugh over that and then I hit on the perfect idea – you guessed it, the “Become a Man” Diet Plan.

For you men in my reading audience, you’ll have to sit this one out. We’re not asking you to “be a man” in the macho sense. So listen in if you’d like, but feel free to move on.

It’s the ideal solution for us!  Stop counting calories. Stop going to the gym. Stop eating broccoli. Stop shooting for 10,000,000 steps every day. Stop depriving yourself of everything you love to eat. Just get a little testosterone in your system, “become a man,” and watch the pounds melt off! You’ll be at your high school weight in no time!

After we dried our tears from this good belly laugh, we went back to a reluctant acceptance of our weight loss lives. (But not without a silly blog post topic for me!)

Now to share a more serious lesson from my own diet experiences. Those who know me well, know that chocolate is front and center in my life. It may be my only real addiction. As I’ve traveled some lonely and difficult days since Dale’s death, I have OFTEN indulged in a few too many little Hershey candy bars.

Recently I had a few days where I went beyond my normal over-indulgence. And because I weigh myself every single morning, I was dreading the job of standing on that scale. I was certain that I would be up a pound or two, which is exactly what I deserved given my lack of recent self-control.

So imagine my surprise and relief to see the scale DOWN 1.4 pounds on this particular morning! Oh I’m sure you can all come up with some solid physiological explanation for that, but here’s where I landed.

This unexpected weight loss was the perfect example of God’s grace and mercy. I’ve always loved these simple definitions of those gifts:

“Mercy is when God withholds the bad things you deserve.”

“Grace is when God gives you good things you DON’T deserve.”

So back to the chocolate. I know I had overindulged enough to see an extra pound or two that morning. So, not only did God withhold THAT bad thing. (He could have stopped there and left my weight at the plateau it’s been on for too many days.) But in true godly character, He ALSO gave me the good thing I DIDN’T deserve – the loss of 1.4 pounds.

Did God REALLY use this diet experience to display his character? Honestly, I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. The important thing to take away is that, through this example, I was reminded of God’s character and that’s what matters in the end.

Once again, I could marvel at the intimate and innumerable ways that God lavishes his grace and mercy upon us.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 4:16