Author: Jennifred Jones

The Discomfort of Comfort Foods

Jennifred Jones

The holiday season is over and I am stuffed. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I guess it depends on what you ate and how it makes you feel and act.

That sounds dumb! It’s just food!

Or is it? And is it able to nourish your body?

Don’t say anymore; now you’re getting into something personal, some might think.

My mother always said the reason many people didn’t feel well or had low energy was their bodies were not getting the vitamins and minerals they needed because they were not eating their vegetables.

Another thing she said about eating was ‘moderation and variety’, ‘moderation and variety’. I heard it many times. I believe it is the truth.

Mom was one of 9 kids, growing up in northern Illinois on a small fruit and vegetable farm that her father owned and they all worked hard to make a go of it. They grew up knowing what good produce looked like and tasted like. So they had the variety, and the moderation came about, I’m sure, because there were so many mouths to feed at each meal…not too many got seconds.

So today, when we’re down and stress is high and we want to pamper ourselves or someone else, too often we reach for comfort foods…delicious concoctions of salty, starchy or sweet, buttery flavors. I love it as much as the next person. They’re easy to prepare… or just order in- don’t even have to think about cooking. No need to worry about learning how to discover a genuine ripe melon, or find some fresh green beans, we’ll have our vitamin C in the tomato catsup on our hash-browns.

But…over time our body will begin to complain with aches, pains, low energy, skin conditions, organs begin to shut down, inability to concentrate for very long, and a general low grade feeling all the time.

Don’t reach for the medicine cabinet! Reach for the grocery cart and get some fresh food to put in your body. Take care of it like you would your car. Put in the right fuel and see how many more miles you’ll get from your day.

Come on…this year let’s take good care of our bodies!

You are worth it!

 

Don’t Trash Your Treasure

Jennifred Jones

I don’t have any treasures; nothing I have is worth anything. I don’t have expensive clothes, jewelry or cars. All I have is me and my family…or you might say, ‘all I have is me’.

That is your best treasure! In the end when all is said and done, the only thing we will take to heaven with us is our family, so start there.

But, my family is no good, they don’t care about anything or anybody, much less me, you say. Perhaps they too, don’t realize what a treasure they really are.

I believe God wants us to take out our polishing cloth and shine up the treasures in our lives. When we begin to treat ourselves and others like the valuable treasures they are, they will begin to shine in a new and more beautiful light.

Who decided that diamonds and sapphires were beautiful treasures? All they are are rocks! …Just a plain old ugly looking rock. Think about the quartz geode…nothing interesting there, until you crack it open and look inside. Diamonds and sapphires have to be dug out of the ground, have all the slough brushed off and be cleaned and really examined to see their true value…in other words, how to draw out their inherent, but at the time invisible beauty. It takes a lot of thought to decide the best way to shape and polish a stone for its maximum potential.

That takes too much time…I could be doing something else. I would only be wasting my time.

Yes, it takes time to see the beauty in you and in others; we all have to be ‘studied’. It takes time to grow and develop yourself or another human being.

Is that worth it?

Is life worth it to pour a bit of yourself into helping make someone else better?

A little baby grows slowly and cannot grow well on its own. The loving parent sees value in the baby and works diligently to care for and teach the baby so it can grow and develop into someone who is strong and capable and able to care for itself and others.

The funny thing about caring for yourself and others is that you get better at it and you feel better. The more you help others develop, the more you develop, and the more you develop, the more you can help others.

It’s a circle that gets bigger and bigger and reaches out to more and more, widening the influence from the one good treasure that you decided not to trash but to value and use.

Take out your polishing cloth and begin to see the treasures you already have!

Art

Jennifred Jones

We all have art in us. We are all craftsmen, artsmen, artists, if you will, of one or many things.

We all have a desire, a bent to make or do something. There is something that peaks our interest…working with numbers, working with fabric, wood, metal, designing roads and cities, buildings, designing computers and software; working on cars, assembling items, organization of anything. I believe it is an art to know how to clean and decorate a home!

There are a myriad of types of art besides drawing, painting, or sculpting.

Our art…your art, is needful.

I grew up thinking ‘art’ was only for a chosen few that were crafty, and really crafty didn’t ‘qualify’ as art back then. Art was Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Picasso and Renoir.

Art was something beautiful that others could make but you could not. It was made by people you did not know and never would.

Artists were poor, yet driven, and in their time were thought a bit odd and eccentric, but later on their work was magnified and they were seen in a different light.

The challenge is to discover what our art is and to get in the groove and play it.

Our art will be something we are good at, or would like to become good at, it is something we look forward to doing and gives us pleasure as we work on it –awaiting the finished result.

If it is a drudgery to do or even think about doing, it probably isn’t your art, it is someone else’s.

Never fear, you have your own good skills to develop and share with others. Yours will be different but it will be yours, uniquely yours.

Erwin McManus said, “Don’t be the best imitation of someone else’s talent.”

Wouldn’t the world be uninteresting if everyone’s art looked the same?

What makes genuine art so very costly is that it is irreproducible. It did not come off an assembly line; it is different every time.

What is your art?