When nothing satisfies you.

"So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her." Genesis 29:20.

William Dyce "The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel"

In the blur that was the middle of a six month stretch of not seeing each other and not knowing when we would see each other, Nate told me that if Jacob could work 14 years to marry Rachel, he could work another three.

A brief synopsis of the Jacob/Rachel story: upon seeing Rachel for the first time, Jacob "kissed Rachel and wept aloud" Jacob ran to Rachel's father and asked for her hand. Rachel's father Laban's actions showed that he was all for the marriage. He ran to Jacob, kissed him and welcomed him into his house. As far as Rachel and Jacob could tell, there would be a wedding in the near future that would be socially acceptable and what they had expected for themselves growing up. The two had every reason to take comfort and pleasure in the ease and normalcy of their typical engagement.

Yet, any such ease was short lived. Not only was Jacob tricked into working for seven years, he had to marry a woman he didn't love and work another 7 years.

Did Jacob and Rachel feel the despair that occurs when one realizes that her greatest desire will not happen? Worse, still, did they feel the frustration that comes with the realization that their greatest desire- a righteous and respectable one- a Godly desire for marriage was completely out of their control?

How did they deal with thoughts of their youthful expectations of a normal courtship and marriage? Did they feel a small pang in their souls during those seven years upon witnessing others joyfully experiencing the only thing they desired but could not obtain? Did Rachel keep plugging along with her unsatisfying work while watching her own sister marry the man who loved her so much that he wept upon their first kiss?

She may have buried her emotions in her work. Perhaps she did not let herself enjoy the idea that she would one day marry Jacob in order to avoid the pain that comes with the realization that being together just wouldn't happen. She may have coped through false hope that maybe some external force or situation would change her situation.

We will never know. The story ends with Jacob willingly selling himself as a worker for yet another seven years even after being deceived when he could have, justifiably, walked out after Laban's breach of contract.

With some irony, the tale of the suffering lovers ends not with a poetic description of the joyful union that the lovers seem to have deserved, but instead with the dry and practical narrative, "Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. (Laban gave his female servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her servant.) So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah, and served Laban for another seven years." (28-30)

Then again, after the lovers rough, unpredictable, and long impersonation of a normal courtship, the simplicity and the normativeness of the phrase "Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife" may have been the satisfying words which the lovers longed to hear.

Three Squares a Day

After losing around 25/30 pounds since last May and then gaining 10 back over the three week finals period, I had begun to hate myself for letting the vicious weight cycle continue. Especially depressing was going to the store to buy work clothes and having to buy a size 12 pant after having gotten down to about a size 8/10. Looking in the mirror in the dressing room, I could almost remember every drop of sweat and every moment on the treadmill that I now considered wasted.

One source of hope and inspiration is a book I got called Thin Within. It is a grace oriented approach to weight loss with the basic premise that God designed our bodies to tell us when to eat through hunger and we should trust him to let us know through our bodies when to eat and how much. Most Americans don't even get to hunger and thus can't know how much to eat. When we eat when we are full or content, we are not following God's plan for our bodies. This book states that no food is off-limits, but that we should never eat when we can't actually feel any hunger.

I dedicated myself to trying this approach full-fledged today and it proved socially difficult. I came to work with my yogurt/banana and wheat thins and had planned in advance to only eat one at a time as I became hungry. When my friend/coworker wanted to go out for lunch, I faced a dilemma and decided to go, have a soda and a few chips and then wait to eat the other food as I got hungry. I thought this would be totally awkward and strange, but it worked out well, plus I didn't have that bloated/stuffed feeling that I get from eating three portions for lunch.

The problem with this philosophy is eating dinner with one's family/spouse or eating on a schedule. My host family here eats every night as the biggest meal and it is rude to deny the food. When I get back to AZ it will be somewhat easier because we don't always eat a huge dinner together and when we do, I know my family will understand and be encouraging about it. It would be hard with kids though and I don't want to raise hippie kids with no concept of a schedule! But, as Thin Within states, the "rule" that we must have three square meals a day worked well when we were an agrarian society and most people (men and women) worked doing physical labor all day. Now, many of us sit and stare at a screen for eight hours- a lifestyle that doesn't justify three squares a day.

The basic concept is helpful and true. When I got home from work, all I thought to do was compulsively find the chips and cookies b/c I am always somewhat stressed when I get home. I had to tell myself that eating food like this doesn't make me relax, it makes me fat but I still devoured a cookie and a few chips before I stopped. But, alas, tomorrow is another day.

Frustration leads to blogging: I've never been thin

I was obsessed with the book/movie Little Women growing up.  I wanted to be Jo March, I even wrote a book called "Little People" about my brothers and I and our adventures at my dad's airport.  My mom would show it off and say she just knew I would be a writer someday.  If I asked my eight year old self what she would be writing about when all grown up, I would certainly not have responded with weight issues- how boring, how common, how necessary.  After being inspired by my good friend Katie and entirely frustrated at myself upon finding out that my lunch alone constituted the entire amount of calories I should have in a day, I decided to write a blog.  Incidentally, people have frequently asked me about my LDR (insider code for long-distance relationship) with my military boyfriend while being in law school and I hope to share the few insights and suffering I have gained (and yes, I do mean gained when referring to suffering).  I am not an existentialist, that is, there exists absolute truth meaning that this blog is not random nor is it futile.  It is expression of a human being, who God has created in his image.  More on the 31 later.