Come To The Table
I remember the day I woke up and something inside of me shifted. It was the morning of my 26th birthday, and I finally felt like all of the things I have built up and ran away from had settled. Like all of my past and choices had been thrown up into the air and finally came to the ground, and somehow was put together. No, not perfectly, but I finally could feel the earth beneath my feet. If you back track a little bit, you would find my past was full of searching. For our sake, I am going to focus on the part of my past that had me searching for true health and true happiness. Since I was a little girl, I knew that food held importance in my life. Whether that be through restriction to feel control or standing in front of the cabinet devouring a little Debbie cake and riding the sugar rush for all of 5 minutes before beating myself up for it for two days, to really enjoying a home cooked meal with my favorite people around the table. I knew that food carried many different emotions and meaning. When I was 14 years old I started using food as a form of control and this took me down a spiral of disordered eating habits to the point my life was controlled by food, not the other way around. I didn’t want food to have the power over my life, but for some reason I let it define my worth. As a woman, a student, a friend, a daughter.. and this torment was terrible and I knew I didn’t want to live this way forever.
About 7 years ago I started navigating my way to freedom and recovery. It took me taking time to affirm and believe that whole body health was much more than the size of my waist line and to take my eyes off of myself and on to truly living. This was the moment I started researching nutrition. How food worked in my body. Why I needed certain foods and why I needed to be nourished not under fed in order to really live. I researched articles, books and even pursued my masters in nutrition so I could learn the deep details of how specific nutrients work in the body and how certain ones don’t. I began to nourish my mind with the proper fuel in order to take my healing and happiness to the next level. This education was all amazing, and my journey started to transform. But it wasn’t until I took a step outside of my own kitchen and my own studies to find the freedom I was looking for.
My husband and I run a non-profit called Neighborhood Hope and through it we have built in relationship and community with our now family. 4 years ago I was standing in the neighborhood looking around at my neighbors perplexed by the fact that so many of the people I love are walking around malnourished and without fully knowing and believing how remarkable they are. I remember in this moment thinking how in the world am I going to be able to pour into them the way that they deserve, and I remember hearing “Jenny, teach them their worth the way you were taught yours.” Turns out, I didn’t find the freedom I was looking for until I took what I knew and gave it away. This was when I started the health initiative and used how I found my worth, through learning about proper nourishment, and gave that knowledge away to my neighbors so that they could do the same.
Fast forward to now, and sharing a meal with my neighbors looks a lot like this:
It looks like me coming into their homes, stepping outside of myself, and growing in relationship with them. We don’t just cook together. We laugh together, we cry together and we share stories. Then we sit down and we eat together. We all know the value behind sharing food with other individuals, but I believe there is so much power behind showing people that they are WORTH taking the time to cook them a whole, nutritious meal. Something changes when you use your hands to serve someone else, and when you serve them a healthy meal it signals to them that their health is worth the investment.
Loving your neighbor might not look exactly like this. Loving your neighbor might look like sharing a meal with a close friend, a family member or the person you are constantly running into at the gym. Show them that they are worth the investment, and even more their health is worth the investment. When you can take your eyes off of yourself, and put them on someone else, you are able to show them they are worth it. That’s how I discovered how to be truly happy and truly healthy.