Most of us have probably stopped at some point in our lives and thought about the things we’d do if we found out we only had a short time to live. In fact, a hit song by country star Tim McGraw about that very subject — “Live Like You Were Dying” – got a lot of airplay and attention a couple of years ago.
Let’s dial down the serious meter a few notches now and think about this: What would you eat if you knew you only had a week to eat whatever you wanted to?
That’s where I found myself recently, as I was facing another bizarre surgery and was told that my recovery would probably require weeks of progressing from a liquid diet to soft foods to itsy-bitsy portions of normal fare. The surgery, for you folks who enjoy medical stuff, was called fundoplication and it’s a procedure that is done when one’s esophagus/stomach plumbing has gone bad.
The silver lining in this cloud was that I would likely lose some weight. The downside was that I probably wouldn’t be able to eat like a normal person for quite awhile, which definitely had the potential to drain my joy tank.
About a week before my surgery, I realized that for the first time in my life, I knew for SURE that I was destined to lose weight. Suddenly, I felt complete freedom to eat anything I wanted to for the next six days.
That’s when Tim McGraw’s song popped into my head and I said to my husband, “Hey – you know that Tim McGraw song? That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna ‘eat like I was dying’ for the next six days!” He laughed and looked at me like he always does when I have a really bad idea.
Seemed like a glorious plan to me. Eat, drink and be merry … for tomorrow I have my stomach wrapped around my esophagus (see why it’s hard to find the fun in fundoplication?).
With apologies to Mr. McGraw and his songwriters, here’s my twist on his song…
I went pie diving — no calorie depriving
I went 15.3 times through the Dairy Queen drive-thru
I downed some chocolate shakes and all the cookies I could bake
And I snarfed up all foods I’d been denying
And I said, “Someday I hope you get the chance
To eat like you were dying.” Okay, so it’s a bit over the top … and not exactly true. But for six days, I did give myself permission I’dnever felt before. Wanna know what’s weird? After a couple of days, I really didn’t want junk food so much. Its appealbegan to fade and I actually craved what my body needed, not donut holes and moosetracks ice cream. Ah yes, there’s a spiritual lesson here. Some folks think Christianity is just a dusty collection of do’s and don’ts. They shrug it off as repressive,stifling, and totally not fun. How sad, and how wrong. Biblical Christianity isn’t a whole bunch of rules; it’s a whole bunch of grace. And God’s grace isn’tlicense to sin; it’s the honest desire and amazing power not to. Grace slowly changes us so that one day, whenwe are given the freedom to do whatever we want to – to “live like we were dying” — we discover we reallydon’t want junk. We want the good stuff…and the good stuff is Jesus.