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The Fight Bred Out of Them...
Everyone in the family took turns gathering the eggs, from Ken to the youngest child. It was an easy job: Walk outside. Lift the hatch. Pick up eggs. Done. So I never could quite understand why every time we went out of town, my mother would make a big point of announcing that she would watch the dog, but was NOT about to gather our eggs.
Finally, after some investigating, I learned that she had grown up with chickens back in the 40s, and gathering eggs had been more of a war game than a chore. Protective hens sat on their eggs and defended them from intruders, and she was the intruder. They pecked and scratched and made gathering eggs a terrifying experience for many a grown-up, let alone a little girl. I wondered why our chickens didn’t fight to protect their eggs like my mother’s chickens had. Our chickens didn’t even stick around to keep their eggs warm most of the time. And if one did happen to decide it was time to play house, that was easily cured with some ice water on her backside. When my husband asked a local farmer about this, we learned that as the egg farming industry has grown, the instinct to fight and protect their eggs has actually been bred out of chickens to make the egg gathering easier. As a chicken owner, I was grateful, though Mom still wouldn’t be caught dead near our chicken coop. But I had to wonder…how much is this like us? Often, when we are young, we have lots of big dreams…loads of determination…a large store of "fight" in us. But through the years as our dreams are met with obstacles and our determination is faced with disappointment, we seem to have had the fight bred out of us. Our faith has been replaced with fear. But we are not chickens. We can determine our own destiny. It is never too late to keep fighting for our dreams. Each day is a new day, and I have learned that fears can actually be transformed into the faith we need to keep moving toward our goals! I have no desire to put the fight back in the chickens. But I do have a passion for putting the fight back in you. Let’s get back on the nest, look life square in the eyes, and dare the world to just try to take our dreams from us again.
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I’m sure there were lots of laughs that day…but not from Mrs. Ivory. Mrs. Ivory put a smile on her face and laughed along with the several hundred students and teachers, hiding her bloodied leg, until she made it back to the solitary safety of her office…and cried.
I know, because I was Mrs. Ivory. I loved teaching school. With 300 students a day, the energy was always high and I was always surrounded by a sea of good kids. I got to share with them my love of music. It was a blessing. But despite the blessing, the stress of a new job found me eating my way up another 50 pounds on top of the extra dress sizes I’d already accumulated when I went back to school in my 40s. Excruciating pain had developed in my feet and made every step I took feel like I had microscopic pieces of glass in every cell. Doctors were baffled and exercise became nearly impossible. My war with food was in full-force, regardless of the 20 years I had spent dieting, and in this area of my life, I was physically and emotionally miserable. My humiliating crash to that linoleum gymnasium floor was only more evidence to add to the emotional floor I’d been sitting on for years, and once again, I turned to the only thing I knew to numb the pain…food. Interestingly, in time I would discover that my problem was not the food. It was not the fat. It was the fear. Fear had run my life for as long as I can remember: fear of being abandoned, fear of failure, fear of discovering that I will never, ever be good enough. So when I found myself sitting on the linoleum floor of an elementary school gym, surrounded by the deafening laughter of children and a few pitiful looks from teachers, my limiting beliefs about myself had only been strengthened. The turning point for me came when I finally hired a mentor and coach who was able to help me see that fear was the root of my problems, and food only the symptom. As I became willing to do the work of challenging my false beliefs…of examining them, and replacing them with truth…as I began to trust God and His plan for my life, and the lives of those I love, then the healing began. I began to find myself being picked up off of the proverbial linoleum floor, and seeing my life, and the world around me, from a whole new perspective…a perspective where I was not beneath the rest of the world, but where I was eye-to-eye and equal to. I began to find peace. If you have been living on the linoleum floor of life, I invite you to take my hand and learn how to stand…how to brush yourself off…and live life up where you belong…equal with your brothers and sisters and cherished in the eyes of your Father. Learn to use that linoleum floor to help you walk your way towards peace. Thankfully, I don’t crash to floors anymore…physically or emotionally. And in moments when the emotional chair seems to be a bit rocky, I know where to turn for support, comfort and clarity. I can finally say that I am grateful I finally hit “linoleum bottom”. |
AuthorAfter decades of my life being centered around food, I finally started to realize that I did not have a food management problem. In all actuality, I had an emotion management problem. - Becky Ivory Archives (August 2018-Present)
September 2021
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