By Lois Hewitt

It’s the mid 1980s and I’m in my mid 20’s. Newly divorced and ready to Mary-Tyler-Moore the world…make my own way and all that.  It was the time to go…vegetarian!

For years I worried about the rainforest and the whales.  I wrote letters to Congress about environmental issues. I wrote checks to Greenpeace.  And I felt eating meat was destroying the planet, so I stopped.

My idea of a healthy breakfast, at that time, was a Coke in a glass bottle and a couple of Pop-Tarts.  Basically I knew nothing about nutrition. The only vegetable I liked was corn, so I ate bowls of corn, all the time thinking I was now a vegetarian.

Needless to say, this was a very unhealthy trend.  It wasn’t long until I was off the wagon, so to speak, and was in full-blown food addiction for many years to follow.

I did marry a real vegetarian a couple years later but I never really grasped the lifestyle fully. I wanted my fast food and my junk food. I could not seem to stop and my health reflected my lifestyle.

I could barely go three weeks without a sick day.  I looked worse than normal. My emotions were all over the place.  I was angry, quite literally, all the time.  I was miserable for decades.

The years before 2020, were spent mostly dining out.  Not only is that unhealthy for your body, it also makes your wallet ill.  We were spending loads of money we didn’t have to eat food that made us sick.

Then came the lockdown and I was afraid, because of my health, to go anywhere. That’s when I reconnected with Jesus and I started to learn and research how to eat and how to heal. 

This will be my fourth year of being a true vegetarian, well 95% of the time anyway.  I could never have dreamed that I could change.  I never dreamed I could feel better.  Now, I have damaged my body over the years with what I ate and the alcohol but the improvement is astonishing!

Last year I think we dined out less than 10 times the entire year.  That and cooking from scratch has eased the burden of bill paying too. Truly win-win.

So why do I bring this up?  I, and a few other people, thought I was a lost cause. I tried half-baked ideas (like the all corn diet) and always failed…until the day I didn’t.

Am I now perfect?  Oh my friend, so far from that but I’m better and I’m getting even more better (sorry that’s terrible grammar lol).  If a lost cause, like me, can heal and change, so can anyone.

All I can say is do NOT give up on yourself. You want to heal and be better?  It is inside you!  You are SO much stronger than you know.

Failure is part of the process. Lessons learned from failures are the ones that stick like glue. You remember them and they push you to that better place.

The only failures are those who never tried.  Be strong and know you are a warrior. You can be healed!  You can feel well again!

My faith in Jesus has spurred many of these positive changes. Do not be afraid to examine His teachings.  The world we live in discounts faith, but the world isn’t living my life and therefore that opinion has no relevance for me.  He saved me, literally and figuratively, and He longs to do the same for you. All you have to do is open your heart.