Food is a thing for me. I love food “like a chubby kid loves cake” – I’m the chubby kid. {You can laugh, this is a funny.} Food makes me feel better and sends a beautiful stream of memories through my mind. Not just eating food, but seeing it, cooking it, smelling it. All of those senses come rushing back and I am enveloped in the memories of that comfort food.

Sometimes comfort food can be unhealthy, I know. Like when I ate nothing but mashed potatoes for about a week after John Karl died because it was the only thing that made me feel better, or when I binged on pizza in high school because I got cut from the team, or when an alcoholic covers pain with a drink, an addict hides from reality with a drug. It can be dangerous and I’m sure it’s a contributing factor to the struggle with my weight. I’m learning to control it and that sometimes it’s healthy and comforting and ok. When my mom died I didn’t binge on comfort food, but I do find comfort in the items she loved. When someone sips a CocaCola I think of her and smile, when I make her scalloped potatoes with ham (and show my girls how to make it), I can see her peeling potatoes in the kitchen, slushing her feet across the linoleum floor, and bending to stir them in the oven with her tongue hanging out the side. And when I taste them I remember her – and I love them more the next day just like she did. #comfortfood

The smell of bread takes me back to the days of college. The whole campus at the University of Akron smelled of the Wonder Bread factory next door. Pinto beans make me think of the days when I was probably too young to sit around with the adults and listen to the gossip but they let me anyway and I felt loved. A cake baking in the oven reminds me of when my Grandma taught me to bake and let me help decorate teaching me to make buttercream roses and use aaaalllll the colors and fancy tips. Fried chicken is just delicious anytime and reminds me of so many wonderful things. A Papa Johns pizza makes me think of college besties and my mind fills with happy thoughts and memories. ColdStone ice cream – my husband, and our first date. Every time. It feels like our first date every time we visit event hough now we are dragging two elementary girls and a toddler along. A pot of chili reminds me of my dad and how I’d watch him chop all the ingredients and how the first time I made a pot of my own that was as good (maybe better, but don’t tell him) than his I called him and talked so much smack we laughed for days. Food and memories and comfort.

I know deep down this post was supposed to be about finding comfort in the arms of the Lord and we all know that is where real comfort comes from, but I think an all-knowing Father blessed us with some earthly joys and comforts too.
I’m gonna go fry some chicken or bake some bread. That I can’t eat because I’m doing Keto. (Insert eye-roll emoji.)