Mornings here at the Visconti household tend to look a lot like this:

Husband: check.

Bibles open: check.

Fresh flowers from the Ballard Farmers Market: check.

Paleo breakfast (veggie scramble + pan-fried sweet potatoes) : check.

Coffee: duh.

Nick & I are almost two months in on our new Paleo diet and lifestyle change. For those of you who aren't familiar with the biggest diet phenomenon since vegetarianism, Paleo is based on the diet of our hunter-gatherer Paleolithic ancestors who thrived on wholesome and unprocessed foods found naturally in nature. If you're thinking plant roots and honey you're not far off. Based off the book The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, Ph.D, Paleo (also known as the Caveman Diet) allows meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and exempts bread products, refined sugars, dairy and anything processed. The idea behind it all? Staying active, thin, energized and healthy while lessening the chances of developing diseases like diabetes later in life. That's the reader's digest version, but if you want to learn more check out the official Paleo website here.

Now if you know me, you know I have a love affair with two things: sugar and pizza. I've had neither in two months (probably for the first time in my entire life #firstworldproblems) and you know what? I'm not craving or missing them. At all. I have spent the past two months retraining my palette to appreciate natural and healthy foods and have begun to crave things like kale, sweet potatoes, lamb and shallots. Being limited to such a strict diet forces creativity in the kitchen, which I've been loving as well. Nick and I really enjoy cooking together, and since eating Paleo often requires longer food preparation, we spend that time together. It's like a date night in the kitchen before the date night even begins.

So why the health obsession? When I moved to Seattle last summer and started dating Nick, a professional snowboarder and one of the healthiest people I've ever met, I was at the most lethargic point I'd ever been in. My life revolved around social events: going out eating and drinking with friends. I rarely exercised and constantly felt tired. My metabolism had started to majorly slow down and my clothes began to fit differently. Over this past year I have started to adopt Nick's active lifestyle and have absolutely fallen in love with it. Slowly but surely I began to cut out all the things I previously ate without any concern like sugary cereals and cookies. When we learned about Paleo shortly before getting married, I had an A ha! moment and knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this was something I had to do. Not just as a trend, but forever implement an entirely new level of awareness as to what I put into my body and how I stretched my body physically. That's why we like to refer to Paleo as a lifestyle, not a diet.

More than anything, I just want to be healthy.

In my struggles coping with retinitis pigmentosa, one of the hardest things I've had to come to grips with has been my lack of control. It's an incurable untreatable disease that is robbing me of my vision. I can't do anything about it but sit back and pray.

I can handle the emotional and physical challenges that are presented through being visually impaired, just give me something to work towards God... give me hope!

I feel like He is giving me that hope through teaching me how to treat my body better by exercising regularly and feeding myself delicious nutrient-rich foods. There is no proof that eating natural and organic will sustain my vision of course, but it certainly can't hurt. And in my heart of hearts, I think it's going to help. It already has.

xo LLV

This post is the second in a two-part series chronicling my heart's journey before and after my wedding day. If you missed Part 1 be sure to check it out here.

When I got married, I cognitively knew I would never be a perfect wife - that only Jesus is perfect - but I certainly was not prepared for the overwhelming onslaught of sin that was immediately and unforgivingly dug up only weeks into my marriage. Previously neatly hidden in my heart of hearts, marrying Nick turned over every embedded stone to their ugly undersides revealing a host of propensities: envy, selfishness, a controlling nature, and have I mentioned selfishness? As I said in this recent post for my good friend Andy's blog (which I HIGHLY recommend checking out by the way), marriage exposes you to yourself, and in my case, uncovers selfishness more than anything else.

I think I'm not alone in this. The church puts such an emphasis on pre-marital counseling; what about post-marital? Trust me you guys, I thought I had it nailed. I had spent years learning how to let go of past bitterness and pain, and while I knew my heart was not 100% healed, I figured I had learned how to rely on Christ for the most part. I mean, I'm an artist going blind and I wrote a very personal and exposing book about it. Jesus is always the answer right? I'm involved in a progressive Jesus-centric church, have all the right books on my bookshelf, am in prayer and Scripture daily, and Nick and I surround ourselves with a positive-influencing community. But none of that really even came close to preparing me for what I was in store for.

Because it's not about that. It's not about how many Christian things you can check off or the "right" way to go about preparing your heart for a commitment like marriage. It's about learning how to trust and love Jesus no matter what the circumstance. I'm not sure anything can truly prepare you for what marriage really entails except relying on Jesus every single day in every single moment. When this happens, something remarkable transpires: the Holy Spirit begins to work in you. To change your heart. You will begin to do things for other people without seeking praise or attention or credit or anything in return. That's what love does.

We were born into a selfish nature, and unraveling it doesn't come easy or naturally. Particularly for someone like me who has had to rely on herself for so much and have a deeply hardened heart against trusting a man. While Nick and I are so very similar in almost every way (we share a deep love for Jesus, the outdoors, and a good bourbon) we come from very different pasts. He had the perfect family, perfect friends, perfect career, perfect life... truly. I don't think I've ever met someone that has so little baggage. It's a really beautiful thing. I, on the other hand, entered marriage a hot mess.

I can't help but think of all the times in years past I agreed to be someone's girlfriend. I felt happy to be desired. Maybe this time he will be the one! Dating is certainly not wrong or evil in and of itself, but when it comes from a place of pain and becomes habitual, it can be devastating. At least it was for me.

I want to scream at my past self. To learn contentment. To find joy in singleness. To work on making yourself The One for somebody instead of seeking so hard to find The One. That every person who has ever told you that marriage will complete you is speaking a lie spewed straight from Satan specifically crafted for vulnerable girls. Jesus is the only person or thing that will ever truly complete you, and until you make Him your entire world you will continually be let down by the other things you give your heart.

I know this isn't a new message, that you've heard this before. I know that in my single days I probably read countless blog posts and books just like this one. It didn't do much good. My selfish nature won out, Jesus saves, my redemption story is a beautiful one and I am grateful for grace every single day. But still, I feel compelled to share. If you are single, congratulations. View your singleness as a gift, because it really and truly is. Don't think of this world as your entire reality; remember, this life is but the blink of an eye compared to spending eternity with King Jesus. If marriage is on the table for you, that's awesome; I love being married and believe marriage is a beautiful thing and reflects Christ's love for us, I'm just saying it won't make you whole. Check your heart and check your motivations.

By the grace of God, I'm learning. Learning how to love Nick more than my self-inflicted insecurities brought on by years of pain and bad decisions. In a way, marriage feels like counseling: everything gets brought into the open. Nick has the great joy of loving me through all of this, and I have the great joy of allowing him to lead my heart through murky waters back into the arms of my Savior.

If you want to read further on this topic, check out this Relevant article I recently stumbled upon written from the perspective of a woman who's been married much longer than I.

Let's keep this conversation going. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any thoughts, questions or just want to share your story. I would love to hear from you at lauralawsonvisconti@gmail.com. We're in this together.

xo LLV