What I Won't Take For Granted

Thankfulness is a spiritual discipline, and it's one I have a hard time cultivating in times like these when my sleep issues are at their worst. What's more, I've found that the term "thankful" has become too trite to be useful for me. Particularly in Christian circles, it seems (and for everyone once the month of November hits), we talk so much about being thankful that it almost becomes nothing more that a rote recitation.

I am reminding myself lately that there are things in my life that I must not take for granted -- things I have right now that I have not always had and will not always have, and I MUST make a point of appreciating their presence while I have them. Here are a few:

Hot Showers: Hubby and I are still entertaining the idea of living out of the country during retirement. And we learned during our week in Panama a few years ago that very few homes there have hot water for showers. Let me tell you, people: cold showers are such a miserable experience for me that I might rather just let myself stink. The vast majority of the time I take a shower anymore, I let myself feel the wonderful hot water on my body and take a minute to stand there and just flat out enjoy the feeling. A time may come when I will long for this, so I don't want to take it for granted now.

Breathing: When I get a cold, nine times out of ten, it settles in my chest, and I end up coughing for weeks -- many miserable, exhausting weeks. I avoid sick people like the plague because a cold just isn't a minor deal for me. I have caught myself many times, while lying in bed in the morning getting ready to get up, taking big, deep breaths and just loving the feeling of air flowing through my lungs smoothly. I know that at any time, I could be exposed to germs that will temporarily disrupt that. I make a point now to appreciate the times when I can breathe.

Being Able to See Enough to Read: My mother had macular degeneration. My eye doctor reminded me the other day that I should probably take some eye health supplements to head off the possibility of having similar problems. Macular degeneration manifests itself in blurry vision right at the center of where you focus, which means it makes it difficult and eventually impossible to read. I am a serious reader. Reading is integral to my life right now: I read books, magazines, student papers, scripts, online articles, emails, my own plethora of to-do lists . . . not being able to read would alter my life profoundly. I like my life. I want to be able to read. And since there's a chance I won't be able to someday, I treasure every day that I can now.

Being Able to Think Straight; My father had Alzeimer's disease. Since there seems to be a genetic component to that, I have always known that there was a possibility of my developing the disease as well. The older I get and the more my father's siblings become similarly debilitated, the more I think about that possible future for me. Someday, I may not be able to remember things or understand what people say to me or keep my own thoughts straight. I want to appreciate the ability to think while I have it.

My Daughters' Presence: This is a biggie. I have a twenty-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. The oldest could very well have chosen to go away to college but didn't. The youngest may very well make that choice in a couple years. I have never enjoyed my daughters more than I enjoy them right now: they are intelligent, caring, thoughtful, FUN young ladies, and wonder of wonders, they seem to enjoy spending time with hubby and me. I know I am blessed. I know someday they will have families and careers, and Mom and Dad will move down the priority list . . . which will be as it should be. So I welcome every moment I can have with them now and treasure up these times in my heart.


Someday, these blessings may be gone. And because I serve a loving and gracious God, I know when that time comes, there will be other blessings to appreciate. But I refuse to get to that day and realize I didn't appreciate what I had while I had it. No matter how crazy my days get . . . no matter how grouchy I am from sleep deprivation . . . no matter how discouraged I am about the direction of our nation . . . I must never, ever take God's gifts for granted.

Je Suis Elijah Under the Broom Bush

My pastor preached on 1 Kings 19 last Sunday -- the story of Elijah running away to Horeb after his big victory over the prophets of Baal (in chapter 18). This story has been a meaningful one in my life: God used it in the past to teach me about my depression.

You see, Elijah is depressed here. "He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die." That's depression. And one of the first things to note here is that it came after a mountaintop moment . . . which is not uncommon. We should brace ourselves for a possible crash after a spiritual high, especially if we know we are naturally susceptible to such crashes.

But what's the first thing God does for him? He let him sleep. He let him sleep a lot. He slept, then he woke up to eat, then he slept again. I've learned that for me, a lot of my depression is connected to sleep deprivation. I'm TIRED. I need rest. Just getting a good nap usually helps my outlook significantly.

And what's the other thing God does for him right away? "All at once, an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.'" He gave him food. The man had been running for his life and presumably had not stopped to get any nourishment. In fact, the angel fed him twice: sleep, eat, sleep, eat. Taking care of my body -- so important for my emotional health. Depression is a physiological thing to a great degree; it is profoundly influenced by maladies in my physical self. A change in diet often improves my emotional state.

Now, note what Elijah says in verse 10 when God asks him what's up:

"I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."

Poor Elijah. It's all about him, isn't it? Now, in a sense this response is understandable in his situation, but if you keep reading, you notice that he makes this exact same speech again in verse 14. The man seems to be rehearsing this lament; he's got it down, memorized to the word, ready to spout to anyone who asks. Meditating on your laments will not pull you out of the doldrums.

So God does one of those awesome things that He did with Old Testament prophets that we often wish He would do with us: He came to Elijah, directly.

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper."

My pastor said on Sunday that the phrase "gentle whisper" is sometimes translated "the sound of silence." Often, I realize that my depression is exacerbated because I am paying so much attention to the storm and noise. God speaks in the sound of silence. I need to ignore the noise and listen to God in the silence.

So, what does God do next for Elijah? He gives him a job -- three people to go anoint in His name to take over important roles. In other words, stop moping around and do something productive, something for someone else.

Then He filled Elijah in on something he actually probably knew but just conveniently ignored in his self-pitying rambling: "Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel -- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him."

Elijah wasn't "the only one left" like he claimed. There were seven thousand more Israelites staying faithful to God . . . Elijah just wasn't paying attention to them. He went off into the wilderness, even leaving his servant behind, and pouted alone. Isolation increases depression. We were made to need each other.

One of the things about the Bible is that it doesn't idealize its heroes. Peter denies Christ, Moses kills a man, David commits adultery . . . we see the spiritual giants in their worst moments as well as their best. God needed us to see, first of all, that these were real people with real problems and failures, just like us. And He also needed us to see models for how to deal with these problems. When I'm under my broom bush, praying to die (which, praise Jesus, happens far less these days), I need to stop obsessing over my misery . . . get a good night's sleep . . . cut the sugar from my diet for a while . . . make a plan to get something productive done . . . and get out of the house and with some friends.

Don't tell me the stories of the Bible are not practical for our times.

Conquering My Fear. Kind Of.

Root canal.

Are you quaking in your boots? The term epitomizes a horrible experience – how many times have you heard someone say, "I'd rather have a root canal than blah blah blah . . . "

I've had some pretty awful dental experiences in my past. I have terrible memories of my mother holding me down in the dentist's office while they tried to pull three stubborn teeth that weren't coming out on their own. It took hours. They would get one out and we'd all take a break before starting in on the other. And the main problem was that nobody believed me when I said I could still feel all this!!

I finally got a dentist in Hutchinson who told me that when I get nervous, my adrenaline neutralizes the novocaine.  He had to give me two or three times as much as his other patients to keep me numb. Finally! Someone who believed me! He recommended, when I moved, that I never again settle for any dentist who wouldn't give me enough meds to really numb me.

And I haven't. Dr. Ringler empowered me. When my first dentist in New Jersey sat back disgusted at my continual yelps while he tried to drill in my mouth and said, "Well, just what exactly do you want me to DO for you?" I left and found another dentist. (I wish I'd said to him, "I want you to stop patronizing me like I'm a child who doesn't know the difference between pain and pressure!!" But I didn't have quite that much courage yet. Walking out was a big enough deal at the time.)

So, surely it's understandable how scared I was going to see an endodontist last week for a scan to see what needed to be done with tooth #21. And surely you can sympathize when he said "root canal and surgical procedure" . . . and that he could do the procedure right then . . . and I started to freak out internally.

Because I knew I should do it. It had to be done or I'd lose the tooth (which is an option I considered, believe me, but they said that would be even more painful and expensive). I was on spring break, so I had no reason not to just get it done immediately. If I waited, I would just work myself up into more of a panic about it. Better to get it over with.

But I started to cry when I told the endodontist to go ahead. And I was embarrassed at my tears. Forty-seven-year-old woman! The tears just came – I couldn't stop them. I couldn't believe how terrified I was of the potential pain.

The procedure ended up taking forty-five minutes longer than they said because an instrument broke off inside my mouth and they had trouble getting it out (good grief – that WOULD happen to me). Fortunately, I was on nitrous oxide and completely oblivious. Gotta love nitrous oxide.

The good news? I didn't even hurt the next morning. Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

The bad news? A week later, I'm hurting and my gums are swollen. Gotta call the endodontist about that. Ugh.

The worst news? My bill. Good grief.

On Coughing and Praising

Although I feel like I've been blessed with generally pretty good health, I have two chronic problems that have plagued me for years. One is the sleep stuff that I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about. The second is that when I get a cold, the cough settles in my lungs and makes my life hell for weeks. Doctors have tried inhalers, all sorts of drugs . . . nothing helps. It's awful.

And after a week of a normal-person-common-cold, I have my cough again. I'm miserable. But a comment from someone in my BSF group is giving me a different perspective on it.

We studied the fourth chapter of Revelation last week. This is the first part of the vision John has, and it is all about the throne of God. The majesty of it. His awesomeness and splendor. There are living creatures and twenty-four elders (the details of all them I don't get, but it doesn't matter) surrounding His throne and worshiping Him day and night.

[Sidenote: Some people have said that heaven sounds boring, doing nothing but worshiping all day. But you know, I'm not convinced that we have nothing to do there but to stare at God and be awed by Him. I think we'll have plenty to do – scripture talks about us ruling with him (what that means exactly, I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty active). I suspect that this vision of John's is a piece of figurative imagery for us: "rejoicing in the Lord always", "praying continually" . . . that constant attitude of worship that we are called to be in even here on earth. In heaven, we won't be hindered anymore by our sinful, fleshly natures and that worship will come naturally. And won't that be wonderful?]

But back to my friend's comments. She told us how it hit her that, when the attacks happened in Paris, nobody in heaven suddenly stopped and looked and said, "Whoa, God . . . what's going on here?" No, they continued to worship – day and night, just like always. Because what happened in Paris was not a shock to anyone up there like it was to us. They know what we don't know. They see the big picture. They see what's happening on a macro-level and on a micro-level with all this chaos and tragedy and they know that it is all under God's control . . . it is all working toward His grand and glorious conclusion . . .  and they know that even in the midst of this, He is still worthy of all praise.

Now, it's not like I didn't know that in my head. But somehow, it penetrated my heart this week. And I needed that.

If God is working through even the tragedy and sin of terrorism to accomplish His will, what up with my whining about a cough? Like God isn't bigger than that? Like my irritated lung tissue is suddenly evidence of His negligence and impotence and lack of compassion? Like He clearly doesn't know what He's doing if He isn't going to stop this cough?

So, I'm coughing and praising. As best I can. Lord, I believe . . . help my unbelief.

Our Current Neurosis

A theme of distress has arisen among the females of our household: the theme of Too Much To Do in Too Few Hours of the Day.

It manifests itself differently in each of us, owing to our individual personalities, weaknesses, and neurotic tendencies. But we all are feeling that stress. I need to do this. I have to do this. I should do this. I want to do this. I feel guilty because I'm not doing this. I'm unhealthy because I'm not doing this. And this. And this.

And can I be honest? I don't necessarily look at what we're trying to accomplish in a week and think it's too much. Now, maybe my perception has just become warped -- that's certainly within the realm of possibility. But I don't feel like we're expecting a lot of ourselves.

But maybe that's because when I think of everything I have to do, I think of the big stuff. School, homeschool, curriculum writing, plays and such. That all looks busy, but doable.

Then I add in the once-in-a-while events that come up: the church luncheon yesterday (I'm just helping set up and clean up -- no big deal). Halloween (buy candy, carve a pumpkin -- not so bad). Make my Christmas list (just sitting down and thinking for a while, right?). Again, each of these are stressors, but they are just momentary interruptions.

Here's what I forget: life.

The everyday life stuff. In the midst of the big things are the little things: figuring out what to cook for meals, picking up the house, doing laundry, packing lunches, walking the dog, cleaning out the fountain, backing up my laptop, vacuuming, emptying the dishwasher, making sure we have toilet paper in the house, coloring my hair, exercising, mopping mud stains, Bible study, pulling weeds, paying bills, buying groceries, refilling prescriptions and picking them up, cleaning toilets, dumping bad food from the fridge, watering flowers, dusting, taking care of the dog's nails and teeth, finding missing items, replacing the batteries in the smoke detectors, cleaning out the microwave, showering . . .

The little things are what get missed. And the little things add up fast. And the little things undone make me feel like I'm a crazy woman and failing at life.

How does this happen? Women in my situation from the 1920s would look on my life, with all the modern technological advantages, and think I'm living on Easy Street. Nope. More stressed than ever. And I don't think I know anyone who isn't stressed in a similar way. Do you? No, you don't either.

As I said, the three of us ladies in our home all deal with this in different ways. And none of our methods are wholly successful or healthy. In fact, some of them have become decidedly unhealthy and need to be dealt with.

Which is now another item on the to-do list: fix neurosis.

Sigh. Well, despite it all, I still feel like this is the most enjoyable season of my life so far. I enjoy my family tremendously, and they all enjoy each other. I love the work I'm doing. I love the house I'm living in.

Life is good . . . I just have to remind myself of that when I see more muddy footprints at the front door. Life is good.

On Saying No to God

It's a sad thing when you are convicted by your own words.

In Sunday School last weekend, I made a brilliant and insightful remark that everyone ooh'd and aah'd over. (At least, that's my recollection of the moment.) We were discussing how we distinguish the Holy Spirit's communication with us from our own self-promoting desires speaking to us. And I mentioned a lesson I learned many years ago: if I really want to hear clearly from God on a matter, I have to put myself in a neutral stance on that matter. I have to get myself to the point that I am genuinely willing to obey God in whatever He says -- even if it is the complete opposite of what I want, even if it makes my life difficult or possibly downright miserable, even if I lose friends and loved ones as a result -- whatever you want, Lord, that's what I want. I am in complete submission. Once I'm there, I usually find God's will is quite clear, because my own baggage has been removed from the picture.

My words came back to haunt me as I was eating my fourth or fifth hot-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookie later that evening because the thought suddenly came to my mind:

I am NOT neutral on sweets.

I would NOT be willing to give up sweets if God asked it of me.

Never again bake another chocolate chip cookie? No. Never again enjoy a cup of custard or froyo out with the family? Wrong. No more candy corn at Halloween, caramel popcorn at Christmas, jelly beans at Easter, caramel apples in the fall? Watch everyone else at the table enjoy the gooey chocolate cake without ever again indulging myself? That is not going to happen.

Oh, I talk a good game about it, believe me, especially to God's face. And God and I have had this very conversation on a regular basis for the last few years because I have often wondered if . . . no, suspected that . . . no, feared that God was asking that very thing of me. Give them up. All of them. They affect your mind and body and stand in the way of our relationship. You use them to meet needs in your life that I'm supposed to meet. They are an idol. They have to go.

But, you know, that just doesn't sound like God, does it? "Give it up forever"? Give it up for Lent, maybe. Or for the week. Maybe just turn down this dessert. Or at least the second serving of it. But God wouldn't really want me to give them all up -- at least I've been able to successfully convince myself of this questionable fact.

However, with that half-eaten cookie in my hand, and with the full knowledge that I expected to eat more before the evening was over (and lick out the cookie dough bowl before it went into the dishwasher), I was suddenly driven (by the Holy Spirit, I'm sure) to face the facts.

It doesn't matter whether God would ask me to give them up. It matters that, deep down in my heart, I know I wouldn't willingly obey even if He did.

Ouch.

Now, some of you may find that ridiculous that I am so attached to my sweets, especially those of you who have already been forced to give them up for health reasons and your life continues quite swimmingly. But I challenge you to examine your own life: what are YOU not neutral on? What's the thing that -- if God said, "That has to go." -- you would flat-out refuse? Because I'm convinced we all have something. Some of us have less things . . . some of us have less obvious things . . . for some of us, our things are things that don't seem necessary to give up so the question has never arisen.

But we all, I'm guessing, have something that we refuse to submit to God's authority over.

So, I'll pray for you if you pray for me. Jesus isn't Lord over me if he isn't also Lord over my chocolate chip cookies. And establishing him as Lord is the first step to everything that matters.

Lazy Mom

I have a confession to make. For the entire two years that my daughter went to Summit Christian Academy here in SA, the lunch I packed for her to take every school day was . . . a Lunchable.

Yep, those awful little packaged lunch things. I had mom friends at that school who were health food fanatics, so I can't imagine what their kids' lunches looked like. I never dared to ask. My shame would reach its zenith.

This contemptible habit of mine started because our first few weeks of her school, we were transitioning from an apartment to our house and my life was crazy and a Lunchable was mucho easy. But she liked them, and I never stopped. Every lunch.

I understand that this was lazy and irresponsible on my part. For one thing, Lunchables are expensive for what you get. And I'm generally a pretty thrifty person, so this was out of character for me.

I also realize that this was by no means a healthy lunch for her. Not only was she missing anything even resembling a fruit or vegetable, but it was processed foods all the way. I've come to believe that processed foods are doing great damage to the overall health of our nation. All the chemicals . . . all the carbs and starches and sugars . . . all the lack of any real nutritional value . . . I suspect it is a significant culprit not only in the obesity rate, but very likely in the increased incidences of ADHD, autism, allergies, learning disabilities, etc. etc.

And yet, I fed my kid a Lunchable three times a week.

Here's the reality: I like food. I don't necessarily mind cooking once in a while. But I HATE having to figure out what to prepare for twenty-one meals a week for my family. I would be tempted to find one of those ready-made menus with every meal set for your family for a month except that most of those are made for foodies -- they have "interesting" recipes with bizarre ingredients that my family won't eat and/or that I can't find in the grocery store. We don't really care that much if we eat the same dishes over and over -- we prefer that to "interesting" dishes that we don't like.

But even if we're eating simple foods that we all like, I don't always want to take the time to make it from scratch. Yes, I fill my freezer with frozen foods that my girls can heat up on their own for lunches or dinners when I'm not home (and that I heat up often, too). No, I did not teach them to cook healthy foods for themselves. I'm a lazy, irresponsible mom. I want easy meals.

When I come home tired after a long day, I want an easy meal.

When I've been working on the computer all morning and I'm forcing myself to get off for a little bit and eat, I want an easy meal.

When I'm brain dead and staring at the contents of my refrigerator and kitchen cabinets trying to figure out what sounds good to eat, I want an easy meal.

I wish I were one of those people who is energized and rejuvenated by some time in the kitchen chopping vegetables and all. However, I have noticed that most of my friends who find that kind of personal fulfillment in feeding others also struggle with their own weight issues. Their joy in food preparation leads to over-eating and does not lead them to the healthier choices. That would be me.

Sigh. I keep thinking that I've got to get a system in place that helps me get healthy food out there for me and my family to eat. I have no doubt that our mood and energy problems would improve dramatically. And I'm all about systems and routines. I need a system.

Or a personal chef. If anyone is volunteering, send me your résumé. Or don't even bother with that formality -- just show up with good food.

Not Really Anxious . . .

Uneasiness. Not really anxiety or fear . . . maybe stressed, but not on the extreme end. I just find myself with a general sense of uneasiness all of a sudden. Sometimes after I think of something I need to do, but sometimes it's just out of nowhere.

It's reminding me of my history with depression. Back when I was working on my master's in counseling, I read some studies that gave me insight into my own depression problems. You see, I would, sometimes out of nowhere, have this kind of blue feeling. (Our emotions, you know, are actually feelings, something we physically feel in our bodies.) I would feel down, my body would be dragging, my thinking would be slowed, and I would say to myself, "I'm depressed. Why am I depressed?"

Well, friends, if you start looking for reasons in your life to be depressed, you're bound to find one. I'm so unfulfilled in my work! My husband just doesn't understand me! You'll find something. So I would find something (or several somethings) and then obsess about that something until I had cranked that little blue feeling up into a full-blown depressive episode.

But I started to realize that those little blue feelings often had nothing to do with sadness really. There were all sorts of other reasons why my body would create those physical sensations that my brain interpreted as depression. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sugar/carb addict and have been for years; coming down off of a sugar high gives you that blue feeling. I've had sleep problems for most of my life, as many of you know; sleep deprivation most certainly slows your body down and gives you that blue feeling. I'm kind of right on the line between an introvert and an extravert, so too much time surrounded by people OR too much time isolated by myself can both lead to that blue feeling.

In other words, I had to train myself to think correctly about my body and my situation; just because my body feels this way doesn't mean I have a reason to be sad. I usually don't. And even when I do have a reason, that doesn't mean I have to be sad. I can choose to think differently.

I've been trying to apply this to my general uneasiness of late. Yes, I have a lot going on in my life. Yes, my workload has increased and I haven't yet been able to figure out how I'm going to manage that well for the long-term.

But I always do figure those things out. I have a good support system in my family, and nothing is out of control here. I have no reason to feel anxious. This is just my body being wonky.

Now, why my body is being wonky is a good question. My youngest has been having what looks to me like similar symptoms for a couple months. And my oldest has a long history of anxiety. I suppose there's possibly a chemical reason for this, too. (I've concluded that, for whatever reason, my depression setting is a bit lower than most; I start further down than the average Josie, so it's a shorter fall for me to get to the bottom of the pit. Maybe something similar is involved with the anxiety.)

So, this is the new frontier to explore in my family: what's causing this jitteriness inside? Because while I can manage this, my girls seem to struggle more than I, which breaks my heart. And we may as well do the Barney Fife thing and nip it -- nip it in the bud.

The One About Getting Fit

I hurt.

The girls and I joined Bella Women's Fitness a couple weeks ago, and now I hurt.

My husband tells me that's a good thing. I'm skeptical of that. A little bit of soreness, maybe. But to hurt every time I move, as I do this morning, is probably a bit out of line.

The Saturday morning Zumba class didn't do that. That was a healthy mix of dancing heartily to a variety of music and lifting some light weights. It got my heart rate up pretty good (although I'll admit, I didn't push myself too hard on my first class), but it didn't make me hurt.

The Monday afternoon Zumba class didn't do it either. I did have some sore muscles after this one. This particular instructor was really into the Latin body moves, swirling our torsos around in interesting contortions. I looked ridiculous doing it, but so did everyone else in the room other than the instructor. And I'll admit, it worked my "core" very effectively.

The Wednesday morning Zumba class wasn't the culprit either, although this one came closer. This Zumba instructor had a squat fetish that morning and we squat-squat-squatted our way through a bunch of songs for most of the hour. Heavens. The stairs made me wince a bit the next morning, but I was still moving.

No, it was James. James at the Monday afternoon circuit training class. Curse you, James.

I told him coming in that this was our first circuit training class here. Great! he said. You'll need a yoga mat. And some hand weights: one ten-pound and a couple smaller ones -- try five-pounds.

Ten-pound . . . five-pound . . . oh, how you lied to me, James.

I quickly realized these weights were too much for me when we were using them in two or three sets of twenty and twenty-five repetitions. Luckily, I noticed a couple other women in the room with smaller weights, so I felt no guilt when I used my five-pounder for the ten-pounder exercises -- and when I snuck over and picked up some one-pounders for the girl and me. Yes, one-pounders. Don't judge. We were there, and we kept up, and we finished the class, so we're a step ahead of many of you, yes?

And yesterday, I hurt. This morning, I hurt even more.

I hurt when I sit down. I hurt when I stand up. (Remember that using the toilet requires those moves.) I hurt when I ascend stairs or descend stairs. I hurt when I lift things. I hurt when I twist or bend my torso or arms in any direction. Thank God we didn't work out our finger muscles because I have computer work to do all day, and I'd be up the proverbial creek if my fingers hurt like my triceps do.

And it's Wednesday again, time for Wednesday morning Zumba with the squat queen. I'm hoping she has a different obsession today. Like stretching. Oh, stretching! Lord, bless me with an hour of stretching this morning.

Giving My Doctors a Break

I have such mixed feelings about the medical community these days. On the one hand, I have genuine appreciation for people who dedicate their lives to caring for and healing the sick. I have friends who are nurses and I know how hard they work and how exhausting it is, physically and emotionally. I'm sure it's the same for doctors. I couldn't do what they do, and we desperately need people to do these things.

On the other hand, I find my dealings with the medical community to be consistently frustrating. Most of it is the "bureaucracy" around them, I suspect. It's probably a lot like public education. The required paperwork and red tape and hoops to jump through make it all an ineffective circus; if teachers could just TEACH, for crying out loud,

I have friends with medical problems that nobody seems to be able to find an answer for. And I've experienced some of this, too. In the five years we lived in Sioux City, I saw seven different physicians trying to find answers to my sleep problems and never did. My husband has some kind of sinus and drainage issue that doctors have been working on for years to no avail. My regular bronchitis I get with any cold -- no doctor can ever give me anything that makes it better.

It drives me insane sometimes that we can spend all the time and money and hassle and never get answers. First, we go through the necessary processes to get a diagnosis -- which may involve lab work (which takes time to get results from) and imaging (which you have to make an appointment for elsewhere for AND takes time to get results from), and we usually have to harass the doctor's office to find out if they've received those results and then make another appointment (which we pay for) to go over the results.

Then the doctor makes his hypothesis about what is actually wrong (because that's all a diagnosis is, really -- an educated guess based on the evidence in front of them) and suggests a possible treatment. Said treatment will involve prescriptions (to be picked up at another place, and often waited for) and behavioral modifications (snort this stuff up your nose three times a day) and will, of course, require time to see if it is working or not. Once we've established that it is NOT working (which seems to be the norm for us), then we have to make another appointment (which we again pay for) to have them come up with another possible treatment and go through the whole process again.

In the end, when nothing is working after several weeks of continued misery, we end up revisiting that hypothesis and judging whether it was incorrect in the first place . . . and coming up with a second hypothesis requiring a whole different set of treatment options . . . yada yada yada. SIGH.

I have to really fight the frustration I feel at my doctors. I like my doctors, usually. I particularly like my current primary doctor. But it is really tempting sometimes to feel like they either have no idea what they're doing, or aren't trying very hard, or perhaps are even stringing us along to keep us coming back to make more money off of our misery. (I don't think that often, but . . . )

However, as I said, I try to fight those frustrating feelings. The truth is, fixing a human body is not like fixing a machine. Machines are simple. If you know how a machine works, you can repair what is not working pretty easily. (And yet, how often have you found mechanic types who get stumped at what's wrong with, say, your car? Or your phone?)

The human body is NOT a simple machine, as much as we'd like to think so. Medical science learns more and more about how our bodies work every year, but there is still SO much they don't understand. But even if they knew everything about our physical workings, we are not just physical beings. We are spiritual beings. And our spiritual lives -- our thoughts, our beliefs, our emotions, our wills -- profoundly affect how our physical bodies function. I don't think medical science will ever be able to get a complete grasp on that, because science, by definition, is limited to what is observable.

So, it really shouldn't surprise me so much that doctors can't figure out why I don't sleep well. And I should stop expecting the answer to be as easy to find as a broken timing belt in a car engine. Even my car stumps my mechanic sometimes -- my body is an even greater mystery.

On Prescriptions and Chocolate and Quinoa

Part of the problem with being sick . . . (and for those who have been following this, yes, I'm feeling a little better, but I'm still coughing more than I should. The allergist said I tested negative for all local allergens. He also said that he and many people he's been seeing in his office for the last month have had this kind of bronchitis that lasts for weeks and won't go away. The fact that this is how I always react to a cold he, like me, suspects might be related to my sleep issues -- which I'm taking up with my doctor in my general check-up sometime soon. Nevertheless . . . )

Part of the problem with being sick is that I end up spending a lot of time at Target waiting for prescriptions to be filled for me. (I still haven't figured out why it takes them quite so long to fill a prescription. When I give them the little piece of paper, they immediately go to their drug stash and find the big bottle of that substance to make sure they have it, and it's in their hand when they tell me, "It'll be about twenty minutes, okay?" How can it take them twenty minutes to move pills from one bottle to another, print a label, and tape it on? Whatever . . . )

The reason it's a problem is because my wandering the aisles of Target to kill time is a bad idea. Particularly because the pharmacy is right next to the extensive candy section. (Who planned that? Seriously. We'll put all the stuff we sell to make you healthy right next to the stuff we sell that is the biggest culprit in making you so sick. If I was inclined to such thinking, I'd see a conspiracy lurking in there . . . )

This is even more of a problem when I am sick with a cough, because for the bulk of this illness, the only time I didn't cough or have the powerful urge to cough was when I was sleeping or eating -- which meant I wanted to sleep and eat all day long. (Again, this is improving. Thank you for your concern.)

So, I would turn around from the pharmacy counter, trying valiantly to stifle my never-ending cough, with a monumental urge to EAT SOMETHING because it would calm my throat and lungs for just a little bit and give me a break . . . and there in front of me are the dark-chocolate-covered blueberries that are downright irresistible to me even in a healthy state. And I have nothing to do for twenty minutes.

Who can blame me for buying the chocolate blueberries and devouring the whole bag before I get my prescription? Nobody. Don't even try. Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

However, on my last trip, I sucked it up and determined that if I was buying food, it was going to be something healthy. It was right before noon, so I looked for something I could take home and eat for lunch. (As I said, the cough's getting a little better, so the urge to eat IMMEDIATELY wasn't as strong.)

So, I wandered over to the frozen food section and found this meal: Amy's Light and Lean Quinoa and Black Beans with Butternut Squash and Chard. Hmm. I tried some quinoa once. It was okay. Black beans are okay. I like squash generally. Chard I've never had. I have no idea what drew me to this meal -- maybe the attractive photo on the box. (Having a husband in the food industry, I know the work that goes into those photos. Crazy.)

I bought the quinoa. I had it for lunch. Surprisingly tasty. I'm not sure if it was genuinely really good or if I had such low expectations that it didn't have far to rise to meet them. In any case, I bought another box the other day. We'll see if it satisfies again on my second try.

Because, as you'll recall, I'm trying to get rid of the white stuff. And apparently, quinoa doesn't count as white stuff. Boo yah. Go, Amy.

Hard Eucharisteo

I missed two days of blogging this week. That's because on those two days, I was sleeping in. I'm still sick. The only time I am not coughing (or fighting the urge to cough) is lying in bed in the morning, so it's very hard for me now to get up and do something and lose that precious time. I almost cried when I had to get up this morning to go teach. Fortunately, it's "finals week," and all I really have to do is sit and watch my students take tests. (Nice for me -- not as nice for them.)

To catch you up, I went back to the doctor yesterday. She gave me a prescription for Symbicort, another prescription for Singulair, and referred me to an allergist who can't see me until next Thursday afternoon. A lot of people have suggested this might be allergy related, so I guess that's the next step. But that doesn't ring true to me. This doesn't feel like allergies. I'm not optimistic.

I'm tired. I'm grumpy. I'm disappointed in myself for being such a wimp about this. On my last post, a friend whose child has Cystic Fibrosis commented, and I was reminded again what a wimp I am. Really, I would suck as a chronically-ill person. You know, those people who live with general pain and suffering daily and never complain and accomplish amazing things and you admire them and they show you the power of God through their lives? That would so NOT be me.

Lately, in my time sitting and talking to God, He seems to be trying to teach me about eucharisteo, a term I read about in Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. It basically means "giving thanks" -- but it's a way of living, a way of being. Not just praying over your meal, but walking through life seeing everything around you as a gift of love from a loving God.

For me, I'm realizing that eucharisteo also requires mindfulness, a rather "new-agey" term that has made me raise my eyebrows in the past. Basically, that means living in the moment, being right where you are. I tend to live in my brain almost more than I live in my body. I often have to force myself to stop and pay attention -- REAL attention -- to what is happening right around me. but when I do, I'm always more content with life.

The thing is, when I feel this lousy, I don't want to be mindful. And I don't want to be thankful. Well, actually, deep down, I want to be both; it's just that the battle is ten times harder.

I have no idea why this stupid cough is hanging on so long. But in my gut, I have a feeling that God wants me to use this miserable time for my spiritual growth, rather than slouch through like a whiny child. It's easy to practice eucharisteo when life is good; this -- being thankful in ALL things, when life sucks and things are hard -- this is, as Voskamp calls it, the hard eucharisteo. 

And doing it when it's not easy is when you're really doing it. And I really want to do it. Lord, help me do it.

Coughing Without Hope

I am reminded again of the importance of hope because I'm in a situation where I find myself with little of it.

I have a cold. As I've written before, colds are not a minor thing for me. The cough hangs on for weeks and absolutely exhausts me to tears. Last time, the doctor gave me two inhalers and a cough suppressant and said, "NEXT time, hit it with all this from the get-go. Let's try to keep your lungs from ever getting irritated and inflamed from the beginning."

So, when this cold started a week and a half ago, that's what I did. I was optimistic the first few days -- surely with all these meds, it will just run the course of a regular cold. By last Friday, I was telling them at work that if I still felt this lousy through the weekend, I'd call the doctor on Monday.

(Sorry if the picture grosses you out
-- but it was so appropriate.)

I didn't make it to Monday. I got worse and worse on Saturday and was up much of the night coughing that night, so I went to Urgent Care on Sunday. They gave me two shots in the butt and a bottle of codeine. "That should do the trick. Call if it doesn't."

Nope. I nearly lost my voice yesterday trying to teach. I coughed so much through the faculty meeting after school yesterday, I had to leave twice. I'm exhausted. Lord knows, there are so many people in the world with so many worse health problems than this. I feel like a wimp complaining about a cough. But oh, my gosh . . . I'm so tired of coughing.

I made an appointment today at my primary doctor's office; he's not available, so I'm seeing his nurse practitioner. But I'm pessimistic now. I have little hope that they'll find anything to stop this cough.

That's almost the worst part of this: having no hope. I felt that many times when I was seeing doctor after doctor about my sleep problems -- nobody can help me. (My husband thinks, for the record, that my sleep problems may contribute to my long coughs. My sleep study a couple weeks ago said I didn't hardly get any stage 3 sleep, where your body regenerates itself.) Having trials and tribulations in your life is one thing; having trials and tribulations with no hope is quite another. That's the real rub. That's the end of it all.

Paul tells the Ephesians gentiles to remember that they were once "foreigners to the covenant of the promise, without hope and without God in the world." I'm coming to learn that hope is a tricky thing. "Hope" by itself is worthless . . . just like "faith." What makes hope potent is who or what you have hope in. It doesn't matter how much deep and optimistic hope for a solution to my illness I have if I have my hope in a preschooler with a toy doctor kit. It doesn't matter how tenacious my faith is if my faith is in my Self to get myself to heaven.

And thus my problem today. I don't have much faith or hope in this nurse practitioner. But I'm trying to have faith and hope in the Great Physician to give the guy some direction. And I keep praying that this trial won't be wasted. I assume there's a reason God allowed this -- He could easily have stopped it. Please don't let me have suffered through this miserable time without it having accomplished His purpose in my life, whatever that may be.

The White Stuff

One of the many perks of the great company my husband works for is the awesome health benefits. They pay for their higher-up executives to have this extensive, day-long medical examination, where they run all sorts of tests to assess their physical well-being. Last week, hubby had his meeting with the doctor to go over the results of all those tests, and they invited the spouse (that's me) to be there, too.

Among the things this doctor suggested for him -- and actually, US -- was, of course, changes in our diet. "Basically, you need to eliminate the white stuff: bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes. And of course, sugar. That goes without saying." Of course.

Eliminate the white stuff. Sounds easy, right? Just eliminate it. Eat something else.

Do you know how much of that "white stuff" we eat everyday?

Since that appointment last Wednesday, I've taken note. There is something from that category in every single meal we eat. Sometimes it is the primary item in that meal. We eat lots of pasta. Something bready is my usual breakfast. Rice, maybe not as much. But our dinner out last night at the eldest's workplace: burgers and fries. Bread and potatoes.

It is NOT that simple to just eliminate the white stuff from our diet.

And, of course, he talked about adding fruits and vegetables. "But not orange juice," he said. "That's practically just plain sugar."

Great. Orange juice is my COFFEE in the morning. How can you tell me to eliminate my orange juice?

I mean, eliminating the sugar is hard enough. I'm definitely a sugar and carb addict. I tried for a few months to limit myself to just eating sugary desserts on Saturdays. That way, I knew I was going to have one sometime, so when I said no, I wasn't saying no forever -- just until the end of the week. That worked pretty well for a while. But even that has been a failure lately. I just love sugar.

I KNOW I would feel better if I ate better. I KNOW I would feel better if I exercised regularly. Why don't I do it? Seriously -- why is it so hard for us to do the things we KNOW will make our lives better?

The comedian Brian Regan has a bit about the optometrist, and he talks about how great it is to see. "Why would 'immediately improve vision' not be on the top of our priority list?" he asks. Indeed -- why? Why would "increase energy level" not be there? Or "improve mood and attitude"? Why should "clean out the garage" and "pick up the dry cleaning" take priority to our daily well-being?

"For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. . . I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep doing." Paul nailed us. Fallen humanity. And yet, we still live under the delusion that we're evolving . . . every day in every way we're getting better and better . . . the world is more just and righteous that it's ever been . . . we CAN pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be a better us . . . we CAN be good enough to earn our way into heaven. Yes, we can!

Yeah, right. We can't even eliminate the white stuff.

The Struggle Is Real

My husband falls asleep each night in, like, ten minutes. I mean, he turns out the light, rolls over, and starts snoring, just like that. Well, he doesn't snore anymore now that he has his CPAP machine, but in his spirit, he's sawing logs -- in about ten minutes.

This is just unfathomable to me. As a child, it was normal for me to lie in bed for a couple hours before I finally dozed off. It still takes at least thirty minutes, I think, on a good night.

I asked him last week, after you turn out the light to go to sleep, what are you thinking about? What's going through your brain? He said he usually starts to pray and falls asleep while he's praying. Well, what about the nights you don't fall asleep praying -- what are you thinking about? Oh, he's thinking about how comfortable the bed is . . . how cozy the blankets are . . . and then he's asleep.

Are you kidding me?

I told him about how my brain works when I try to go to sleep. An image will come to mind, completely unbidden -- say, of one of my students. And a scene will replay in my head of something that happened with her that day. And then my mind (again, completely of its own accord, I don't will this) will start imagining something I should have done when that event happened. Or what I should do or say to her next time that happens, or next time I see her. Not in a fretting, worrisome fashion; I'm not stressed or upset; it's just thoughts going through my brain.

Well, Hubby said, if I have those kind of thoughts come up, I just figure there's nothing I can do about that right now, and it's time to go to sleep.

Excuse me? What do you mean, you just figure? There's no "figuring" involved here! My mind runs unprovoked, without activation by my will. In fact, to turn the thoughts off is what requires an effort of the will -- and the effort it requires is so strong that it keeps me awake. (As my daughter would say, the struggle is real --  punctuated with a hashtag.)

Tell me I'm not weird. Tell me he's the oddball. The blessed, lucky oddball.

I wonder now if this is all by nature or nurture. I suspect I have taught myself over the years to allow my brain to work this way at night. (There have been benefits -- I have had flashes of brilliance at 3am that ended up in a script or a lesson plan.) But might it have done this no matter how I trained it?

In any case, I'm hoping I can re-train. I took a class at my church in New Jersey where we learned to meditate. Perhaps I need to re-visit those lessons and figure out how to empty my mind when it is to my benefit to do so.

Because falling asleep in ten minutes . . . oh, Father in heaven. How glorious would that be!

The One About Vomiting

I couldn't remember the last time I had thrown up. I have no memories of doing so in our house in Sioux City, so it must have been before we lived there -- possibly a decade or so ago.

But my streak was broken Monday night, about five minutes before the pastor and his family arrived for dinner at our house. (Fabulous timing, o stomach of mine.) I suspect the leftover quiche I ate for Monday's lunch was the culprit. It had all the signs of food poisoning. Just a 24-hour thing.

Vomiting . . . what a phenomenon. I had forgotten how repulsive and miserable it is. And yet, what a blessing that our bodies have this automatic mechanism in place to protect us. I could almost hear my inner systems screaming, "TOXINS! TOXINS! Eradicate them immediately!! Stat!" (I don't know what "stat" means in this context, but we've all deduced from medical dramas that it implies urgency, and this situation was apparently urgent.)

Goodness, the violence our bodies inflict to purge us of poison! The thoroughness of the purging! EVERYTHING goes that may have entered with the offending party. No traces of the toxin may remain. Every other non-essential system in the body shuts down so more energy can be put toward the cleansing (which explains the exhaustion that my daughter was surprised at -- "why would food poisoning wipe you out so badly?").

So, in the moments of calm between violent purgings, I was able to experience some genuine appreciation for what my body was doing for me, painful and gross as it was in the experience.

And I was able to consider how beneficial it might be if we had systems in place to purge us of other toxins we encounter in life.

So, when a poisonous idea enters our minds, our mental systems would scream, "TOXINS! DANGER! Eradicate that immediately! Before it infects and spreads!" Followed by a violent purging, which would necessitate a day or two of gentle meditation to recover. I might even be willing to lose a bit of short-term memory in the process if it meant being protected from thoughts that would be ruinous to me in the long run.

And when a toxic person enters our lives, our systems would scream, "DANGER! POISON! Get them outa here! Go! Go! Go!" I'd hope I could re-establish the healthy relationships that might be lost in the violence of eradicating the toxin, but sad as it might be, that sacrifice would be worth the price.

Yes, such purgings would be painful and disruptive and costly in many ways. But oh, the costs they would save us in the long run! And how much more cautious would we be about the various poisons we encounter in life if we knew each of them would knock us out of commission for a couple days like that.

In case you're wondering, I'm feeling much better this morning, thank you. And my daughters did a fabulous job of greeting our guests and serving dinner Monday night. A good support team is critical in such a dangerous world as ours, with its perilous ideas, risky companions, and questionable quiches. I'm thankful for mine.

Grateful for the Air in my Lungs

For the past several years, the common cold has been increasingly common for me -- that is, it is always the same thing.

It starts with a sudden wave of exhaustion. I usually find myself crashing on the sofa for several hours, too tired to move until I'm moving my body into bed. By the time I wake up the next morning, my throat is sore. That eventually develops into a stuffy, runny nose that lasts for a few days and ultimately progresses into a cough.

The cough is the big problem. I apparently have some form of Reactive Airway Disease, my doctors tell me. The normal cough at the end of my common cold irritates and inflames the lining of my lungs, so that long past what would be the natural end of that cold, I still experience asthma-like symptoms: difficulty breathing and a horrible, hacking, miserable cough that lasts two or three weeks at least and brings me completely to the end of myself. I always end up in the doctor's office getting scads of medication trying desperately to get it to stop.

This past round (last spring, I believe), the doctor loaded me up with two different types of inhalers, a super-strong cough suppressant, and . . . some other pill that I don't remember what it was for. He instructed me, next time I have the beginnings of a cold, to start immediately bombarding it with all this stuff -- the hope is to prevent my lungs from ever getting inflamed in the first place so we don't have to fight the seemingly hopeless fight of calming them down.

So, I have all these meds in my cabinet, and I've been bracing myself for months. Now that I'm in a school again, I figured I'd be surrounded by germs and would be fighting a plethora of illnesses all year.

But that hasn't happened. I'm still waiting for my first cold. It's been teasing me . . . I've had many days of feeling what felt like minor symptoms starting to creep in. My daughters have both had colds, and I assumed mine was next. But I'm now over five months into a school year with no real illness of any kind.

When I go to bed at night and pray, I've found myself taking deep breaths . . . and feeling such genuine, heart-felt gratitude. For clear lungs. For open sinuses. For that fabulous feeling of air flowing through my nostrils and filling up my lungs with ease and slowly flowing out again. For being able to breathe. I still know that another cold is coming (for all I know, it may hit later today), and so I am genuinely praising God these days for every hour I have air flowing easily in and out of my body. It feels so wonderful to breathe!! And it feels so wonderful to be thankful for breathing.

It feels so wonderful to be thankful. I think I need to be more intentional about being thankful for the obvious things in my life. Being thankful for them now feels so much better than being angry when they are denied me later. It's not like God owes me anything anyway -- not even breath in my lungs.

Food, Glorious Food

Here is evidence of a loving God: food tastes good.

God didn't have to make food taste good. He was not beholden to us in that way. Just because the intake of nourishment is required for our survival does not mean He had to make this intake a pleasant experience. It could have been accomplished with something as dry and boring as popping a pill. Or with something as uncomfortable as an IV -- or even more painful than that. Our food that we eat could be tasteless and bland, or even foul and distasteful, something we have to force ourselves to consume to continue to live.

But God didn't do that. He made food, and he made food delicious. He made the nourishment process one that not only satisfies our stomachs but also satisfies our tongues. He made food taste good.

Now, I know what a lot of you are saying, because it's what I would be saying if I clicked on a random post and read the above paragraphs. "Yeah, but it's all the food that's BAD for me that tastes good. The healthy food sucks!" But that's not necessarily so. That's only because of what we sinful little boogers have done to our taste buds. You can't fault God for that.

I have a friend who grew up in Albania. She craves vegetables and fruit. Seriously. LOVES them. When I give her my customary gift of a bag of caramel popcorn at Christmastime, she thanks me graciously and puts it out for her American husband and children to eat. Not that she doesn't like sweet stuff (she makes a mean baklava), but she can only eat so much of it. And she doesn't have the craving for it, or for the fatty stuff, that we Americans do. Her taste buds were trained well from early on. She eats like we were meant to eat (and you can tell by looking at her).

So, yeah, believe it or not, healthy food tastes good if we eat like we're supposed to eat.

God was also good to make the nourishment process something that satisfies not only our bodies but also our souls. Case in point: we have to sit to eat. I mean, yes -- it's possible to shove food down our throats while running around doing laundry, diapering babies, and responding to emails (and many people do). But we all know that eating on the run is not good for us, digestively or otherwise. Eating requires at least one free hand to do the shoving, and it is much more efficiently done with two hands and in a seated -- or at least stationary -- position.

So, this need for physical nourishment also requires us to take two or three breaks during the day. Which are also good for us.

And since those breaks are required of every human being, and since they tend to come for all of us at similar times during the day, those breaks tend to become a social time. The standard practice in most cultures that I'm aware of is to eat with other people. Meals are for feeding our spirits with social connection as much as for feeding our cells with nutrients.

Again, God didn't have to make any of this work the way He did. Feeding ourselves could have been a lonely, miserable, even painful ordeal that we had to endure on a daily basis. Instead, he made it very pleasurable -- pleasurable enough even to be tempting as an idol in our lives. He was willing to risk that potential competition for our hearts to give us something that gives us joy.

He doesn't NEED to be that kind to us. He just is. It seems He wants us to enjoy our brief stay in this world. We should probably be more grateful for that.

My Future With Dementia

Yesterday, a friend posted on FB a link to a news story about Alzheimer’s disease (which you can see here). The reporter experienced a simulation created to give you an idea of how life is for victims. It was fascinating to watch.

My father died in 2001 after a 21-year battle with Alzheimer’s. His three sisters have all been diagnosed now as well. (His three brothers haven’t shown any symptoms that I’m aware of.) Since there is a genetic component to this, I've known for quite a while that there’s a chance that I may be afflicted one of these days.

I think that should disturb me more than it does. Maybe if I watch more videos like this one, it will. And maybe as I get older (Dad was diagnosed in his mid-50s), it will. But right now, I surprisingly seem to take this in stride.

I've made it clear to my family that I want them to have no hesitations over putting me in a nursing home when it is time. Please do the work to be sure it’s a good nursing home (I may even do some care-shopping myself while I’m capable). And please keep an eye on me and visit me frequently. But don’t think you’re being heroic or loving by keeping me in your house when I reach the point of being dangerously debilitated. Put me where I’m safe and you’re safe, too.

I've also made it clear that I want them to appreciate the humor in the situation whenever they can. Seriously. I remember once visiting my dad in the common room of his care center when a fellow patient wandered into the room. She looked around curiously, and then announced loudly to everyone present, “I gotta pee!” And she dropped her sweatpants and undergarments to her ankles. The four care workers in the room came diving from their various corners, calling in unison, “Noooooo!!!!”

I tried SO hard to stifle my laughter. It was hilarious. Please don’t judge me – if that had been my dad, I would have laughed, too. It was funny, people! If I get to where I’m doing crazy stuff like that, I want my family to feel free to find some enjoyment in it. Life will be hard enough at that point; you gotta see the humor where you can.

The editor of World magazine once wrote about his mother's Alzheimer's experience. She had apparently had a miserable, difficult life and was generally a very unpleasant, miserable person to be around for most of it. Until she got dementia. Then she forgot all the old resentments and hurts -- every day was new and bright. He said her last three years of life were probably her happiest. Sometimes there is a blessing in forgetting.

I don't expect that to be me -- I don't think I have horrible resentments that will bring bliss when they are forgotten. But I have been making a point of trying to change my general mental state. What I have noticed about people as they age (including my parents) is that they don't really change in personality; they just lose their ability (or desire sometimes) to put on the mask that they are expected to wear in polite society. They say what they really think. They act how they really feel. They stop playing the "nice" game, and usually not by choice. 

This being the case, I want to be sure that I'm genuinely nice, that my thoughts and feelings are full of grace and love, so when my filter is gone, I'm not spouting venom to the world that serves to isolate me from the world. My best preparation for old age, I think, is submitting myself wholeheartedly to God changing me from the inside out, so I'm as much like Him as possible. 

Which, really, should be my goal in life anyway, right?

Gluttony

My name is Gwen, and I am a glutton.

gluttony (n.): an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires

I could have said something like "sugaraholic", because my problem is actually not necessarily with the total amounts of food I eat, but with the amount of sweets that I eat. But the term "sugaraholic" (which I have used to refer to myself many times before) has a bit of the same connotation that alcoholic does, implying some helplessless in the matter. And while yes, I believe I have created a physiological "dependency" in my body to some extent, the fact is, I'm not at all helpless about this.

This is a choice. And it is a sinful choice. You all are my "priests" today that I am confessing to.

I read an article recently that asked the question, what would happen if we, in the church, treated the sin of gluttony the same way we treat the sin of homosexuality? And goodness -- seriously, what would happen? Imagine how offended people would get! There's no denying that gluttony is probably an epidemic in our society and even in our churches. There's hardly a toe in the Body of Christ that wouldn't get stepped on.

But we gloss over gluttony. We make light of it. We even glorify it in some contexts. (How many over-eating Christians out there are livid about the sexual sin running rampant in our society and yet engorge themselves on a daily basis without a second thought -- even thanking God for the food He's provided for them to engorge themselves with?) I can think of friends right now who I know will think it is ridiculous that I am concerned about this problem of mine as a sin. A health issue, yes, but a sin? Come on, girlfriend -- if that's the worst you got, you got no sin problems . . . let me show you my rap sheet.

But anyone who knows their Bible knows that sin is sin is sin. And this is the sin God has been convicting me of for a long time now. It's not a small thing, at least not in my life.

Eating so much sugar makes my body weak, which hinders me from doing the work God has called me to.

Eating so much sugar affects my moods, which hurts my relationships, especially with my family, and keeps me from loving others in the way I am supposed to.

Eating so much sugar probably affects my sleep, which is already an issue and which affects everything already mentioned.

But even more so, eating so much sugar gets in the way of my relationship with God. I eat sugar for comfort, to feel better in a rough moment. I eat it for energy, to pick me up when I'm crashing. And God has already provided something to meet those needs in my life: Himself. HE is to be my comfort; HE is to carry me through difficult times. When I consistently turn to something else to play the role that God is supposed to play in my life, I'm breaking one of the Big Ten: that's idolatry.

It doesn't matter than I'm not obese or diabetic or anything like that. I'm not as intimate with my Father as He and I want to be -- and He's made it quite clear that this is one of the things standing in the way. Simply because it represents a choice I'm making that denies His being who He is. And there's no intimacy with God when you're denying who He is.

So there's my public confession, which I decided was necessary for me to actually lick this thing. First John (a favorite book of mine) tells us that "walking in the light" is necessary for fellowship with God, and fellowship with God has become my top priority. So I'm taking this problem out of the darkness and putting it into the light, where it can actually be dealt with. Feel free to pull your own sins out of darkness and join me in the light in this New Year, friends.