7 years

7 years ago yesterday we dropped our 3rd kid off at college. The first 2 went to school locally. And somehow, because he and his older bro were a pair, he had never spent the night ANYWHERE alone. 

So that was hard. The drop off was hard. I love all my kids. But this kid had my heart. We had gone through some tough times. 

But we did it. Tears were shed. We prayed. And drove toward home. 

An hour or so later, a text, a phone call. There’s been an accident. One of my dearest friends, my heart friend, along with all her children, had been in a wreck, on a road trip hours from home, and we don’t know how she is. (The kids are ok, one is sitting across the table from me as I write this.)

All that day I prayed and hoped for a miracle, but it didn’t happen. 

7 years ago she was gone. 

For me, THAT was the day the music died. The day my belief that everything would be ok was greatly diminished. Not my Faith. Not my Hope. But my idealism. Everything is not ok. And in some ways it will never be ok. 

I still believe He works all things for good. But I have not yet seen it. Not in this life. I believe He is good. I believe I will see His goodness. In the land of the living. But I am not sure that my heart will know full joy. 

I’m not mad at God. In fact, I feel closer to Him. It is the fellowship of His suffering. He knows our sorrows. He is acquainted with grief. He gets it. This grief, this pain, this loss. He weeps with me. He is the God of all comfort. And He comforts me. 

And I think it’s ok that I am not “over it”. This life is not the destination. I don’t expect complete healing or complete joy here. But He is near. And that is Joy. 

You're not the boss of me!

It's what kids say to each other, or to adults sometimes. We don't like to be bossed around. We don't like to be manipulated. It is part of what has made this era so pungent. We feel infringed upon by strangers trying to tell us what to do.

There was a season for me, pre-dating most of the galloping hoard I now live with, when some things that were precious to me had gone horribly awry. I was really down. And, probably for the first time in my life, I turned to the television for comfort. Not just any TV show. I started watching a *insert gasp* soap opera. The Days of our Lives. I watched it pretty much every day. There was a baby missing or who had been kidnapped or something, and I was hooked. I had to know what happened to the baby. 

The information wasn't coming quickly enough, just watching the show, and I discovered, on the newly available World Wide Web of Useful Information... a spoilers page. Each Friday at precisely 1:00 pm, someone would post a few tidbits about what was going to be on the show on Monday, presumably so I could sleep that weekend. 

Later I discovered there were Archives of the history of the characters of the show. After I had read all. of. them., I learned that the main bad guy, whose name was Stephano, had died NINE! times during the course of the show. And found that couples were not permitted to live happily ever after. A couple who finally got together after stringing the viewer along for years would eventually be dissolved by death or kidnapping or affair. It Was All About Keeping Me Watching.

I read an article this morning about the algorithms used by TikTok to keep users sad and addicted to it. All of social media uses algorithms to keep users engaged, and not for their benefit. All entertainment, movies, television are designed for addiction. All video games, even educational ones. 

And foods. Foods are designed to have the exact, scientifically researched and balanced, amount of sugar and salt and fat to keep us coming back for more and more, all the while we are starving for the nutrition found in real foods made to heal our bodies by the God who designed us and placed us in a garden. But that's another subject.

Isn't there something in you that wants to say, "you're not the boss of me," to the forces trying to take hold of you? We don't want the government bossing us, or doctors, or employers. But we willingly cuff ourselves to our electronic devices and allow them to impact our worldview and moods with very little filter. Even news sources we agree with are still manipulating the headlines and clickbait to keep us coming back for more.

I don't like being manipulated. I certainly don't like the idea of young people who I love being dragged in chains to places that their hearts, if they were fully awake, would not choose to go. We have to wake up and smell the poppies.

 

Why did we have so many kids?

Please forgive me if I have written these things before. I blog pretty rarely, and I don't have time to go back and actually read what I've said. I just realized I haven't updated my picture in yeeears.

When I was pregnant with my first child and had time to naval gaze (is that the right spelling for the word that means belly button?)... meaning focus on myself a lot more than I could later when I was pregnant again but also chasing toddlers, I had a pregnancy calendar that I was horrible at filling out, full of cool quotes about pregnancy and parenting. The one I remember best and quote most often is this:

"The decision to become a parent . . . is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

This is truer as time passes. They have my heart. My kids are very much an extension of me. You cut them, I bleed. Their stress is my stress.

About this time last year, for example, I had interviews with several different internships in computer science and construction management, one for college admission, and was applying for both tech and graduate nurse positions. I also remember having several papers, presentations and programs due at the same time. Proofing, practicing, making sure things get printed out. I wrote a novel last year. Okay, well, my daughter wrote a novel. But I was there with her all along the way.

And then there are all the relationship type things. For the record, at the time of this writing, I have two children in relationships with people I absolutely adore, and both have my approval and respect. But the emotions involved in all the pursuits, the observing, the praying, the leap of faith, the calling of the father or the girl, receiving the call, the waiting for a response, or just the waiting for there to be someone worth waiting for, are not for the faint of heart. It is hard. Even when everything goes exactly the way you hoped it would, life has a way of, well, draining the life out of you.

I am lousy at handling suspense. I don't watch a lot of movies or shows, don't do a lot of recreational reading, because I can't handle the not knowing. I (re)read a book the other night. The whole book. Because I needed to know what happened. I HAD READ IT BEFORE. But I didn't remember everything. So I read it again. The whole dang book. Stayed up till 2am. Can't handle suspense, even in small amounts.

But this real life adulting stuff - I don't know how it ends. And that is hard. It requires a lot of prayer. A lot of leaning. It is the first time, since becoming a parent, that I have questioned becoming a parent. It is the first time I ever said to my husband, "Why did we have so many kids?!" Not potty training, not driver education, not hormones. Adulting. I'm sure I have written this before, but it was way easier giving birth to babies than it has been giving birth to adults.

The verse I've been holding onto is "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." I apologize for not referencing it, and for the fact that I am actually quoting it from the New International I-learned-it-in-a-song Translation, but it is really in the Bible, I read it there yesterday in the NASB.

I have a choice. I can stay nestled, stay leaning, my mind fixed on the Prince of Peace. It is not a one time choice. It is sometimes an all day every day choice. Sometimes it is a choice I make over and over again as I wake up at night. I will choose to live in perfect peace, my mind stayed on Jesus, abiding, trusting.

I take it back

I think I probably am a food addict.

Not sure what that means for the long haul, but it seems like I do much better when I don’t have trigger foods - sugar, white pasta, white rice, white potatoes, salty stuff, fried stuff, and maybe animal products.

I’m out of control and not liking me very much.

Food addictions

I have read and heard a whole lot regarding food addictions. I have done a fair bit of abstaining, eating no sugar or refined flour for months, then having something and then eating everything. I have had seasons when I ate clean for 2 weeks or 1 week and then had a cheat/treat meal and then did it again.

I have heard experts say that it doesn’t work to be in my situation, because I cook and clean up for lots of eaters all day every day, and they eat things that I do not. Like cereal, bread, pizza, pasta. I cannot feed all my people the way I eat, though I am nudging them my direction. The abstinence people (who I hold in high regard) say, “if it’s in my house, it’s in my mouth”. If the food is present, I will eventually eat it.

I have mulled these ideas around over and over. [spoiler alert: this is an open ended internal conversation - I do not know the answer.] Am I an addict, similar to an alcoholic, that cannot have one drink/brownie/bite?

On the other hand, I feel it is possible that the idea of abstinence can be in itself detrimental - because any deviation from the plan becomes a once-in-a-lifetime rapidly closing window of opportunity to eat everything wonderful that I will never again taste. Binge card.

Food addiction is not the same as alcohol or drug addiction. I do not put anyone, myself included, in mortal danger when I overeat. I have never passed out from eating too much. Eating is legal. Eating does not put me in a drastically altered state of impaired judgement or awareness.

On the other hand, there are real and significant similarities. I make poor health choices when I eat sugar or bread or pasta. I have more self control when I don’t eat a bite of unhealthy food. I have been known to do ridiculous things for the sake of eating more junk. I can and do absolutely eat myself to the point of feeling quite uncomfortable on a regular basis. And I do real damage to my health and indirectly to the health of those watching when I overeat on a consistent basis.

The other thing I think about is this: I am not just a byproduct of evolutionary process. I have the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwelling in me. I have the fruit of the Spirit, which includes patience, peace, faith, and self control. I get to choose.

This I where I am with this today: I think I am much more successful in making healthy choices when I a) have not already had junk (mercies are new every morning, and I am better at using my self control muscle when I have been doing it) and b) I do so much better avoiding bad foods when I focus on eating what is good for me, foods that heal me, foods that fight cancer and diabetes and heart disease: all things green, especially cruciferous veggies, other veggies, beans (preferably made by me without salt), onions, cooked mushrooms, berries and other fruits, and a limited amount of nuts and seeds.

I’m avoiding animal products and processed foods because they are not my friends, they do not benefit me and they are often concentrated in flavor and hard to stop eating. Mostly when I have a treat, it is within those boundaries. But sometimes, I think I will have something off the plan. And then I will go right back to the plan. Because I can go off again some other time.

Nutrition roulette

For him who has ears to hear ...you don’t have to read this, ok?

Russian roulette, the “game” where presumedly drunk people put one bullet in a revolver and spin the wheel and take a shot at themselves, is a stupid game. I doubt that anyone I know would ever play it. It’s ridiculous. Because NO ONE WANTS TO DIE.

But we eat like we do.

Now we all die. My husband’s grandmother passed away last week. She was 93, in her right mind, and not physically miserable. Oh sure, she was a little confused sometimes, and was in a nursing home, but she was still up and about, visiting and chatting with friends. Still using the bathroom. She lived a long and pretty healthy life. She got up to go to the bathroom Monday night, got back in bed, and died.

I think that’s what we want. To live a long time and be pretty healthy and active and then die at a ripe old age.

But we eat like we are invincible. Heart disease and strokes and diabetes are almost entirely preventable. And cancer is 70-90% not genetic. Some of that is environmental, and some of it we can’t actually do much about. But a whole lot of it we CAN.

We just want to live and have fun. No one wants to eat like me. I’m extreme. I get that. But having a stroke or heart attack or open heart surgery are also extreme. No one wants to do that either.

We live in this delusion that disease is random or genetic and can’t be helped and we just hope it isn’t us. But more and more, it IS us. Something like 37% of us will get cancer at some point. More than half will have heart disease, and the estimates are that half the population will have diabetes in 30 years. (Not quoting sources right now - this is more of a rant and a challenge to anyone who has ears to hear to find out for yourself)

If you are someone I love (or someone someone else loves), please consider changing your mindset from a subconscious game of nutrition roulette, hoping you won’t be one of the unlucky ones. Please do some research of your own, find out what your body needs (Hint: it is isn’t just to be thinner) and do that. Every little bit helps. Every salad, every green vegetable, every onion, every berry. Broccoli is better than drugs. Whatever you take in of animal products, make it less. Go for a walk.

Let’s unload our cultural dietary revolver. It’s not too late.

Calorie density

So, for anyone who has ears to hear, here is a piece of info that has helped me. I am convinced that the food God made for us and encouraged us to eat initially, in the garden, is what we should mostly eat now. Fruits and vegetables and grains and nuts and seeds. He didn’t tell them to kill and eat until after the flood.

And with the exception of nuts and seeds, those foods are not calorically dense. Last night I was wanting a little ‘something’. But I had eaten and was not hungry. I had chocolate on my mind. But then I noticed my cantaloupe. A half cantaloupe has like a hundred calories and is so satisfying, so filling. And it’s great for me. It has all kinds of disease fighting stuff in it, plus things they haven’t even discovered yet. And when they, the scientists, figure out the stuff, they’re like, wow, Mother Nature is amazing. (My autocorrect capitalized that for me). But I’m like, you mean God designed it perfectly to give health and healing to my body. He is so good.

There is a great YouTube video by a guy named Jeff Novick on calorie density. It is effective and funny not offensive or dogmatic or anything that would make people mad. I recommend. Blessings.