Depression. What does that mean for us as believers? What is depression, anyway? Haven't people always been sad? Isn't that what perseverance and the joy of the Lord are intended to overcome?
Depression is not simply extreme sadness. Often depression is triggered by specific tragic or traumatic events, but not always. In short, God has created the coolest most intricate systems for healthy functionality in our bodies. He applies the laws of his physical universe to each of these delicate systems- for instance, that of inertia; your body works to reestablish rhythm and "normalcy" quickly, sometimes accidentally establishing a new "normal" that needs fixing. This is why medicines like Immodium are so useful. One of the biggest systems is that of hormones, or natural chemicals throughout the body. In the brain, hormones work together to produce emotional responses to information we take in- we see someone we love, hear their news, our brain connects that it's good news, chemicals are released in response, and we feel happiness- all in milliseconds! How awesome is God's design? But, like any other system of the body, sometimes things get thrown off- disrupted. With depression, our brain can get caught reacting to something negative, either by making us feel sad or coping by making us feel numb, and inertia sets in- the record skips. Our brain forgets how to acknowledge and receive the hormones that "snap us out of it," change our mood- make us happy. The rhythm of our chemical pendulum is knocked off course.
Like any other injury or illness, Christians should respond biblically to depression as any other physical malady. We pray for healing- and as with anything else, God may say yes, or no, and we may struggle to understand why. We can seek help from experts who can apply God-given wisdom about our brains and bodies to help us heal (sometimes with medication). We can use Scripture to keep our focus on the Lord and off our suffering. Most of all, we can love one another, caring for those we know who are suffering depression with patience, encouragement, and understanding.
Love & The Art Of Saying No: A journey out of co-dependence, people-pleasing, and over-commitment
And I'd really like to see it published. I truly believe there are a lot of people in the world who will benefit from reading this book. So I set up a campaign on Kickstarter to fund the publishing costs. You can click through to learn more about the book and how to pre-order it through Kickstarter here:
The campaign ends on September 5! If it is not 100% funded by September 5, this book will not be published for a very long time if ever.
I CAN'T DO THIS WITHOUT YOU!
Please check out the link and consider becoming a backer. There are several options where you can go in on a package together with your friends, so consider if you have anyone you'd like to split a package with to get a better deal!
And spread the word! Follow the book's page on Facebook to receive updates on the campaign and publishing timeline.
"I don't like school, I'm too CREATIVE for regular college, I'm just going to go to culinary school; it's only 1 year and no boring stuff."
"We'll see..."
"Now that culinary school is over, I decided to just enroll in a class or two at the community college because I feel like I'm a little young to stop learning. I'm just gonna take classes that I find interesting though, I'm not actually like, going to college, cuz I'm not gonna do an actual degree program or anything."
"We'll see..."
"So it turns out I just need a few more classes to qualify for an associates' degree. I think I'm gonna go ahead and take them. Why not, you know? But I doubt I'll ever go for a whole bachelor's degree, I don't need it." "We'll see..." "I think I want to change careers. That associate's degree automatically qualifies me to enroll in any state college. I'm going to enroll at TWU and get a psych education so I can become a counselor. I have to do grad school for that, not sure I'll make it that far, my grades have never been good enough for scholarships or anything..." "We'll see..." Yesterday, I walked the stage to receive my Masters of Arts in Biblical Counseling from Dallas Theological Seminary. So much of my life, whenever I declare something about my future, my mom looks at me with this very specific, infuriating, all-knowing expression on her face of pure skepticism and exaggerated placating and says "We'll see...". I got my husband to catch that very look on camera yesterday when I told her I am DONE with school FOREVER! and I am NEVER GOING BACK!!!! So I could share it here:
I've learned to joke that I have to be careful what I say to her because every time she pops out with her "We'll see..." she makes a liar out of me. The magic of the "We'll see..." is as much in what it isn't as in what it is. What it isn't is an argumentative weight of expectation and pressure wrapped in a package of encouragement, responding to my rash declarations with "don't be silly, of course you will! You're brilliant, and _________ is the only way for you to be successful!" "We'll see..." is not discrediting my own control over my future or my choices or my freedom to be correct, to stop right here and head down the path I say I intend to choose. It's not undermining my autonomy. What it also isn't is discouraging pessimism or criticism for either my lack of potential or my lack of ambition. My mom never hears my fears or my self-limitation and reacts with a knee-jerk band-aid of complements, nor salt-in-the-wound of criticism. She is a cornerstone of balance between realism and healthy, genuine belief in her children's capabilities. What "We'll see..." has always meant to me is "I trust you and I will not tell you what you should do, but I believe you can go further than you say you will if you choose to. If you never change your path, I will support you and be proud of you, but if you do I believe you can succeed." It's a subtle suggestion that perhaps I can do more than I think I can; perhaps it wouldn't hurt to try it anyway; and that even if I fail, I won't disappoint her. My parents play different roles in my life (obviously) but if I were a car, my dad would be the suspension and the body; holding me up when I am discouraged and heavy laden, and protecting me. My mom has always been the wheels and the fuel. She has equipped me with her "We'll see..." approach to parenting with the tools to move forward. She has found an impossible balance of encouraging me through truth. She doesn't flood me with nice, sweeping complements about how brilliant her baby is, she just actually, openly, believes I can, and I know she's a smart lady, so I think maybe she knows something I don't know and I start to believe I can, too. But the beauty of "We'll see..." most of all is that it has always told me that my mom believes both that I can and also that I don't have to. Whether I do or I don't has no bearing on her love, support, encouragement, or pride. I hope to some day be a "We'll see..." parent myself, and I wish everyone had the opportunity to be raised by parents with such genuine faith in their kids' capacity that they don't have to pressure them. So on a weekend when my most hard-fought achievement in my entire life fell the day before Mother's day, I think it only appropriate to say Thank You to the best mom ever, and at the moment I hope your "We'll see..." isn't always prophetic, because I REALLY don't feel up to a doctoral program, and you always make a liar out of me. I love you!
A couple weeks ago, my husband was paying the toll bill, and I apologized to him that it was much higher than usual because I had taken the toll road several times that month to make sure I wasn't late for class. We are financially fairly comfortable, but we have recently had several car issues, and our budget is pretty tight right now.
His response inspired me to write this.
"Love, it's a lot less expensive for you to take the toll road every day if you need to than for us to pay for you to have to re-take those classes. Especially with how hard that would be on you emotionally. Take it if you need to & we'll finish this semester."
So much wisdom for such a young man. His response to my apology was both rational and incredibly empathetic. I am just 50 days from my last day of graduate school, (I like to think my last day of school ever), and the added pressure of knowing how stressful and complicated it would be for me to drop or flunk a class this semester, pushing back my graduation and forcing me to pay twice for a class, has been extremely difficult.
I feel my husband had every right to be a bit annoyed with me, or to at least appreciate my apology, for spending money outside our budget on something that is technically optional. The degree of thought that had to go in to his response seems to me to have been happening along the way, so that in the moment, he was able to instantly consider my needs and the bigger picture, and just be incredibly understanding of what that expensive little shortcut meant to me.
So I just want to say this. A truly solid, positive relationship- any relationship, not just marriage- is a lot easier when your logic accounts for the less tangible needs of the other in the relationship. It's been 2 weeks and I can't get this interaction out of my head because I realized in that moment that I felt understood, taken care of, and completely safe to care for myself in this high pressure season of life.
If you are in a relationship, give yourself time and opportunity to think about what the other is going through in life outside your time with them. Take the time to empathize and think about how they may be feeling at the end of their workday, or when they haven't gotten to do that thing that makes them feel good in a long time. Just thinking about this stuff when you have a chance will give you the same wisdom in the instant you'll need it someday. And when it does come up, that person will feel so loved by you. 100% worth the effort.
(P.S. This conversation actually happened during the week of our 3rd anniversary, and I just gotta brag and say that my husband is clearly nailing it.)
I'm aware my choice of title may come across as defensive, but it isn't. I am increasingly aware and deeply troubled by racism. I have witnessed, and been infuriated by, institutional racism, and I have seen white privilege at play. One example that I really hit close to home was in my 9 months counseling at the homeless shelter, I saw white men barely sober a few months given opportunity after opportunity, regarded as tragic stories of unfulfilled potential, while black men 10 years sober with proven work ethic were overlooked because they were treated as though their history was a reflection of their choices, and ultimately their character.I do not feel that those experiencing white privilege should lose those privileges, I feel that those privileges are a model for what should be available to everyone. Every person should be seen for the potential they have yet to fulfill. But as I awaken to the breadth and extent of racism that continues to be present in our culture, I am horrified to realize that the position I am in at this point is that of bystander. The role I have been playing in this conversation has been too close to those situations where a murder takes place on a street overlooked by dozens of windows, where nobody called the police, and nobody came to help. I am really sorry. We all hear stories of that sort of thing happening and think "if I had been there I would have helped!" But here so many of us are, watching through the window or drowning out the ruckus, thinking "Well, I'm not the one committing the crime, and I'm not the victim, so what could I possibly do about it? I'm sure someone else better qualified will come along and intervene." I do not want to be that. I am repulsed by the thought that I have done that. I am heartbroken for the harm racism is inflicting on my brothers and sisters, an I am horrified at my own apparent complacence about it. It is not enough for me to love you, and to respect you and your background and recognize that you are in no way less valuable than anyone else because of the color of your skin. But I realized, too, that I do not know how best to leverage my white voice to help you. I will not be so arrogant as to believe that I could possibly be in a position to offer a solution to a crime that does not threaten me. The best I can be is a tool or a megaphone in your hands, black friends. I know that some of my role is to speak on your behalf to those too racist to listen to you directly. But beyond that, and I know that there is a lot beyond that, I do not know what to do. So I pose the question to you, in a posture of genuine submission: How best can I back you up? What would you have me do?
It seems to me that with the rampant growth of Social Media activity, Slacktivism is also at an all time high. Prior to the upsurge of shared open letters and judgey memes, I think slacktivism was already common in the form of protest. Now stay with me please! I'll explain.
While there's nothing wrong with simply doing these things to make it known which side of a debate you personally identify with (that's why I do it from time to time), I feel like if changing one's profile photo in solidarity or clicking "share" on someone else's well stated opinions is say (generously) 0.5% effective in convincing others to consider alternative perspectives, then showing up for a protest in this decade* is maybe 1% effective, if that.
In this day and age, it's needlessly dangerous to gather large crowds of people representing a specific, often oppressed demographic into a single public space. The best case scenario is that the participants leave safely and feel like they were a part of something important. They haven't changed ANYTHING. They just got to take their opinions out of their computer chair and feel like they've done something.
The alternatives to this scenario are that it creates an opportunity for crazies/radicals/people who simply like to make trouble to turn what may have been intended and initially organized as a peaceful statement into a riot. I don't think protests are organized with the intent or expectation of riots, nor do I think the majority of participants intend to be rowdy, but it's like giving an open call to bring gasoline to a certain place and hoping no arsonists show up. The worst case is scenarios like the events in Dallas that inspired this post, that it's like gathering fish into a barrel with targets on their backs. We may not like to admit it, we may disagree on how to label it, but we live in a world where people senselessly take lives en masse, particularly when it will create a media frenzy.
And for what? So people watching will know a cause is important?
Frankly, we do have internet now. We can make our numbers felt through petitions etc with as much efficacy and none of the risk.
Even so, I believe that none of these measures will make much real difference to whatever the problem.
So what will?
DO.
The only way to fix a corrupt system is to do so from the INSIDE.
Do you believe that the United States Police forces are corrupt &/or full of racist people you don't trust to carry a gun?
Then BECOME A POLICE OFFICER and don't be racist, corrupt, or trigger happy. Too old? Encourage your children, or your grandchildren, or your nieces, nephews, friends' kids, to grow up to work in law enforcement, and not to be racist. Donate funds or organize classes for your city to educate current law enforcement in sociology and racial studies. Organize events that can encourage positive interactions and experiences between members of oppressed people groups and their oppressors, so that officers have an opportunity to genuinely rewrite the script in their minds by way of positive, genuine personal experience.
The only way we can fix a corrupted population of people is to flood it with good people.
Do you believe some of the tragic shooting incidents involving police were exacerbated by people refusing to listen or comply to orders given by an authority?
Then teach your children to respect authority figures. MODEL that respect by respecting them yourself. If you are of a demographic which is categorically socialized not to fear the law but to rely on it to protect you, then you better get out of your house, join a big brother/big sister program, and instill that respect into some kids who haven't had that opportunity. If nothing else, teach your children to comply when the person they're disagreeing with has a gun, and then educate them on how to pursue justice after the fact- there are dash cams and body cams, if you feel your rights are being unlawfully infringed upon, DON'T be mouthy and insolent and scream in their face, don't resist, and no matter how right you are, DON'T FIGHT SOMEONE WHO IS ARMED FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! Get the organizations that would defend you in death to help you defend yourself IN COURT with your heart still beating.
And ALL of you- how about instead of waiting to give money to a fund for the family of someone who dies unjustly, you give money now to a fund for the legal defense team of someone unjustly accused of a crime based on their demographic status?
Are you Pro-Life?
Then put down the picket signs and go prepare your hearts and your homes to adopt kids that are products of rape, or unexpected teen pregnancy, or unwelcome adult pregnancy. Be ready to take in kiddos with birth defects & drug addictions. Make space in your homes or financially support organizations that provide housing for girls who are kicked out of their homes for being pregnant. Organize clinics and meetings where families can be counseled through the challenges of unexpected pregnancy and learn forgiveness, acceptance, and supporting their own.
The only way we can change our culture is to create a safe, welcoming place for the children of unwanted pregnancies.
Are you Pro-choice in part because you believe the foster system is so corrupt and full of greedy, neglectful people that you think it would be better in the long run to abort a child than to risk subjecting it to such a life?
Then get trained, open your homes, and become good foster parents. You're smart enough and good enough to identify a problem exists, so be smart enough and good enough to do something about it.
The only way to fix a corrupt system is to flood it with good people.
Are you sick of voting for the lesser of two evils, but you do it anyway because you feel your vote will be wasted if you don't vote for one of the front runners?
Then become a politician and don't be corrupt. Raise your children to have an interest and understanding of politics, and teach them not to be corrupt. Most of all, get involved at the lowest levels- those people running for higher office have been climbing the ladder for a long time. If you pay attention to mayoral and governor elections, local politics and congress, we could, hypothetically, begin to weed out the baddies before they ever start climbing.
The only way to bring about change is to stop doing things as they've always been done. If you think there's any other way than this, you are living the definition of insanity.
I could go on and on with examples such as homelessness, poverty, water poverty, drug addiction, etc- in fact some of these are my own personal pet causes, but you should get the idea by now.
The when a corruption is systemic, it's not just this giant crap factory that you can only either yell at pointlessly, burn down completely, or just accept.
The difference between that which is corrupt and that which is not is the proportion of non-corrupt individuals to those who are corrupt inside that system. It ultimately comes down to a tip of the scales. And the only way to change which way a scale tips is to add weight to the side you prefer.
So are you tired of the world as it is? Wishing for change? Discouraged? Then DO. You don't have to stop all the reposts and demonstrations, but back them up. And if you must demonstrate, please be wise, be safe, and don't be afraid to leave if it gets ugly.
*I am not denying the efficacy of protest as a real society changing tool at various times in history- I am saying we have outgrown its efficacy. It's not a good method for this generation.
Dear Suzy, I love pumpkin flavored things, so of course this is my favorite season! Still, I find that after more years than I'll own of eating all the traditional fall desserts, I am sick of classic pumpkin pie! I know it's a terrible thing for a pumpkin lover such as myself to say, but I just think it could be... jazzed up a bit, don't you? I'd ask for a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, but cheesecake is so very heavy! What can I make this year to spice things up?
Pumpkin'd Out,
Mrs. Spratt
Dear Mrs. Spratt,
I have the perfect recipe for you! It's called "Chai Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie" and it's one of my original recipes.
This pie can be and has been multiplied to serve large groups.
This is a hotel pan serving about 40.
It has everything you love about pumpkin cheesecake without being quite so heavy. It does include both weight measurements and volume measurements, so a scale is useful. If you don't have a scale, there are some excellent weight-to-volume converters on google to help you convert it easily. I really like this one. I hope you enjoy! I encourage all of my readers who try this recipe to post photos of their results in the comments- I love to see them!
Chai Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie
Yield: 2 pies
Filling:
1#2oz cream cheese, SOFT
17oz sugar
.5oz corn starch
10oz sour cream
3 chai tea bags put through a strainer to get the big pieces out
15oz Pumpkin puree
5 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 can evaporated milk
Crust:8 Graham crackers
.5 box club crackers
2 sticks butter4 tbsp sugar
Instructions: - First combine sugar and corn starch in a sifter/strainer, sift into a mixer bowl and mix well
- Add soft cream cheese and mix at medium power.
- Scrape whole bowl and mix again
- Scrape whole bowl and mix again
- Scrape whole bowl and mix again (seriously all 3 times, it's super important- trust me!)
- Scrape bowl well and add sour cream
- Mix @ half power
- Scrape bowl well - Add chai spices and pumpkin puree and mix
- Scrape bowl completely and mix again
- Add eggs one at a time while mixing
- Add evaporated milk and vanilla while mixing
- Pulverize the crackers into crumbs
- Melt butter
- Pour sugar and butter into crumbs and mix well
- Smooth crust mix into two pie pans
- Par bake crusts for 5 minutes at 325
- Pour filling into crusts
- Place pans into a cookie sheet and place the cookie sheet into the oven (preheated at 325)
- Pour hot water from a pitcher or liquid measuring cup into cookie sheet so that shallow water covers the whole surface without splashing into the pies
- Bake pies until just barely jiggley in the center
- Pull out pies, leave cookie sheet
- When oven is cooled, remove pan of water
- Cool pies for about an hour, chill overnight. You may be wondering why on earth you need to scrape the bowl so many times. Simply, the biggest difference between a perfect cream cheese dessert (particularly cheesecake) and an... amateur one... is that a perfect cream cheese dessert has no spots, specks, chunks or blobs of white when you cut into it. The more you scrape and re-mix, the more likely you are to have it come out perfect. Especially with a pumpkin pie with orange filling, those white specks of cream cheese are nobody's friend.
I don't know his name. I don't know anything about him except one of the most important things in the world.
Let me back up a bit.
I saw him 2 days ago when I was out to lunch with some of my family. We were waiting for a table to open up in a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakery, so I was, naturally, assessing everyone around me and the stage of consumption their lunch had reached to guess how long the wait would be. Then I noticed this man. I'm going to name him Phil. Phil was eating a salad and some bread. There was no phone in sight. There was no lunch companion at his table. There was no newspaper, book, nook, laptop, blackberry, pen with napkin scribbles... nothing. Just his plate. Being the awkward, voyeuristic people watcher that I am, I noticed and immediately became fascinated.
I looked around at the other tables. There were several other men eating by themselves, but this one had a newspaper... this one had his phone out... this one was talking into a headset (not a bluetooth, mind you- one of those headsets you see video gamers and air force pilots wearing- super classy).
I was so fascinated with Phil that I actually took a [super creepy] picture by taking a photo of my grandma and zooming in. I knew I'd want a visual for the blog I was already writing in my head. (FOURTH WALL!!!!!!!!)
Phil wasn't in a hurry. I hope someone understands why this boggles me. He was sincerely, genuinely enjoying his salad; totally alone with his thoughts. Without distraction, without somewhere to hurry up and get to. He was smiling a little.
When is the last time you had a meal by yourself? When is the last time you had a meal by yourself that wasn't
a) on the phone
b) on social media
c) reading something
d) watching tv
e) doodling on a napkin
f) eaten in a hurry because you have things to get to and nothing to occupy your mind
g) in the car
h) some or all of the above?
There is a common expression in literature or movies: "how do you sleep at night?"
It's an expression usually directed at persons whose behavior has caused others to wonder how they can stand to fall asleep with such a guilty conscience.
Imagine the clear conscience it takes to enjoy ones lunch, in this day and age, completely alone with one's own thoughts.
Phil has inspired me.
I want to discover the peace of a meal absent of outside connection.
I want to experience the sanity of being able to sit still with my own thoughts and not feel rushed to find something else to focus on.
Even make a standing appointment?
Phil, whoever you are, you're my hero.
I hope now he's yours too.
If there's something you'd like me to write a post about, or a question you'd like answered, click the "email me" link on the right hand side of the page.
I've noticed when I order a smoothie at any place that uses fruit puree rather than real fruit- or even in addition to real fruit- the puree always has sugar added in the ingredients. Why can't the smoothie purees just be a puree of the fruit? Obviously the people who order smoothies are probably health conscious, why would they make it MORE sugary?
Flummoxed
Strawberry Shortcake
Dear Strawberry,
Excellent question! It does seem odd for the smoothie puree companies to add sugar to a product that is supposed to be healthy and fresh, but there IS a good reason! As a healthy foods consumer, you may have noticed that a strawberry in December never tastes as good as a strawberry in May. This has to do with seasons! While greenhouses and exports allow for most fruits to be available anywhere, any time, seasonality and the location of the farm have a large impact on the flavor of fresh produce.
The big difference between a winter strawberry and a summer strawberry is that the summer strawberries naturally have more sugar. In order to provide a consistent product with a consistent sugar content and a reliable, familiar flavor all year round, chefs use a tool called a refractometer.
A refractometer uses light refraction to determine the amount of sugar in a liquid. By adding sugar - or water - to a smoothie base until each batch achieves the same light refraction, it becomes possible to take something out of one's control, like the natural sweetness of fresh fruit, and make it consistent.
When I worked at the four seasons, we used the refractometer to measure the sugar in our sorbet bases and sauces. Sometimes, when the fruit was in season, we actually had to add a little water to lower the overall sugar in order to have a consistent product! Other times we would have to add a little or a lot of simple syrup (sugar and water brought to a boil to dissolve the sugar) to make the sorbet taste palatable.
All this to say, while it is understandable that you are not interested in adding sugar to your smoothie, if you got a smoothie that reflected the natural sweetness of the season you ordered it in, you might never go back after a winter whim turned sour (literally). The smoothie companies aren't trying to trick consumers by making their smoothie bases sweet like soda, they are doing what they can to offer a consistent, reliable flavor year-round. Generally speaking, the amount of sugar per serving is not significantly more than would be naturally occurring in whatever fruit flavor you order during that fruit's peak season.
There are, however, better and worse companies of course, and some companies do add more sugar and other additives as preservatives, so that their purees last longer. The better ones actually arrive at their distributors' locations frozen, so that they can be thawed one unit at a time and be used up within a week or so without requiring extra preservative sugar.
This post is extremely personal,
but I feel like it is important to share. I hope it is enlightening or comforting or both to some of my readers.
The Room
In my mind there is a dim, circular
room completely lined with shelves, wall to wall, beginning at the
floor and climbing high to an unseen ceiling. All of these shelves are
lined with red boxes- like the ones you can get at Neiman Marcus at Christmas. Each box is
an opportunity, challenge or problem that I will eventually encounter in my
life. Usually, I walk into the room and there is the box for today's challenge sitting
on a table, and I open it to assess its contents: the options I have to proceed
through and beyond the challenge. Sometimes the box is filled with options;
these are welcome and easy, and the best one or two courses of action tend to
stand out. Other boxes may only have one option, there in the back corner of
the box, not always appealing but present and something I can take and move
forward with. Sometimes the single option is even welcome assurance that it was my only choice.
I am blessed to have led a life
which for the most part has featured full boxes; the world has been my oyster,
so to speak, and I have had so many opportunities to select whatever path I
desired to pursue. Somewhere along the line, though, I walked into that room
and I opened a box and I found it empty.
I panicked. I felt frozen. I didn’t
know how to move forward, what to do next. Up to that point, I
would go into that room in my mind, find the box labeled with the problem at
hand on the table, open it up and find the next step,
then I would take it out of the box and use my choice. Then the box, the
problem, would go away. For years that was my sanity: walk in, open box, view
options, make choice, take the next step.
After that first empty box, I
slowed down. I still used my room, but I now
knew that there was the possibility I would open a box one day and find nothing
inside. By the second or third empty box, I became wary and anxious of opening
my boxes- then of even entering the room. It manifested itself in my real life
by developing an unreasonable aversion to certain things that almost always
sent me to my room of boxes; I would avoid things that might notify me of a
problem or a choice so that I wouldn’t have to face the boxes piling up on my
table- what if one of them was empty? What if all of them were? (To my family who are reading this, I'll just say Email.)
When I had to deal
with the growing mess in my room of boxes, I reached a point where I would get
panicky just thinking about opening a box- a fear of the unknown. Most of the
time I would open the boxes and find my choices, my next steps, and I would
chastise myself for making so much of nothing- I'd gain some courage to
open another box, and another, knocking out challenge after challenge, relaxing
and building confidence UNTIL
I found myself frozen. The panic
and anxiety was worse than ever. In the real world, I would have a physical
panic attack, with hyperventilating, even crying, and I would go into a brief
state of denial, in my mind I would walk out and close the door to the room and
pretend it didn’t exist, and in reality I would block it out by watching a
stupid show or reading a novel, or cooking. The box wouldn’t go away, and eventually it
would get dealt with, often with a worse outcome for having been put off.
This story is not to showcase my struggles in a bid for attention or sympathy; I do hope that in being transparent, more people can feel comfortable identifying areas in which they need help, and realize that their "issues" do not define them; even the most "together" people have stuff going on they just aren't telling the world about. I hope it helps explain to people who do not deal with Anxiety what it looks like from the perspective
of someone who has experienced it long term.
I also want to share with those of
you who deal with Anxiety in your own lives what has helped me begin to
overcome it. First, I have come to realize that there is no such thing as an
empty box. I still have to remind myself of that before I open a new one, but
truly, when you think about it, there is no such thing as a problem or a
challenge with no next step. The next step might not always be appealing, but
it always exists- for all the boxes I thought were empty, I have never actually
had my entire life come to a halt; it always somehow moves forward. Sometimes the only thing in the box is prayer, but in my experience it is the best option I could hope for, and should be the first next step I take from any box. The second
important thing I have learned (with the help of wise counsel) is
that the boxes generally get less and less full the longer I leave them
unopened. The longer I wait to face my challenges, the less options I will have
for the next step.
If you struggle with anxiety, I
encourage you to share it with someone you trust. They may not understand
initially but I challenge you to take some time to walk them through it; it is
healing to feel like there is someone with you when you encounter particularly
intimidating “boxes”. If you don’t have anyone you feel comfortable processing
with, feel free to email me- I can’t
offer much more than an ear, but sometimes that’s just what you need!
I was asked recently what the best meal I've ever eaten was. It is
obviously hard to pinpoint that after 25 years of eating solids, so the best I
could do was narrow down a list of top contenders. Here they are, in
chronological order:
1) Bogota, Colombia. I was 16, in Bogota with a group from my
church, helping a children's home and their ministry to the street children of
Colombia. We were on top of agorgeous mountain,
working hard to take down a fence and build a large playground for the children
to visit on field trips for an escape. We had been working hard all day, and
when we broke for lunch they passed out wrapped sandwiches. Those sandwiches-
OOOH those sandwiches. Homemade, with 3 slices of bread, a medium-fried egg,
sliced cold chicken, shredded lettuce, cheese, I think avocado, some kind of spread- I inhaled it so
fast I wish I'd paid better attention to its contents. But up on that
mountaintop, overlooking the city, after doing hard, physical work, in this
beautiful place-- that was aperfect sandwich.
[Bogota,
Columbia, 2005]
2) Paris, France. I went for a mini-vacation with my mom, and one
evening she took me to one of the fanciest restaurants I have ever set foot in,
where the only thing I recognized on the menu happened to be my all-time
favorite dish, Boef Bourguignon. The Coke I ordered was more expensive than my
mom's wine, and the dish came out piping hot in a rust colored ramekin
remarkably fast. The sauce was dark, rich, reddish brown, and the thing that
distinguished it from other versions I'd had in the States was that the sauce
in that single ramekin had to contain at least half a bottle of reduced
burgundy. It also had large sprigs of fresh thyme that packed an aromatic and
savory punch. The overall experience in Paris of course adds fondness to my memories of
this dish, but it was also genuinely one of the best things my mouth has ever
experienced.
[Photo taken by
me!]
3) Seattle, Washington. I was visiting Seattle for a friend's
wedding. My parents and I visited Pike Place Market and "caught" a
side of smoked salmon from the famous fish market. We then went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and set out a blanket and a picnic of bagels & lox, with the salmon from
the market, cream cheese and bagels. There we ate while watching the live
salmon jumping upstream at the site of the dam, in perfect weather at sunset.
[Photograph
obtained from Google]
4) My wedding reception. While you might be thinking, "OK,
DUH- of course on the best day of your life you would consider it the best meal
of your life." But in all practicality Idid plan
that meal very carefully to be exceptionally awesome. On the menu were food
trucks; the Easy Slider Truck (www.easyslidertruck.com) and the Guava Tree Truck (www.theguavatreetruck.com) in Dallas. My Husband
and I partook in the best of the East Slider's offerings- The Sweet &
Low-Down burger; Angus beef with goat cheese, strawberry jam, salty, crispy
bacon (though both my Husband and I both picked it off) and toasty buns. For
dessert, because I am a pastry chef and I have actually never been much of a
fan of cake, we instead arranged to have two croquembousche (conical towers of
cream puffs) and a tree of macaroon cookies made by an amazing local baking company called Bisous Bisous (www.bisous-bisous.com).
[Photos courtesy
of Becca Ann Photography in Dallas, TX]
What about you? What is the best meal or item you've ever eaten?
Did the setting make a difference? Leaveyour story
in the comments!
Nearly every week for over 5 years, I've met my grandmother for lunch or dinner. It's the highlight of my week every time, because my grandma is AWESOME. She's in her mid-80's, volunteers regularly, lives by herself upstairs, does crossword puzzles like she's channeling Will Shortz, knits roughly 62.4x faster than I do, sponsors a child in a 3rd world country and writes him letters in Spanish, reads at least 1 book per week, goes visiting people younger than herself at the nursing homes to read to them, and still makes time for her youngest granddaughter every week. I could and should and probably someday will write a blog about what I've learned from my weekly lunches, but this particular blog was inspired by the meal I had at our most recent dinner.
Cheddar's is, by most people's standards, a very middle of the road, American eats establishment. Middle priced, general American-style menu, nestled right in there alongside Applebee's, Fridays, maybe a notch above Chili's (two notches lately, anyone else feel like Chili's has gone downhill lately? or have my standards just improved with adulthood? I digress). HOWEVER. As I have periodically patronized the Cheddar's in my area, their menu, food preparation standards, and staff have gotten better and better.
My favorite dish at Cheddar's is their Asian Salad. It sounds standard enough, most places have an Asian salad nowadays, but Cheddar's Asian Salad stands tall above the rest, and not just literally.
[Photo source: www.thedallassocials.com (via Google Image)]
Not only is this a low guilt meal, - - - - - No, I'm going to skip the cliche, commercial-sounding review of the obvious and just describe this dish. It has crunchy, crispy wontons layered between a cold, dark-leaf, crispy shredded lettuce salad, tossed with diced mango, cucumber, spicy relish, grated carrots, tomatoes and grilled chicken breast, dressed with an Asian vinaigrette with chopped cilantro, and lightly drizzled with a thicker, salty sauce.
It's not just about what's in this salad, it's about how they work together. First, of course, there's the taste- most important, and then the texture. The sour, tangy dressing with the slightly spicy, bitter cilantro (but just the smallest sprinkle- I'm not a member of the cilantro-loving camp, but I really like Cheddar's' use of it here), the cool, quenching, crunchy cucumber (again, not usually a fan of cucumbers but I like them in this salad!) with the slightly sweet, super crunchy carrots, juicy fresh tomatoes and the soft, sweet, aromatic mango pieces- all of this finished with lovely surprise bursts of spiciness from the infrequent bits of relish smattered throughout. The grilled chicken is well-cooked, never dry, and sliced thinly, adding a touch of smokiness and a welcome soft, al dente bite you can only get from properly cooked meat. The method they use to slice the chicken and toss it in with the salad, rather than laying it on top, allows easy fork-fulls and perfect bite-ratios (when you have a little bit of everything on one fork for the best bite). The wontons work perfectly, with the touch of oil from frying mellowing out some of the acid from the dressing, and the unimposing, super crispy starch converting me from croutons forever. All of this finished with the lightest sprinkle of some kind of salty Asian sauce that puts it over the top.
[Phone photo of my dinner more than half eaten, I dug in before I could stop and get a photo of it fresh]
All the best elements: Sour, Tangy, Crunchy, Acidic, Sweet, Cool, Quenching, Bitter, Juicy, Soft, Smokey, Spicy, Aromatic, Salty- and most of all, Satiating. I usually make two meals of it.
The cherry on top is that the salad comes with a warm, honey-butter drizzled croissant, which in all my professional experience I am willing to bet is baked freshly in-house.
Anyway, Cheddar's always has excellent food, and while I could make this stupidly long, suffice it to say you'll get your money's worth on pretty much every menu item except the chips and queso- queso is a little too thick and bland, chips are stale about 40% of the time. Still worth checking it out for a date, whether with your significant other or your grandmother.
Today I'm going to be a pretty casual and speak about something that has been rolling around my mind for quite some time now- Hell. Yes, that's right, H-E-double-hockeysticks. I suppose the "thesis" of this post would be...
I believe that Hell exists
^^^(Does Not Equal)^^^
I hope you go to Hell.
Allow me to explain. It seems that whenever I find myself in a conversation with a person whose philosophy of the afterlife does not include the Hell option, the underlying tone and occasionally stated feeling of the conversation is that in my owning that I believe that Hell not only exists, but is actually a place that certain people will end up, I am giving my personal consent to those people ending up there. This could not be further from what is happening.
Before I dive into what exactly I believe and why I believe it and even why it does not mean I want to damn everybody to Hell, I would like to explain the most bare-bones basic logic of this theology:
IF Hell exists, then it exists. IF this is the case, my belief (no matter how weak or strong) that it exists does not in any way solidify or confirm Hell's existence. Likewise, IF Hell exists, YOUR*** belief (no matter how weak or strong) that Hell does NOT exist does not in any way nullify Hell's existence. Regardless of either of our beliefs, it either exists or it doesn't.
In case this argument does not make sense to you, because the verbiage is somewhat repetitive, I will give a more tangible example:
IFa banana exists, then it exists. IF this is the case, my belief (no matter how weak or strong) that it exists does not in any way solidify or confirm the banana's actual existence. Likewise, IFthe banana exists, YOUR*** belief (no matter how weak or strong) that the banana does NOT exist does not in any way nullifythe banana's actual existence.Regardless of either of our beliefs, it either exists or it doesn't.
This statement holds equally true if Hell does NOT exist.
So here's the thing. It seems that most often, people who do not believe in Hell treat the beliefs of those who do in a similar fashion to that of the belief in Fairies in the story of Peter Pan:
Odds are good that I am losing you a little, it is a REALLY BIG topic and a lot of thinking to verbalize, but please, bear with me for another moment, and I'll try to be clear:
Nonbelievers in Hell often act as though the more I say I believe in Hell, or the more strong my belief in Hell is, the more real becomes- like the fairies. It's as if every time I own my belief that Hell exists, I am shouting in the person's face "I DO BELIEVE IN HELL! I DO! I DO!" and as a result, Hell becomes less a figment of my imagination and more a burning pit of justice.
Again I say, my belief in Hell and your*** nonbelief in Hell have no impact on whether it actually exists.
A particularly harsh truth that follows the same logic is:
No matter how hard you deny the existence of a banana, the banana's state of being will not change.
No matter how inconvenient the banana's existence is, the banana's state of being will not change
No matter how terrible the potential implications of the banana's existence are, the banana's state of being will not change.
To this point, I have been stating my logical defense for why I believe what I believe, and more importantly why that belief does not have anything to do with whether I think specific individuals will or should be damned to Hell. Now I will further explain why my belief in Hell has the opposite effect on my attitude about YOUR*** afterlife than seems to be most often expected.
I am a Christian. I have come to a point of hesitating to identify myself as such, selecting instead to say "follower of Jesus Christ" or similar, because so many broad stereotypes and labels have been associated with people who call themselves Christians. Here is what I mean when I call myself a Christian:
I believe in one God.
I believe in life after the death of our earthly bodies.
I believe in Heaven and Hell.
I believe that everyone sins.
I define sin as living in any way that is not in line with the holy character of God.
I believe I am a HUGE, WHOPPING sinner.
I believe you are, too (sorry).
I believe that God not only created, but really, REALLY loves all people- everybody.
I believe that God's character is strongly just, and that that justice carries through to there being consequence for sin.
I believe that the consequence for sin is death and Hell.
I believe that God loves people so much, He wanted to give us a way to avoid Hell, because we can't seem to stop stepping outside of that which is holy.
I believe that in His cosmic, bigger-and-smarter-than-me glorious logic, God determined that the best and only way to get around the perfect system of justice He established was to completely contradict the process.
I believe that to do that, God came to earth as His own son, 100% God but also 100% human, lived out a life on earth facing all the same temptations to sin that every other human faces, and remained holy. Then he underwent the punishment He didn't earn, but you and me and that guy over there earn on a daily basis.
I believe that this shook the foundations of the whole system of justice, and in doing so, God atoned for our unholiness- because Jesus Christ died, even though He was perfect, we don't have to!
And I believe that if we accept the gift that God gave us in this sacrificial atonement, we DON'T have to go to Hell! and we get to go to Heaven even though we totally don't deserve it (And I MEANWe).
But I also believe that we do have to accept God's gift of grace; He won't force it on us- that's part of free will.
So here's the deal. Now that you know exactly what I believe and why I believe it, I'd like to ask you to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Imagine that you have the deepest, most genuine belief that Hell does exist, that people will go there for ALL of eternity, and that you know a way they can avoid going there. Wouldn't you tell them?
Taking that into consideration, answer me this: How much would I have to hate somebody if I knew all that and didn't at least TRY to tell them what I know?
If I truly believed you could go to Hell, and I truly believed I knew how to save you, but I decided not to tell you because it might make you feel uncomfortable or offend you, that would make me a jerk of literally eternal proportions.
So in conclusion, I hope you at least come away with this: Yes, I believe in Hell. Yes, I believe people go there. NO, I don't want you to go there. God loves you, and I love you, and that is why I am telling you about it- not the other way around.
I recognize that this whole post is potentially controversial. I am genuinely not trying to pick any fights, but to present my understandings to the best of my ability. I welcome your responses, though I urge you to remain civil. If you have any questions or interest in having a conversation with me about anything in this post, feel free to click the "Email Me" link on the right side of the page, or send an email to asksuzyadvice@gmail.com.
I try to minimize the Suzy's soap-box feature of this blog, but I do feel more strongly about this subject than any household tips, relationship advice or recipes. I will resume that content in the next post, though! Thank you for reading.
***By "your" I of course mean the hypothetical reader taking whatever stance is expressed, not literally you in the you sense, unless it happens to apply.
