Same God, Fresh Perspectives

So there I was, parked outside of this house decorated for Christmas with about 45 different colored lights blinking at a rapid pace, as a (I think?) animated Santa Claus held a candle and waved from the upper right window. I wasn't the only car there. Several people had stopped to take in the sight, but I was the only one hanging out the window with a camera, publicly ridiculing the house as the worst-decorated home I had ever seen. I say "publicly" because I came home and uploaded the video to my blog. This blog.

I have driven by that house more times than I can count this holiday season, and I have never driven by when there were not cars parked out front. I'm guessing they were cars with little kids in them. It reminded me of when I was a child, and my dad and I would always pick one night during Christmas to go out and drive around to find the most decked-out houses. Sometimes we went into Lancaster City. The mansions down near President Avenue never failed to delight.

God took those precious memories and showed me something unpleasant about myself: I am negative and cynical.

I don't know when or how it happened, but somewhere along the way I began speaking sarcasm as my first language. A little sarcasm fits perfectly sometimes; other times, sarcasm hurts. It may not hurt any human being, but sometimes it hurts God. I realized that I was out ridiculing the houses with the most Christmas spirit, not people who need professional decorating help. I was being a jerk about the same thing that used to thrill me as a kid. When I was little, the more lights there were, the happier I was! When did I become the grumpy old cat lady who complains about everyone and everything?

Maybe it sounds like a small revelation, but it was big for me. I have to acknowledge I have not always been a shining example of the fruits of the spirit. So I made a very deliberate decision that I was going to let God change my heart, and it has been amazing how quickly He has been doing so.

The way I joke around has changed; I'm not constantly judging people and situations; I have more patience. Most of all, I have real joy. I never realized how uptight I was about so much of life until I let go and decided to let God unravel me. You don't always see God's handiwork immediately, but in this instance, I can't STOP seeing it. On Saturday I was out Christmas shopping for my baby nephew when another checkout line opened up. The cashier called over to my husband and I and as we made our way to her line, another woman RAN past us and got in line ahead of us. I almost didn't know what to do with myself when I realized it wasn't even bothering me. Not that I pick fist fights with people at the Hobby Lobby, because I don't, but in the past I would have made a handful of snide remarks under my breath, at least. It was almost this sense of... wait... MY TONGUE ISN'T MOVING!! Here I was just cut off by a woman buying a bunch of crosses in a Christian store, and I had nothing to say about it. It was...weird.

All my life, I have wanted to be gentle and soft-spoken, but I've always been the exact opposite. There was always a little chunk of my childhood getting in the way, giving off the message, "If you mess with me, prepare to kiss the pavement." I was always on the defensive, always coming across harsh and cold for the sake of protecting myself. I was always scared of vulnerability. So imagine my shock when vulnerability turned out to be so joyful and peaceful!

Last week one of my neighbors put an inflatable yard thingie beside our apartment building. It's a couple of penguins, I think. (I admit, I haven't really stared at it for very long.) When I first saw it, I got angry. Yes, I'm serious - I got angry. My husband commented in the parking lot that I was the only person he had ever met who got mad at Christmas decorations. It made me think. And think. And think.

It made me ask God for a purer heart and a fresh perspective. I think God must have injected me with turbo grace because my line of vision is vastly different from what it was this time last Monday.

I've been celebrating a little something I like to call "emotional sobriety." I haven't been waging war against depression lately, or cycling out of control as I have in the past. I guess this joy thing started long before the blinky Christmas house of the inflatable yard thingies, but it TOOK those things to make me realize how different I was. I'm handling things better. I'm trusting God more and flipping out a lot less. I can thank new antidepressants for that, partly, but I'm pointing more towards God. There are some things even a pill can't do.

A few months ago, I made another deliberate decision - I decided I was going to stop comparing myself to other Christian women. It's an issue that is more widespread than you might think, but I had a pretty severe case of it. I was never good enough - never blond enough, pretty enough, perky enough, spiritual enough, etc. I had even stopped enjoying church because I felt like I didn't measure up and that everyone could see right through me to what a fraud I was. A good friend of mine told me a long time ago that I was a frequent participant in "reverse judgment." Instead of thinking I was better than everybody else, I had decided everybody was better than me. She was right, and I thought about what she said for a long time, until I finally decided I was being ridiculous. It wasn't easy; it took a lot of effort on my part. I had to, as the Bible says, 'take every thought captive' and tear it down. I had to stop myself from thinking the things I was thinking, but the more I practiced it, the easier it became. When I went to a church greeters meeting in November and was finally able to look at the other women around me and feel like we were on an even playing field, I knew my efforts were successful.

We try so hard to be certain things, when all God really wants us to do is knock it off and let Him do His thing. We have to be willing. That's all God asked of me, and it took me this long to figure it out and open my heart. This doesn't mean I'm going to run out and put an inflatable nativity in the yard, or put 10,000 blinky lights on my deck. But I can appreciate someone else's expression of joy and not hold any judgment against it.

I've made life out to be a lot harder than it needed to be. Believe it or not, that's a really nice Christmas revelation to me. Pin It

The Gift of Hope for Healing

God kicked my butt in church recently.
The pastor was preaching about hope and healing, and how we should never stop praying for healing, or hoping that God will answer in full. It wasn't like I had never heard that message before. All of Christianity is based on hope, isn't it? Maybe God was sick of my stubbornness or maybe I was just more willing to hear the truth, I don't know; all I know is that God took that particular sermon and smacked me with it.

I realized that I had come to an awful place of acceptance in my life. Not the kind of acceptance that a terminally ill person finds in the last few moments of their lives, but the kind of acceptance that says, "OK, this is just my lot in life. Forever. Amen." I not only accepted that my husband was chronically ill, and that I had a mental illness and diabetes, but that it was permanent. That's just... the way it is. Get used to it. That's life.

I wasn't bitter or angry about any of those things, really. I didn't blame God or wonder whether or not I was being punished. I had just accepted it. It was as much a normal part of my life as, say, running the dishwasher every afternoon. I took my pills and injected my insulin and that was that. In fact, I used to get angry at people who said they were praying for our healing. What was up with that?!? Didn't they know I had already prayed, like, at least 10 times? And when someone professed healing from depression in Jesus' name, that really set me off, too. My response was to always fold my arms and mutter, "Then you never had REAL depression."

You could say that my God was a God of maintenance, not transformation. Yes, God works through doctors and medications, but God also works through... God. He doesn't NEED a pill. He can command the waters to be still, and they will obey. Pill or no pill! The more comfortable I was with my life, the less power I attributed to Him. God heals people through medicine, but God still heals people outright, with nothing but His own sheer will.

I had been dismissing the omnipotence, power, and mystery of God. I had also all but abandoned any real communication with Him about the issues my husband and I face daily.

I could go on about how Jesus' birth was a gift to all mankind, but that has been done before. I know a lot more about how Jesus has been a gift to me. He has given me the fresh gift of hope, and wide-eyed wonderment at all that He is capable of. Many years ago, when I was a baby Christian who didn't know how to pray, a friend of mine told me to pull out a chair and pretend Jesus was sitting in it. That works fine if you're a teenager, but it gets stuffy when you grow up. Jesus is as close as a brother, and yet I don't understand Him completely, nor do I want to. I want a Savior who has more power than I do, and more knowledge than all of us combined. Buddy Jesus is great, as long as I don't forget about Sunday School Jesus - big, mighty, awe-inspiring.

That's the Jesus who was born to a virgin, healed the sick, saved the world, rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and allows the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of everyone who calls Him "Lord." And that's the Jesus  who changes my perspective, perfects my imperfect heart, and gives me hope that with the slightest touch of His hand, or a whisper of His voice, I can be healed.

Pill, or no pill.

Pin It

The Tackiest Lights in Town and "Creeper Claus"

Remember that terrible house I told you about with all the blinking lights? I finally caught some video on my way home last night from babysitting. Unfortunately, they didn't have it set to "tremble" like they did the first time I saw it, but it's still pretty bad. And what's worse is that there is a Santa Claus in one of their upstairs windows holding a candle and waving to passers-by. We couldn't figure out if it was animated or real, but I'm assuming it was animated. I hope, anyway, otherwise somebody has nothing better to do than dress up like Santa Claus at 10 o'clock at night and wave to people on the street. (Cars were pulling over to stare at the holiday train wreck.) Either way, it's creepy. It looks more like a ghost taunting the neighbors than a jolly old elf trying to please little children.

The first video is of the lights. The second one - though poor quality - is of Creepy Claus in the window.

 

Epileptics, beware!

Pin It

The Naivete of Rachel Ray

"Oh, this is so fun and easy to make! First we'll harvest the wheat for the roll and grind it up! Then we'll pick the perfect heifer, slaughter it, and slow roast it over an open flame just like the settlers did! Now let's go over here to our organic onion patch and pick out the onions we're going to saute! And when THAT'S done, we'll go back to my family farm and pick 16 vegetables that we can throw in the food processor to make our steak sauce. YAY! ISN'T THS FUN?!?"

If you love to cook, this probably won't appeal to you; but if you would rather order out than cook a meal any day of the week, you will most likely understand where I'm coming from in this post.

So there I was on the treadmill at the rec center yesterday, flipping through the channels on my personal little television set. There is not much on TV during the early afternoon, unless you're into soap operas or "People's Court," so I settled on Rachel Ray. She is helping a girl lose a lot of weight - I want to say 50 lbs. but I didn't pay much attention that part - by the time her senior prom rolls around. A commendable enough task, no doubt. The girl complained that she didn't know how to cook healthy meals and that she was living on a steady diet of boring turkey burgers. Rachel Ray swooped in to save the day and show her how to cook more interesting healthy meals.I thought I might be able to learn something, so I turned up the volume.

The goal of this particular cooking lesson was to trick this girl's mind into believing she was eating something fattening and delicious. I smirked a bit as Rachel informed her that spaghetti squash got its name from being so similar to that carbo-charged devil, spaghetti. She said once you cook it and hack it apart with a fork, it looks and "feels" like pasta. I noted that she said "feels" instead of "tastes." It may look like yellow vermicelli, but it doesn't taste like spaghetti. I know because I make squash pretty often.

Rachel then taught her how to make her very own nutrient-rich marinara sauce using garlic, eggplant, a can of whole tomatoes, and a whole red pepper. You slice the eggplant and pepper in half, drizzle them with olive oil, and broil them for 45 minutes. As for the garlic, you chop off the bottom stem part and broil the whole bulb also for 45 minutes. When the eggplant is done, you scoop the middle part into a blender. You remove the seeds from the pepper and throw that into the blender, too. Then you squeeze out the guts of the garlic bulb into the blender, add the can of tomatoes, and voila, your very own healthy marinara sauce.

I watched as Rachel Ray hacked up the squash and poured the sauce over it right in the shell. They oohed, aahed, and yummed it up. So healthy! So delicious! So...so...

See, here's the thing. That's an awful lot of veggies to buy for one meal. Not cheap, either. I'm not even sure I could fit it all in my oven at the same time. I think the girl was thinking the same thing. You could read it all over her face. Actually, you could read a couple of things all over her face.
-Won't all these vegetables give me diarrhea?
-Why does Rachel Ray keep saying she loves me when she doesn't even know me? Is that an Italian thing?
-I don't care what you say, Rachel. Spaghetti squash is not as delicious as real spaghetti.
-You know I'm just going to go out and buy a jar of sauce, right?

When it was all over, Rachel asked her, in her best cheerleader voice, "Wasn't that FUN?!?" That poor girl gave her the most bewildered smile. I know that smile. It's the same smile I gave my dad after a 3-hour algebra tutoring session in which I got 3 out of 50 example problems correct and at the end he said, "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

I'm lazy, so the thought of cooking a bunch of veggies for 45 minutes, waiting for them to cool, and then blending them is too much. Too, too much! I'm going to have to wash at least 2 cookie sheets and then clean out my blender... and it's a Rachel Ray blender, no less! Why would I do all that when all I gotta do is buy a jar of sauce and sprinkle a bunch of garlic powder in it? Maybe throw a carrot in my much smaller, much easier to clean electric chopper. Yes, my dishwasher is finally in good working order, but it's still easier without the extra cookie sheets and the dang blender to wash. I have better things I could be doing with my time, like spending quality time with Jesus, praying for the persecuted church, or watching my  new favorite show, "Psych."

Sure, taking charge of your health requires a little work. If that weren't the case, I wouldn't have been watching Rachel Ray on a treadmill. Exercise can best be defined as "necessary work." But broiling and liquefying a bunch of veggies are a waste of time. If Ragu can do it for me, I refuse to do it for myself. And how about some protein there, Rachel Ray? You've got the fiber down, but where's the protein? I am half the size of that girl on your show, and I'm outrageously diabetic. Type 2, the kind you get from eating too much real spaghetti. I'm guessing that girl is either diabetic or on her way there. SHE NEEDS PROTEIN!


I am weary of Rachel Ray after she duped me 3 years ago. I had cable then, and I was watching her show one day when she started blabbing about the amazing new Rachel Ray blender that had just hit the market. My eyes glazed over as I watched her process veggies, fruits, made bread crumbs, even turned a baby squirrel into a delicious high-protein smoothie. (My memory might be a bit fuzzy on that last part.) I envisioned myself making breakfast smoothies every morning before work (back when I had a lousy office job) and the next thing I knew, my husband gifted me with one of her blenders. I had never owned a blender/processor before. I was excited until I realized what a pain in the butt it is to clean one. I made about 5 smoothies and it now sits covered in an inch of dust in the corner of my kitchen.


Rachel Ray makes it look easy, but anything looks easy when it has been pre-cooked before the show. It's not that easy, people. It's not that quick. It requires effort. I think we can all agree that any meal that requires unnecessary effort is not a meal worth cooking. Of course, when I say "we" I mean, you know, those of us who couldn't give a rip about creating kitchen art and just want to get to the eating part.

Open that bottle and heat it up. You can work it off later while you channel surf on the treadmill.

Pin It

Ho Ho Ho, Ha Ha Ha, and a Couple of OMGs

The other night I saw this awesomely bad house in the town I used to live in. It was so terrible and wonderful all at the same time that I nearly peed my pants. Terrible Christmas decorations excite me to no end. I try to crawl into the minds of the people who do the decorating. I can see that sparkle in their eyes as they inflate their Santa-on-a-Harley; I sense the way they smile when they throw that single strand of 100 twinkle lights over an enormous oak tree with as much accuracy as someone throwing a beer can into a dumpster. But what I saw that night, driving by the Christmas House of Horrors, was the end-all of terrible Christmas decorations. How can I describe it... It was like Kris Kringle threw up and then had an epileptic seizure in the middle of his own yack. Think Trans-Siberian Orchestra...and all of the musicians are on crack. Imagine a large, modern house with a great big front yard with lots of trees and shrubs... and they're all covered with every conceivable colored light in the world. Now add some faux LED light trees. Now make them blink rapidly in all different colors. Now make them... what's the word?... TREMBLE... yes, tremble AND blink. Epileptics beware: if you drive anywhere near this house, you're going to steer the old 4-wheel drive sleigh directly into a tree.

I had it in my head this morning that I was going to pass that house on my way home from running errands tonight. I even wrote myself a note on the dry-erase board on my fridge. I was going to go out there and take a video of it and post it here so that we could all revel in the patheticism... but I forgot my camera. What am I good for, anyway? I kicked myself all the way home because not only did I miss out on the Christmas House of Horrors, I also missed out on a good number of other sad displays of misguided holiday cheer, including the aforementioned Santa-on-a-Harley.

I have major issues with Santa Claus driving a Harley. It doesn't make sense. I may hate seeing an inflatable Santa on the front lawn, or a plastic Santa and his 8 tiny reindeer on the roof, but at least it's traditional. And not only that, but how would Santa REALLY be able to arrive undetected on a Harley? I've never seen a reindeer fly, but I'm pretty sure they're agile, swift, QUIET. If a deer can fly, I'm sure it can land softly. I've never seen a quiet motorcycle.
"Now, Jimmy, if you listen carefully, you can hear Santa off in the distance!
"BBBBRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPRRRRRRNAHNAHNAHBRRRR...

I also came across some beautifully decorated homes and I want to get some pictures of them, too. I saw quite a few that made me smile, made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and made me hate living in an apartment complex. They deserve as much recognition as poorly decorated houses deserve ridicule. Consider me the Christmas Equal-Opportunity Blogger.

I spent a few hours at the home of a friend who has the most killer house. Seriously, I"m not just fluffing her up. A cozy, well-decorated place with a lovely fireplace, free of neighbors having loud sex, rap music, or potholes the size of the Hoover Damn in the parking lot. I sat there, sipping my coffee, as her kitten tore my right hand to shreds, imagining how I would decorate a house like hers.

A chill rippled through my body as I realized that somewhere out there, at that very moment, someone was sitting in an equally beautiful home, gathering thumbtacks so they could tack a 15-foot plastic Grinch on top of the garage, and then erect life-size wooden carolers on the front porch..What's worse? Then they would stand back, smile, and pat themselves on the back.

What a cold, cruel world. Pin It