Slow-cooked casserole

I think sometimes on this blog, I might come across a bit harsh. I don't really mean to. I just mean to express myself honestly and utilize my freedom of speech/expression fully. This is my online journal. I won't publish any books anytime soon, so this isn't free advertising for me. This is how I process my life. I thank you again for reading.

However, I did originally start this blog so that I could have a place to debate about political issues online ("window" = my computer monitor, "brawl" = the stuff that usually ends up happening verbally anytime two people disagree on a political issue). I'm not into political stuff or debating anymore. (In fact, I should probably change the subject. You know what I like? Chocolate doughnuts.) Now I'm really into all the emotional healing that God's been doing with me over the past several years. So, this blog sort of became a handy place for me to safely yell at my past abusers, etc., without actually doing it to their faces. (Anyone who has ever had their invisible talons in me, well, I ain't a-gonna come around for more.) And it's a place to vent. And I think it's a nice place for old friends and new friends to keep up with me while I'm going through stuff. And it's a nice place for me to shamelessly post cat photos.

But all of the above has turned some people off, and I can understand that. I think some people meet me in person after reading my blog and freak out a little bit because I'm the chick who can be really severe with her words. Or they might be a bit disappointed to discover that I'm not all that wordy in person. I also think people who truly know me know that I am NOT a very articulate person at ALL. Sometimes I might even stutter a little bit. If you put a computer keyboard under my fingers, I'll go to town and share my heart. If you talk to me in person, you should probably make yourself comfortable, because, um... Wait. I'm sorry. Was I... yes, I was talking. Sorry, I blacked out for a little bit. I was saying that if you talk to me in person, you might want to find a comfy place to sit down, because waiting for me to express myself verbally might take a while. I will more than likely look at the ceiling while I search for words, possibly forget where I am for a few seconds, allow my brain to trail somewhere else for a few more seconds, and try to not look crushed if you impatiently finish my sentences for me.

Yes, I'm THAT chick who's always in her own little world. Honestly, that might explain why I have few close friends in this season of my life, but, well... Wait. I'm sorry. Was I... What was I... Ah, now I remember what I was saying. I would much rather be me than pretend to be somebody else just because somebody told me to or just because I want people to like me. Yes, of course I want people to like me, because I'm human, and all humans want that. But I gotta be me.

Are you bored yet? Good. The casserole is still cooking.

And I think my therapist would remind me that I'm made in God's image.

Last year, at the beginning of June, I did a 2-week salad fast. If you'd like to read about what I learned then, please check out this older post. I just finished another 2-week salad fast (I broke this morning with a bowl of raisin bran). This is a photo of my favorite salad to fast on: Summer Fruit and Chicken Salad from the Target deli. Oh, my gosh, that stuff's good. You can't see them in this photo, but there are blueberries hiding underneath all that lettuce, cheese, chicken, and strawberries. I highly recommend this stuff for breakfast! I also discovered IHOP's new Citrus Chicken Pecan Salad. OH, MY GOSH, THAT'S GOOD SALAD -- even better than the deli stuff.

I realized during this fast -- a time when I get to intensely commune with God -- that I was eating better than I usually do. Yep. There's some definite symbolism there: Me seeking God and sticking close to Him is much better living than me doing my own thing and leaving God out of my life.

God my Father wants these fasts to be an annual tradition with me and Him: For the first 2 weeks of June, I can eat only salads. It's a way that He and I bond. And I don't think it's an accident that these fasts will end around Father's Day every year.

This year's fast was a bit different than I thought it would be, because it didn't really look or feel like a fast. I didn't spend hours of time praying or nursing migraines or obsessing over foods that I couldn't eat. This particular fast was very laidback and relational. I think God my Daddy wanted to hang out and take things slowly.

God usually gets very strict and very specific with me when I fast (I even gave up listening to Queen for 2 weeks), but even in observing the rigid boundaries, I had fun and enjoyed myself. Most anything that had the word "salad" on it was something I could eat. He and I had conversations at the Target and Tom Thumb delis that went something like, "What about potato salad?" "No." "What about macaroni salad?" "No, you can eat any salad that can be a main course, like chicken salad [which I would snack on]." "Wait. Why are You letting me eat ambrosia salad? I thought You said it had to be a main course." "Ambrosia is fruit-based. Potato salads and macaroni salads are starch-based, so they aren't really salads." And one morning while I was hungry at church and there wasn't any salad available, He said I could make myself a fruit salad. I grabbed some slices of honeydew melon and cantaloupe, chopped them up, and mixed them together, and He told me to pretend that the pieces of honeydew melon were pieces of lettuce. So, I had to depend extremely much on His instructions for 2 weeks. I mean, a chick's gotta eat.

But I think the main idea of this entire fast was what He spoke at the very beginning, before I took my very first bite of my very first salad, which is pictured below. God said, "Now do you believe that I can give you a banqueting table in the middle of the desert?" When the God of the Universe, the Almighty Lion of Judah who is a Consuming Fire, puts you on the spot like that, what do you say? You kinda look sheepishly at the floor and reply quietly, "Yes."

This is a turkey cobb salad from the Kroger deli. I made the mistake of not chopping it up properly before I chowed down, so I was very overwhelmed with the huge size of the ingredients. The bowl was deep, and its contents were very rich. I ended up eating this particular bowl over the course of 3 meals.

So, it was reinforced to me that sometimes overwhelming tasks need to be tackled one piece at a time. ("How do you eat a big salami? One bite at a time.")

I don't think my cats have learned this lesson yet. (Perhaps they never will. They're cats.) During my fast, I also had to refill Macho's food containers. This is a big deal in my home, because it involves me opening 2 large bags of cat food and mixing them together so that the cat-food cocktail will be ready to go during mealtimes. Choochie used to eat this cocktail, too, but now she's restricted to her hyperthyroidism food diet. However, she still tries to help herself to Macho's food whenever she gets a chance:

In this photo, the food happens to be conveniently at eye level for her to steal. Interestingly, I'm often very reminded of my relationship with God whenever I have to rebuke my cats. I was like, "No, that's not yours!" (She has at least $48 worth of her own food stored in a separate room.) And when Macho would try to help himself to the food when I was still mixing his cat-food cocktail, I was like, "WAIT!" If he would just have waited 5 more minutes...

Yep. There's some definite symbolism there, too: Sometimes I need to wait for my Father to finish preparing my food -- my very own provision, not somebody else's -- before I can enjoy it properly.

During these cat-food cocktail mixing parties, I usually end up accidentally spilling cat food on the floor. Of course, the cats are welcome to help themselves to the stray pellets (yes, they are live-in vacuum cleaners), but it's at their own risk. If I remember correctly, shortly after I took the above photo, Macho couldn't keep his stray-pellet plunder down. I think maybe if he had waited for me to measure out the proper amount of food for him, he could have kept it down. But if he's just eating everything in sight, of course it's going to be too much for his senior-cat system.

Gosh! Sometimes I wonder if I'm a terrible cat mama. When I'm at the vet's office, and I see other cats in carriers, I notice how calm those animals are. Mine, however, are howling inside their carriers as if I'm some kind of axe murderer who's kidnapped them.

In my home, I haven't built any elaborate cat mazes or trees or wall trails or havens like you may have seen on TV. Sorry, but usually when I spend money on cat toys or accessories, my babies snub them and play with my fingers or my drawstrings or my Q-tips or my dental floss or my [insert anything that is shiny, dangly, and/or mundane and boring here] instead. That's the kind of life that I share with them. I try to make life here indoors with me as interesting as possible, with boundaries, but I ain't the Queen of Sheba.

So, I've caught myself feeling a bit insecure about how I treat my cats. Yes, I'm a crazy cat lady, but am I a good cat lady? One evening, I was looking around my artsy-fartsy-chick-cave apartment, and Macho caught my eye:

And God told me, "He's fine." So, I chilled out. See how peaceful and macho-adorable he is there sleeping on top of my couch? I think that was God's way of telling me that I'm doing an OK job.

Macho was also there during another major revelation that God gave me about myself. Lately, especially while being unemployed, I've struggled with fighting the lie that I'm a loser. In my head, I know that I'm not a loser. In my heart, I've mostly known that I'm not a loser. But I think in my gut, the feeling of being a loser has kicked against my belly and ached to gush out from time to time. Then one evening -- I think maybe when I was having a quiet time, possibly when I had my Bible open, but I honestly don't remember -- God spoke very clearly. He said, "I don't want you to believe that you're a loser ever again. You won his heart, so you're not a loser." Macho was snuggling on my lap at the time. I looked at him and remembered how his previous owner was rarely home, how he would nap on a chair in the living room waiting for her to come home, how I would try to get his attention but he wouldn't stir. But during that time, I didn't put my ear on his orange furry belly. If I had, perhaps I would have heard him deep-purring while I was petting him.

Well, he's my cat now, and God used him as an illustration to talk to me way louder than any Bible verse has been able to speak to me on this issue. I definitely don't mean any disrespect to the Bible when I say that. I need the Bible. That's my spiritual food. I just mean that God can speak whenever He wants, however He wants, as randomly or spontaneously as He likes.

"But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth." (Psalm 86:15)

I ended up kinda pray-meditating on that verse one day out loud, spontaneously, like the kind of praying when you pace around your living room for a long time and say things that really aren't coming from you. That was cool. I really don't think that was me.

So, if I remember correctly, all of the above happened during this year's edition of my 2-week salad fast. I liked it. And God my Father reinforced big-time, yet again, that He's definitely not in any hurry with me. He has what I need, and what I need is Him. The devil might be waiting very eagerly for me to fail, but God is showing off -- setting up a huge banqueting table for me right in the devil's face, Psalm-23 style -- and He's making it very clear that He has infinitely more abundance than I could ever muster up myself. He's carved out a place just for me in His house, and I don't want to be anywhere else but in His house, in His arms, in His lap, in His face, in His will, in His anything He'll let me be in with Him.

Fast food can definitely be important and necessary, especially if you have a long commute, an empty stomach, and miles of city highways to zoom across to reach your destination. You need to grab something quick, something that's ready to go, and something you can hold in one hand and wolf down while you hold your steering wheel in the other hand. Life can definitely be that way, and it can move fast, and God can definitely speak that way, and He can maneuver situations and people so that they can be around you at the exact moment when you need them, while the pace of your life is zipping along at dizzying speeds, and you're loving every minute of it.

But other times, life with God is like waiting for a slow-cooked casserole to bake. God ain't in no hurry at all. He's taking His time, and He's mixing His casserole ingredients, and He's served you a nice, tall glass of iced tea in His scorching-hot kitchen. He's asked you to sit a spell, and your tummy begins to growl, but you don't really mind waiting to eat, even though He's explained that His casserole will need to bake for 6 hours after He puts it in the oven, because He's the best company you've ever had, and He treats you like royalty. He invites you to sit on His lap and snack on His homemade cookies, and when you zone out while you're telling Him your life story, He doesn't impatiently finish your sentences for you. He sits patiently and lets you finish. And you don't mind waiting for the casserole to finish baking, because you believe it's going to be the best-tasting meal you've ever had.

Wait. I'm sorry. What was I talking about? Um... Yes. That's right. I need Him.