Windowbrawl

Wait. Is it time to eat yet?

2011-12-01T22:18:00.001-08:00

Ioften blog about my cats. And I also blog about food. But now, I'm going toblog about... wait for it... cat food.

Recently,I brought home a new bag of food for my cats. They seemed very interested inthe bag right away, but they needed to finish their old food before it was timefor me to feed them their new food. I also recently noticed some holes in thebag and that the area around the holes was moist. I had a suspicion of how thebag got this way. And while I was taking pictures to document the bag because Igot an idea for a blog post...

...Machovalidated my suspicion by boldly interrupting my photo shoot and chewing andlicking the bag. Um, kitty, if you had waited like 20 more minutes, you couldhave had your food served right into your bowl, right under your nose, rightwhere you could readily access it and enjoy it.

Thisisn't a bag of cheap Wal-Mart cat food. (I don't even shop regularly atWal-Mart. I don't even like Wal-Mart. Years ago, I used to blog about how muchI dislike Wal-Mart. If you're curious about my opinion, please check out my reposted post.) Choochie won't even touch Wal-Martcat food anymore. She can tell the difference between the cheap stuff and thegood stuff.

Yes,this is a bag of specialty cat food that I bought at the vet for over $30. (Itwas prescribed after Macho had some boy-cat issues a few months ago, but that'sanother story.) Purina One makes a nice cheaper substitute that my cats seem toenjoy, but I don't think they ever chewed through a bag like this. And I'venever seen my cats chew through a bag of cheap Wal-Mart cat food. No, they knowthat this $30+ bag of specialty vet food is the real deal.

"Theeyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time. Youopen Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing." (Psalm145:15-16)

Idon't usually feed my cats straight out of my hand, but I thought it would be agreat way to illustrate Psalm 145:16. It's a blurry photo because there was alot of hungrily frantic commotion. Choochie is the mixed-Siamese blur on theleft, and Macho is the orange blur who's scarfing down his food on the right.Oh, it delights my heart just to see this photo! It delights me so much to feedmy cats what they need. Their diet isn't cheap. It's a cocktail of threedifferent foods that I feed them in different quantities at different times ofthe day. I kind of obsess over feeding them. They have food that helps theirteeth, hairballs, and boy-cat issues. If Macho eats too much, he won't keep itdown. If Choochie doesn't eat on time, acid reflux will torment her. The cheapWal-Mart stuff doesn't give them shiny coats. You can call me a crazy cat ladyif you want, but my cats are my babies. I love them, I value them, I want totake good care of them, and I want to give them the very best. I usually feedthem in bowls, though. Feeding them straight out of my hand requires a lot ofgentleness and patience on my part.

AfterI wrote most of the first draft of this post and thought I had plenty to share,something new happened. One evening while I was behind the closed bathroom door,I heard noises that sounded like the cats were playing with one of their toys.When I emerged from the bathroom, I saw the following horrifying scene outsidethe door.

IfI'm out of container space, I store cat food taped up in its original bag onthe floor. What was left of the taped-up $30+ bag of specialty cat food hadsomehow been dragged five feet and had entirely new, moist chomp marks. Machowas nearby wearing his halo. So, I stuffed this bag remnant into a couple ofTarget bags and closed it up safely in a closet. Gosh! Either the pet-foodcompany needs to make sturdier bags, or $30+ is an excellent investment insomething that Macho can really sink his teeth into. (Maybe it's a good thing Ididn't get the extra-large $50+ bag.)

NowI'll talk about people food. Several years ago, I traveled with family to visitrelatives that lived in a city about two or three hours away. We ate breakfastbefore we left, and we arrived at my relatives' house around lunchtime.However, our relatives didn't make any mention of any lunch plans. The people Itraveled with, in my opinion, were being way too polite to inquire about anylunch plans. My stomach and I became pretty darn anxious about the fact thatnothing was being done about any lunch plans. So, we didn't eat lunch. We justvisited relatives while hungry. I guess our relatives assumed that we ate lunchon the road. The minutes turned into hours, and my hunger distracted me,consumed me, devoured me. How the heck was I supposed to enjoy my relativeswhen all the heck I could think about was when the heck I was going to eatagain? We even drove to the store to buy food to make dinner, and I don't rememberstopping on the way to grab a bite to eat. I don't remember if we were allowedto nibble on some junk food to stop the hunger pains. I just remember goingalong with the rest of the relatives and politely keeping my peace about howstarving I was. I don't think it would have been rude to have said somethinglike, "I haven't eaten lunch yet. Would you mind if I swung by the burgerplace on the corner and grab something? I can pick up a burger for you, too, ifyou like. Be right back!" This was a frustrating situation for me. In myopinion, the people who traveled with me made me wait unnecessarily to satisfy myhunger.

Asa result, now anytime I travel or make any type of extended plans with anybody,I'm very deliberate about mealtimes. "So, are we going to eat breakfast/lunch/dinner?If not, I'm gonna swing by somewhere and grab some tacos." Unless there'sa God-initiated fast going on, this chick's gotta eat. Heck yeah, I wanna knowwhen I'm gonna get to satisfy my hunger. When can I eat my food?

Ithink this was the cry of the psalmist's heart in Psalm 42:2: "My soulthirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" Ithink spiritual hunger is very similar to the desperation of physical hunger.

"Blessedare those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."(This is Jesus talking in Matthew 5:6.)

"Bettera dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, withstrife." (Proverbs 17:1)

"Iam still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land ofthe living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."(Psalm 27:13-14)

Godhas been teaching me lately about waiting. Waiting can be very hard to dosometimes, no matter how patient you are, and no matter how laidback oreasygoing your personality is... especially when you're desperately hungry. Thereare some hunger pains that require a waiting period before satisfaction, andthey cannot be satisfied with junk food. If I'm lonely, I probably shouldn'tautomatically turn on the TV and substitute it for people. If something in mypast broke my heart, I probably shouldn't automatically volunteer for overtimeat work to distract myself from my pain. If I'm desperate for advice, I probablyshouldn't automatically pick up the phone and call someone without asking God whatHe thinks about my situation first. There isn't anything wrong per se with theactivities that I just mentioned. It's just that God wants me to come to Himfirst. I need to. I have tasted and have seen that God is good, like it says inPsalm 34:8, and now I can't be satisfied with anything else. He is the only Onewho is capable of meeting every single need of my heart, and He WANTS todo so.

"Butyou would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I wouldsatisfy you." (This is God talking in Psalm 81:16.)

Psalm145:15-16 that I quoted above is my most favorite Bible passage ever. God wantsto open His hand and satisfy all of our desires in His timing. Waiting for Himto satisfy the cravings, needs, and desires that are inside me -- love,friendship, security, closeness, artistic expression, financial provision, encouragement,strength, righteousness, etc. -- can be very hard. But it's worth the agonizingwait.

Rememberthe chomped-up remnant of $30+ specialty cat food? I wonder if maybe that's howGod wants me to treat Him, His word, and His food. "Lord, I'm craving Yourfood, and I want to eat now. I don't care if anyone's looking. And I don't careif people make fun of me for reading Bible websites at work or reading GideonNew Testaments in my car or taping index cards with Bible verses on my bathroommirror. I need breakfast, lunch, dinner, and lots of snacks in between. I can'tbe a malnourished Christian. I need to sink my teeth into Your word, digest it,and grow big and strong. I need to hear You talk to me, and I can't evenfunction if I can't hear Your voice. I'll lock myself in a closet if need beuntil I hear from You. I'm starving now, but if You want me to wait, I can waithours upon hours for You if You want me to. I only want to eat the best stuff,and Your food is the best stuff."

InMatthew 4:4, Jesus quotes a verse in Deuteronomy when He says, "Man doesnot live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."It's Christmastime. The whole point of this enjoyable time is to celebrate thebirth of Jesus, God's only Son, the promised Messiah who made a way for us toknow God as a Father. Jesus is the only way that we can know God and satisfythe deepest desires of our hearts. In John 6:35, Jesus calls Himself the Breadof Life. After He came to earth as a baby, died for me on the cross as the Sonof Man, and was risen from the dead, He ascended into heaven. I'm waiting forHim to come back again. I hope He comes back very soon, but He is infinitelymore than worth the wait.

This was a long post. I'll bet you were waiting for it to end. Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas!

It's too dang early for Valentine's Day!

2011-11-29T22:37:00.001-08:00

What'sup, reader? I gotta produce another episode now of Here's What It's Like To BeSingle Theater. Let's hang out. [Punk-ska metal music plays very loudly in thebackground. Single chick air-dries her heavily gelled hair by flicking it fromside to side, in time to the hard music, while her cats scurry out of theroom.] In our previous episode on 4/23/11, we had acrash course on marital status diversity training. I think I was fairly polite.However, today's episode may have a different flavor.

"Truthshall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven."(Psalm 85:11, NKJV)

Reader,I need to offer you a disclaimer in these next few paragraphs. One of the jobsthat God has for me while I'm on this planet is to write. He's been showing methat if I'm going to be a writer, I need to not be afraid of offending people.I also shouldn't be afraid of expressing my opinion. So, I've been wrestlingwith several truths, and I'd like to share these truths with you before Iproceed with this blog post. 1 Corinthians 13 says that if I were to speak withtongues of angels and have all knowledge and even give my body to be burned,but I don't have love, I may as well be a clanging symbol. In Matthew 22:39,Jesus says the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as you loveyourself. Proverbs 27:5 says that open rebuke is better than hidden love (or lovecarefully concealed). Ecclesiastes 3:7b says that there's a time to be silentand a time to speak.

So,I think it's time for me to speak. I have very strong opinions about singlehoodthat I haven't really shared this openly before. I could keep my mouth shut outof love. However, I really hope it would help people if I were to openly sharemy opinion on these issues. I also don't believe that I would truly be myself,the Tirzah that God designed fearfully and wonderfully (see Psalm 139:14), if Iwere to keep my mouth shut about these issues any longer. It is out of a desireto help people and a desire to express myself honestly that I will share therest of this blog post. I'm not trying to be mean, rude, or offensive. I'm justtrying to let truth spring out of the earth and express how I truly feel. Maybethere are some single people out there who agree with me but are afraid tospeak up. If so, I'll be more than happy to speak up for them today.

Ifit's been more than 10 years since you first met me, perhaps it may shock youthat meek, cheerful little Tirzah actually has opinions of her own. Yes, thatunnecessarily submissive, abused, soul-bruised little creature who used to havea smile plastered to her face when she was depressed and ulcer symptoms whenshe was unassertive and who would crawl back into her "loving people meansnever rocking the boat or stepping on people's toes, especially if you're awoman, because all the best decisions are made by men" cage anytime shewas told to do so... well, she's gone. Tirzah's here. I'm about to share aboutsinglehood more bluntly and graphically than I've ever shared before. If myopinions about these issues could possibly offend you and/or ruin ourfriendship/relationship, please feel free to stop reading this post now. And,of course, if you're just curious, please keep reading. Or if you're veryoffended after reading and care enough about our friendship/relationship todiscuss your offense with me, please contact me, and I'll be more than happy totalk it out with you. I welcome online comments, but if they seem inappropriate(i.e., containing suggestive/vulgar language, especially if they make me or myreaders feel unsafe), I'll delete the comment and probably talk to you aboutit. Yeah, that's right. I don't have a problem with you or me being assertive. Pleaseconsider this to be a heads-up, in love.

Whew.That disclaimer might be longer than my actual post. Thanks for hanging inthere with me.

So,what's all the fuss about Valentine's Day if it isn't even Christmas yet? Ifyou're new to my life or are still trying to figure me out, I need to give you somebackground information. I haven't had a date in over 17 years, and singlehoodisn't something that I've chosen. (To my knowledge, I don't believe that God"called" me to be single, either.) During all this time, the closestI've come to having mutual feelings for a guy was a few years ago. The guycalled me, and during the first hour of the conversation, I decided that Ididn't like him anymore. I spent the next two hours trying to get him off myphone, and at the end of the conversation, he finally told me that he liked me,to which I basically replied a polite thank-you. So, there's been 17 years ofdatelessness and numerous upon numerous crushes and one guy who I wascompletely, absolutely, genuinely in love with, but it wasn't mutual, and theagonizing heartbreak prompted me to write songs about him, etc. I'm hoping youget the picture. No men in my life.

So,this morning when I got a church email telling me to convince the man in mylife to attend a men's retreat, it highlighted my pain out of nowhere. It waslike Valentine's Day all over again. I mention Valentine's Day (which I'veblogged about a few times) because it's basically a slap in the face every yearthat says, "You are single, alone, and of no use to a society in whichromantic couples are a major driving force." No amount of candy, flowers,or greeting cards is enough to console my pain. But I'll get back to thispain-consolation idea later.

Fornow, I'll get back to the marital status diversity training. You've heard ofFAQs, right? Frequently Asked Questions? Well, today, I'd like to offer youFrequently Regurgitated Solutions. I guess I need to call them FRSs? Hmm. Thatabbreviation looks like it's missing some letters. FiRSts? Nah, these aren'tnew. FRaSes? Maybe. FReckleSs? Heh. I should stop adding letters before I haveto delete my own blog post. Anyway, ahem. The following is a list of FRSs (bolded) that people have actually toldme (not necessarily word for word), and I'll follow them with answers that, inretrospect, I should have replied.

You'll find a husband and havechildren someday. You're so pretty.

Thankyou for the compliment. However, is being good-looking the only criterion forfinding a husband and bearing children? And is that all I am to you? A piece ofmeat and an unclaimed uterus?

You're young. There's still plenty oftime to find a husband.

35is young to you? My biological clock, which ticks so loudly that it wakes me upat inconvenient times throughout the day, seriously begs to differ.

Are you doing anything to find yourhusband? You should pray for a husband.

Didyou do anything to find your spouse? No, of course not; your spouse found you,because you are worth finding and pursuing, and so am I! And if I had a nickelfor every time I prayed for a husband, I'd probably have my car paid off.

So-and-so is single. Maybe you coulddate him. I don't know if he's a Christian, but...
Uh, if he isn't a Christian, our softwares would be incompatible. Next, please.

So-and-so is single. What about him?

Theguy who never talks to me except to call me "sweetie" and half-hugme? You've never met me, have you?

Are you dating anybody? No? What aboutthat crush you had on so-and-so? Are you dating him yet?

If I were dating anybody, Iwould have told you by now. As in, "Hi, Tirzah, how are you?""Fine, thanks, especially because I'm dating somebody now!" This is aterrible thing to admit, but it's the truth: Just because I have a crush on aguy doesn't necessarily mean it's mutual, and interest doesn't automaticallyequal dating. May we please, please, please change the subject? This one makesme feel like I just fell on the sidewalk and skidded, scraping across my heart.Seriously, I'd be happy to talk about almost any other subject but this one.Did you know that José Feliciano played "Flight of theBumblebee" on The Ed Sullivan Showin 1965?

Well, maybe if you'd show more skin orstart wearing makeup or learn how to cook or [insert any type ofself-improvement here].

Ofcourse I'm not perfect. Yes, there are lots of minor things about me that Ishould probably change. But the bottom line is that any guy who gets involvedwith me would need to get involved with the real me, not the fake me. If hewants food, he should marry a restaurant. If he wants money, he should marry abank. If he wants glamour, he should marry a supermodel. Any man who would wantto marry ME would need to get to know ME and marry ME. And I'm most certainlynot going to give away any free samples.

You know, men don't always have to initiate.In the Bible, Ruth initiated with Boaz.

Inthe Bible, Ruth lived in simpler, Jewish times. I'm not a biblical scholar, butfrom what I understand, Ruth initiated a relationship with Boaz because it wasthe custom of the time for a widow to marry a relative. Yeah, that's right --minor detail. Ruth wasn't a 35-year-old virgin with a full-time job, two cats,and her own apartment. She was a WIDOW who was living with her mother-in-lawand wasn't financially well-to-do. So,please stop comparing my situation to a Bible story that is barely-like-my-situation.

When I was in my 20s, I married a guyyou had a crush on. However, I really think you should try online dating.

Ihave mixed feelings about your opinion. If you ended up with so-and-so rightaway, you definitely know how to get a good guy, and you probably know whatyou're talking about. However, you are adding insult to injury. You yourselfdidn't try online dating, and in that arena you have no idea what you'retalking about.

Iwould like to elaborate on my extremely strong opinion about online dating. Ihave friends who met their spouses online, and they're very happy with them.However, I've also heard horror stories about the kinds of people who haveprofiles on online dating sites. I mean, come on. Anyone nowadays can sitbehind a computer and just type anything. [My name is Jacques. I was born inParis, and I won the Nobel Peace Prize when I was merely 17 years old. Myhobbies include traveling with nonprofit organizations to deliver books tochildren, sky-diving, gardening, and taking long walks along the beach.] See? Areyou honestly telling me that an online dating site would be just-add-waterinstant happiness for me? I find it patronizing and disturbing for people toencourage me to shop for this type of guy online and date him, only to find outthe following. [WhatI didn't include in my profile is that I have a (expletive deleted) problemwith authority, extremely bad breath, a wandering eye for (expletive deleted) waitresses,and I attend the church of do-whatever-the-(expletive deleted)-I-want. Oh,yeah, and I hope you don't mind, but I used my cousin's picture in my profilebecause all you (expletive deleted) women can't tell the difference, anyway. Howsoon can you get married? I will now proceed to mock you to within an inch ofyour (expletive deleted) self-esteem. Don't be so uptight. I'll treat youright.] Excuse me, but I'm not buying a car. I'm not just looking for somethingcheap that has as little mileage on it as possible so that I can get from pointA to point B. We're talking about arelationship.

"Everygood gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Fatherof lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." (James1:17)

Ibelieve that relationships (in general, not just the romantic kind) fall intothe "good and perfect gift" category that James mentions above. Takefriendship, for example. I've asked God, tearfully, to bring me friends, and Hehas. Sometimes I have to find them myself. And sometimes they're practicallyhanded to me on a silver platter and come with a "Tirzah, I want to beyour friend" declaration. (If you wanted a friend, would you really try tofind a good online friendship site?) I'm not saying that my friends and I don'thave to work at our friendships. I'm saying that when I think about my goodfriends, I mentally take a step back and basically go, "God gave thisperson to me as a friend because He's a good Daddy." I strongly believethat a husband should arrive the same way, if he's destined to arrive in mylife at all. Regardless, Father God is a good Father who gives good gifts,period.

He'sthe One who gave me Jesus, the Son of Righteousness who arises with healing inHis wings (Malachi 4:2). Yeah, that's right. God is the One who can console meinfinitely better than any Valentine's Day candy, flowers, or greeting cardsever could.

Sigh!This is probably the first time I've ever blogged about Valentine's Day twomonths early. Yes, I'm pretty sure that God has an awesome purpose for thisseason of extended involuntary singleness in my life, but once in a while, itcan really hurt like heck. Incidentally, if you see me walking down the street,and I start to cry each time we meet (like it says in that Dionne Warwicksong), please don't just walk on by. Maybe you could offer me a Kleenex, ashoulder, or a listening ear. FRSs probably won't help. But Kleenexes,shoulders, and listening ears usually work just fine, my friends. Those are thegifts that keep on giving.

And thanks, readerdude, for gifting me with yourpresence today. Stay groovy, and thanks again for joining me on Here's WhatIt's Like To Be Single Theater. [Industrial metal music plays loudly in thebackground while single chick stares into space and wonders how her life wouldhave turned out differently if she had gotten her eyebrow pierced back in 1999.Her heavily gelled hair has now dried to a crunchy consistency that haspossibly attracted her small cat, who detects single chick's calmness and jumpson her shoulder and purrs.] Speaking of crunchiness and cats, stay tuned toWindowbrawl, where I hope to bring you a new post sometime later this week.

Chosen and wanted

2011-11-14T18:14:00.001-08:00

"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit -- fruit that will last." (This is Jesus talking to His disciples in John 15:16a.)

In this particular leg of my emotional healing, God has been dealing with all kinds of rejection issues that I didn't know were there. Long story. But He's been teaching me a ton in the process. I'm going to be pretty vulnerable in this post, reader, so please be kind.

I've noticed something about the way that I choose my friends and/or choose to spend time with people in general. I'm very focused, deliberate, and intentional, and I think it freaks people out sometimes. I've been thinking about a time on the school playground when I was a kid. There was a little girl in my class who was in a wheelchair. From what I can remember, I wanted to be her friend, and I was probably accidentally annoying the crap out of her. "Leave me alone, Tirzah!" still stings in my ears.

So, I've been talking to God my Friend lately about rejection, and I've basically told Him, "I'm so sick of people rejecting me!" And He's basically answered, "How do you think I feel?" God gets rejected all the time. If I'm created in His image, and He's capable of feeling emotion to the infinity degree that I can feel emotion... oh, my goodness. I feel acute emotional pain when I'm rejected, forgotten, unchosen, or unwanted. But when God is treated that way, He probably feels emotional pain that's to such a huge degree that it makes me tremble just to think about it. Up until this point in time, people haven't usually chosen me. I think all the guys who haven't returned my feelings for them in the past 17 years can vouch for that. People haven't always chosen Jesus, either. Isaiah 53:2-3 says, if I understand it correctly, that He wasn't physically attractive, was rejected, and is familiar with sorrow and grief. Jesus knows what it's like to hurt. The good news is that He's a Healer and that He chose me.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10)

I've noticed another quirky thing about the way that I choose to spend time with people in general. If I invite someone to hang out with me on a specific date or time, I'll reserve that specific time slot for that specific person. I'll leave that slot open for them until I hear from them. If they can't make it, we can reschedule. If they don't respond to my invitation at all, and the specific time comes, I'll spend the time doing something else. I don't want to double-book myself or keep other backup people around in case the chosen person says no. (Years ago, I had a friend who invited me somewhere, and she told me that I was her fourth choice because three other people had told her no. I'm glad she was honest with me, but gosh, thanks a lot.)

Why am I so ridiculously extravagant with my time? I don't know, but I'm finding out that God is very similar. If He chooses Tirzah for a destiny at a certain slot in time, He doesn't keep backup Tirzahs around just in case Tirzah doesn't respond. He wants ME to fulfill the destiny that He created for ME. I'm not saying that if He gives me a talent and I don't use it like in Matthew 25 that He'll give my talent to someone who will use it. I'm saying that if Tirzah doesn't find out what her specific destiny is at this specific time, who else will be Tirzah? I'm sure God would work around my not responding to His call or flat-out saying no, but only I can be Tirzah. He chose me!

"O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." (This is David talking to God in Psalm 63:1.)

I basically told God recently, "I'm tired of pursuing people. I want people to pursue me for a change." And suddenly I realized that God is the same way sometimes. All those verses in the Bible about seeking God make sense to me now. I know how He feels about me. I know that He loves me so much that He gave up His only Son Jesus for me. I know He chose me and accepts me. So, what's stopping me from pursuing Him in a very focused, deliberate, and intentional way?

A good friend of mine has four awesome, precious kids. One of them is a girl I'll call Clinger. One day, I was sitting around minding my own business when suddenly Clinger walked up to me with her shoes in her hand, climbed onto my lap, and hugged me. It was adorable yet startling simultaneously at first. I asked her if she needed me to help her put her shoes on, but she shook her head no. It turned out that she just wanted affection. We were in a living room full of people. I don't know exactly why she chose me. Maybe she knows I like kids. Maybe I appeared snuggly to her. Maybe my lap was just available. But I sure am glad she chose me. Her arms clung to my neck for a few minutes, and she delighted my heart while we talked about random things.

Another one of my friend's cool kids is a boy I'll call Levi. He is very attached to his mother. One day, I observed his panicked demeanor after my friend left the room and he basically said repeatedly, "I want Mama. I want Mama." I've had clinginess issues of my own, so I can very much understand how he feels.

I think that's how God wants me to want Him. In Psalm 63:8a, David tells God, "My soul clings to You." Yes, God's presence is very available, and He can rush to our aid very quickly (Psalm 46:1). But He also wants to be wanted. I think He wants us to pursue Him, to seek Him, to desperately cry out in every fiber of our beings, "I want Abba! I want Abba!" and to walk right up to Him while He's sitting on His throne, throw our arms around Him, and just love on Him, get to know Him, and let Him get to know us. I think this is one of the hugest things that we were created for: To want God. He created us, so He wanted us first. He wants us to want Him back. He wants us to choose Him. And if we accept His Son Jesus and earnestly seek Him, I don't think He'll kick us away or exclaim, "Leave Me alone, child!" Heck no. His lap is very available. He wants us to hunger, thirst, and pant after Him (Psalm 42:1-2).

I told my coworkers recently that I need to stop writing when I'm hungry; I end up writing about food. Hmm. Did you know that Ocean Spray makes very nice blueberry-juice-infused craisins? I think I might choose them for dessert tonight instead of gummi bears. Wait. I don't want gummi bears to feel rejected. Aagh! Have to choose! Hmm. I could just have both... D'oh! Sorry, reader. I hope my stream of consciousness didn't freak you out.

Aww, look at that face

2011-11-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

Justlook at my little Choochie. She's perfect for me. She fits perfectly into mylife. May I share with you what God has been showing me about her? He made herfor me. He designed a cat just for me! Every little detail about her looks andpersonality, from every stripe to every fluff, from every trill to every purr-- God knew what I would like in a cat. He knew that she would like to jump upon my coffee table and perch next to me when I eat breakfast in the mornings.He knew that she would be standing next to my little computer while I'd betyping this. She is my cat. Her purpose in life is to be my cat. Therefore,right now, she's living out her destiny.

Officially,Choochie was my first cat. So, reader, if you don't mind me loosely quotingMatthew 25, I was faithful in little, and then I became ruler over MUCH.After I got my Choochie, I got my Macho. God has been showing me that Macho'spurpose in life is a little different. His destiny is to simply be a masculinespecimen of a cat.

See?Manly cat. I remember a time back in his kittenhood when his kitten masculinitywas questioned. So he has a high-pitched meow. So what? So he would getfrightened easily. He's a cat. But I don't want to listen to the naysayers. Iknow who he is. We've been working through fear issues. It's going to be OK.He's my masculine, manly Macho. Nuff said.

Mycats can be secure in the facts that I love them, they belong to me, and theycan be free to be themselves in the confines of my apartment. (They aren'tallowed outdoors.) I talk to them frequently. Maybe they get tired of hearingme, but I don't care. They're mine. I want to speak life to them. It's OK. Theytrust me. "Hello, I love you. You're my kitten. I'm your mama." Theyknow that they can get as much love, attention, and affection from me as theywant. There are limitations with me, of course. There are times when I needboth of my hands free for typing. There are certain times when they're notallowed in the bathroom. When it's time for me to sleep at night, they need tolet me sleep.

Onereason why my friend Powerhouse and I have become good friends is because weknow that we love each other. She knows that I like her and thoroughly enjoyher company. I know that she wants to know me and be there for me. And vice versa.We keep the lines of communication open. There are limitations with us, though.We're human, and we have healthy boundaries. We work on our friendship to keepit growing healthy and strong. We encourage each other and keep pointing oneanother to the one most important Person that we could ever know.

Yeah,that's right. God is the One Person who will always meet every need that Ihave. He doesn't have the same constraints that I do. He doesn't have to typeor spend time in the bathroom or sleep. He doesn't make mistakes. He's alreadyperfect.

IfI'm secure in my identity, I can live out my destiny. I can be the Tirzah thatGod designed me to be. If I'm secure in the fact that my God loves me and likesme and believes in me and wants me to succeed and wants me to enjoy the lifethat He's given me and wants me to stay in His house, then I can be as Tirzahof a Tirzah as I want to be.

Psalm127 says that He loves me and He gives me sleep. I think He likes to even watchme sleep. One of my favorite movies is Kramervs. Kramer (minus one completely unnecessary scene that I cut out when Itaped it from TV). It's basically a movie about a guy who's learning how to bea good father. There's one scene where his son is playing innocently,dangerously on a playground, and he falls and gets hurt. The dad literallycarries him and runs to the emergency room, where his son gets stitches. Thatnight, while his son is asleep in bed with his freshly bound-up wound, his dadhums to him and loves on him.

Ibelieve God is a lot like that. He likes to take care of me. He wants to helpme. He wants to have a relationship with me. He made me because He wants me.And now I'm learning how to not be afraid of the unknown things in my life,because what I do know is that I can be secure in my God's truth. He loves me, Hemade me, and He wants me.

Seehow adorable my cats are when they're asleep? (or trying to sleep when I'mflashing my camera at them) Aww, look at that, uh... face! Yes, even the backsof their heads are adorable!

Reader, do you get tired of hearing me talkabout this yet? "Hello, God loves me. I belong to Him. He loves you, andHe wants you to belong to Him, too."

Three conversations

2011-11-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

If you'll indulge me for a little while, reader, I'd like to show you a little bit of my imagination. Meet three fictional characters: George, Stephanie, and Max. In this blog post, they will be conversing with Father God. Please check out Luke 18:9-14 as a reference. I hope you enjoy.

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George: Uh, dear Lord... Oh, gosh. This is hard. You know I, uh, haven't been a praying man, but I'd like to become one.

Father God: That's wonderful, George! I always love hearing from you. Keep going. You're doing fine.

George: Uh, please bless my family. And, uh, please bless my pastor. (Sighs.) You know, my Sunday School teacher keeps telling me how I should pray, but it doesn't always make sense to me.

Father God: He didn't tell you that prayer is a two-way conversation. It's OK, because you're still learning, and you're very willing to learn. Keep going. You're doing fine.

George: I, uh, I'm not really sure if You can even hear me.

Father God: Sure I can. You need help hearing Me.

George: (Pauses.) I think maybe You want to talk to me. (Chuckles.) You know, I'd really like that.

Father God: I knew you would, My friend. I really look forward to us getting to know each other.

George: Uh, if you don't mind, Lord, I'd really like to ask You to bless me at my job. I'm having a really hard time right now. My supervisor is on my tail and making me work long hours and... I'm not sure I can take it here anymore. But my family needs my paycheck. Could You please help me?

Father God: I'm on it. You can count on Me.

George: (Sighs.) I don't even know if You're listening. I just don't talk fancy. When I pray, I don't sound like Max at all.

Father God: Please don't worry about that. You just need to be yourself. You can talk to Me about whatever you want. I just want to hear from you. I just want you.

George: (Chuckles.) Lord, I get the impression that all that fancy prayer talk don't really matter to You. You can hear me, right?

Father God: Loud and clear, My friend. I love you.

George: Well, my coffee break is almost over. But, uh, I guess You already knew that. Maybe I could pray to You again tonight after work.

Father God: Of course, My faithful, stouthearted son. Keep praying, and please don't ever stop. I love you.

George: In Jesus' Name I pray, Amen.

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Stephanie: Father! I'm here!

Father God: Child! I'm here, too!

Stephanie: (Laughs.) Oh, Father, You're so funny! You're so wonderful! (Begins to cry.) You're so holy. You're so worthy. You're so merciful. There's absolutely no one like You. There never will be.

Father God: I know, precious one. And you love Me.

Stephanie: (Sniffles.) Yes, Lord. You know that I love You. And I want to love You more.

Father God: Keep talking. I like it.

Stephanie: (Pauses.) Lord... I just don't feel worthy to be in Your presence. (Gasps.) I suddenly feel dirty because of that bad thought I had earlier today.

Father God: You know what to do with it, precious one. You know I'm training you. And you're already worthy because of my Son.

Stephanie: (Begins to cry again.) I'm so sorry, Lord. Can I please pour out my heart to You?

Father God: Yes, please, precious one. I want to take care of you.

Stephanie: (Sobs.) You love me so much! Please hold me, Father. I need You.

Father God: I love you, precious one. I'm building you up to be a queen in My kingdom.

Stephanie: Lord?

Father God: That's right, precious one. You are going to become a tree planted by streams of water, like it says in Psalm 1, and your life will be a shield and a refuge for others. Your life will be like a beacon for many men and women. You've been faithful in little, and you will be ruler over much. Well done, My good and faithful servant. I love you.

Stephanie: (Sniffles.) You mean, after all I've done, You still want to use me?

Father God: "Use" is not a very descriptive word. I want to move through you. I want to come alongside you. I want to help you. I want you to work with Me. I want you to abide in the love of My Son. I love you.

Stephanie: Can I please pour out more of my heart to You, Lord? I want to forgive Max. The way he was so rude to me in Sunday School the other day really offended me. He made me feel like an idiot, Lord. But I'm not an idiot. And I choose to forgive him, Lord. He didn't know what He was doing. (Sighs.) I feel a little bit better now, Lord.

Father God: I knew you would. I understand how Max can be. Please keep loving him. I'm his Father, too. I love you. I love being your Father. I'm so glad that I made you and that I know you.

Stephanie: You mean, even after all those terrible thoughts I've had, You still want me to be close to You?

Father God: Heck yes, precious one. I want us to enjoy a sweet relationship with one another. Stay close to Me, and point people to Me.

Stephanie: (Gasps.) Oh, I want that, Father. I want to show people how to know You. I want to teach people how to seek You. I want to run to You, and I want people to follow me into Your presence, right into Your lap, like in Psalm 45!

Father God: There you go, precious one. Keep talking. I like it!

Stephanie: Lord, start with my Sunday School class. But why stop there, Lord? I want to reach people in my neighborhood, Lord, in my workplace, Lord, and in the rest of this city, Lord! You said in Psalm 2 that if I ask, You will make the nations my inheritance! So, I'm asking You now, Father, please give me the nations!

Father God: (Roars.) Do you hear that, angels?? That's My girl!!

Stephanie: (Laughs.) Oh, Abba, Father, I can hear You roaring! Lion of Judah, roar!

Jesus: (Roars.) Yeah!

Father God: (Roars.) I love you!!

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Max: Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.

Father God: Thank you, but you live in 2011. You aren't required to talk like it's 1611.

Max: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Father God: My beloved little boy, do you even understand what you're asking for?

Max: Give us this day our daily bread.

Father God: This prayer is an excellent place for you to start, but you're still a baby. You're still drinking milk. Are you hungry yet for the bread that I want to feed you? I have the finest of wheat that I'm just waiting to feed you. Ahem! Pick up your Bible, little boy, and read Psalm 81.

Max: And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Father God: I recently had conversations with two people who you've hurt. You've been forgiven much. Please stop harming My children, My little son.

Max: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Father God: I love you. I believe in you. I know how I've made you. There is so much that I'm waiting for you to ask for. There is so much that I'm longing to teach you. There is so much that I want you to become. Ahem!! Seriously, pick up your Bible. Psalm 81! Honey from the rock! You're starving! I want to satisfy you!

Max: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Father God: I know what you're about to do. Please, My beloved little boy. Listen to Me!

Max: I thank Thee, oh, my great Father, for the works of Thine hands. I thank Thee for the way that Thou hast madest me.

Father God: (Screams.) Even your King James English is grammatically incorrect! Do you not know that I created language? or that I created speech? or that I created those very lips, that very tongue of yours?

Max: I thank Thee, oh, grand Father in Heaven, for Thy bounty, and now I count my many blessings before Thy heavenly throne, as Thou hast commandest me to do.

Father God: (Screams.) No! Not the clanging cymbal again! Not the noise again!

Max: I thank Thee, oh, merciful heavenly Father, for allowing me to obtain an education in one of the finest institutions that this country hast ever seeneth.

Father God: Stop it, please! Please be quiet! Please open your ears for once and listen to Me! You have no idea how merciful I truly am!

Max: And I thank Thee, oh, my heavenly Father, that I am not like the people in my Sunday School class.

Father God: Quiet! You have allowed yourself to turn into a hypocritical pharisee! You are crippling the people that you're supposed to be equipping! They want to know Me and love Me! To you, I am just a snack machine! Do you not hear Me spewing out the coins that you just deposited? Can you not hear this clanging, deafening cacophony?

Jesus, covering His ears: I can hear it. Father, can he not even tell that You're speaking in his vocabulary range?

Max: I pay my tithe, I read my Bible, and I minister to the needy. Oh, Thou Father of mine, in Thy timing, if it be Thy will...

Father God: Yes, you're doing some of the things that you're supposed to be doing, My beloved little boy, but you don't get it.

Holy Spirit: (Shouts.) Pick up thy Bible, Maximillian, and read Psalm 66, verse 18!

Max: ...please move the heart of Stephanie, so that she would desire me. I wish to have and to hold her someday as my lawfully wedded wife.

Jesus: You gotta be kidding.

Holy Spirit: Nope, he's serious.

Father God, covering His ears: Please! I already told you to stop!

Max: She, as You well know, my Lord, is a ravishing beauty who would suit me very well. She would make a lovely addition to my household someday. She would make a lovely pastor's wife.

Father God: At least you stopped with the King James English. But now you're talking nonsense. Her heart isn't compatible with yours. And if you can't be faithful in handling one Sunday School class, what makes you think I'd give you a pulpit or an entire church to care for? If you don't stop worshiping yourself and your education, if you don't lift up your eyes to see Me and open your ears to hear Me, I will see to it that Stephanie takes your place as Sunday School teacher.

Max: I pray, oh my Lord, that Thou wouldst make her worthy of me someday...

Father God: (Screams.) Stop!

Jesus: I love this guy, but his words are almost as clangy as Tirzah's used to be.

Tirzah: Huh?

Jesus: Hey, squirt. Play Me a song.

Father God: You're a groovy chick.

Tirzah: (Sobs.) You like me?!?

Father God: Come on, play Us a song.

Max: ...and if it be Thy will, I asketh that Thou wouldst grant me children and a reliable vehicle so that I may keep the bulk of my humble income available to giveth to the worthy works of Thy kingdom...

Tirzah: (Gasps.) What would You like to hear?

Holy Spirit: Whatever you want, just as long as it's one of your songs.

Max: ...and in Thy worthy house of worship, may Thy offerings increase, especially in the offering plate on Sunday, and if it be Thy will, may the gardener please remember to trim the hedges this Saturday before our services start this Sunday at 9:45 a.m., or at least perhaps on Sunday afternoon before the evening services commence anew...

Father God: Max, please listen to Me. And please excuse Me. It's time for Me to end what's supposed to be a two-way conversation. I've got a freckled little ipod who's warming up her guitar so that she can sing Me a groovy song. She used to be a lot like you, Max. I'm still healing her and squeezing out a lot of terrible patterns that she's carried for years. Maybe you could meet her someday.

Tirzah: (Gasps.) You wanna hear the groovy song??

Father God: I love you, Max, not because of anything you've done, but because of who I am.

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Also included in these preceding conversations were the nonfictional characters Tirzah, Father God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Thank you for reading!

Owie

2011-10-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Over the past few months, I've written about friendship, housecleaning, and healing. I think this post will probably involve all of that plus more. Or maybe it won't. Or maybe I'm just in one of my crazy artsy-fartsy abstract moods. Or maybe I'm just crazy. An artist named Helen Van Wyk used to have a painting show on PBS, and during the intro of one episode where she was about to teach us viewers how to paint a painting of a pot and onions, she added the humorous disclaimer, "Or maybe I'll just teach you how to make soup." I don't think I've ever made homemade soup. But I've made homemade casserole. Maybe I'll just show you nice readers how to make casserole. Or maybe I'm just hungry. Thanks in advance for reading and listening.

My friend and I have recently outgrown IHOP. (Powerhouse isn't her real name, of course. She's a superhero. She leaps tall buildings in a single bound and has a secret identity. Insert fanfare here.) It's time for us to branch out and find a new hangout restaurant. So, I decided to hit the highway and scout out the land, which is how I found IHOP in the first place, which happens to be in a location that's about halfway between where she lives and where I live. So far, the candidates are a Mexican food place close to where I live and a Tex-Mex place close to where she lives... and there's also a Denny's. Yay, variety!

No, we haven't yet officially decided on the new hangout spot, but my point is that it delighted my heart to scout out this territory -- to go first and check out the options. I think it's part of how God made me. I'm a firstborn. When I was growing up, I was the first child to experience lots of things. Then I'd report back.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation." (Colossians 1:15, talking about Jesus)

Now to abruptly switch gears. The other day, I enthusiastically ripped off part of one of my guitar calluses (because it felt like it was about to peel off, anyway). I think I ripped off a teensy bit too much, because it's somewhat raw underneath, as you can tell on the second digit from the right in the picture. Yes, I snapped this picture after playing my guitar. Yes, that red line is from playing my guitar on the somewhat raw part of my finger. Yes, I chose this particular photo partially to elicit pity. Yes, owie. And then...

...almost a week later, I felt like more of the callus wanted to rip off, so I ripped more of it off. Perhaps you can see in the photo that an even rawer, more tender part of my skin is exposed at the bottom of the rip. I discovered this morning how doubly painful it can be to play my guitar by pressing this very exposed area of my finger on a steel string. Double owie!

My emotional and spiritual healing is kind of going through the same thing right now. Hard, cushiony protection has been ripped off, and softer, raw undercoating has been exposed, and words can't even do justice to describe how much it hurts. "Owie" is too teeny-tiny of an expression. But the good news is that Jesus is a Healer, and God is binding up my wounds like it says in Psalm 147.

Now to switch metaphors. Jesus and I have been cleaning house, and we found at least one trash can that has been full and decaying. It's time to take out the trash... or possibly to discard the disgusting trash can altogether. I'm not exactly sure yet. You know who knows? Jesus, my Big Brother. He's gone before me and knows what's coming up next. He knows the next turn. He's scouted out the land, so to speak. He found the new IHOP, and I believe He wants to tell me all about it.

"A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)

"And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ..." (Ephesians 1:9)

John 15:15 says that Jesus, my Big Brother, is the Friend who will tell me everything that He's doing. The thing is, I need to listen to Him. I need to be close enough to God to let Him talk to me, give me direction, and show me His will. I've had a couple of conversations recently in which the person I was talking to was questioning if it was possible for a person to know God's will. This really bothered me. Perhaps when we're growing up, we have communication issues with our parents that can make it difficult to know what their will is for our lives. Hopefully, you the reader grew up with parents who had excellent communication and relationship-building skills. Hopefully, the idea of walking up to a parent and having a face-to-face conversation with them isn't intimidating. More importantly, hopefully the idea of walking up to God's throne, so to speak, in prayer and conversation, and talking with Him plainly is even less intimidating as time goes by. "Hi, Lord. I like You." "Hey, you're going to go through [insert trial here]. Are you OK with that?" "Um... if You're OK with it, then I'm OK with it." "It's OK. I'm right here."

Sometimes I just want somebody to listen to me. Sometimes I just want somebody to spend a little time developing a relationship with me. Sometimes I just want to talk to a friend face to face. It bothers me when someone won't listen to me. It bothers me when someone won't take the time to get to know me. It bothers me when someone won't let me talk to them. I wonder if God is the same way. I wonder if maybe He's got tons of plans and thoughts and revelations that He's just waiting to share with a listening ear. I wonder how many times my head has been so noisy that I haven't been able to hear my God, my Big Brother, my Best Friend talking to me. I want to delight myself in Him and let Him meet the desires of my heart, like it says in Psalm 37. I want Him to feed me the finest of wheat and let Him satisfy me with honey from the rock, like it says in Psalm 81.

Regardless of how many awesome friends I have in my life, Jesus will always be THE Best Friend I could ever have, and He is my Big Brother who sticks even closer than a natural brother ever could, like it says in Proverbs 18. Regardless of how ravenously I seek physical food like at IHOP or spiritual food like the Bible, regardless of how ravenously young lions seek their food, if I seek God, I won't lack any good thing, like it says in Psalm 34. Regardless of how many tall buildings any of us could ever leap in a single bound, no one will ever hold a candle to Jesus, who is THE Hero who made a way for us to have direct access to Father God, and Jesus' identity is NOT a secret.

Hmm. All this talk about IHOP and casseroles has made me hungry again. I wonder if bacon and eggs will be included in the banqueting table in Heaven. Nah, on second thought, I think the food there will be infinitely more delicious. Wowie!

Courage

2011-09-25T14:35:00.001-07:00

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (This is Jesus talking to His disciples in John 15:15.)

"They feast on the abundance of Your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights." (This is David talking to God in Psalm 36:8.)

In my post on 8/15/11, I mentioned my friend who has been accidentally teaching me about being friends with God just by being herself. (I sense a motif, Powerhouse. :)) I would like to elaborate about that a little more. My friend and I sometimes eat at IHOP, and it isn't unusual for us to sit around and chat for quite a while after we finish eating. And then we have a healthy competition where we basically fight over who gets to pay the bill and who gets to hold the door open on the way out to the parking lot. (Unless I beat her to the punch and offer to pay for the meal before we even order our food. Maniacal laughter!) We don't always agree on everything, but we sharpen each other, challenge each other, and encourage each other to be the chicks that God wants us to be.

As I mentioned in my post on 12/26/10, I'm an introvert. Big-time. I recharge when I'm by myself, and being around people is usually a lot of work for me. So, there's a delicate balance of knowing when I need to pull back and recharge, and knowing when I need to come out of solitude and hang out with people. Solitude is a healthy thing that lets me spend time recharging, think through creative ideas, (blog!) and spend extended time with God. Yet it can be tempting sometimes to isolate myself. Isolation is bad because, well, if I spend TOO much time by myself, I could go stir-crazy. I've noticed that being around people helps me to keep a good perspective. Not everybody has the same personality, interests, or gifts that I do. I think I need different people's perspectives to sharpen and refresh me, and they need my perspective to sharpen and refresh them. A balance to this is choosing your friends and acquaintances wisely so that you don't welcome bad influences into your life, but I think that's another blog topic altogether. Here's another important fact that I've learned about friendship: Friends give you courage.

Hmm. Shortly after I typed that, I got an idea. I think the following might be a good way to test whether or not someone is a good friend or a bad friend. If a person gives you courage (encourages you) and points you to God, this person might be a good friend. If a person kicks you and constantly, mercilessly criticizes you (in a non-constructive way), this person might be a bad friend. It really is important to choose your friends wisely, because I really think I treat people the way that people treat me. If I treat people badly, it might be because I was mistreated. If I treat people well, it's because of God, and it might be because I've spent time with Him and have received love and encouragement from Him.

As I mentioned in a Bible verse above (and as I hinted at in a post on 7/27/11), God has a banqueting table where we can eat whatever we want and need, and He has a river where we can drink as much as we want and need. I attended a class at church where I was given very good advice: I need replenishing relationships. A replenishing relationship is a person who you look forward to spending time with, they refresh you while you're spending time with them, and you leave the hangout time refreshed. Even though I'm a big-time introvert who recharges when she's by herself, I need replenishing relationships. My abovementioned friend is one. God is another One.

He's the most important One, actually. God is my Best Friend, and He's the One who gives me courage. Like I mentioned in a Bible verse above, Jesus doesn't call me a servant who is given an assignment, and He isn't a hands-off manager who just leaves and expects me to finish the assignment perfectly without His help. He calls me His friend. I don't have to guess what He's doing; He can tell me directly, and I want to listen to Him. He sent me a Helper (the Holy Spirit), and He walks alongside me and gives me courage to do the things that He wants me to do. He cheers me on. He's walked in my shoes, and He was tempted in the same way that I've been tempted, so I can ask Him unabashedly for mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:15-16). That blows me away. Jesus was tempted in EVERY WAY that I've been tempted?? I've been tempted with some extremely disgusting, terrible things. Yet He wants to HELP me resist temptation and live an abundant life (John 10:10)?? And, as if that weren't awesome enough, I'm already MORE than a conqueror through Him (Romans 8:37)?? HE is my Best Friend.

Metaphorically speaking, Jesus is the Friend who will always go with me to IHOP and let me order whatever I want, and He'll pay the bill. Heck, He's the OWNER of IHOP, and I can eat as much as I want and not get fat, and I can drink as much as I want and not get drunk. We can stay at our table as long as we want, and the waiters won't shoo us away. I can talk to Him and tell Him whatever I want. He can talk to me and tell me whatever He wants, and I want to listen to Him, enraptured, my metaphorical mouth hungry to feast on whatever He wants to speak. After I eat and am satisfied, He can hold the door open for me, walk with me, and sing with me on the way home. Another cool thing about Jesus is that He'll never leave me.

Hmm. This post wouldn't be complete without me mentioning one of my cats. I'm currently typing this with one of my arms under her purring belly. Yeah, that's right. She knows she can come to me unabashedly and get as much affection as she wants, because she's mine. I hope it encourages her to know that.

Another reason why I'm hated

2011-08-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Did the subject of this post get your attention? Good. :) Now I'll share some Bible verses. (Incoming!)

"Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:4-5)

"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress." (Psalm 144:1-2a)

Somewhat continuing on what I blogged about last week, I'm God's friend, and I'm God's child (because I accepted Jesus as my Savior, as John 1:12 explains). God is a loving, forgiving, and gentle God who wants to be close to us, and He wants us to know Him intimately. Yet He's also an almighty, triumphant King. He and His family are at war with an enemy who hates us. Technically, we've already won, but we still need to be ready for battle. I'm talking about spiritual battles and a spiritual war.

There's a quote from the movie Scarface: "Say hello to my little friend." I usually hear that quote repeated so casually. However, I watched that movie for the first time last year. (It was on TV, so it was a cleaned-up version that muted out like every other word.) The actual context of that quote is Al Pacino screaming, "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!!" right before he shoots an assault rifle. His "little friend" is his weapon.

If I understand Psalm 127 correctly, if I'm God's child, then I'm like an arrow in His quiver. In this sense, I'm His weapon. I don't think I'm necessarily like a grenade that you can only use once to do some major damage. (Although if God wanted to do something like that, that would be pretty darn cool.) If I'm like an arrow in a quiver, I'm probably cared for a great deal. I'm probably constructed, shaped, and sharpened. And then, when the time is right, I'm selected, carefully aimed at the target, and suddenly released to plunge into the area where I can do the most damage. SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!

Revelation 12 says that there's an accuser (the enemy, i.e., the devil) who is overcome by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) and the word of "their" testimony. From what I understand, the "their" is talking about me -- the "brethren" who are members of God's family. To me, this all comes together in a sweet way in the following verses.

"I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but You give us victory over our enemies, You put our adversaries to shame. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise Your name forever." (Psalm 44:6-8)

What? you say you suffer from codependence, and you feel doomed to live in a codependent prison forever? (Picture God reaching into His quiver and pulling me out.) SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND! (The bow makes a "sproing" noise right before I hit the target.) "My name is Tirzah, and let me boast about what God has done for me. He set me completely free from codependence, and now He's at the center of my universe. And He can do the same for you."

What? you say you suffer from depression? you've been suicidal? and you were told that you are doomed to medication and therapy forever? (Picture smoke rising from His nostrils as God hurriedly reaches into His quiver and aims me passionately at the target.) SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!! (I make a loud whizzing sound as I scream towards the target.) "My name is Tirzah! Let me boast about what God has done for me! He set me completely free from depression, He rescued me from a pit, He set my feet on a rock, and now I sing a new Psalm-40 style song to Him! And He can do the same for you!"

The enemy already hates me because he hates God, and I belong to God. So, I'm at war, anyway. I'm also like a secret weapon. Or maybe I'm a not-so-secret weapon. Either way, just as long as God wants me in His family, I'm good to go. :) (Incoming!)

AAH! Face to face!

2011-08-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” (Exodus 33:11a)

In the past, I blogged about friendship and about rejection. These two topics have been swirling around in my head lately, so I thought I'd combine them into a blog post. Let me tell you a secret, though, about my head: It's comfortable with abstractness, so you may end up reading swirling abstractness. Wait. If I just told you, it's not a secret anymore. D'oh!

Recently, I've been spending a lot of time with a new friend. Technically, she isn't a "new" friend, because we've known each other for about a year, but lately our friendship has blossomed big-time because we've grown closer to each other. (Hey, Powerhouse, you know who you are. :)) We've found out about a zillion things we have in common, and we've shared deep things with each other. I mean, we're chicks. We've been chick-bonding. We laugh, we cry, we talk, we listen, we hurt, we comfort, we inquire, we counsel. I've heard that guys bond slightly differently than women do -- they play basketball together or go hunting together or watch football together or something. But that's only what I've heard. Or maybe it's exactly like chick-bonding, and it just happens in a realm that's supposed to be a complete mystery to me. My point is that while spending time with my "new" friend -- and I say "new" because it's as if I've suddenly looked around and AAH! hello! brand-new closeness in a friend! yay! -- God has been showing me things about my friendship with Him.

I began this post talking about Moses. From what I understand, he's the one who wrote Exodus, so we're basically getting a firsthand account. From what I understand, he's describing what his relationship with God was like. Jesus died so that we could have this type of relationship with Father God, too. I'm learning that it's a relationship that's designed to be so simple, but so many complicated things can get in the way of it. First of all, we can't see God with our physical eyes. (Or they'd probably explode or something.) Then there are things like lies, fears, pride, etc., that can totally get in the way of simply enjoying God as a Friend and letting Him enjoy us as His "new" friends. The "new" friend I wrote about in the preceding paragraph is very good at telling me to stop beating myself up during our conversations that are supposed to be simple. God basically has to do the same thing during my conversations with Him, too. I'll be like all, "Am I doing this right?? Am I saying the right things?? Why do You like me??" And He'll be like all, "Chill out. I've got you. Keep going." And He'll be infinitely patient with me and calm me down.

Rejection is something that could seriously mess with you. If one or more people, either overtly or indirectly, tell you that they don't want you, you could eventually believe that nobody will ever want you. Failure could seriously mess with you in a similar way. If you mess up over and over again (which anyone who's human has the potential of doing), or worse -- if people repeatedly tell you that you're a failure, when you're really not -- you could eventually believe that you'll never do anything right. These terrible beliefs can seep into pretty much every aspect of your life. At the risk of oversimplifying what's been going on with me these past several months, I'll say that it took me years to finally realize that people kept pooping this crap into my life. In a nutshell, I had friends who were harming my soul. So, I defriended them. To make several very long stories very short, there are some people who I absolutely cannot and will not be friends with anymore, and there are others for which I've left the door open because I would like for the friendship to be repaired someday.

Meanwhile, God is my Best Friend. No one is ever going to hold a candle to Him, no matter how many awesome people come into my life. The Bible says that if we draw near to Him, He'll draw near to us. It's true! If He's my Lord, that means He can get as close as He wants and come near to me anytime I want. So, sometimes I'll be minding my own business, and then suddenly He'll be right there, and I'll be like, AAH! hey, Lord, how's it going? I'm not complaining. I like it. :) It's just that He can be very spontaneous and sudden sometimes.

Switching gears a little bit, I think life and death can happen very suddenly sometimes. This evening, while I was at a dealership getting the oil changed on my car, I went to the cashier and found out that one of the service guys recently got killed in a motorcycle accident. There's a memorial fund set up in his honor, so there was a picture of him and his children on display. I didn't know him, but I used to see him for like 2 minutes every few months while he'd take my information and my key before I'd head for the waiting room. He seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him, and now he's gone. It was hard for me to maintain my composure while I was at the cashier, but I wept during the ride home. I don't know if he knows God or not. I sure hope he does. But if what I felt was a teeny-tiny little fraction of the grief that God feels at the death of someone who He created... oh, man. I bet that freakin' hurts.

Remember how I blogged about how rejection can be a dangerous thing and that rejecting God has serious consequences? Please don't reject God. He wants to be your Friend. He wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you, in your place, if He didn't want to bridge the gap between you and Him. Life doesn't end when we die. There's an eternity afterwards -- life with God and life without God. Everyone has to choose which one. Again, this might be oversimplifying, but it's kind of like my recent defriending process. If you reject God before you leave Earth, He absolutely cannot and will not be friends with you; but while you're still here, He's left an open door because He wants to have a relationship with you and be your friend.

That's not to say that everyone who knows God and has a relationship with Him has to have the exact same kind of friendship with Him as everybody else. I think God will meet us right where we are. He wants to know us and spend time with us. I've known God for 25 years. For the first 8 years of our very distant relationship, I knew God a lot like I knew the mailman -- ooh, you got something for me? give it! thank you! I'm gonna go hang out with my "friends" now! see ya! And now, I would much rather aim to be close to God and look forward to a lifetime of aiming to be closer and closer with each passing season -- ooh, You wanna have lunch with me? cool! can You talk to me about this problem I have? thank You! I dig hanging out with You, and I don't care what anybody thinks about us! I know You love me, You'll never leave me, and I belong to You!

So, God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Jesus told His disciples in John 15 that He doesn't call them servants anymore, but He calls them friends, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. Psalm 91 talks about dwelling in the secret place of God. What do friends do? Tell each other secrets. From what I understand, God revealed Himself tangibly through Jesus. Yet God is still a mystery. From what I understand, He's got lots more secrets that He wants to share with His friends.

AAH! God wants to be close to me?? He knows everything about me, but He still wants to be my friend?? Wait. I think I need to chill out. D'oh!

Feasting

2011-07-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

“He has taken me to the banquet hall, and His banner over me is love.” (Song of Solomon 2:4)

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor His delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love.” (Psalm 147:10-11)

I think this is the first time I’ve ever blogged about this topic: fasting. It’s basically when you abstain from something (usually food) so that you can seek God and He can meet you in a deeper way. I won’t go into all the biblical reasons for/benefits of fasting here, but I’d like to share with you a little bit about it from my perspective.

A leader at a former church of mine used to fast a lot, and I remember him saying once that fasting was like a self-imposed trial. I like this definition. Trials are basically things that God allows in our life where He tests our character, squeezes us, and makes us go, “God, I need You! Help!” The same thing basically happens when you fast. You’re hungry, and whether you or not you say it with your mouth, you’re saying with your actions, “God, I need You more than I need food!” Sometimes I can hear Him speaking more clearly when I’m fasting, and sometimes I don’t hear Him speak very clearly until after I’m done fasting. I think the key is to just obey God, seek His face and His heart, and let Him do whatever He wants with you.

Another topic that I don’t think I’ve officially blogged about yet is spiritual abuse. It’s basically when somebody gives themselves too much spiritual authority over you, almost as if they’re God for you, and they make you think that you’re sinning when you’re not, and it makes you feel ashamed, and it makes you feel like God isn’t happy with you unless you do all sorts of “works” for God. Fasting can be one of these “works.” Phew! Spiritual abuse is terrible. It’s something that I learned about for the first time last year. I won’t go into detail about this yet, but to make a very long story very short, I’ve found out that the abovementioned church family was in a spiritually abusive environment. One of the leaders there said once, regarding fasting, “Water will get to the issue a lot quicker.” I think he meant that if you completely abstain from everything except water, God will speak to you a lot quicker. OK, yes, if God tells you you need to fast from everything except water, then that’s what you need to do. Or if you’re so desperate for God to move in your situation that as an expression of your desperation, you fast from everything except water, I’m sure God will see your heart and meet you in an awesome way. But for somebody to make you feel inferior because you can’t do a three-day water fast the way they can is just terrible. Besides -- not everyone is even medically able to abstain from food. People who have certain medical conditions need to eat and stick to their special diets. There are other things to fast from besides food.

Fast-forwarding years later, I was at another spiritually abusive church (aaagh! God is healing me from this junk, and the church I’m at now is non-abusive, honest!) where I believed that God wanted me to fast from non-work-related TV for a few days. At the time, I was working at a media-related job and had to watch TV and movies for my job. But after work, I was used to turning on the TV and watching it for fun. But not during the fast. I figured it would be much easier than fasting from food. Boy, was I wrong! I didn’t know what to do with myself during the evenings, and I would have rather given up food! Anyway, I basically told this to my lifegroup leader at the time, and she looked at me like I was crazy.

No, sorry, but I’m not crazy. If God says to do something, I need to do it. And if I’m abstaining from something, it’s probably something that my flesh is going to want all the more. It’s usually hard to do. Right now, for example, I’m fasting meats and sweets. I thought this was going to be an easy fast. WRONG! I didn’t totally realize how accustomed I’d gotten to grabbing those beautiful little bags of candy from the breakroom at work and munching on it in my cubicle. I WANT CANDY! And a couple of nights this week, I had to grab some quick deli food for dinner. I thought it would be easy to find a non-meat sandwich like pimento cheese. WRONG! I had to get a regular sandwich and eat everything but the cold cuts, which I brought home and fed later to my curiously carnivorous cats. I WANT CHEWY, BEAUTIFUL MEAT WITH SAVORY, BEAUTIFUL GREASE DRIBBLING DOWN MY CHIN! So, anyway, yeah, a meat-and-sweet fast ain’t necessarily all that easy.

But I need God more than candy and greasy meat. I need to be close to Him. I need Him so much, it ain’t even funny. I’m choking up just typing this. This morning, while I was crying on His shoulder, He showed me some important stuff related to my healing. Later that morning, He showed me even more stuff. By the time I got to my work cubicle, I was so satisfied with His food that I don’t even think I craved candy. God has been feeding me what I need, and I need to trust that He’s been squeezing out the bad junk and replacing it with His good things. I like to eat from His banqueting table.

So, if you’d like to learn how to lean on God at a deeper level, try fasting. If you want to cultivate a desperation for God at a deeper level, try fasting. If you want to practice crying out to God and expressing your need for Him at a deeper level, try fasting. Well, definitely pray about it first and make sure that it’s something He wants you to do. (Doing a meat-and-sweet fast in the middle of the summer wasn’t my idea, honest!) The most important thing is that you obey Him and seek Him and love Him.

Tomorrow morning (Thursday) when my fast is over, I think I’ll eat yogurt with chocolate syrup on toast and maybe a side of scrambled eggs. Hmm. On second thought, my tummy doesn’t like the sound of that idea. Maybe I’ll just pour some sugar in my coffee. Sorry, kitties, no cold cuts for you tomorrow!

Eww, what’s that smell? It’s a sequel.

2011-07-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12)

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Last week, I wrote about housecleaning. This week, I found something else to talk about, and I think I can best illustrate my point by NOT sparing you the gory, disgusting details. Warning: I think I’m going to have to rate this blog post PG-13. Ready? Here we go.

Yesterday evening, I was minding my own business at the parking lot of a local grocery store. I had been driving for about 45 minutes, and I hobbled out of my car and was heading for the store entrance. Behind me, I heard a woman shout, “Nasty-lookin’ dyke! Nasty-lookin’ bitch!” It took a moment for it to register that she possibly could have been shouting at me. I felt prompted to just keep walking. I entered the store, and all sorts of things started rushing into my head. Wait -- was that woman really shouting at me? Why would she shout at me? I’m straight. I mean, I was wearing a T-shirt and baggy jeans, and I recently chopped my hair down to the same length that I wore it about 10 years ago. I thought I looked adorable. I mean, what the heck happened? So, I paced the store aisles a little bit and composed myself and prayed and forgave the shouting woman.

I would like to reiterate that I’m not gay, and I don’t want to disrespect anyone who is or who struggles with homosexuality. To read my full opinion on this issue, please refer to my blog post from a couple of years ago. I didn’t see the shouting woman, and yes, there’s a strong chance that she wasn’t even shouting at me, but I felt very unsafe during and after that weird episode. I don’t want to make light of serious situations that have seriously happened, but I think I got a tiny taste of what it’s like to be stereotyped that way or shamed that way or to even possibly be the target of a hate crime. I’m thankful that God protected me from such a thing, aside from the majorly huge, majorly ironic detail -- HELLO, PEOPLE, I’M STRAIGHT!

I forgave the shouting woman multiple times, but her words, even though they may not have been directed at me, resounded through my spirit for many hours afterwards. I spent the rest of yesterday evening and most of today working through it. I lost my self-confidence for a while. Should I not have cut my hair? Should I change the way I dress? Is this why guys don’t ask me out? Does everybody else agree with the shouting woman?

So, what it boiled down to wasn’t the shouting woman. It was her words, whether they were directed at me or not. My spirit gulped them down, I think because I have a history of abuse (long story!), and I’m used to consuming those types of toxic, deathly words inside me. I really need to get un-used to it. Proverbs 18:21 says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. The shouting woman was speaking words of death. The Bible says that the devil is the father of lies. Lying is like a language to him. Unfortunately, I think the shouting woman was letting the devil use her, and she was speaking his language. It was like a fiery dart that needed to be extinguished in the shield of faith.

If I understand correctly, God showed me that the shouting woman was looking for a fight, and she thought I was somebody else. Anyway, regardless of how or why this happened, I hope what I’ve gone through will change me for the better and help somebody else. The truth is, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, and my soul knows it very well (Psalm 139:14). I’m probably not going to change the way I dress anytime soon. I like my style. I’m not going to try to be somebody I’m not. I’ve almost always been nerdy and dorky, and the more God frees me up, the more artsy-fartsy I get, and lately I’ve been going back to my old punk-wannabe look. Sometimes when I’m in a very good mood, I strut. I’m a girl, but I’m not a girly-girl. Dang it, I like men! (Especially when they’re older, wiser, and starting to get gray! (swooning)) I don’t want to care what people think about me. I want them to get to know me and my heart. I want them to know the One who made me and redeemed me. He loves me, He cherishes me, and He likes me.

Speaking of love, here I am with my little girl cat. Just look at that face. I dote over her. OK, if you squint a little, she kind of looks like E.T. in this picture, but I still love her. (Actually, in some lighting, she looks more like Yoda. Dang it, she’s my cat! I love her!) I believe that God healed her of a heart murmur a few years ago. I took her to the vet, who said that she heard a heart murmur during the examination. I brought my little girl cat back home and prayed and wept over her. Remember when I said that death and life are in the power of the tongue? I was so afraid of somebody accidentally speaking death over my cat that I didn’t tell anybody about her condition for an entire year. At the next vet visit, the vet didn’t hear any murmur! And no vet has mentioned it ever since! Hallelujah!

Back to the housecleaning metaphor. God showed me that the shouting woman speaking words of death was like somebody puking in my closet after I’d just cleaned it. Sometimes when I’m thinking or praying through an issue, I’ll want God to show me what I have to do to fix it, and I’ll treat it like a formula. He’s showing me that it isn’t a formula but a relationship with Him. He also showed me that one reason why I’ve taken so long to learn how to clean house (literally) was because I believed that it was hard. In the past, I was shown that the proper way to clean was to use a certain product and/or tool. But the truth is, cleaning house (literally) really isn’t that hard. Just pick up whatever product and/or tool you have available, and just go for it. If somebody pukes in your closet (literally), maybe after you clean up the actual puke and you spray stain remover on the carpet, you might need to wait for it to dry before vacuuming over the puked-on area. Hmm. I might have too much experience cleaning up puked-on carpets (literally) because I own two cats. And because of other things.

Several months ago when I blogged about equilibrium, I mentioned getting a dizzy spell, and I will now share some details of how sick I got. While I was driving home, I puked on myself. I literally lost my lunch on my car and my clothes. I gotta say, that home ec class I took in high school did NOT prepare me for this cleanup job. Hmm. How to discreetly cover up one’s soiled self while laboring up the stairs to one’s apartment... how to wipe up puke chunks from one’s car with old towels... how to scrape dried puke chunks out of one’s steering wheel a couple of days later after one is well enough to notice that the steering wheel isn’t completely clean yet... how to hope that the old puke stench will disappear by the time one offers someone a ride in one’s car. Nope, I don’t remember reading about any of this in the home ec book.

I think that’s kind of how it is when somebody pukes in your clean closet (metaphorically). Sometimes it isn’t just an unwelcome Christmas present that sits there and takes up dust. It’s a defiling mess that stinks and needs to be cleaned up right away. There isn’t necessarily a verse in the Bible with every one of my specific situations. There isn’t a “Tirzah, when somebody calls you bad names in a grocery-store parking lot, here’s what you do” verse in my Bible. I need to lean on God and let Him show me what to do. He told me to keep walking, so I did. I knew I needed to forgive, so I did. I know that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, so I need to just be who I was created and designed to be. My relationship with God is the most important thing in my life. I want to depend on Him for everything. He speaks words of life to me all the time, and I need to listen. Sometimes He sends people to help with the cleanup. And sometimes He sends experts with professional, sophisticated, stain-removing equipment. Just as long as it gets clean, just as long as He’s in charge of the cleaning, and just as long as He’s at the center of the cleaning job, I think He’s OK with it. I think He wants the closet to be just like new, if not better than new.

So, tomorrow I plan to heavily gel and spray my hair like usual. My self-confidence is back, my shame is gone, and I might do some strutting. I feel a song parody coming on. Ha, ha, ha, ha, speaking the life, speaking the life. Ha, ha, ha, ha, better than new, better than new.

Eww, what’s that smell? an onion? Nope, a house.

2011-07-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” (Proverbs 14:1)

“Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)

If you’re tired of me talking about emotional healing, this isn’t the blog post for you. Yep, that’s right! I’ve unearthed plenty more to talk about! And it’s probably going to be one big metaphor!

I’ve heard several people say that healing is a lot like peeling an onion -- it happens in layers. That simile, however, isn’t a very good description for what I’ve been going through recently. Besides -- when I cook with onions, I don’t really do that much peeling. I mostly just chop and hack away.

These past several months, God has been talking to me a lot about houses. I live in an apartment, but for the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to say “house.” For me, this particular season of emotional healing has been a lot like cleaning house -- a house that’s accumulated decades worth of junk, dirt, crap, etc. Yep, that’s right! God is cleaning house.

In the actual physical “house” that I live in and pay rent for, I’ve rarely invited anybody over lately because I’ve needed to catch up on my housecleaning. (Hey, Tirzah, get off your laptop and do some cleaning!) Also because my furniture was built in 1975 and needs to be replaced, but that’s another story.

Yes, I actually did take a housecleaning break after typing that last paragraph. If you’ve kept up with my blog for the past couple of years, you know that keeping a clean house is something I’ve struggled with for some time. (And if you’ve kept up with me on Facebook for the past year, you know that I’m not the least bit domestically inclined. I don’t think my cats mind, though. I’m currently typing this with one arm under a purring feline belly.) I won’t go into the gory details now to explain why, but I’m thankful to report that my house is much cleaner than it used to be. The other night, I almost snapped a triumphant photo of an empty sink... because the dishes were all clean! (ecstatic shock) One practical thing that God has shown me is that I need to clean a little bit at a time (rather than pull an all-nighter to cram in all the cleaning at once). If you’ve ever lived alone, worked full-time, and been very involved with church and socializing, and if you don’t have it in your budget to hire a maid, you understand how truly difficult it can be to keep a clean house. (Mental note: Train cats to scrub shower tiles.)

I have what I call my File Pile, which is a pile of documents (bills, junkmail, notes, etc.) that I need to file away later. “Later” doesn’t always happen. As I was quickly going through my File Pile, I was reminded of events in my life that caused me to put filing on hold: getting laid off, getting a new job, buying a new car, working overtime to pay for the new car, etc. OK, I’ll be completely honest. I have 5 File Piles, some of which with materials that have been waiting for about 8 years to actually be filed anywhere, throughout the house. It’s tempting to just lug in a trash can and say goodbye to my File Piles forever with one fell swoop. I haven’t touched some of it in 8 years, so what have I been missing? It’s garbage, right? Well, I suppose some of it is. But I do have some important documents buried under there somewhere, and I really do need to go through it (someday). I should probably sit down for a few minutes at a time to work on it gradually.

OK, The File Piles are tame. Have you ever seen (or smelled) what happens when you go literally for weeks (or months) without cleaning something like the bathroom or the dishes? I have, and it’s not something I’m proud of. It’s something that happens when you work more than 40 hours a week and feel too tired to do anything besides park your butt on the couch and stare at the TV. You’ll be surprised at how gradually you get used to the mold and mildew that develops, and you’ll be shocked at how gradually you get used to the smell (or convince yourself that it isn’t there). I mean, if nobody comes by your place to check on you, where’s the accountability? If it’s just you and two animals under one roof, the three of you just adjust.

Then there are the closets -- the piles of forgotten junk! Some of the junk were Christmas presents given by people who didn’t know me or my tastes very well, so now they just sit there and take up valuable space. Closets can be scary. When I was moving into my current house, I was stressfully packing up my stuff at my old house; right before I left, I swung open the closet door and noticed in horror that I had completely forgotten to pack the closet. Another pile of crap! (chilling shriek)

Now for the metaphor. The good news is, I don’t own my house. It’s a temple that God owns. He’s the reason for the housecleaning. He’s the One who’s cleaning it with me. And He’s got some serious stain-removing, mold-killing, power-dusting, pile-filing equipment. Sometimes He works really fast, and other times He isn’t in a hurry.

I think I understand one reason why I got so clinically, dangerously depressed 11-12 years ago. My house was dirty. It was filthy, cluttered, dusty, and moldy. There was a stench in the air, I couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from, and I didn’t completely understand that I was worth investigating its source. The people who frequently visited my house either didn’t smell the stench, or they’d come over with a can of air freshener to cover it up, tell me I was doing OK, and then leave. What none of us realized was that there were some closets that were desperately cluttered to overflowing with sweaty, dirty, old socks that needed laundering. The shower tiles were so mildewy that roaches were making themselves at home in the plumbing. Deep in the bottom of the kitchen sink, somebody neglected to clean a platter after cooking some raw meat, and the dish had been sitting there for so long that the thought of even going near the sink was unbearable. In a sense, it seemed much easier to just declare the house condemned and wait for the bulldozers to come finish it off.

But God is in the business of rescuing houses. He’s in the business of remodeling. He’s in the business of restoration. Sure, there were a few dishes and socks here and there that just needed to be thrown away, and there was a termite problem that’s been taken care of. You’ll be surprised how much junk can accumulate in one place in 35 years. Some of the stuff is junk I brought in myself, and some of it is junk that was given to me like unwelcome Christmas presents that just sat around, took up valuable space, and collected dust. But this house is not condemned. This house is valuable. This house is a place that God looks forward to visiting, spending time in, living in, and enjoying. And He’s more than welcome here. It all belongs to Him. He helps me clean up, tidy up, and sanitize. There are some rooms that are cleaner than others, but there are other rooms that still need lots of attention. There are File Piles that have junkmail mixed in with important documents, and I think God wants to sit down with me and work through it gradually. And yes, sometimes I don’t even feel like a house but an onion that doesn’t get peeled but chopped at and hacked at. But it’s OK. However He lovingly repairs, remodels, and restores my house, I want Him to make Himself at home here.

Back to literal stuff. I really do have company coming over soon, so I do need to catch some Zs, wake up early, and do a bit more tidying up tomorrow morning. Maybe I can bribe the cats to help me out. I’d try using tuna, but I don’t want to ruin how nice and un-stenchlike it smells in here right now. Hmm.

Tirzah’s Travel Thoughts: Oklahoma-Missouri Randomness 2011

2011-07-06T21:24:00.001-07:00

It’s been said that variety is the spice of life. I would say, however, that randomness is the background against which I live my life. Last year, I drove through Oklahoma and Missouri to visit my very good friend Liz in Columbia. This year, I embarked on that adventure once again. I thought I would snap and post photos of the beautiful scenery I saw last year, now that I have a real digital camera. Instead, however, I thought I’d share road-trip experiences that were so random that I couldn’t just keep them all to myself.

Can anyone help me figure out why anyone would display this particular monument for all to see on a small-town highway in Oklahoma?

Behold! The rusted mailtruck! *triumphant fanfare plays*

I liked small-town Oklahoma. The people there were nice and friendly indeed. Whoever owns Braum’s was very smart in building an eatery/grocery store at nearly every town on Highway 69. During one such visit, an elderly lady who was wearing what appeared to be an antique football helmet entered the lady’s room and greeted me with “Howdy.” Perhaps she chose that particular headgear for medical reasons, but that has to be one of the most random restroom greetings I’ve ever had.

Then there was the overly excited cashier at a Love’s truck stop just past the Missouri border. “Hello, and welcome to Love’s!” he shouted in a mostly-sincere-but-with-maybe-a-dash-of-sarcasm eloquence as I scurried inside. Later, right before I purchased a Pepsi Throwback and peanuts, I heard him discussing with his coworker how much money he spends every month on cigarettes. Perhaps he owes his near-thespian performance of a greeting to nicotine.

What made me laugh out loud were billboards along Highway 44 that were advertising a Cheese Outlet. My mind was flooded, of course, will all kinds of cheese jokes. What do you do at a Cheese Outlet? Is there a line of children who are waiting to cut the cheese? No offense if you’ve ever visited a Cheese Outlet. Hopefully the cheese was delicious. Hopefully your experience wasn’t cheesy at all. *muffled snickering*

I hope you enjoyed these random tidbits from my travels. If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to get back to the randomness I encounter in my everyday life. (Maybe someday technology will advance to where you can hear my cat purring if you put your ear to your computer monitor. Hark! Feline happiness!)

The Carrier

2011-06-19T11:16:00.001-07:00

My nickname for my orange boy cat is Macho. So, it’s simultaneously sad and funny when he screams like a woman. Why was he screaming? Well, all I did was put him inside the pet carrier so he could get his annual shots at the vet this morning. As usual, this freaked him out. I think Macho woke up at least one of my neighbors with his high-pitched screeches.

I tried to make the car ride as enjoyable as possible. I even played “Message in a Bottle” on my stereo as a humorous soundtrack to Macho’s melodramatic meowing. I tried to be as playful with him as possible. “You like it when Mama drives fast?” I asked as I zoomed onto the highway with The Police on my stereo. I told Macho, “I love you!” He replied, “MEOW!!!” He calmed down a tiny bit after we arrived at the vet’s office and I pried him out of the carrier. He was literally trembling and snuggled next to my arm, bosom, and tummy during the examination and injections. This was a very scary process for him. See the panicked look on his face in the photo above? (I snapped it after I brought him back home).

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

In a previous blog post (on 8/22/10), I briefly mentioned what happened when my girl cat, nickname: Choochie, had to live in the pet carrier while she healed from her spay surgery several years ago. (Last night and this morning, she was hanging out in the pet carrier while Macho was avoiding it.) She became obsessed with her stitches and licked/scraped them so much that she gave herself an infection. I kept a close watch on her during her healing process, and I love how the two of us bonded during that time. (Perhaps you’ve seen Facebook pictures of her perching on my shoulder. Aw, I love my Choochie!)

Lately, I’ve been going through a very intense emotional healing process with God. He’s been slicing me open, cleaning out the dirt, squeezing out the infectious puss, and washing it all out with hydrogen peroxide, so to speak. I wonder if the healing process is even more painful than the initial wounding! It’s a very scary process for me. I don’t want God my Father to pick me up, while I’m kicking and screaming, and stuff me into my carrier and drag me to the spiritual doctor’s office. It’s scary to be examined, poked, and prodded. But when I’m trembling, I can nestle close to my Father and bury my freaked-out head in His arm, bosom, and tummy. He can calm me down and tell me everything is going to be OK. He can assure me that it’s all going to be over soon and that He’ll be there with me the entire time.

To clarify, I don’t want this scary process... yet I want it. Make sense? :) I don’t want to remember terrible memories or make amends where I need to or face fears or smell the stench of an old infection. But I want to get cleaned out as much as possible, and I want to be all healed up, freed up, brand-new, ready to fly and soar above whatever’s coming up next. I want to be as close to my Father as possible. I’m glad that He wants to be close to me, I’m glad that He’s patient with me, and I’m glad that He cares enough about me to take the time to heal me.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go check on Macho. Sometimes he gets feverish after his shots, but he’ll be back to normal in about 24 hours or so. At least the womanish screams are only a memory now. MEOW!!!

The Nest

2011-06-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: In this post, I may ramble a little bit, I may be weirdly metaphorical, and/or I may be in your face and stomping on your toes. Or I may just confuse you. I may say stuff that will make you go, “Well, duh,” because it’s something you’re already familiar with, but I’m articulating something that I’m experiencing for the first time or that’s clicked for me at a deeper level. Please humor me. I'm a writer. If the light bulb turns on for me, I want to communicate it in such a way that it will hopefully help other people see the light, too. :o) Maybe my cats can help me clean up after myself later. Phew.

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young -- a place near Your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.” (Psalm 84:3)

I’ve been thinking about “nests” and “feeding” lately, especially with my new church responsibilities and, well, there’s a nifty little visual aid outside my apartment now. Meet mama and daddy swallow.

Daddy swallow is the rugged one on the right who’s perching with one claw on a screw/nail above my kitchen window. Mama swallow slept in the nest until the eggs hatched and the baby swallows grew too big for her to stay in the nest. As you can see...

...they can be demanding little cheepers. At least, I hope the photo quality enables you to see how adorable they are with their little beaks wide open at even the slightest hint of mama swallow incoming with breakfast.

It’s really something how they instinctively open their mouths: “Aaaah! Incoming food!” I even saw a yellowjacket fly by the nest once, and the baby birds did the same thing: “Aaaah! Incoming food! I don’t know if it will sting my esophagus on the way down or if it’s healthy for me at all, but I’m hungry, and this food is buzzing straight at me!”

In John 21, Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep. In a nutshell, that’s basically what church leaders do for people. One of the worship pastors at my church basically said once that you have to be careful what you feed yourself, because that’s what you’ll feed your little ones. What if they’re thirsty? He said you don’t want to give them a drink of toilet water. No way. You need to give them clear, clean water.

Sometimes it helps to take a closer look at the water you’re drinking and the vessel you’re drinking from, literally and metaphorically. The other day, I wondered why my purified drinking water left a weird taste in my mouth. I took the lid off my thermos and saw that there was a paper towel soaking at the bottom. (gag)

Recently, I went through some of my old journal entries (from 1997-2000). Once the shock wore off from reading and remembering the type of crap that I used to scream at God, I read some of the stuff that one or two of my “mamas” in the Lord used to feed me. Now that I'm out of their “nests,” I can see that I wasn’t always fed good things. I believe that they loved me, their intentions were good, and they fed and cared for me the best way they knew how. But I didn’t have to swallow everything they tried to feed me. In my journal entries (for privacy’s sake, I won’t share specifics on this forum), I could see some good mixed in with the chaos. I could tell that God was peacefully feeding me Himself in the midst of the crazily confused environment that I lived in. Maybe there was a yellowjacket nest right next to mama’s nest, and in my demanding hunger, I devoured the harmful insect along with the nourishing worm.

OK, so I’m not a scientist -- maybe baby swallows really are supposed to eat yellowjackets. My point is that if the food or water is bad, I’m learning to spit it out. If I have my own swallows or sheep to feed, I have to be careful what I consume. I have to be careful to provide the best food and water that I can to whoever I’m responsible for feeding. Another thing I’m learning is that after eating bad food, well, I can expect a bad poop.

That’s another thing about nests and birds -- so much poop to clean up! (I’ve heard that it’s the same way with human children and that it involves diapers or something.) I think that’s part of life. When it’s time to eat, you eat, and when it’s time to poop, you poop. As you grow, hopefully you learn to eat better food that helps you grow healthy and strong. Hopefully, you avoid bad food. Hopefully, you’re in a nest where mama and daddy swallow are teaching you how to be a swallow who will leave the nest someday and go build your own nest and have your own baby swallows. Hopefully, mama and daddy swallow are teaching you how to fly.

The baby swallows are growing so fast! I think it’s only been two or three weeks since they’ve hatched, and they’re already stretching their wings and tumbling out of the nest. (I saw one on the ground the other day. It looked like daddy swallow was supervising and giving him a pep talk.) I think they’ll all fly away pretty soon. (sniff) Also, I did snap a miraculous swallow-pooping photo, but I’ll spare your eyes, reader. Incoming!

Reflections of the third decade, part X

2011-05-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

It’s time for another decade contrast! This time, I thought I’d compare 1981 to 2011. I think a lot has changed since then... or has it??

Me at 5: I don’t remember this event, but I have a cool snapshot of me wearing khaki bellbottoms.
Me at 35: I like my khaki pants or my corduroy pants even more than I like blue jeans.

Me at 5: My family used to put me on stage at church, make sure I had a mic in my hand, and make me sing for everybody.
Me at 35: I would really like to try out for the worship team at church.

Me at 5: I used to listen to my mom’s Oliver record.
Me at 35: I bought The Best of Oliver on cd a couple of years ago.

Me at 5: I would watch cool TV shows like The Great Space Coaster and The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!
Me at 35: I recently finished working at a job where I would watch cool and not-so-cool TV shows.

Me at 5: I watched the world premiere of Gimme a Break! on my parents’ TV.
Me at 35: Hmm. It might be time once again to whip out my Gimme a Break! Season One DVD set to enjoy while I’m washing dishes. (“There ain’t no Julio here!” Wait. That wasn’t from Season One. Who cares? Such a delightful TV quote!)

Me at 5: After being disappointed and somewhat traumatized by my hostile, scratching white male kitten named Puff who ran away from home, I welcomed a new puppy named Wendy into my life. (I have a somewhat nice memory of marching around the garage and singing while holding onto Puff. He abandoned me and our family. I wonder if this had anything to do with all those years I spent hating cats??)
Me at 35: I’m thoroughly enjoying my fuzzy white/black/gray mixed Siamese girl cat who is crouching beside me while I type this. (My favorite form of exercise is marching around my living room and dancing (usually to disco) while holding onto my orange boy cat. He’s such a good dance partner! He usually lets me lead.)

Me at 5: I didn’t know God yet. I depended on my parents for everything.
Me at 35: I know God. I depend on Him for everything.

Me at 5: I walked around the house telling stories while my family took dictation.
Me at 35: I sit around and type up blog posts so the world can read my stream-of-consciousness.

No comprendo

2011-04-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hello, reader. It’s time once again for Here’s What It’s Like To Be Single Theater. [Easy listening trumpet solo plays in background.] In today’s episode, we’ll have a crash course on marital status diversity training. (For previous “episodes,” see my previous blog posts from 2/13/11 and 6/30/10.)

I love my church. It has, in my opinion, one of the best, life-giving singles ministries I’ve been honored to be a part of. My church makes sure we singles have a place to be planted and thrive the way God wants us to. Yet even in a place where singles are wanted, valued, and not treated like outcasts, we are sometimes accidentally singled out by married people. I can’t speak for everybody, but what I have experienced is that my singlehood is sometimes spotlighted accidentally by married people. They don’t mean to do it, and I know they love me, but let me give you an example. I recently received an email encouraging me to get the “man in my life” to attend a men’s retreat. Do you know who the man in my life is? Let me show you his picture.

This is my orange cat. I snapped photos of him last spring because I wanted to capture how he marks his territory on my tuna cans. This is a bird’s-eye view of him jumping up and wiping his cheek on an unopened can. Yes, he is completely missing my hand and exclusively paying attention to the tuna. Good thing he isn’t my boyfriend. Our relationship would be in serious trouble!

I kid around. But in all seriousness, I’m OK with being single right now. That doesn’t mean I’m “dating Jesus.” That means I understand that God has me single right now because He hasn’t given me a man yet (not a cat, an actual man). Yes, I would much rather be married. I’ve never been married, and I’ve gone approximately 17 years without a date, and none of this has been my choice. God has been healing me, especially from rejection, etc. I’m content with my marital status right now, meaning that I don’t want it, but I’ll take it, and if I’m where God wants me, I’m OK with it. Yet sometimes, out of nowhere, a wave of pain will slap me in the face. It will remind me, “You’re alone. You’re husbandless. You’re boyfriendless. You’re dateless.” This is a painful truth. I take my pain to God, and He lets me cry on His shoulder. I get closer to Him. I appreciate that. Unfortunately, what I don’t appreciate is the wave of pain that slaps me in the face. That email I received about the “man in my life” is one such example. The married people (at least, I assume they’re married) who sent that email were just doing some clever advertising. They weren’t trying to hurt me.

I know that the married people in my church love me because they try to give me metaphorical examples of what God’s character is like. Unfortunately, they give me examples that I really can’t relate to -- for example, “God loves and accepts His children in a similar way that I love and accept my children.” Um, good for you. Uh, what were we talking about again? Or even worse -- “Such and such is a lot like dating. Remember when you went on your first date and you were nervous about what the other person would think of you?” Um, no, and I don’t have time to go into detail and explain why. Uh, dating -- I’m not sure the rewind button in my brain can even travel back that far!

You’re speaking to me in a foreign language. I’m sorry, but no comprendo. That means, “I don’t understand.” If you want me to grasp what you’re trying to communicate, please speak a language that I understand. Otherwise, I may tune you out. ¿Entiendes lo que estoy diciendo? Yeah, I didn’t think so. :) Perhaps you should try translating your message into cat-lady. “What? You mean the way I feel about my cats is a teensy little fraction of how humongously much God loves me? Because He made me, redeemed me, and wants me?? Wow! I get it!!” See? Transmission received and understood. :) Or you could try speaking in general-truth terms. “God loves you and wants the very best for you.” See? I understand that language, too! :)

Let’s go back to the diversity training for a bit. I’m not quite sure how to go about this, but I’m just gonna get it all out there. If you’re married and/or have children, just because I’m single and live alone doesn’t mean that my time isn’t as valuable as yours. Being single doesn’t mean that my life is meaningless or useless. Do you know what it’s like to live alone? Do you know what it’s like to have to pay all your living expenses, clean your entire apartment, carry all your groceries and luggage up several flights of stairs on a regular basis, work full-time, have a social life, and juggle all of the above, constantly having to manage your time and tweak your schedule -- alone? Just because I’m alone doesn’t mean that I’m bored, unhappy, empty, or pathetic. To clarify, I belong to Jesus, and He’ll never leave me or forsake me, so even though I’m alone, I’m technically not by myself. :)

My being single might not necessarily be my fault. Singlehood is a season of life. It is not a problem that needs to be solved. However, I think a relationship would be an extremely delicate equation that God will need to balance. I’m only one variable in the equation. My future man is another important variable. Even my therapist confirmed this for me about 10 years ago. After he helped me through some depression issues, during our last session, I thought he could help me figure out the mystery of how to get a guy. He looked at me like I had asked him a dumb question. I don’t remember his exact response, but he replied blankly, “If you like him and he likes you, then go out with him.” Easier said than done, doc! I’m not the One who’s in control here.

Some things in life were just meant to be a mystery. Some mysteries need to be respected. I can’t speak for everybody, but for myself I can say that I’m beginning to believe that singlehood isn’t some crazy punishment that God has given me. For me, I believe that God has kept me single because He’s been protecting me from some bad things and preserving me for some good things. And I’m OK with that now. And even if He never gives me a husband or a boyfriend or a date or children or a family, I need to be OK with that, too. I need to be OK with belonging to a good God who loves me. Reader, I hope you can be OK with that, too.

Mil gracias por estar aquí conmigo en Here’s What It’s Like To Be Single Theater. [Flamenco music plays in background. Cat lady dances, twirling around wildly while clutching her surprised-looking feline.]

Sparky Friendship!

2011-03-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

I realize that I may offend people by what I say in this post, but if that needs to happen, I’m not afraid of it. Hey, it’s Windowbrawl! I’ve got something to say, so I’m just gonna go for it.

Proverbs 27:17 (NKJV) says, “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” People get warm fuzzies from that verse. Awww, my friend. I love friendship. But do you know what happens when iron sharpens iron? Sparks fly. Clang, clang, clang, bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt! Hear that? That’s the sound of conflict. I’m not the first writer to make this observation. I looked online to try to find an official psychological study or something, but I couldn’t find anything that supported my real-life findings. So, I would like to give you my perspective on sparky friendship.

I consider myself a detail-oriented, friendship-oriented person, but I haven’t always been this way. I was very antisocial as a preteen (I was afraid of people, I didn’t know how to interact with people, and I tried to avoid other human beings whenever possible), so these observations on friendship that I’m sharing with you now have mostly occurred in my 20s and 30s. And it’s just an analysis. People are neither objects nor machines. They’re beautifully unpredictable, and I think friendships develop the best when they happen naturally. I’ve discovered that some people like it when friendships develop quickly, and other people like it when friendships take a very long time to develop. I think I fall somewhere in between. I usually like friendship to develop quickly, but I prefer it when both parties in the friendship stick around long enough to make the friendship work.

1) During the beginning stage of a friendship, there are usually warm fuzzies. “Awww, my new friend. I love my new friend.” 2) Then comes the iron-sharpening stage -- the conflict stage. “Hey, you hurt my feelings. Oh, yeah? Well, you hurt my feelings, too.” I think this stage is pretty crucial, because one or both parties may decide to leave the friendship or just let it die. And that’s a perfectly legitimate, perfectly OK thing to do. I’ve learned in the past year or so that friendship is voluntary. (Yes, for some weird reason, I didn’t even know that it was supposed to be voluntary. Long story. And I’ll talk more about this later.) 3) And then there’s the countenance-sharpening stage -- the post-conflict stage. “Hey, I’m glad we worked through this. I know you a lot better now.” Have you ever seen a couple of friends give each other this knowing, inside-joke kind of look? I believe it’s because they’ve sharpened each other’s countenances. They’ve been through stuff together, and they’re starting to understand each other. They’ve helped each other through some things. Proverbs 27:9 (NIV) says, “Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel.” In my opinion, that’s what friends do. They love each other, enjoy each other’s company, help each other, and give each other advice. 4) Finally, there’s the deep-friendship cultivation stage. “I love you as my friend, and I want to be friends with you forever.” In my opinion, this is the most delicate stage, because it’s the one where the entire friendship can be taken for granted. What do you do when you’re trying to grow a plant? You water it, you give it sunlight, and you give it plant food. But if you stop feeding and nurturing it, it could die. Friendships can die in this stage, even after surviving the conflict stage. Is this friendship worth it to you? is it something you want to keep? If so, then feed it. Nurture it. Take the time to care for it. I also think these 4 stages (warm fuzzies → iron-sharpening → countenance-sharpening → deep cultivation) can be repeated in cycles the longer a friendship exists. I also believe a friendship can die during any of these stages. And it’s just an analysis. If you and your friend haven’t gone through all 4 of these stages in order, it certainly doesn’t mean your friendship isn’t legit. Perhaps it’s just beautifully unpredictable.

Going back to the “friendship is voluntary” concept, sometimes you might meet somebody who is unhealthy to have in your life. This is also something I’ve learned recently. If somebody treats me like crap, I don’t have to be their friend. God wants me to love them and be at peace with them, and they might even be my brother or sister in Christ. But if they’re abusive, I certainly don’t need to nurture any kind of friendship with them. Do I believe in second chances? Sure. I’ve totally messed up in my past, too. But I think I choose my friends more cautiously now than I used to (see Proverbs 12:26).

I hope you understand that I’m talking about platonic friendship. Non-sexual, non-weird friendships can go deep and last for a lifetime. One Bible verse that I believe has been misquoted big-time is 2 Samuel 1:26, when David mourns for his deceased friend Jonathan. (I think in modern-day terms, we’d call them BFFs.) David says, “Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.” David and Jonathan were not gay. (To read what I believe about homosexuality, please see my blog entry “Disagreeing with Miley Cyrus” from 4/29/09.) They had a pure, holy friendship. If my friend Liz (if you’re reading this, Ih. :D) were to toast me at my wedding and say, “Tirzah, your love for me is more wonderful than that of men,” I’d probably smile and say, “Right back at ya, chickie.” She wouldn’t be flirting with me. She’d be saying, “Hey, you and I have been through some real stuff together. Iron sharpened iron. Sparks flew. We’ve really gotten to know each other’s hearts. I appreciate your love and your friendship.”

I’ll tell you whose love and friendship I appreciate more than anyone else’s. In John 15:13 (NIV), Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus wanted to be my friend before I ever even knew Him. He lay down His life for me. He died in my place, taking the penalty of my sin on Himself. This was the only way for me to be saved from hell, it was the only way for me to be reconciled to my Father, and it was the only way that He and I could be close friends. Yet He gave His life for me voluntarily. For the record, I consider Jesus to be my Best Friend. The One who will never leave me or forsake me? my Refuge? my Comforter? Yep, He’s the Best. :)

Yeah, that’s right. Clang, clang, clang, bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt!

Shmalentine’s Fray

2011-02-13T15:04:00.000-08:00

Well, one good thing about being laid off from my job recently is that it’s distracted me from how much I hate Valentine’s Day. (To read my previous opinions, please check out my blog entries “Valentine, Shmalentine” from 4/12/10 and “Singlehood” from 6/30/10.) Yes, God has been healing my heart, restoring my soul, and repairing my spirit, so it has been easier to take VDay with a grain of salt, but if I may speak freely, it still sucks. It’s a “holiday” that I can’t ignore, no matter how hard I’ve tried. I think it’s healthiest to just deal with it head-on and get it over with. Like getting a shot at the doctor. Grr. I hate shots.

I get the impression that people mainly see the point of VDay as giving material things like flowers and candy to their significant others. I see it as a day -- nay, an entire season -- when it’s in my face more than ever that I have no significant other to share the day with. Forget the stupid flowers and candy. You can have them. I’d rather have a man. Hmm. Perhaps I should use a smiley here so the reader won’t think I’m depressed. :) I’m OK. I’m just passionate about this dumb subject. I’m OK with being single. This is a difficult yet very sweet season of life for me. I just don’t like having it thrown in my face that I’m single. I’m not really lonely. I’m angry. OK, another smiley face. :) And an LOL. Yes, even when I’m ticked off, I can have a sense of humor!

It’s been 17 years since I’ve had a significant other to observe VDay with. (I wonder if that’s a record. Where’s Guinness when you need them?) I believe that VDay is a time to celebrate couples’ romantic love. If you don’t have somebody, you’re left out. That’s just the way this particular holiday is set up, in my opinion. There are some who say that you can celebrate how much God loves you and how much you love God. But I think you’re supposed to do that every day. (And if you want a holiday for it, there are already two -- Christmas and Easter.) Then there are some who say that you can celebrate how much you love your children. Again, thank you for the painful reminder that I don’t have children of my own.

For some reason, I’ve noticed that what really ticks me off is when people think I’m with somebody and I’m not. For instance, a few years ago when I was visiting family for Christmas, my dad went to the ER, and my sister and I were debating whether or not to stay in town an extra day to support my mom. One of the well-intentioned nurses gave her two cents and told me I should stay. But I wanted to get home (to my cats). She asked me with a wry grin, “What’s his name?” Look, lady, there’s no man that I’m in a hurry to rush home to. But thank you for the painful reminder! Then this past summer, after a church service was over and I was filing out of the sanctuary with everyone else, I think there was a guy and his family or something sitting next to me, and they entered the aisle, and I offered a lady who was standing in line behind me to go ahead of me. She looked kind of surprised and said, “Oh, I thought you were with him,” and gave me this pursed-lips look -- the same one that one of my aunts gave me when she first met my brother-in-law and thought he was married to me. Um, no, BUT THANK YOU FOR THE PAINFUL REMINDER that I am not with anybody!

Sigh. OK, Tirzah, breathe. Don’t punch anybody in the face today. Ahem. Smiley. :) So, basically, that’s what VDay is for me -- a painful reminder. Not gonna sugarcoat it. You know who else didn’t sugarcoat pain? The psalmists of the Bible, including David. You know what he says in Psalm 62:8? Pour out your heart to God, because He’s a refuge. That’s the safest place to take pain -- to God. He’s the One who fixes it. Incidentally, if you’ve heard me talk about how God set me free from depression, that was one of the main things He taught me -- to keep the flow going. (Gonna use arrows now.) Pour out your heart to God --> receive His love --> pour it out --> receive His love. That way, the pain doesn’t stagnate and fester, which was a very unhealthy thing I allowed to happen in the past.

In my opinion, VDay highlights or even causes a pain that is pretty much inconsolable, except for the God of all comfort. In my journey, I’ve found that kind, encouraging words don’t really help. In terms of coping, just agreeing with me that VDay sucks and/or getting my mind off it with something funny is pretty much the only thing that helps. But in my opinion, the most helpful and effective way of dealing with the VDay-related pain is to just pour it out to God, have a really good cry, and let the God of all comfort hold you while you pour it all out. VDay is a painful reminder of the rejection and the temptation to believe that there is something wrong with me. (Psalm 139 says there isn’t anything wrong with me, and my soul knows it very well.) I need Him to remind me of who I really am. I believe that because I know Jesus, I belong to God. I belong with Him. John 14:23 says that the Father and Jesus make Their home with me. So, after time passes and I actually get a significant other, will VDay still suck? Maybe, but hopefully not. In the future, if I get married, will God the Father and Jesus still make Their home with me? Heck yes, and I need Them to stay as close to me as possible for the rest of my life. (That goes for the Holy Spirit, too. :)) Will I still be OK, even if I never get married? If God is with me, then yes. I don’t want to do anything without Him, anyway (including remaining single involuntarily). :)

Speaking of who I belong to, the above photo is a snapshot of me taking Isaiah 44:5 literally, just for the fun of it. I am the Lord’s. :) And as my purring cat perches on me while I type this, I’m reminded of how I had to take her to the vet today to get her annual shots. Grr. She hates shots, too. It hurts her, and going to the vet’s office once a year makes her very uncomfortable. But today, after several days of psyching her up for the visit, it seemed very helpful and effective to take her out of the pet carrier and hold her close to me when it was time for her examination. I even danced a little bit with her while we were waiting for the doctor. After she received her shots, I held her close to me again. If we weren’t in a public place, I would have sung to her. Hmm. I should try that next year. :) :) Double smileys! And Tirzah is no longer angry. Ha! Much better than flowers and candy.

Equilibrium: The Sequel

2011-02-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

Slippery winter weather inspired me to write about equilibrium again. (For reference, please see my blog entry from 12/14/10.) For now, at least between my home and my job, the roads are mostly dry and travelable. However, many of the sidewalks and parking lots are not. Last night after work, while I was carefully walking from my car to my apartment on some iced-over grass, I fell on my knee. It smarted at first, but my thermals cushioned the fall nicely. This morning on the way to work, while I was carefully walking from my apartment to my car, I fell on the side of my butt. It still smarts a tiny bit, but not badly. Actually, the second fall happened barely a few feet away from the original fall, and I’m pretty sure I exclaimed, “Not again!” on my way down.

After I got to work and removed my gloves, I noticed a bruise on the palm of my hand. It’s almost an inch long; you can see me displaying it in the picture above. I’m guessing my hand thwacked on the icy pavement during my fall, because I don’t remember it hurting at first. If I push on it really hard, it hurts, but otherwise it doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is that every time I look at it, I’m reminded, “Dang, I fell! Crap, I fell! Aw, man, I can’t believe I fell!” And it’s on the palm of my hand, so it’s not like I can easily avoid looking at it throughout the day. I don’t even think I’ve got bruises on my knee or butt, but this hand bruise -- which is really like an innocent bystander in this whole thing -- is frequently reminding me of something I’d like to forget.

I’m reminded yet again of Psalm 145:14 -- God upholds ALL those who fall and lifts up ALL who are bowed down. We live in a fallen world. As a Christian, I don’t belong to it, but there’s slippery ice -- metaphorically speaking -- all around me. There are so many opportunities in my walk with Christ to get distracted by something and fall. Sometimes, I’m walking along as carefully as I can, things are going just fine, but I mess up, anyway. I don’t want to, but sometimes it happens. And sometimes, I beat myself up for it, staring at the bruise on my hand and going, “Dang, I fell! Crap, I fell! Aw, man, I can’t believe I fell!”

I understand now why my church emphasizes keeping your focus on God and His Kingdom instead of on sin and demonic stuff. I think for most of my Christian life, I’ve been taught, “Don’t sin! Don’t sin! Don’t sin! Aw, look at you! Now you’ve sinned!” Um, hello, that’s because my focus was on the sin. LOL! I’m pretty sure God wants to teach us instead, “You live in My house now. Stick with Me. Eat all you want from My banqueting table. Drink as much as you want from My river of pleasure. Enjoy!”

Psalm 3:3 says that God is my shield and the lifter of my head. He’s the One who basically says, “Yes, you fell, but repent and get up. Don’t be ashamed. Hey, look up at Me. I’m right here. I’ll help you up. Keep going. Keep walking.” I follow Jesus. He’s my Big Brother who’s walked ahead of me and knows how to avoid the slippery places. He’ll show me where to step. He’ll show me where to walk. He’ll show me how slowly or how quickly I should go. If I fall, He’ll pick me up, dust me off, let me cry on His shoulder, and fix my bruises. He encourages me, leads me, and teaches me. I need Him! I love Him!

Speaking of learning, I did feel myself get a bit dizzy yesterday and today (not ice-fall related) because of cold-weather sinus stuff. Not wanting to repeat my 2010 vertigo insanity, I popped a few decongestants. Not again! :)

Eyes on the Conductor

2011-01-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

Today, I looked out the window and saw some magic snow! (That’s the kind that falls but doesn’t stick, at least according to my definition (see my blog entry from 12/29/09).) I was concerned that the roads were going to be too terrible to travel on this evening but am relieved they don’t seem all that terrible for now. I have a friend who is going to get baptized tonight, and I don’t want to miss seeing it. It’s winter. It’s supposed to snow. God is the One who brings it. Psalm 147:16 says He spreads snow like wool. Yet He knows that there are important events, at least in my life right now, that some pesky weather conditions shouldn’t hinder. Even as I type this, the sun has even begun to shine.

God’s ways and plans are so much higher than our ways and plans. (See Isaiah 55:8-9.) His timing is impeccable, and I don’t usually understand it, especially when I’m going through some tough stuff, but it blows my mind. He orchestrates things just right. For example, this winter, I’ve got the opportunity to work on some writing projects that I don’t think would go so smoothly if God hadn’t just brought me through some emotional healing. He’s squeezed out some fear that used to be lurking in my soul, and now I’m more freed up to do things like take risks and experiment creatively. That’s something I need to do as a creative writer. I can’t be who God created me to be if I’m weighed down by something like fear of failure or hiding behind something old like fear of rejection. He wants me to soar, like the eagles in Isaiah 40:31, above all the storms, all the odds, and anything that might discourage me from forging ahead. He wants me to fly.

When I played the French horn in junior-high band, I remember the band directors always harping on us to keep our eyes on them. We needed to keep our music stands raised at eye level so we could read our music while constantly glancing at the director, who would constantly signal important things like tempo and dynamic changes. They would often get frustrated with us if we weren’t watching them and missed something important.

God is much more patient with us than my band directors were (no offense to any who might be reading this), but I think He conducts life in His Kingdom in a similar way. It’s almost as if we’re the musicians in His giant orchestra, each with a different instrument and part to play. It’s almost as if He’s the Conductor who knows the plan, knows which part of the music is coming up next, and cues each instrument to come in at the exact time they need to. If we don’t keep our eyes on Him, we could miss something important. If I’m in His orchestra with my French horn waiting for my chance to play, and I get distracted by something (maybe someone in the audience is mocking the orch dorks or the band nerds and making faces), I could miss it. What if I’m supposed to play a solo? I wouldn’t want to mess up something huge like a solo that my Conductor entrusted to me, something that I’ve been practicing and preparing for months ahead of time.

In recent months, as I’ve been praying through decisions and anxieties, God keeps reminding me, “Eyes on Me.” I think as long as I keep following my Conductor, He’ll make sure I play my part when it’s time. He knows the perfect time.

Sigh. The Nutcracker plays quietly on my computer, and memories of the magic snow hang heavily in the crisp air!

Bible verses that make you go, “Aw, snap”

2011-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

I would cheerfully like to offer you some scriptures that, uh, might not be all that encouraging right away.

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Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house, lest he become weary of you and hate you. (Proverbs 25:17, NKJV)

My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds; my neighbors stay far away. (Psalm 38:11, NIV)

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend. (Psalm 88:18, NIV)

The poor are shunned even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends. (Proverbs 14:20, NIV)

Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief. (Proverbs 14:13, NIV)

Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed. (Proverbs 27:5, NKJV)

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:6, NKJV)

Let a righteous man strike me -- it is a kindness; let him rebuke me -- it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it. (Psalm 141:5, NIV)

A rebuke impresses a man of discernment more than a hundred lashes a fool. (Proverbs 17:10, NIV)

Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is counted prudent. (Proverbs 17:28, NASB)

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Uh, I’ll shut up now. LOL

Reflections of the third decade, part IXA

2010-12-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

I thought of something that I should add to my previous list -- another important thing I learned about myself in 2010. Did I mention I can be really obsessive? LOL!

4) God made me superabsorbent. I’m a lot like a sponge, or maybe a roll of paper towels. I like to spend lots of time thinking about, chewing on, and digesting things. (This kind of fits with something I learned about myself after I graduated from college -- I’m a kinesthetic learner. I learn by doing. I need repetition and trial and error, and I need to be able to ask questions.) I like to absorb ideas and atmosphere and soak it all in. If I hang around people long enough, I can pick up their good habits and their bad habits. I think the trick is to absorb the good and catch myself before I absorb the bad. (Or better yet, let God show me what I should or shouldn’t be absorbing!) Also, for lack of a better phrase, I can really take a beating. For example, if somebody is having a bad day and they vent crazily or spew emotionally at me, I can usually take it -- I’ll absorb it. In the past, this was bad because I was a doormat. I allowed myself to be people’s punching bag, on a regular basis, and this was unhealthy for me. (This contributed to my past depression.) Now I’m learning to draw boundaries and basically tell people, “OK, that’s enough. Please stop spewing on me.” A few months ago, I took a spiritual gifts test for church, and it surprised me to find out that I’m gifted in martyrdom. This means that I’ll probably be one of the first ones to speak up and say, “Excuse me, but this is right” or “This is wrong, and I don’t care how badly you beat me up. I need to speak up.” Hmm. Another reason why I’m glad I named this blog Windowbrawl. When it’s time to do so, I’ll put up my dukes. Uh-oh, I just thought of something else.

5) I’m a fighter, not a lover. Dang it, no wonder I’m still single! LOL!

Thanks again for reading. :)

Reflections of the third decade, part IX

2010-12-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some random/shocking things I learned about myself in 2010.

1) I am not a social butterfly. And I’m OK with that. I’ve noticed that I usually bond with one person at a time. During social gatherings, I’ll usually be content having a long, deep conversation with one person rather than chitchatting with everybody. What’s especially fun for me is having a conversation with a group of people that I’ve already had one-on-one bonding with. (That happened frequently when I lived in Waco!) I am not an extrovert, meaning that I do not recharge when I’m around people. I am an introvert, meaning that I recharge when I’m by myself. I’m usually not good company during social gatherings if I haven’t had some introverted recharge time beforehand. What might happen is I’ll float away on the magic carpet of being in my own little world. Polka-dot kitties sing nutcracker-suite lullabies while baking chocolate trains.

2) I can be really obsessive. I can be really obsessive. I can be really obsessive. I can be really obsessive. I can be really obsessive. Which can be a bad thing -- for example, if I’m thinking about something depressing. Or it could be a good thing -- for example, if I’m thinking about God’s truth or if I find out that a friend needs prayer. It’s a trait that can come in handy -- for example, when I’ll put the finishing touches on my novel, polishing up details and tying up loose ends.

3) I’m a much pickier eater than I thought I was. I used to tell people, “I’ll eat anything except a baked potato.” Nope, it’s more complicated than that now. I won’t eat food that’s way too spicy, cooked vegetables that taste bitter (i.e., nopalitos, even with egg and salsa), or food that’s way too sweet. Burritos filled with rice offended my taste buds severely this year. Perhaps the most shocking tidbit that I’ve learned is... I don’t like cake. Insert screaming here. I like to celebrate people’s birthdays, but now I dread the distribution of cake. If I take a piece, I’ll usually kind of eat around the icing. One year, my coworkers were kind enough to fulfill my request to not give me a cake for my birthday, so they gave me a cookie buffet instead. Now, THAT was fun. Maybe next year, I should request angel food cake. That stuff’s pretty good, because it isn’t too sweet and doesn’t require icing. (Just as long as I don’t get a baked potato for my birthday. Insert gagging here.) Uh-oh. Now I’m making myself hungry.

Maybe I should check with the kitties to see if the chocolate trains are ready. Then there’s this spot on my magic carpet that needs to be removed. Please excuse me while I board my rice-powered baked potato car to go to the cleaners. Insert chuckling here.

Unwanted? No. Wanted.

2010-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

This week, I watched the 1964 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special for the first time in a long time. I realize now why I usually stick to comedies at Christmastime. Rudolph tackles some tough motifs! It was especially hard to watch because of some issues that God has been working on in my life this year.

During the program, Rudolph and his friends end up at a place called The Island of Misfit Toys. It’s also called The Island of Unwanted Toys. It’s a kind of depressing place where unwanted, unusual toys live and wait to be delivered to children who will appreciate them. For example, among the island’s inhabitants are a train with square wheels, a Charlie-In-The-Box, and a cowboy who rides an ostrich. The ruler of the island is King Moonracer, a flying lion. These toys are unwanted. They don’t fit in, and they’re rejected.

This story hits home for me because God has shown me how much I’ve dealt with rejection for my entire life -- not just with remaining single but with tons of other people in other types of relationships. But it’s OK. God is healing me, because He accepts me now.

When I first brought my mixed Siamese kitten home, around 10 years ago, I was roommates with a chick who had a big orange cat (who is my cat now). He did not take kindly to my new kitten at all. She was very friendly toward him and kept initiating with him, I’m assuming because she wanted to be his friend. (She’s the outgoing one. He’s the hermit.) At one point, he hid under my roommate’s bed while my kitten peeked under there. She crept toward him, trilling pleadingly, while he growled maliciously. It was a sad, kind of heartbreaking scene to watch. Basically, he was rejecting her and was being very hostile toward her.

That night, I brought my kitten into my room so she could sleep with me in my bed. Her previous owner told me that my kitten insisted on sleeping with her in her bed, but this bothered her, so she made my kitten sleep outside. I didn’t want that for my kitten. I brought her to my bed. I remember her standing there, staring at me, purring loudly, as if she were saying, “YOU’RE LETTING ME SLEEP HERE WITH YOU, IN YOUR PRIVATE LAIR, CLOSE TO YOU??? I LOVE YOU!!!” Heck yes, kitten. You’re mine now. I want you to be as close to me as possible. (Now she has issues with being too close to me, to the point of poking her whiskers on my face and waking me up in the middle of the night. But that’s another story. LOL) In many ways, this reminds me of how God treats me and wants me to be close to Him, because He accepts me.

OK, that was the cutesy, metaphorical half of this blog post. Now for the scarier, life-and-death half.

I’ve learned that rejection can have the potential to be very dangerous. If you experience a lifetime of friend after friend rejecting you, boyfriend after boyfriend dumping you, or relative after relative neglecting you, you could possibly start to believe lies about yourself. You could possibly start to believe that you are unloveable, unwantable, or that there is just something wrong with you. The way it was explained to me, if I remember correctly, rejection from people can be very dangerous because it could eventually lead to self-rejection.

God has shown me that this was a huge contributor my suicide attempt 10 years ago. I was in an environment where I didn’t quite fit in, I was repeatedly rejected, and I was obsessed with finding my purpose. (I think I’ve previously blogged about how depressed I was leading up to this.) The week before I made a series of bad decisions that led to me trying to take my own life, I was on a mission trip in Boston. It was a fun week overall, and I enjoyed the city. I enjoyed very peaceful times with God when I was by myself. I was praying about where God wanted me to do long-term mission work, and while I was in Boston, I heard Him say, “Stay here.” I excitedly thought He meant that He wanted me to be a missionary in Boston.

But that didn’t happen. I eventually became so fed up with everything and so enraged at God that I did a Jonah-like escape out of town that led to me purchasing medicine that I thought would be enough to kill me. (It wasn’t. Long story that I can sort of laugh at now. LOL) While I took the medication and waited for it to work, I wrote repeatedly in my journal, “Please just let me die.” About an hour later, I noticed I was still alive and excitedly realized that God wanted me to live. (Then I visited the ER and stayed in a psychiatric hospital for 4 days. Yeah, even though it was an extremely serious experience, I can laugh at that now. LOL) I’m convinced now more than ever that if I hadn’t been so angry at God back then, if I hadn’t held Him responsible for my problems, I could have been able to let Him heal me. I’m convinced now more than ever that I really just needed Him and His love. Sometime during my restoration period, He showed me that when He said, “Stay here” in Boston, He meant for me to stay in His presence, close to Him, enjoying Him and His peace. That’s what I needed.

That’s what I still need. 10 years later, God celebrated the 10th anniversary of my suicide attempt and my healing. I thought this was a very strange thing for Him to do, but His grace in doing so totally blew my mind. After I shook my fist at Him and spat in His face, He celebrates my life! I completely don’t deserve His grace or His love. But He gives it to me! (He’ll give it to whoever will let Him.) On the anniversary of what I attempted 10 years ago, I wrote and drew in my journal again. This time, I wrote, “10 years alive. 10 years finally knowing in her heart, mind, & soul what her spirit knew all along... GOD WANTS HER.” Just knowing that God wants me is one of the most freeing truths I’ve learned (and am still learning). I’m not angry with Him now, so now He can heal some of the root issues that drove me to that very dark place 10 years ago.

In John 15:16, Jesus said that I didn’t choose Him. He chose me. Ephesians 1:4 says I was chosen to be holy and blameless in God’s sight. Psalm 139:13 says that God knit me together in my mother’s womb. I don’t think He’d go to all that trouble if He didn’t want me alive. I don’t think Jesus would go to all that trouble to die on the cross for me if He didn’t want me alive spiritually and reconciled to my Father. In John 14:23, Jesus says that if I love Him and obey His teaching, that the Father will love me, and He and Jesus will come to me and make their home with me. I want that. I need that. I need to belong to someone who accepts me and will never leave me. (See also Romans 8. God my Father adopted me!)

In Matthew 22, Jesus tells a story that explains that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who prepares a wedding banquet for his son. He invites people who don’t come and/or ignore the invitation. If you read through it, you’ll see that it’s kind of a violent story. Rejecting the king’s invitation had some serious consequences. But the king wanted people to come to his banquet. He had his servants go out to the streets and bring anyone they could find to the banquet.

This is what my God is like. Maybe He sent a banquet invitation to someone somewhere who might be way more qualified and way more worthy than I am. But maybe they told God no. And maybe God invited me instead. Maybe He sent an invitation that said something like, “Dear Tirzah, now is your chance for Me to remove every negative label that’s been stuck to you throughout the years and replace it with a better one: ‘Mine.’ If you accept this invitation, you will be Mine. You will come to My banquet, be My guest, and enjoy My food.” When I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I got saved from the serious consequences and got adopted into a Heavenly family instead. Jesus’ death on the cross makes this all possible. I think by telling this story before He died, He was inviting anyone who was listening.

If you’re reading this, you can know God’s love and acceptance, too. You can accept Jesus as your Savior, too, because you can’t have access to God the Father except through Jesus. (See John 14:6.) In a way, God is like King Moonracer, the lion who rules over the previously unwanted toys. In a way, God is like me when I brought my new kitten home and wanted to share my private resting place with her in a way that her previous owner wouldn’t. God wants me, and I believe He wants you, too. You don’t have to be rejected. No. You can be accepted. You are not unwanted. No. You are wanted.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :)

Equilibrium

2010-12-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was hit with a really crazy illness. I didn’t go to the doctor because I just don’t like to see doctors unless I need an ER. (They usually just tell me, “You’re healthy as a horse, you need to take care of yourself, you’ll feel better in a few days, and now you owe me $60.” LOL!) So, based on my symptoms and comparing them with stories that some friends shared with me, I basically just had a sinus problem. After some decongestant, serious bed rest, and lots of prayer, I’m healthy as a horse again. (Thanks again, everyone who’s reading this, who prayed for me. :))

What happened was, I got a very, very, very bad dizzy spell that lasted for about 4 or 5 days. Sometimes, I get dizzy spells when I’m sleep-deprived, so some sleep and/or caffeine make them go away. But this time, it was very, very, very bad. This is a public blog, so I’ll spare you the details of how sick the dizziness made me. I almost went to the ER, and I was pretty scared at a few points. Another thing that concerned me was that I hoped I didn’t inherit the benign vertigo condition that my mom suffered from. (Her medical treatment involved a doctor slowly moving her head in certain directions and her not moving or bending over for 3 days.) I was very blessed and relieved to still be able to take care of myself during my entire illness.

What was so crazy was the dizziness -- I’ve seriously never had balance problems that were that bad. Being sober and not being able to walk a straight line was scary. My vision swirling counterclockwise every few seconds was freaky. Teeter-tottering all over the place, even smacking my head down on my pillow when I’d lie down, well... let’s just say I was sore from several days of constantly steadying myself. A friend of mine suggested that I plant one leg on the floor to steady myself, as an anchor. I didn’t get a chance to try that, but frankly, I hope I wouldn’t have that opportunity again. :) I’m very thankful that I’m 100% well now, but I learned a lot while I was sick.

From what I understand, I got sick because stuff from my sinuses drained into my inner ear. In the human body, where is the equilibrium controlled? In the head, in the inner ear. What happens when the inner ear gets out of whack? WHAM, it throws the entire body off balance. In the body of Christ, who is the Head? Christ. (See Ephesians 4:15.) If something happens in our church family, who controls the equilibrium and brings us back to where we need to be? Christ. Who is our Anchor? Christ.

While we’re living in this world, life can hit us hard. WHAM. Sometimes, several things come at us all at once or in succession. You lose your job, you break up with your boyfriend, someone hurts your feelings, a dream gets crushed, you get sick. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, WHAM. How can anyone regain their balance, and keep from falling, after getting hit so many times? Christ. In Matthew 7:24-28, Jesus explains that whoever hears and does what He says to do is like a wise man who builds his house on a rock. The weather and the elements beat harshly against the house -- WHAM, WHAM, WHAM -- but it didn’t fall because it had a good foundation. I’m also comforted to know that Psalm 145:14 says God will uphold all those who fall and lift up all who are bowed down. I’m sure He’ll do that for whoever will let Him. :)

I’m also sure glad He won’t charge me $60 every time I ask Him to fix me. LOL!

He loves me! He loves you! He loves us!

2010-08-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

My little girl cat often takes naps in my closet, on top of a box, underneath some of my hanging clothes. But earlier this summer, I noticed her creeping deeper into the closet to take naps near some taller, messier piles. I moved into my apartment in phases, and housecleaning isn’t my forte, so my closet has been kind of a disaster area. Over the past few years, I’d just toss in a new shipment of boxes or other memorabilia from my childhood into the closet, and it would collect dust and cat hair in storage. So, the little one would burrow into the cluttered depths, where she was not authorized to go, and I was concerned for her safety. So, last month, I cleaned out my closet a little bit. I removed most of everything off the floor and vacuumed the carpet. I threw a few things away and combined other things into one container. I replaced some containers and rearranged a little. It isn’t pristine, and it’s still cluttered, but it’s slightly more organized, slightly cleaner, and (at least to my eyes) much safer. Now my little cat can take naps in there without freaking me out.

The thing about cats is that they’re very routine-oriented creatures who tend to freak out if their routine changes in any way. My taking almost 3 hours to empty, clean, and rearrange my closet definitely busted my cats’ routine. While all this was happening, my big cat came to me, meowing/whining loudly. I picked him up, hugged him, and comforted him. My little girl cat settled onto my bed and lounged quietly while I sang to her with some music that I had playing in the background. (I think it was The Carpenters, but I don’t completely remember.)

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but God uses my cats to teach me and show me what He’s like. (Some people have children. I have cats.) I believe that in the same way that my cats were either freaking out or calmly enduring my closet-cleaning, and I delighted to comfort them and show them affection, God does the same thing anytime we respond to a metaphorical housecleaning, trauma/tragedy, or trial, etc. (See Psalm 34:18 and Zephaniah 3:17.) He wants to be near us, comfort us, and save us.

I love my cats. I don’t want anything bad to happen to them. I know they’re “just” cats, but they’re MY cats. I want them to stay with me for as long as possible, so I pray that God keeps them healthy and protects them. I think about them pretty frequently. In fact, I often catch myself imagining how I can serenade them. Yes, I’m a grown woman, and I like to sing to my cats. :”> I’m most aware of this anytime I’m at work and then I break my concentration by gazing at pictures of my cats. I daydream about how I can sing something new to them, and I want to pet them and show them affection even though I’m miles away and won’t be home for a while. When I’m with them, I tell them very frequently that I love them.

I dote on my cats. My Facebook friends are probably tired of me sharing pictures of my cats, but sorry, they’re part of my life, so anyone within earshot (even in cyberspace) is gonna get an earful. :) In fact, let me dote right now. Here is a picture of a snuggle time with my big orange cat several months ago.

It was winter, and he would come to me while I was on my computer and snuggle very close. (He’s got his arm draped around my hand there.) And here is a recent snapshot depicting a very typical scene of my little girl cat.

She likes to be as close to my computer as possible whenever I’m on it. (I’ve got my hand on her head there.)

Have I mentioned that I love my cats? You’re probably tired of hearing it. But my heart overflows with love for them. I love them because I’m their Mom, and they’re my cats. Nothing they could do could make me love them less or more. Whenever they show me love and affection, for example by snuggling close to me and/or purring and/or scraping my hand with their tongues, it delights me more than I can do justice to express with mere words. However, just because I love them doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want. Because they live in my household, they need to groom themselves, do their business in the litterbox, treat each other (and me) nicely, wear their collars, stay indoors, and stay away from unauthorized locations where they could damage themselves or my property (sinks, counters, the fireplace, etc.). Sure, there are some rules and guidelines to follow, and I train them and condition them to do so. I keep a close eye on them because foolishly disobeying me could cause them to hurt themselves. But other than that, they have freedom in my household to be the cats that they were designed to be. I love them, and want them to thrive.

I believe it’s the same way with God and His children. Jeremiah 29:11 says that He thinks good thoughts towards us. Isaiah 49:15-16 says He won’t forget us and that He has us engraved on the palms of His hands. John 3:16 says He loved us so much that He gave His only Son Jesus to die for us so we could have life with Him. (See also 1 John 4:10.) Isaiah 43:4 says we are precious and honored in God’s sight and that He loves us. 1 John 4:8 says that God IS love, and verse 19 says that we love because God loved us first! Verse 18 says that perfect love casts out/drives out fear! As I allow God to love me and make me into the woman He designed me to be, I become more and more secure in Him, I fear less and less, and I thrive.

When my little girl cat got spayed as a kitten, she had kind of a rough time. She got kind of obsessed with her stitches and started licking/scraping at them with her tongue until she got a stinky infection. She had to stay inside her cat carrier until she healed. (I was able to spend a lot of time with her because I was unemployed, but that’s another story.) She is a very social animal. I don’t think she enjoyed being separated from the world in that carrier, but she needed to stay in there so she could heal properly. I stayed with her and did all I could for her. Because she couldn’t snuggle with me at night like she usually did, I put her carrier on a table and scooted it close to my bed so she could be near me. I heard her purring in the darkness, and it made me happy. Years later, long after she’s healed just fine, I still remember those days fondly, and the cat carrier is like a second home to her. (Seriously. It usually doesn’t take much coaxing to get her to climb in there, even for a vet visit! My big cat is another story.)

Similarly, in Isaiah 43, God tells His people to fear not, for He has redeemed them. “You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you... When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.” When we belong to God and He does some housecleaning or if we experience trauma/tragedy or trial, He wants to be right there with us, healing us, helping us, and making sure we have everything we need. He loves us and wants to be with us, shower His love on us, and enjoy us loving Him back.

When God was healing me from depression, I needed to stop believing that I needed to do a whole bunch of stuff for God. This was a very gradual process, and it involved years of reading and thinking about Psalm 46, especially verse 10 (where God says, “BE STILL and know I am God”). I was so anxious anytime I wasn’t busying myself with doing stuff, and it was very healing for me to observe my cats’ life in my household. I noticed that they wouldn’t anxiously run up to me every few minutes and say, “WHAT DO I DO NOW, MOM?? IS IT TIME FOR ME TO GROOM MYSELF YET??? AM I SUPPOSED TO GO FIND A MOUSE NOW OR SOMETHING????” No way. They’re cats, so they do cat things whenever it’s time to do them. (Yes, they’re animals, and they live their lives by their instincts, and humans live their lives by their reason, and we Christians live our lives by faith, but the metaphor still helped me. See Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and Psalm 147:10-11.) In the first picture I shared above with my big orange cat, my little girl cat is in the background, just above the center and to the right -- not sure if you can tell, but she’s ASLEEP. She isn’t being lazy or irresponsible. She’s a cat. Cats nap frequently, so she’s taking a NAP. She’s RESTING.

It’s the same way with Christians! We belong to Jesus, we belong in God’s household, we belong in the Kingdom of God, so we do Kingdom things. We pray, read the Bible, tell people about our faith, go on mission trips, give to the poor, love our enemies, forgive those who wrong us, etc., because these are Kingdom things. Yes, we have a relationship with Father God who loves us, we seek His face, and we inquire in His temple (see Psalm 27:4), and we ask Him about His will and His timing and surrender everything to Him. But I really think the gist of it is that we live in His Kingdom, so we do Kingdom things whenever it’s time to do them. And yes, we REST, too.

Uh, have I mentioned that I love my cats? Thanks for reading, but if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for a snuggle session. :D

Tirzah’s Travel Thoughts: Oklahoma-Missouri 2010

2010-08-13T20:44:00.000-07:00

In the past, I’ve often gotten depressed when people talk about their traveling, and I complain about how I’ve never been “anywhere.” This year, I wanted to do something about it. :) My very good friend Liz from Missouri invited me to see her in the Show-Me State about 16 years ago, and last month, I finally got to go! Instead of flying, I took a road trip so I could actually SEE America (and because driving is CHEAPER).

♫ Ooook-lahoma! ♫
I’ve visited Oklahoma before, with family, but in a different part of the state. You know how every small town in Texas has a Dairy Queen? I discovered that every small town in Eastern Oklahoma has a Braum’s. There are also plenty of Arby’s here and in Missouri. I ordered a salad at an Oklahoma Arby’s, but they got confused and thought I had ordered a salad that had been discontinued or something, so they gave me a different salad instead. There was turkey, bacon, and regular lettuce on top and shredded lettuce on the bottom. It was OK. (Rimshot.) But I might not order any more salads at Arby’s or Sonic, which also shreds their lettuce. (I’m making a big deal about fast-food salads because this topic has recently fascinated me. See my post from 10/11/09.)

I’ve lived in Texas all my life, so I’ve seen cows all my life. But on this road trip, I was struck at how many cows in Oklahoma (and Missouri) like to herd together under a tree and also take a dip in the pond on a hot summer day. Or maybe there just aren’t that many trees or ponds in West Texas to hang out at... I also passed 4 casinos on the road. Near the Missouri border, I took an Oklahoma toll road and paid $2 to travel about 38 miles. When compared to the Dallas toll roads (where you pay like $1 every few miles), it wasn’t as pretty, but it was a pretty good deal.

The people were friendly, and the scenery was beautiful! Next year, I should actually stop the car and take pictures, rather than take snapshots while I’m driving...

Show me Missouri!
My brother-in-law once told me that there isn’t anything in Missouri. I respectfully, severely disagree. Missouri reminds me of Texas! Except the trees are taller, the barns are quainter, and the landscape is prettier. I believe it was either on Route 5 or Highway 54 where I saw some chickens following a strutting rooster out on someone’s front lawn. I was particularly impressed with Osage Beach, which looks to me like they could film Hallmark movies there (if they haven’t already). The pictures I snapped from my car wouldn’t even begin to do it justice. However, I would like to share a photo I took near Columbia. It’s beautiful out there, especially at dusk!

My very good friend Liz drove me to St. Louis, where we toured the City Museum and visited the Arch! It was a very hot, very sweaty day, but I had tons of fun. (And I’m thankful that all the sweat didn’t show up in the pictures.)

Land of Lincoln!
Then on our way back, we got lost for about 5 minutes in ILLINOIS!! I was in ecstatic shock. First I visit Missouri for the first time, and then I accidentally/spontaneously visit Illinois for the first time!

Conclusion
This was the first summer in a long time that I’ve had the opportunity to travel for fun (versus traveling to take care of business or visit family -- not that visiting family isn’t fun!). I usually work during the summers or work overtime. This was the first time I had traveled out of state alone, and it was the farthest Northeast I had ever traveled alone. God protected me, and we had fun. What a completely, totally awesome trip! :)

Singlehood

2010-06-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

During a recent sermon, my pastor humorously explained that you can tell if God has called you to be single (versus called to be married) by performing a simple test. Look at a picture of someone of the opposite sex, and then look at a picture of a cactus. If you can’t tell the difference, you’re probably called to be single. After the church service was over, while I walked to the parking lot, anytime I would pass a man along the way, I thought to myself, “That is not a cactus.” LOL!

I don’t want to stomp on anyone’s testimony, but it kind of annoys me when people say something like, “I was old when I got married; I was 30.” Technically, yes, 30 was pretty old to be getting married, say, back in the 70s when my parents tied the knot. But I’m 34 and unmarried. Does that make me ancient? I haven’t had a date since I was 18. I have no ex-husband, no children, and no boyfriend. I’m single-single-single. And I’m not complaining. It’s just that I’ve had plenty of time to make plenty of observations about being single.

If anyone asks me if I’m married and I reply no, I hate it when the next question is “Why?” Sigh. If only it were so easy to answer. Asking me why I’m not married kind of makes me angry. Is the question-asker assuming that I’ve actually chosen singlehood? I think I usually just reply with a shoulder shrug, and then the question-asker thankfully usually doesn’t pry further, or they talk about their own marriage journey, or they think out loud about who they can set me up with. Because answering the “Why?” thoroughly would require me explaining my past history in all its painful, gory detail. Also, if the question-asker would assume I’m gay (see my blog entry from 4/29/09), it would reinforce how little the question-asker really knows me. Again, sigh!

I mentioned on previous posts (4/12/10 and 4/17/10) that I left MySpace, and it was because I didn’t appreciate the way people were treating me on there. In many cases, I felt like a piece of meat. When I listed my marital status as “Single” and that I was looking for “Friendship,” it did NOT mean, “Hey, everybody, I’m into kinky stuff.” It meant, “I’m single. I’m on MySpace for platonic friendship. No cryptic messages attached.” It got to where I stopped friending guys who only had pictures of booby women on their profiles (because it was kinda obvious what their online intentions were). One guy, a perfect stranger from a foreign country, practically proposed, although judging from his generic message, I’m guessing he sent it to every woman he vaguely wanted.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to make friends and meet potential boyfriends online. I sent MySpace friend requests to a couple of (celebrity) guys I had crushes on. :”> I don’t think I did anything weird -- I just sent a simple friend request... that they ignored. One guy ignored 2 of my requests. Hey, life goes on. What I’m saying is that there’s a healthy way to chat with people online, especially in a platonic friendship, without practically proposing.

One guy, whom I’ll call “Y,” probably doesn’t know yet how to do this the healthy way. As I mentioned, I was on MySpace for platonic friendship purposes. I got a friend request from “Y,” a perfect stranger who seemed harmless, so I added him. Almost immediately, he started sending me messages just to make small talk, I guess because he wanted to chitchat. In case you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t really make small talk with perfect strangers online. I send them a link to my blog and give them a deep conversation! :o) Anyway, after a few days of very surface-level chitchat messages, I was like, “Hey, no offense, but I’m not comfortable chatting with perfect strangers online. I looked at your profile, and you don’t list very much information about yourself.” He was like, “I understand. No problem.” Then he IMed me on MySpace. (Almost no one ever IMed me on MySpace.) So, I prayed about it and got the impression that “Y” was only after one thing. I pretty much nipped it in the bud during that one IM chat. He was like, “Where do you work?” And I told him. He was like, “Interesting. What do you do for fun?” I was like, “I go to church.” He was like, “Oh. Uh, I guess you and I have different ideas of fun.” And then he completely stopped chatting with me and removed me from his friend list shortly thereafter! I was like, Thanks a lot! Heh. After all that trouble -- being open to developing a friendship with some chatty online stranger and then trying to figure out what his intentions were, only to be dropped when I suddenly mentioned church? I guess that might fall into the category of being blessed when people exclude you for Jesus’ sake (see Luke 6:22), but to me, “Y” communicated more along the lines of, “Oh. You’re NOT that kind of girl. See ya!” Maybe I’m still single because God has been protecting me from some bad stuff.

What’s probably worse than being treated like a piece of meat, however, is having unrequited love -- one of the most acute emotional pains ever known to humankind. I don’t think I’d ever wish it on anybody. Seriously!! Without going into details, there was a time when I thought I was in love with a man, but I wasn’t. (I listed it briefly on a post on 6/10/09.) Any feelings I had for him went away pretty quickly after I broke up with him. In processing through it afterwards, and in getting involved in the life of another guy who I developed some deeper feelings for, I got to understand firsthand what love is like. Love is something that lingers. It builds up in the deep places of your heart and soul, and it takes root so strongly that it will not easily leave when you try to uproot it. No, it makes itself at home inside your very being, causing happiness and pain simultaneously in a way that makes you want to either shout melodically from the rooftops or smush your face into your living-room carpet with a box of Kleenex and a steady stream of tears. Love makes you want the object of your affections to be as happy as possible, whether they’re with you or not. Whether they return your love or not. Whether they know how you feel or not. It’s being willing to serve unnoticed, willing to adjust the little details of your life, willing to let go. And when that love is unrequited, unreturned, you HAVE TO let go. Even if it means doing so in a gut-wrenching, soul-wrenching, heartbreaking process that takes a few long, agonizing years.

I think I might still be going through this process. :) It is painful, but as a creative artist, I like to take refined pain and shape it into something that will cathartically help me and hopefully help others. I’ve learned a LOT. One important thing I’ve learned is that even though I want to get married someday, I’d much rather be single than be with the wrong guy. If, over time, the kind of love that I mentioned in the previous paragraph isn’t something that I have for a guy, or if it isn’t returned, I’ll probably get out of that relationship. :)

The love that I’ve spoken about in this post is romantic love. But there is a much greater love than that -- an unconditional love that I hope to write about in my next post.

Now anytime anyone gets curious about my marital status, I can just send them a link to this post! Whoo-hoo! :D

My thoughts about the immigration debate

2010-06-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

I’m not an expert in politics, and I only keep up with the news now pretty much just enough to get by, but I still would like to explain my point of view on illegal immigration, specifically regarding immigrants from Mexico.

If you’ve read any of my blog in the past few years, you probably know that my mom and half my family are originally from Mexico. (For info on my background, see “Half-breed power!” and “Hey! Are you toleratin’ me?” that I reposted on 4/12/10. For my opinion about government, healthcare, and immigrants who take advantage, see my post from 10/24/09.) I LOVE the United States of America, and as I get older, I appreciate our freedoms more and more. I would love for as many immigrants as possible, from Mexico and anywhere else, to live here and enjoy America -- my America! But I also believe we should keep our borders secure and enforce the law. I’m a natural-born citizen, but my mom and her family immigrated here from Mexico legally and became naturalized citizens years later. I believe that anyone who immigrates to the U.S. must do so legally.

My parents live in Texas near the Mexican border, so whenever I drive back home from visiting them, I pass through a border patrol checkpoint. It’s usually a very mellow event that only takes 10 to 15 minutes of my time. The traffic slows down, I and my car wait in line, and an officer asks me if I’m an American citizen while he briefly glances inside my car. I reply yes, he says thank you, and I proceed with my road trip. (There is usually a K-9 on duty, and it’s a good thing I’m not into drugs, because the animal would sniff them out pretty quick.) I’m sure these border patrol officers are doing a great job, but in my opinion, this is pretty minimum security. I wouldn’t mind at all if these checkpoint stops were much stricter, like if I had to show the officer my driver’s license or prove my citizenship, even if it meant taking up more of my time. If tightening the reins keeps me and my country safe, it’s worth it.

I’ve never been to Arizona, so I don’t know how things are out there. Quite frankly, if it’s anything like West Texas, it might be a place where racism is accepted or even encouraged. So, maybe their controversial immigration law is a terrible thing because it could potentially stir up even more racism. But what if it’s just a law that facilitates law enforcement officers’ authority to simply enforce the law?

This is a very silly example, but just say for the sake of argument that it is illegal to carry gummi bears inside bandanas. Even though the law is on the books, many people have chosen to ignore it and wrap gummi bears inside their bandanas and smuggle them everywhere, anyway. People wearing bandanas bulging with gummi bears stand outside movie theaters and grocery stores and hold picket signs, chanting that they have every right to keep gummi bears in their bandanas because they live in this great country. So, lawmakers pass a new law that requires police officers to inspect any bandanas they see anyone wearing and check for gummi bears. Anyone caught will be forced to give up their gummi bears and bandanas. Um, I don’t think it would be considered profiling if a police officer pulled over a motorist for speeding, for example, and noticed that the driver happened to be wearing a bandana and asked to inspect it for gummi bears. I think it would be considered common sense.

One evening about 2 or 3 years ago, I came across a Nickelodeon special that dealt with immigration. They interviewed a little girl whose family was here from Mexico illegally. She spoke English well and was enrolled in school here. But anytime her family heard that “la migra” (border patrol) was in their neighborhood, she and her entire family would stay quietly inside their house and try to make it look like they weren’t home. (Kind of like how the people in The Diary of Anne Frank would stay as quiet as possible during the day.) During these times when “la migra” was cracking down, no one in her family would go to school or work for fear of being caught and deported. And it is a legitimate fear. But that sounds like a terrible way to live. What kind of life is that? And what kind of lesson are that little girl and her siblings learning? That it’s OK to break the law as long as you don’t get caught?

The immigration issue can often be a tragic one: Families can be separated and people can even die trying to cross the border to freedom, albeit illegally. But I, for one, do not want this next generation to be a lawless one. I want all residents of American soil to enjoy the freedoms that our forefathers founded for us, and I want all immigrants to respect American freedoms and laws. God bless America -- my America!

Cataerobics: Final update!

2010-06-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

If you’re curious about my battle with Tommy’s weight loss, please see my posts from 4/24/09 and 5/30/09.

Victory! Tommy weighed in at 12 and a half pounds this year, losing approximately 2 and a half pounds! (At first, I thought the scale was broken.) Hallelujah!! :) I kinda gave up on doing Cataerobics, so I mainly just micromanaged his food intake and switched to a Purina variety that helps with weight control. A few times, I fed him canned food instead of dry, like his vet suggested last year, but the vast majority of his meals consisted of dry food. I could barely tell any difference, but maybe you can now. The BEFORE picture was taken in 12/09...

...and the AFTER picture was taken earlier this evening.

In case you’re curious, I did download some tunes from the Flashdance soundtrack, but not for Tommy -- for me, the maniac. ‘Cause I’m dancin’ like I’ve never danced beforrrrre.

Reflections of the third decade, part VIII

2010-05-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to skip this post if you find my decade contrasts boring or redundant, but I’m still fascinated at how freakin’ much God can change me in 10 years. Thanks in advance for reading. :)

When I was 24, I was convinced that I had to be like everybody else. There were a zillion things going on with me emotionally, and I was rarely at peace. My mind was often racing, remembering pain that people had caused me, and there was at least one occasion where I fantasized about violently causing pain back. In hindsight, I know that I needed to forgive people for a lot of stuff. The Bible basically says that if you don’t forgive somebody, you will be tortured. I know firsthand that that is true! Constantly thinking about and reliving an offense doesn’t make it go away. It stays there, making you angrier and angrier, and eventually the anger inside you turns into depression, and you get eaten from the inside out.

Anyway, I was very miserable. I was suicidal, no joke, for probably most of this year. During one Christian counseling session (maybe when I was 23), I basically said that I was in a hole, and I was allowing God to pull me out of it... but I wanted to just stay in the hole. Much later that year, I think in early 2001, I had a very powerful, simple encounter with God that I see now as one of the major turning points in my emotional healing. (The details are much too private to share online, but I’d be happy to share with you in person if you’re curious. :))

I had no practical outlets to express my anger or depression, and I had no practical escapes to relieve me from any of my misery. I considered TV and movies to be evil unless they told some godly story or were created by a Christian studio. (Yet I worked at a public TV station at the time. I know, huh? I was really confused and messed up!) I would come home to my very disorderly, very dirty apartment that I had become afraid to live in anymore. Actually, fear basically controlled my life.

Now that I am 34, fear isn’t welcome in my life, and I want God to be at the center of everything. I actually caught myself asking Him the other day if I could please wash dishes one evening... BECAUSE WASHING DISHES NOW RELAXES ME!! This is definitely an act of God. :) Now I work at a company that enhances TV and movies for deaf and hearing impaired viewers. Instead of throwing away TV and movies as pastimes altogether, I think I’ve finally learned to be picky enough about what I watch to enjoy it without worshiping it. There is more balance in my life now.

I’m very zealous about my emotional well-being. Although there have been a few times recently when the pit of depression has been very available to sink back into again, I trust God now. (He’s the One who pulls me out of the pit -- He can rescue anyone who will let Him.) He’s the One who gives me peace. I call out to Him, and He helps me. Sometimes I might have to wait a while, but it’s worth the wait. God is always worth the wait. :) He’s also the One who reminds me about the novel I’m writing and about how I can use it as an outlet to ramble about emotions. Isn’t that awesome? He likes to take manure and turn it into fertilizer!

I’m becoming OK with who I am now. I’m certainly not perfect, but I also certainly don’t have to be exactly like everybody else. I can be whoever God has created me to be. Finding out who that is is an adventure indeed. :)

The ends of eras

2010-04-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sigh. I write this post with nostalgia and triumph. Sometimes, good things need to come to an end, even after many happy years. Other times, you know it’s just time to move on. And still other times, you just gotta say, “Good riddance.” Change can be good.

You’re a Pepper, I’m a Barq’s
I don’t think Coke has ever been it for me. Dr Pepper had been my favorite beverage since I was in elementary school. I even went to a college where Dr Pepper was the exclusive beverage provider. (That wasn’t why I chose to go to school there, but it was an awesome bonus!) Anyone who ever went out to eat with me knew that I’d be ordering DP with my meal. As I’ve gotten older, I guess maybe my taste buds have changed or something. I try to drink more water and less soft drinks in general. I still like DP very much, but it seems overly sweet to me sometimes. If I eat fast food, I find myself looking for places (i.e., Whataburger, Jack in the Box, Schlotzsky’s) that serve Barq’s Root Beer. I’ve always liked Barq’s (and I learned almost a decade ago that it has more caffeine than DP), but I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been choosing it over DP. Sigh. Dear Dr Pepper: I’ll always love you, but I have found another. I hope we can still be friends.

I survived Survivor
Survivor had been a Thursday night staple for me for years (see my blog entry from 5/20/09). But this season (I think it’s Heroes vs. Villains?) only has a handful of episodes left, and I just BARELY tuned in to watch the other night for the first time this spring. I think they’ve got 2 people on the jury now. And Rupert, my favorite survivor ever, is playing! Yet I really don’t care about this show anymore! It was definitely fun while it lasted, and I’ll try to make an effort to watch the season finale this time (I think it’s usually around Mother’s Day), but I’ve just got other things going on now. And that’s not just for Survivor. I’ve pretty much stopped watching regular TV, except for a few shows that I watch religiously: The Middle on Wednesday nights, Untold Stories of the ER whenever it’s on on Sunday afternoons, and V on Tuesday nights. I noticed that TV was sucking up so much of my time. Instead, I watch prerecorded TV shows or movies on my DVD player/VCR. That way, I get to control the content I watch and also the amount of time I spend watching it. I used to watch TV this way, but the past year or so, I started just letting Nick at Nite or TLC control my evenings. (Now I have more time to blog. :D) Later, I might catch some of this season’s episodes of The Office online. (A major exception to this, though, is the Olympics. Winter or summer, I’ll be glued to my TV for pretty much the entire 3 weeks. Non-football sports -- whoo-hoo!)

ThisSpace vacant
Starting a MySpace page about 5 years ago was a blessing. It was fun to connect with old friends and meet new friends that way. I’m not exactly sure what happened between then and now. Now, most everyone I know is on Facebook and/or Twitter. MySpace has become this weird, uncomfortable place where rap and indie artists I’ve never heard of want me to support their music and strangers want me to hook up with them. All I have to do is log in for a few minutes, and suddenly I have 2 or 3 new friend requests. Freaks me out! So, very soon, I’ll disappear from MySpace, which seems to be an antiquated, cheap copy of Facebook/Twitter now. It was awesome to be able to see some real friends on MySpace, who shared TheirSpace, and it was OurSpace. But now it’s IckySpace, so I’m OuttaThereSpace.

Sigh. Something new. :)

My God can beat up your god

2010-04-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of every spring, at least one of the feral girl cats who live by the pool in my apartment complex will be in heat and come upstairs to look for my boy cat. I assume they can smell his manly cat odor or something, but he’s fixed and can’t produce kittens. Plus, he lives exclusively indoors and isn’t allowed outside at all. (Not that he’d want to go. He often runs and hides anytime strangers come to visit.) My girl cat, however, will bravely fight off anyone. She’s fixed, too, but you really don’t want to mess with her. (I can show you some recent scabs/scars on my hand, wrist, and shoulder.)

One recent morning, I was getting ready for work when I heard a loud thud. I thought maybe one of the maintenance men had thrown something against somebody’s front door or something. I meandered over to the living room and saw that, sure enough, a feral girl cat on my patio had thrown herself onto the window of my sliding door. She was fighting with my girl cat, who was already doing this meow/growl thing by the time I got there. (This feral black cat is one who I’ve known for a while. She’s already had at least 2 litters of apartment-complex kittens.) I tried to calm down my girl cat, and I picked her up to show the feral cat that she was fighting one of mine. She was on my territory and was not welcome here, not if she was going to pick a fight with my cat. I tried to get the intruder to leave my patio by jiggling the sliding door handle, but it didn’t work. Instead, she stroked her cheek on the exterior wall to mark her territory. I unlocked the door and went outside, my hair still wet from my shower, and followed the feral cat downstairs, and I tried to reason with her through the bars of the pool gate that she had fled to. “Hey, leave my kitty alone,” I basically told her. “I’ve always been nice to you.”

The next day, the feral cat returned, but this time, I was in the room with my girl cat when the intruder came. I stroked my cheek on my girl cat to show the intruder that she was mine, and I told the intruder to go away because she wasn’t welcome here. My girl cat was alarmed but calm while I was doing the talking. I shooed the feral cat away. To my knowledge, she hasn’t returned.

God often teaches me a lot about His character and how He feels about me through my cats. God wants to protect me and fight for me anytime the devil comes around to attack me. My girl cat doesn’t have to worry about the feral cat whenever she’s with me. Similarly, Psalm 27 says, “The Lord is the stronghold of my life -- of whom shall I be afraid?” My God can pulverize anything that comes against me.

Maybe now I should teach my boy cat not to be such a scaredy-cat.

Originally posted 2/15/09 - Valentine, Shmalentine

2010-04-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

As a woman in her early 30s who's been single for a very long time, I can usually take Valentine's Day in stride and with lots of silly humor. My friend Debbie and I, back when we shared a blog, enjoyed the days leading up to Valentine's Day 2005 with several posts leading up to Black Monday (i.e., don't punch out deliveryguys who bring flowers to your coworkers). I learned that another name for V-Day was SAD = Single Awareness Day. Those were the days. :)

However, this Valentine's Day 2009 has been extra hard on me for some reason. I decided to call it UPAD = Unsolicited Pity Awareness Day, and I've been trying not to be in a funk all month. I'm not sure if it's because my biological clock has mercilessly kicked it up a notch or because I'm in the final stages (hopefully) of getting over a guy that I've had ridiculously intense feelings for -- whatever reason, V-Day 2009 has been excruciating. I think the fact that it's fallen on a Saturday this year (Black Saturday) has made it worse -- your whole week builds up to it, and you even spend Sunday reminiscing about it or recuperating from it.

I think I heard somewhere that St. Valentine's Day was originally intended to celebrate love in general -- i.e., God's love, brotherly love, family love, etc. -- rather than romantic/erotic love. And maybe over the years, society or the flower and candy companies turned it into a one-day celebration of couples' romance. I'm sorry, but that's an awful idea. When you're romantically involved with someone, you should celebrate them all the time, not just save it for February 14th. And those of us who don't have a significant other to share the day with end up feeling left out, unnecessarily pitied, and left to decay in the reject pile of humankind. And we women try not to spend the entire day hating every man who we've liked but hasn't returned our feelings. (Unrequited love absolutely stinks, by the way, but that is another discussion altogether.)

I can't speak for the guys, but I think any woman who's close to my age and has been dateless for about as long as I have can identify with how I feel. It's a pain that is difficult to comfort. I can pour my heart out to God, and He is always faithful to comfort me and make sure I have everything I need, but the unrequited-guy part of the equation I think is what makes it so hard. Anti-Valentine humor often hits the spot. Changing the subject altogether can feel even better.

So, if you've felt as crappily as I have this month, I think it's best to just go to Jesus and maybe have a good cry with Him, enjoy some UPAD jokes, and just wait for this awful holiday to pass.

I hesitate to blog about my lovelife (or lack thereof!), especially on MySpace, because doing so tends to attract unsolicited flirtatious messages and friend requests from men who I absolutely wouldn't be interested in. Sorry, but I'm just being honest, :) and if you look on my profile, you'll see that I'm not on MySpace for dating purposes, anyway. And that's why I've sat down to write about this in the first place -- brutal honesty. I know that someday God will bring me a man, but while I'm waiting, it can really hurt. I'm learning that it's OK to hurt sometimes. (As long as we take our pain to the right Person.)

In the meantime, I'll try not to spread the pain around by punching any deliveryguys in the nose. And UPAD weekend will be over tomorrow. :) Oh, happy day!

Originally posted 1/11/09 - Half-breed power!

2010-04-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

OK, I haven't thought of a nice way to say "half-breed" yet, except maybe "half-ethnic." (Shucks, even "half-baked" probably wouldn't offend me, depending on the attitude behind your words. (Please see my previous blog post.)) If you've read the "About me" section of my profile, you'll see that I'm half-Hispanic, half-Anglo.

I wonder if the government will ever recognize the fact that as a society diversifies, many of us aren't minorities but half-minorities. I'm happy to see more and more surveys (that ask you to "check one" box to indicate your race/ethnicity) are asking you to "check all that apply." I have a feeling that my generation and more generations to come will see more and more ethnic diversification as time goes by.

My parents, as well as many of my aunts and uncles, crossed ethnic lines and intermarried (Hispanics and Anglos). I think maybe the Civil Rights Movement that began in the 60s had a lot to do with all this intermarriage. And it's not just my family. I know of at least 3 other half-ethnic friends who are hopefully reading this. :) And that's not even counting my brother-in-law and his sister, who are 1/4-Hispanic. Every time I sit down to do the math, it hurts my head -- technically, if my half-Hispanic sister and 1/4-Hispanic brother-in-law have children, what percentage of Hispanic would they be? 3/8? :)

Anyway, I don't consider myself to be a racist, and I truly hope my over-fascination with ethnicities isn't offensive. It's just that when you're raised by an originally Mexican mother who is extremely Americanized and an Anglo father who wishes he were Hispanic, you grow up wrestling with this issue. A friend of mine observed that we half-ethnics tend to do this pendulum swing between the ends of our backgrounds -- either we're really into our ethnicity or we aren't. And she's right.

When I was in high school and really laying down the foundation for what I would do the rest of my life, I totally embraced my Hispanicness. Almost the majority of my high school was Hispanic, so I was fairly immersed in the culture and language. In college, I was often the only Hispanic in my circle of friends, so I kind of took it upon myself to be the Hispanic chick. After college, being fairly bilingual helped me land some jobs.

But somewhere along the line, I started to get burned out. I either got tired of being forced to speak Spanish so much or the Anglo side of my roots started to scream neglect -- I'm not sure exactly what. But eventually, I started insisting on speaking English unless the other person just didn't understand it. Porque de veras no me gusta hablar tanto español. It's not who I am. I'M HALF!!

And I kind of enjoy fooling people with the diversity of my appearance. :) (Some have thought I'm Middle-Eastern.) Yes, sometimes perfect strangers will walk up to me at the store or post office, etc., and ask me a question in Spanish, and if I can't answer them perfectly, or even relate to them completely, I don't have to sweat it anymore -- I'M HALF!! I can just do my best and live my life. Hallelujah. :)

And I'm in good company. President-elect Obama, who will become the first African-American President, is actually half-black, from what I understand.

I think in a lot of ways, we half-ethnics have the best of both worlds. And in the process of finding out where we fit in this world, we learn how to adapt and relate to others. In this world that over-categorizes everything, we have to train ourselves to become maybe a little less judgmental and maybe a little more practical. Trying to find where you belong can get exhausting.

As a Christian, it helps more than anything to learn about how my place is with Christ and that I need to just walk in whatever purpose God created me to fulfill. (Incidentally, my sister and I both turned out to be pretty artsy-fartsy.)

So, open your eyes, America. Many of your citizens are half-minorities or even a patchwork quilt of ethnicities. Our Creator thinks we're wonderfully made.

And I think when you mix ethnicities like that, you get some pretty darn good-looking children. :o) LOL!

Originally posted 1/4/09 - Hey! Are you toleratin' me?

2010-04-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

Excuse me for not being politically correct, but I'm not so crazy about this concept of "tolerance," or at least its terminology. And tolerance, of course (my understanding of its definition, anyway), is the concept of putting up with people and their ideas, etc., no matter how different they are from you.

I used to think that tolerance was all a bunch of baloney until I spent some time in West Texas and met some people who probably inspired this entire concept. Yes, there are still hicks who emerge from the middle of nowhere and assimilate into society. (Unfortunately, it ain't always pretty.) One day, I was quite shocked to hear a newspaper editor declare, "Everyone in Dallas is a bunch of liars." (For the full effect, pronounce that last word as "lah-erz.") I can understand that this guy was probably expresssing frustration, but it was a rather large office, and he was risking offending people unnecessarily. Come to think of it, I don't remember him telling me goodbye or wishing me well when I left that newspaper job to move to Dallas several months later.

Now, if I had expressed exactly how I had felt, which was, "Everyone in West Texas is a bunch of backwoods, backwards hicks," of course I wouldn't have been accurate, because I do know some folks in that part of the country who are nice enough to give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. But I publicly held my tongue mainly because it wouldn't be wise to offend people unnecessarily and because I don't appreciate it when people show me a lack of respect.

And that's really the gist of it. I'd like to propose that instead of "tolerance," we call it "social respect," because I don't think "tolerance" has a positive connotation. I mean, when people see me coming, I don't want them to think, "Oh, here comes Tirzah. I have to tolerate her." I want them to think, "I have to respect Tirzah because I appreciate it when people respect me." I mean, there are a lot of things that I tolerate because I otherwise can't stand them. Like the fact that my downstairs neighbor smokes indoors and the cigarette odor floats into my apartment, and then I have to crank up my air purifier, spray air freshener in every room, open some windows, etc. I tolerate it because I know that my neighbor will possibly move out in a year after the lease is up.

From a Christian standpoint, Jesus did say that loving your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest commandment. I don't think it's an accident that the word "neighbor" is used for this. I'm sure God knows that the people who live closest to us are the ones who can get under our skin the most. :) And as far as tolerance/social respect goes, I'm not talking about accepting it when people overtly sin according to what's in the Bible (adultery, homosexuality, idolatry, etc.), and that's probably another topic of discussion altogether. I'm just talking about being sensitive about the words that we allow to spew out of our mouths when we're talking about people. And I'm talking about our attitude towards people who are different than us.

And while I'm on a PC subject, I think one's attitude is what really matters here. For instance, I had a conversation once with a black friend of mine in which I referred to her as an African-American woman. She got very angry and told me not to throw that "African-American crap" in her face because she had never been to Africa. I apologized, and I learned the hard way that lots of people prefer the term "black" (especially in the Dallas area).

Yet recently, I met some church people from Irving, and while I was at their house, a little boy announced proudly throughout the evening, "I'm half African-American." I replied, "I'm half Hispanic." (If I had said, "I'm half Mexican," it would have been accurate, and I used to work with a half-Nicaraguan chick who insisted on this accuracy. But to my mother, who is originally from Mexico, "Mexican" has a bad connotation because of the malicious attitude that people displayed towards her and other Texas Hispanics before the Civil Rights Movement.) And... OH! I shouldn't have gotten myself started on how we half-ethnics are more in the minority than the minorities themselves, but I'll have to save that discussion for another blog post. :">

Anyway, my point is that our attitude matters, and I think it's more important to respect someone than it is to "tolerate" them. After all, I appreciate it when others do the same for me. :) And that ain't no baloney.

Originally posted 12/21/08 - Consumer ramblings: auto industry bailout

2010-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Some of you who are my friends on Facebook read an article that I posted (http://biz.yahoo.com/usnews/081114/14_10_cars_that_sank_detroit.html?.&.pf=insurance) in which one writer tells his POV about why the U.S. auto industry has been hurting for money -- shoddy products and arrogant attitudes were the reasons that stuck out to me -- and I couldn't agree more.

After I graduated college and was an impoverished pedestrian, my parents came into some money and bought me a new car. It was a very generous gift that I'll always be thankful for. I loved my little Dodge Neon (I named him Trekkerdude). He was a trusty, nifty little vehicle... until he started breaking down.

I was very naive when I first got Trekkerdude, and after the A/C went out, about 9 months after I got it, I took it to a local mechanic (instead of finding a Dodge dealership to honor the warranty). The mechanic, who was very blunt and kind of rude, told me, "It's not a good car." As time went on, I kept getting recall notices in the mail (probably about a dozen of them) that confused me, so I ignored them.

I had my first wreck almost 2 years after I first got Trekkerdude. The car I rear-ended -- a Honda Accord, I think -- didn't even get a scratch. But my beloved little Neon got its front end bashed in real good. While it was in the shop, I rented a Ford Escort. Now, I used to make fun of people who drove Escorts, because they'd always drive so slowly and it was frustrating to be stuck behind them. (Incidentally, I've noticed the same thing about Mustangs.) Then I found out why! The freakin' Escort wouldn't accelerate! Yes, I had driven a Ford lately, and I wasn't too happy with it.

Wreck #2 with Trekkerdude happened about 14 months later. This time, it wasn't my fault, but the repairs were still slowgoing. While Trekkerdude was in the shop, I rented a brand-new Dodge Neon (while I missed mine terribly). One day while I was leaving a friend's place, the freakin' Neon wouldn't start! I had to get a tow truck and go back to the rental car place, where I rented a Chevy Cavalier. Which was OK, but I found it to be awkward and kind of clunky. (The steering wheel was fat and chunky. Sorry, but my fingers don't really have that big a grip.)

I still loved my Trekkerdude, my little Dodge Neon. We had been through a lot together. And I would have gladly bought another one if its deterioration weren't so scary. After rebuilding the transmission at around 76,000 miles, replacing the power steering pump twice, fixing the A/C for the third time, replacing the motor mounts, and a ton of other repairs through the years, I was exhausted from spending my Saturdays in smelly, crowded mechanics' waiting rooms and spending my hard-earned money on repairs. After Trekkerdude hit 100,000 miles, he just didn't feel safe to drive anymore.

Through the years, I noticed that my friends who drove used cars usually had Toyotas or Hondas that seemed to last for a long time. My family has almost always driven Fords, Buicks, or Chryslers/Dodges. (When I was a kid, we had a brand-new Ford Fiesta, but only my dad could drive it because the steering wheel would lock up on everyone else. Weird...) I had always been taught to buy domestic and keep my money in the U.S. But, darn it, as I got older and have been able to be a little picker about how I spend my money, U.S. carmakers just didn't prove to me that they could make a vehicle that I could drive safely and long-term. So, as my Trekkerdude deteriorated, I found myself staying up late researching foreign cars on the internet... and dreaming.

My dream came true kind of spontaneously after I bought a new Corolla from a local Toyota dealership this past summer. (I had hoped to drive Trekkerdude for another year, but it was getting scarier.) I doubted the timing of my purchase, but with the economy going crazy later in the year, I'm convinced now more than ever that God made sure I got my Toyota exactly when I needed it. :)

And it's not like I'm any less patriotic for purchasing a foreign model. I didn't travel to Japan to buy it. And I mail my payments to a Dallas address. God bless America, and God bless my new car for many years to come. Just because I love my country doesn't mean I have to be stuck with a low-quality domestic car.

All that to say, I think it's ridiculous for the government to have to rescue or loan money to the U.S. auto industry. Simply put, if they'd make better cars, people would want to buy them. I think this is an example of competition at its finest -- people like me who think domestic cars are kind of embarrassing to be called American and who choose to spend our money on a product that we feel is safer and more reliable.

The only sympathy I have for the U.S. auto industry is for its employees who'd be seriously hurting if the government didn't step in. It's a shame, really, that it's come to this, but I guess we gotta do what we gotta do. I truly hope that the rescue/bailout accomplishes everything it needs to, and that the money goes to the people who really need it. :)

In the meantime, for crying out loud -- Ford, please design a car that will actually accelerate when you want it to. Chevrolet, please design a car that isn't so awkward to drive. And Dodge, your customers are human beings who put their lives inside your cars when they drive them, and they don't appreciate it when mechanics look under the hood, chuckle, and remark, "It's just so Mickey Mouse."

Oh, what a feeling.

Originally posted 12/14/08 - Tirzah’s deep thoughts 2 (Christmas edition)

2010-04-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

1) I think eating pizza at Christmas can be just as festive as turkey. All you'd have to do is change a few song lyrics of The Christmas Song: "Everybody knows / A pizza and some cinna-stix / Will help to make the season bright."

2) I wonder if anyone has ever been able to convince their kid that an airplane flying at night with its blinking red lights is really Rudolph and his colleagues.

3) Probably the only way that Santa would be able to deliver millions of toys in one night using a low-tech transportation device would be to clone himself.

4) I wonder if walking around with mistletoe tied to the top of my head would help me get a date.

5) Why isn't it traditional to drink egg nog all year 'round? That is some good stuff.

6) It's probably a good thing that Halloween comes before Christmas. By then, you're probably already used to groups of people knocking on your door or driving by your house to stare at it.

7) When did people start building snowmen? Did some farmers get the idea after their scarecrows got snowed over or something? And what about snowwomen? or snowcats? or snowdogs chasing snowsquirrels?

8) It's a good thing that God made evergreen trees. It would look kinda silly decorating the branches of a leafless tree for your living room.

9) I think the Carpenters probably get more radio airtime in December than at any other time of the year, because their Christmas music is so nice. But the radio-programming people need to understand that the Carpenters are nice to hear all year 'round. Bless the beasts and the children.

10) Any Scrooges out there should have the Dickens scared out of them anytime they diss Christmas.

Originally posted 12/8/08 - Hogging the holidays

2010-04-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

Christmas is one of those simple things that we tend to complicate. It's when we celebrate the birth of the Christ -- when the God of the universe sent His Son to be born into this world as a human so that humanity could be reconciled to God. Hence all the joy, peace, and good will. That's why we say "Merry Christmas" (or "Happy Christmas").

And no, not everybody believes in or celebrates Christmas, and it's important to be sensitive to that. Just as long as we don't snuff out Christmas.

Here's where it gets really complicated. Scholars have debated for years about whether Jesus was really born on December 25th. And then there's the winter solstice, which I think was some sort of pagan holiday at some point in history, where they'd decorate winter trees, etc. And people get mad about mixing the Christian celebration with the secular holiday on whichever day it's supposed to be celebrated. And THEN people start obsessing with the overcommercialization of it all, and they flock to Wal-Mart and accidentally trample an employee to death (see my previous blog entry). It's enough to discourage anyone from celebrating the holiday at all.

I used to get mad when I'd walk into a store right after Halloween and see all the Christmas merchandise that was already on display. "What the heck happened to Thanksgiving?!?" I'd wonder. Now, Xmas merchandise is on the shelves as early as September.

As a side note, that's another thing. "Xmas" isn't offensive. It's shorthand. From what I understand, the "X" is the Greek letter from which the word "Christ" is formed. (If my language professor dad is reading this, I hope I've done this explanation justice. :))

I'm not offended by seeing Christmas merchandise in September anymore. I say Christmas is a holiday that only comes once a year, so let's enjoy it as thoroughly as we can, for as long as we can. :) Whether or not December 25th is the actual day that Christ was born, that's the day that's designated on the calendar to observe it, so observe it with the gusto that it deserves. :)

I've never had a child, but from what I understand about the pregnancy process, the anticipation of celebrating Christ's birth at Christmastime is similar to the anticipation of a baby's arrival. During the 9-month pregnancy, there's a lot of preparation, planning, excitement, eagerness, exhaustion, joy -- an all-out celebration of the precious life to come. Similarly, starting the day after Thanksgiving (or sometime in September, for that matter), there's a whirlwind of activity and celebration that culminates into a single event that's over before you know it on Christmas morning (or Christmas Eve for some families), with the celebration lingering through New Year's.

As another side note, columnist Ken Brodnax from the Odessa American out in West Texas cleverly labeled a phenomenon as the "holiday hangover" a few years ago. (I couldn't locate the article online; otherwise, I would have pasted the link here for your enjoyment. :)) He says the holiday hangover is a slump that we feel on January and February after celebrating so many holidays from Thanksgiving through New Year's. So, from his point of view, the new year REALLY starts in March (because we're so hung over in January and February). :)

And Christmas is a family holiday (after all, it's when God shared His family with us), whether you can stand hanging out with your family or not. :) One Christmas several years ago, I decided to use my vacation time for New Year's instead of Christmas to visit my family on my mom's birthday. On December 25th, I hung out with a friend in Waco and had fun with her, but for most of the day, my heart was seriously aching to be with my family. That was the only Christmas that I didn't spend with any family. (And I vowed never again!)

So, here's the deal. Keep Christmas simply, thoroughly, and cheerfully, and try not to get wrapped up in the secular commercialism. But just enjoy! Celebrate! Live! Rejoice! Relax! Hang out with family! Chill with friends! Stare at some Christmas lights! Sing some Christmas carols! Taste some egg nog! Throw snowballs if you got 'em! Savor as much of the season as you can, for as long as you can! And remember the One we owe the celebration to in the first place! :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

And God bless us, every one!

Originally posted 11/30/08 - Wal-Mart boycott finale and consumer update

2010-04-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

My Wal-Mart boycott is officially over, after almost 3 1/2 years. I didn't exactly fall off the wagon; I just had to make a pit stop. :"> I was traveling on I-35 on Thanksgiving morning, and I missed an exit for a truck stop, so I ended up visiting the ladies' room at a Wal-Mart in Georgetown, Texas (suburb of Austin). While I was there, I figured whoever owned the place would appreciate me buying something, and while I was walking the quarter-mile trek from the restroom in the back of the store to the bakery in front, I was reminded why I had been boycotting in the first place. Yes, it was nice to only pay $3 for some banana bread slices (and the self-checkout stations are very efficient and less annoying than the ones at Kroger). But in retrospect, none of the employees there greeted me or offered to help me -- not even the greeter. And who wants to trek a quarter of a mile across a store, anyway? (I'm exaggerating, but it truly is a long walk.)

For the record, when my sister was in town 2 months ago and I was (blindly) showing her and my brother-in-law around the surrounding communities, we did need a pit stop and happened to be near a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, so we slipped in and out without buying anything. I was impressed, however, at how homey and non-Wal-Mart-ish the store seemed. Hopefully, the bigwigs at the corporation are beginning to understand that not everybody likes to shop at a glorified warehouse.

But while I was there at the Georgetown Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving morning, I was amazed at how many people were there Christmas shopping. I was kind of imagining that there'd be husbands who'd take their kids there to keep them out of their mom's hair while she was preparing a Thanksgiving feast. But I didn't really see any; it just looked like any other business day. There was an older couple in the greeting-card section, presumably passing the time away before meeting their family for Thanksgiving, but to me it just looked like everyone else was already Christmas shopping.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand why everyone flocks to Wal-Mart as soon as it's time to shop for Christmas. I mean, that's what I did when I was a kid who had no money. But as an adult, I'm not sure that "I found you a hurricane lamp at Wal-Mart for $2" really says "I love you" on Christmas morning. That news story about the poor Wal-Mart employee in Long Island who got trampled to death on Black Friday is very disturbing. Why all the chaos? Why the unnecessary tragedy? And why the heck does everyone still flock to Wal-Mart?? The world may never know.

As for me, I do NOT intend to shop at Wal-Mart regularly. It's probably going to be more like, "This is the nearest potty, so while I'm here, I may as well buy a soda." I'm still content shopping at Target and Tom Thumb every 2 weeks and at Family Dollar and Dollar Tree on occasion.

(In case you're wondering why I boycotted Wal-Mart in the first place, please see my blog entries dated 4/8/07 and 3/24/08 to track my journey. :))

So, please feel free to call me anti-Wal-Mart. I'll probably take it as a compliment. :D

Originally posted 11/15/08 - Tirzah's deep thoughts

2010-04-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

(Hey, the Saturday Night Live writers shouldn't have all the fun.)

1) An ergonomic chair is great, unless you're short. Then it's more like a stool with a footrest.

2) I don't have an "I Brake For Grackles" bumper sticker, but I did use my turn signal for a cluster of grackles once while I was easing out of a parking lot. So, I need to design my own "I Signal For Grackles" bumper sticker.

3) I don't understand those movies where the guy or girl has to go back in time to find romance. I mean, cyber dating would be one thing, but time travel would be downright ridiculous.

4) If misery loves company, then I should probably consider myself blessed when I'm alone.

5) That public restroom in the mall with the sign that says it's "environmentally friendly" kind of defeats the purpose if someone forgets to flush.

6) Recycling is great for the environment, except when the recycling truck is dropping sawdust all over the cars that drive behind it on the highway.

7) If global warming is real and our climate is changing, shouldn't we just abolish Daylight Savings Time? Would it really be healthy to stay outdoors for an extra hour, soaking up the UV rays?

8) If dog is man's best friend, then man must really like friends that slobber and eat their own poop.

9) Cats don't make very good role models. I mean, if I spent 90% of my shift at work napping in my cubicle and purred like a chainsaw while my boss was chewing me out, I'd be in serious trouble.

10) If your car gets stuck in the snow and you use kitty litter to make traction for your tires and get your car moving again, wouldn't it be dangerous to just leave the kitty litter out there on the road? Wouldn't Fluffy get confused and try to do his business in front of everybody during rush hour?

11) I don't understand the concept of owning a pet rat. Why would someone want a creature that has its own specific kind of poison?

12) They should breed a type of fish that you can pet underwater. And a fish that purrs. A fish that's kind of like a cat-- Oh. Wait a minute...

Heads up

2010-04-12T07:45:00.000-07:00

I’ll be deleting my MySpace account soon. There was about a 5-month period where I only blogged on MySpace. So that those posts won’t be lost forever in cyberspace oblivion, I’m planning to repost them here today or tomorrow. There should be about 8 of them, and I’ll also try to repost any comments I received from MySpace friends. Please feel free to comment all you want as well. Enjoy. :) I’ll also try to post brand-new stuff sometime this month. Been busy!

The Wringer Chronicles, Volume V: Final Installment

2009-12-31T21:05:00.000-08:00

Dang, 2009 was a crazy year. Seriously, I was so busy, especially the latter half of this year, that most of June through December is pretty much a blur.

I didn’t think it was possible, but I set a new record of sleep deprivation for myself. There was a 3-day span earlier this month where I literally only got 7 hours of sleep total. For 2 days in a row, I got 1.5 hours of sleep each, and on the third day I got 4 hours of sleep. And I went to my day job during those 3 days! I had been working on some writing projects at home that ate up lots of time, and I think I was just going on adrenaline, caffeine, and God’s grace. I guess maybe it was good practice for when I finish up my novel? :) At any rate, it took a great deal of self-control to not lash out in anger to anyone, especially any coworkers who would complain about “only” getting 5 hours of sleep. It’s good to remember that most of them are younger than I am. I don’t think I could have done this when I was younger. I’ve heard that you need less sleep as you get older, but I truly don’t want to repeat the sleep deprivation marathon of 2009. To sleep... to sleep... perchance to dream...

It’s a darn good thing I don’t have any roommates during this season of my life. Besides the crazy schedule, I spent a few evenings bawling into the living room carpet. I think that has to happen sometimes. If something hurts, it needs to get dealt with. If there’s a clog, it needs to get unclogged and cleaned out. I don’t know of any other way to pour out my heart to God the Healer than to grab my guitar or just a section of carpet and cry out to Him with my Bible open. I wait, He answers, and I have peace. Sometimes, this happens quickly, and other times, I have to find something lighthearted to do so I can give my brain a chance to cool off. (Cats can come in handy for this.) Regardless, it’s usually grueling but worth it.

I think I understand a little better why God had this wringer thing going on with me this year. It was probably for preparation. Lots of things changed this year, big and small. For instance, I’m typing this up on a notebook instead of that dinosaur desktop PC that would beef up my electricity bill every month.

Also, after lots of prayer, I decided to leave my church and look for another one. Something is wrong when you stop getting encouragement and start getting guilt trips at church. (And who wants to peel themselves out of bed early on a Sunday morning just so they can hear a guilt trip?) Just as an example, one of the pastors said that God can’t use geniuses or talented people. I severely disagree with this, firstly because it contradicts the Bible (see Matthew 25) and secondly because I believe God can use anyone who will let Him. Anyway, the church I’m at now seems guilt-trip-free and is growing so fast that they’re building a third campus and have 6 services each weekend -- 3 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. You don’t necessarily have to peel yourself out of bed early on Sunday morning. A church that recognizes that some of us have crazy schedules -- how about that? :)

I really believe that God wanted 2009 to be a year of balance for me. One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed this year is that I’m much, much more assertive than I’ve been in a long time (probably since I was a kid). I guess that happens sometimes to those of us who get trampled in life -- we close ourselves up inside to protect ourselves or just get passive or passive-aggressive. This is bad because pain can fester and become depression. God can clean out the wound, heal the pain, and make everything better than new. I think this year, the pendulum swung the other direction, so to speak. I’m fed up with people criticizing me (not constructively), making fun of me (maliciously), and putting me down. I’m not gonna take it anymore. So, instead of walking away from a painful situation/conversation and thinking of cool comebacks to say later and relive the situation in my fried brain over and over again, I’m working on being assertive right away and moving on. The temptation is to just barf out insults back at the other person, so God has to remind me to be patient and gentle. :”> (See Galatians 5.) And there are times when I need to skip the assertiveness process and just let it go. (Like when Jesus let people beat Him up and didn’t say anything, before they crucified Him.) That’s kinda hard. But I’m learning. I’m not perfect. I’m human. But more importantly, I belong to God, and what He says goes. Nothing can separate me from His love, and He’ll help me love people and respond in situations the way He wants me to.

And I’m confident that 2010 will truly be a very good year. God is the same all the time, but He’s a Creator who’s always making new things, and He’s always making things new. Bring on the newness, Lord! :)

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Tirzah’s Travel Thoughts: Christmastime 2009

2009-12-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

West? Texas?
Texas can be so complicated. No wonder newcomers get confused. Take “West Texas,” for instance. In addition to the geographical region of West Texas, there is also West, Texas, a town north of Waco that is known for its delicious kolaches. Then there is George West, Texas, a town in South Texas that is a scuzzy, icky travel stop, in my opinion. (Now I have a tiny little ding on my car as a reminder to never stop for gas there ever again.) Then if you stop to wonder if George West is the same guy that they named West, Texas, after... well, it just boggles the mind.

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Yesterday, while I was driving along I-35, I saw a freshly killed deer up close for the first time. She was strapped to the back of an SUV with her tongue a-hangin’ out, all professional-like. I wondered to myself why the motorist wouldn’t just give the doe some dignity and store her inside the SUV. Then when I passed the vehicle, I saw a Mercedes logo on its front grill. Ah. I probably wouldn’t want to store a dead animal in my Mercedes, either. Then I got to thinking how whoever was driving the Mercedes must have plenty of money to spend on their SUV, their hunting hobby, and their fresh supply of venison. Then I was like, “Is that Ted Nugent???”

Not-so environmentally friendly
There is a recently constructed Flying J along I-35 that’s not quite as spacious as other Flying Js I’ve stopped at. It ain’t all that environmentally friendly, either. The ladies’ room is equipped with automatic flushing, which I assume is to save water. Unfortunately, this is not the case at this particular truck stop. Instead of flushing only once, it will flush about 3 or 4 times per visit. To get it to flush, I guess all you have to do is move too much, sneeze too much, breathe too much, or be human or something.

Magic snow!
I’ve noticed that I cry almost every time 1) I think about how faithful God is, 2) I watch a Rocky movie, and 3) I witness a Texas snowfall. One of my favorite kinds is magic snow. It’s the kind that falls when it’s about 38 degrees outside, and it doesn’t stick or make the roads icy. Magic snow!

Ode to the holiday stretch

2009-11-02T07:34:00.000-08:00

If you desire to stretch your wallet at the Dollar Tree,
Perhaps ‘twould not be wise to do so right on Halloween.
Your fellow Metroplexians just don’t like to spend the dough,
And then they wonder why the checkout line moves really slow.
The Christmas decorations shining brightly on display
Are there for early shoppers who anticipate the day,
And at the Family Dollar, where the aisles are overstocked,
This creates juxtaposition with procrastinators flocked
At the checkout line to purchase bags and bags of cheap candy,
And you hope that they will not forget to celebrate Thanksgiving.
At times like these, you breathe in deep and exhale with a sigh
As you yearn with wistfulness when you remember times gone by --
That fall and winter morph into a special time of year,
When holidays become a time to keep your family near.
At Thanksgiving and Christmas, you become a child again,
As holy days will bring ethereal wonder to the mundane.

My thoughts about the healthcare debate

2009-10-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

This post is long, but after participating in several discussions on this topic (mainly on, uh, Facebook status updates), it seemed good to just jot down my thoughts on this topic in one place. I’ll start off with my disclaimers. First, I only keep up with the news a very tiny bit, partly because I hate politics, and partly because I used to work at a newspaper and I might still be burned out from being forced to keep up with the news, so my opinions aren’t 100% informed. Secondly, I’m a Republican, and I’ve had regurgitated ideology crammed down my throat for most of my life, but most of my ideas now are my own. (i.e., I am not a parrot.) Thirdly, I don’t currently suffer from any physical ailments, so I mostly view the current healthcare debate from a taxpaying standpoint.

My main beef against government-run healthcare isn’t against healthcare but against government. I don’t like the government to be involved in the finer details of my life. Build me a road, protect me from terrorists, and make sure restaurants serve me well-cooked food in a sanitary environment, but otherwise, please leave me alone, Uncle Sam. Perhaps this is a bit too idealistic, but I really think if the Church at large did her job, and if people in general just helped each other out more like they’re supposed to, we wouldn’t have so many people without healthcare coverage. Plus, I think the danger of having healthcare ingrained into a government system is that, unfortunately, people will take advantage of the system.

When I was in my early teens, my dad was unemployed for about a year and a half, and to my knowledge, my family did not take government assistance (food stamps, etc.) of any kind. This was back in the late 80s during one of the economy’s hiccups. One thing that majorly helped was that my mom had a job at a hair salon, so her wages and tips certainly helped feed us. My dad didn’t stay on his butt all day. He constantly did research to look for job leads, and he sent out a steady stream of resumes. I remember bill collectors calling us, and I remember money CONSTANTLY being an issue in EVERY area of life, but I don’t remember being destitute. One thing that I’ll always remember was that our church gave us a “pounding,” an old-fashioned term for a ton of free food. They loaded down our car with all this non-perishable stuff that stocked our pantry and fed us for quite a while. (I think that was the first time I ever ate pasta salad.) My point is that this is a great example of people helping people who are in need. This is something that the Church is supposed to do. (See Acts 2:42-47.)

Fast-forwarding about 12 years, there was a time in my life when I was pretty needy. I had just come out of a psychiatric hospital, I had no health insurance, I needed to quit my job due to stress, and I needed some medication. MHMR was a huge* help, and they referred me to the local welfare office so I could get a green card (I think that’s what it was called) so I could get my prescription filled. So, I sat in the welfare office, filled out the application, and was denied on account of my one-year-old car, a gift from my parents, being too new. (I think their reasoning was that I could sell my car to make money to buy meds with.) I walked away with the realization that welfare wasn’t for me.

That’s not a slam against welfare or the people who genuinely need it. I was clinically depressed, and I had all sorts of issues, but I was an able-bodied person who was perfectly capable of getting off my butt, finding a job, and earning a decent living. After I did so, the therapists were right -- a less stressful job did help me get my mind off my issues. From what I can remember, I was able to buy the meds after I came into some money. And when I needed one-on-one therapy, I was referred to a counseling center that only charged what I could afford to pay. (*As a side note, I disagree with the MHMR counselor who basically told me that I would suffer from depression and need medication for the rest of my life. It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve dealt with depression medicine-free since 2001. I don’t consider myself a depression patient anymore, and God has helped me overcome it and deal with it if it comes back.)

Back then, what stank was my attitude. Basically, I was a moocher. I didn’t pay my bills, and I tried to get away with other people paying my way for me as much as possible. If the government was willing to pay for my life, shoot, I was gonna take it.

Throughout the years, people with similar moocher mentalities have given me bad advice, and I’m finally wise enough to not take it. One lady told me that if I were strapped for cash, what I should do is go to the grocery store and write a check for $100 cash. The check would bounce, but the cash would tide me over until my next paycheck. (Yes, she was advising me to write bad checks.) Another friend told me I should have applied for food stamps when I was working a job that barely paid me enough to live on. Well, OK, the job really didn’t pay enough. She said I could have eaten really well during that time, because I was basically living on just tuna, popcorn, and eggs. (But yes, she was advising me to get help from a government program that exists to feed families with growing children who need the nourishment.)

Then there are people who try to beat and cheat the system. My mom is originally from Mexico, and she’s a very nice person, so unfortunately, people have tried to take advantage of her very nice nature. For instance, she caught a Spanish-speaking immigrant friend trying to collect Social Security by lying to a government agency. And she’s overheard Spanish-speaking women advising pregnant women from Mexico to immigrate here to the U.S. so they can have their babies for free. OK, I love America, and I appreciate my half-Mexican heritage, but I don’t want to pay for some moocher illegal immigrant’s baby with my tax dollars.

So, those are my basic concerns about government-run healthcare. I’ve got friends who’ve lived overseas and have a very interesting perspective about government healthcare. They say it’s awesome and cost-effective. And I’m sure it is, in the European countries they’ve lived in. But there aren’t illegal immigrants from Mexico who are trying to have their babies for free in Germany or England. There aren’t scores of lethargic, dangerously overweight people who sit in front of their computers and eat all day in Australia. The U.S. is a very generous country, and unfortunately, there are people who take advantage of that generosity. In my opinion, government-run healthcare in the U.S. would be subject to moochers, system-cheaters, and people who may have even brought on their health problems themselves.

Why would we have to bring the government in at all? In my opinion, the Church just needs to get off her butt. Christians, if you see someone in need, please be willing to help them out. Maybe give someone a “pounding” every once in a while. I know of one church in Arlington that had a free health fair recently where they gave out free health screenings, etc., to the public. It would be awesome if we’d have more of that. And there are lots of Christian doctors and nurses out there. Maybe they could volunteer their time once in a while to offer free services. As the Church, aren’t we supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Are there supposed to be any needy among us? (See Acts 2:45).

I realize that there are, unfortunately, certain cases in which a person’s health needs are so severe that it would be appropriate for the government to step in. But couldn’t we just reform or expand Medicare and Medicaid -- like many politicians have been trying to do for years -- instead of mandating a blanket government program which would include severe cases, head colds, moochers, and frequent flyers alike?

I think the moochiness of some and possibly the laziness of others has ruined healthcare in this country for those who genuinely need it. (Not to mention the greediness of insurance companies and drug companies.) And now the politicians want us to fix it with our tax dollars. But I’d much rather my budget be more freed up to contribute to “poundings” instead of pay for new healthcare taxes. That is my opinion.

Consumer ramblings: fast-food salads, etc.

2009-10-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve been craving fruits and vegetables, and if I eat out, I order salads. I’m not exactly sure why, though. Either I’m becoming more health-conscious in my old age, or I’m turning into my mom. :) So, in case you’re curious about what it’s like to order fast-food salad, I offer the following observations and opinions. (Disclaimer: I’m not a vegetarian, so the salads I tried had meat in them.)

Boston Market
Their Chicken Caesar Salad was the most expensive fast-food salad I’ve tried so far. (9 or 10 bucks for a salad and a soda is expensive to me.) But it was delicious. It came with a mini loaf of cornbread. My receipt had a coupon for a buy one-get one free meal, which I should have redeemed, but two weeks was kind of a short life for a coupon.

Potbellys
One of the many cool things about this restaurant (I ate there, didn’t take it to go) is that you can turn pretty much any of their sandwiches into a salad. (I think you can do the same at Subway, but I haven’t tried it yet.) Their Wreck Salad (includes various lunchmeats) was delicious, and it went pretty nicely with a milkshake.

Jack in the Box
I’ve tried their Chicken Bacon Club Salad (with crispy chicken) on a few different occasions with a few different results. The first time, I ordered from a location in Dallas that isn’t in a very good neighborhood. I went through the drive-thru, and they asked me to pull up to the front to wait for my order. It was about a 5-minute wait, but the salad was fresh, there was a lot of it, and it came with two beautiful strips of crispy chicken on top. There were a lot of bacon bits, and it was fairly filling.

The second time, I ordered from a location in Irving, at the drive-thru, where they also asked me to pull up elsewhere to wait for my order. (I’m not sure why it takes so long to take a pre-made salad out of the fridge and slap some chicken on top of it, but whatever.) This time, they accidentally gave my order to another customer, but they apologized profusely, and I got a free soda out of it. The salad wasn’t quite as fresh for some reason. I ordered the same salad a third time from the abovementioned Dallas location but didn’t have to wait long for it, and it was fresh and delicious. It had cucumbers in it this time -- very tasty.

Just as a side note, although Jack in the Box isn’t the most efficient at the drive-thru, they are my friend. They have a huge variety on their menu, so you can choose from greasy stuff or healthy stuff, cheap or expensive, and they’ve got locations all over the Metroplex.

McDonald’s
This is the first fast-food chain that I ever heard of that served salads. (I think they introduced them sometime in the 80s.) The first one I tried was at a Dallas location (somewhat near the abovementioned Jack in the Box), a Southwest Salad with crispy chicken strips and tiny tortilla chips. It was in kind of a medium-sized bowl, and it included beans and corn. It was very spicy, almost unnecessarily, but tasty.

Then, from an Irving location, I tried a Chicken Bacon Club salad with grilled chicken strips. The salad wasn’t very fresh this time. I’m not sure what the deal is with these two Irving restaurants and not-so-fresh salads -- maybe the Dallas restaurants have fresher produce markets nearby or something? Anyway, it was overall tasty. McDonald’s is usually efficient at the drive-thru.

This isn’t really related to salads, but I’d also like to say that McDonald’s McCafé serves a hot mocha that, in my opinion, is tastier than Starbucks caffé mocha. A "small" cup from McDonald’s is almost a dollar cheaper than a "tall" cup from Starbucks, too, even though Starbucks’ "tall" seems slightly larger than McDonald’s "small."

Wendy’s
This was probably the fastest, most efficient drive-thru experience I’ve ever had, and this salad was the most filling of any of the ones I’ve listed so far. I ordered the Southwest Taco Salad, which is basically a bowl of their chili that you dump on top of a huge bowl of salad and then add little bits of tortilla chips and dressing. (I’m pretty sure this was modified from their Taco Salad that was on the menu about 10 years ago; it was just a large salad with a bowl of chili and a bag of regular-sized tortilla chips.)

Tom Thumb
Technically, I wouldn’t classify a grocery store as a fast-food restaurant, but if you run to the deli, grab a salad, and then run to the express lane to pay for it, I think that could be considered fast food. Tom Thumb has several salads available, and with their reward card, you pay like between 4 and 5 dollars. I’ve tried their Chef Salad, which is pretty large and has strips of ham and chicken, from what I can remember, and one or two hard-boiled eggs. It comes with a fairly large serving of dressing. It’s yummy and mostly filling.

The only downside would be that their salads don’t come with plasticware or napkins, so you’d have to get those from somewhere else (like if you’re on your way to work and sneak into the breakroom en route to your cubicle).

Mexican taco salads and alternative
The abovementioned salads, unless otherwise indicated, all cost between 5 and 7 dollars, and they didn’t always stick to my ribs. (I’m not one of those petite chicks who gets full after just a few bites.) But if you get a Taco Salad from a Mexican fast-food place, it’ll probably be much cheaper and much more filling.

This is actually how I got the idea for salad meals in the first place. My mom used to order Fajita Salads from Rosa’s Café, which offers beef or chicken. I’m not sure if this chain is in the Metroplex at all. Anyway, their salads come in a huge edible bowl with refried beans on the bottom. Instead of salad dressing, you top it with salsa.

Taco Bueno’s Beef Taco Salad also comes with an edible bowl, but it’s smaller and doesn’t have beans on the bottom. It’s still delicious, though. I’ve seen ads for $3 salad bowls from Taco Cabana that I haven’t tried yet, but I’d imagine this salad is something between Rosa’s and Taco Bueno’s.

If money is tight for you but you’d like to try a salad meal at home, here’s my mom’s recipe for tuna salad. Drain a can of tuna and mix it with a bowl of lettuce, tomato, Miracle Whip, and Bacos. Maybe also add a dash of pepper, and voila, you’ve got about two servings. Enjoy. :)

For the birds

2009-06-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

This post is not for the weak of stomach.

A problem I've noticed at my apartment complex is certain species of birds nesting and ultimately dying in our carports. Shortly after I moved here, I was like, "What's with the dead birds dangling from the carports?" Recently, this first spring that I've used a carport, I've witnessed these morbid scenes firsthand. In the roof/ceiling, there are drains with tiny slits where birds build nests and lay their eggs. The eggs hatch, but the hatchlings are trapped in there, because when they get big enough to learn how to fly, their heads are too big to fit through the slits. Eventually, the birds die, I guess from breaking their necks or exhaustion, and their little carcasses are dangling in the breeze.

This spring, I believe 3 eggs hatched in the drain that's closest to my carport slot. First egg: One morning, a couple of the maintenance men were prying back the drain to free a bird that was still alive. Cheerfully, I got in my car and drove to work, happy that a bird was spared. Second egg: Another morning a couple of weeks later, I noticed a bird was squawking and struggling in the same drain. I hurried to the apartment office to tell them about it. The girl who worked there looked kind of annoyed. I drove to work thinking the problem had been taken care of. But when I came home, the bird was still there. But it was dead. I went back to the office and told the afternoon girl, who expressed concern but said there wasn't anything they could do about it, but that she'd inform the maintenance men. The bird's carcass hung there for ONE WEEK. One stinkin' week of people driving or walking by and not doing anything about it. It was dangling at least 6 feet off the ground -- it couldn't even enter the food chain as a meal for stray cats. After being weighed down for so long, the bird's neck almost ripped off its head before the lazy or clueless maintenance staff FINALLY removed it. Third egg: Just this morning, another bird was struggling to get free. "OK, I'm not gonna let this happen again," I uttered as I walked back up to my apartment to get my stepstool. I climbed up there and tried to free it myself, but I was unsuccessful. (The poor thing squawked and pooped on me.) I angrily drove to work, calmed down, cleaned the poop off my shirt, and called the apartment office.

Then... this evening when I got home, I saw the little bird alive on the lawn right in front of my carport. Yay, non-lazy, non-clueless maintenance staff! The poor bird probably doesn't even know how to fly yet, and he's got some of his feathers missing on his neck, but at least he's known life outside the drain as he waddles around on the grass. (I left bits of bread there on the ground for him. He squawked at me, but hopefully he'll get the idea and chow down.) He's probably vulnerable to predators because he might not know how to fly away, but at least he's got a chance! Waddle away, little bird!!

No, it wasn't smart of those birds to lay their eggs in a death trap, but I think my apartment complex should respect their wildlife a little more.

If anyone in my path is in desperate need, I sure hope I don't treat them like they annoy me and then blow them off. I want to know what to do and then do it without being asked, or at least try to help and then let someone more knowledgeable pick up where I left off. I want to be someone who helps others have another chance at life. (Whether they metaphorically poop on me or not.)

Tirzah's Top 5s

2009-06-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Funniest things I've ever seen...
1) my dad driving a U-Haul so close to an old, rusty sign that it creaked at a 90-degree angle.
2) my dad burping while stalling a fast-food order at a drive-thru.
3) my cat suddenly leaping onto the coffee table after I opened an umbrella.
4) dancing hippos in tutus (it was Fantasia at the movie theater sometime in the 80s).
5) dancing spastic balloon-thingies on the edge of a car dealership.

Biggest regrets I've ever had...
1) convinced myself that I was in love with a man, when I wasn't.
2) tried to take my own life.
3) treated a good friend like crap (on more than one occasion).
4) walked away from a toddler while I was changing him (and he fell to the floor and hit his head).
5) rudely snubbed a guy who was going door to door soliciting donations for a cancer society.

Hardest things I've ever lived through...
1) getting continually cornered by a guy who wouldn't stop debating me one summer.
2) trying to live off a paycheck that just wouldn't pay the bills or adequately feed me.
3) tapering off an antidepressant and learning how to feel emotions again.
4) enduring an 8-hour shift at a job I'd barely been trained on with a witchy supervisor, working through my meal break, then driving home that night through flooded streets.
5) realizing that a friend wasn't really a friend (on more than one occasion).

Scariest moments I've ever had...
1) my car getting halfway run off the road by a tractor-trailer.
2) a large black sedan almost side-swiping me while I was in the passenger's seat of my parents' car.
3) riding the Texas Giant in 1992 (I don't like roller coasters).
4) my heart almost leaping out of my chest while I walked off a job that I should have quit long before.
5) trying to keep my balance during what was either really strong thunder or an earthquake in Irving.

Most sentimental/thankful moments I've ever had...
1) driving down Highway 22 over Lake Whitney and being overwhelmed by Texas beauty.
2) taking a sip of Dublin Big Red and remembering all the times I spent as a child with my aunt and uncle.
3) saying goodbye to my college roommate after she graduated.
4) trying to fall asleep after my high-school graduation with Can You Feel the Love Tonight in my head.
5) realizing how completely, unabashedly faithful God has been to me (on more than one occasion).

Reflections of the third decade, part VII

2009-06-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

The other day as I was enjoying my drive home while listening to Superstar by The Carpenters, it seemed really cool to be able to listen to it on an MP3 disc... and almost 10 years ago, I'd listen to the same song in my car that had the tape deck playing an audio version of my compilation CD... and about 20 years ago, I'd listen to the same song in the backseat of my parents' car with a boombox on my lap playing an audio tape version of my parents' LP record. The song is much nicer without the constant scratchiness in the background and that part at the horn solo where the record needle jumped.

I might sound like a senior citizen when I talk about technology, but it boggles my mind how quickly it can change. We barely even think about it anymore -- we don't have time to because it changes in the blink of an eye! In some ways, that can freak out someone like me who likes to take her time to absorb stuff and enjoy it.

But in other ways, it's exceedingly wonderful. I grew up in a generation that tolerated scratchy records, learned to live with confusing 8-tracks, sat by the radio waiting for favorite songs to play, and constantly hovered around music stores -- searching, waiting, hoping that someday, they'd have that rare and obscure Monkees tape in stock. Now I can either just go on iTunes and download whichever song I want, or I could go on eBay or Amazon and buy whichever rare and obscure album I want. (Well, most of the time. But it's still oh-so-convenient.)

Yes, I was a Monkees fan when I was a preteen. (I think it was an 80s oldie revival thing.) My family was broke, so for a while, the way I'd "download" music was by putting my boombox right up against the speaker of a TV set to record the music video/montage portion of The Monkees show on audio tape. (I think our little black-and-white TV gave off a nice sound, albeit mono.) I don't think I have that tape anymore (hopefully such a recording wasn't illegal back then), but sometimes, one of the songs would breeze into my head and not go away. It had a very nice, folksy-hippyish texture to it, and the only time I remember hearing it was on an episode where they were at a casino. I tried to buy the song online a few years ago, but I couldn't find it. Just this past weekend, I did a tiny bit of Googling, and I guess either search engines are more sophisticated now or more dot-coms have just published more song lyrics, but I found out that it's called The Door Into Summer, from 1967, and I downloaded it from iTunes. (I tried to find a YouTube video link for your enjoyment, but all I could find was a video from a website that I guess is European? Sorry, I can't read it. :)) Yay, technology!

Ah, reverie. One of my most favorite childhood memories was listening to Julio Iglesias on the 8-track player of my (maternal) grandfather's station wagon. Now I've got most of those songs on an MP3 disc in my car. Oh, what a feeling!

Cataerobics update

2009-05-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, Tommy was officially classified as "overweight" at his recent visit to the vet. (The other vet who saw him last year at the same office called him "big" but not fat. I think he's, uh, fluffier this year.) Thankfully, the doctor didn't prescribe any kind of diet. She says that canned food is supposed to be better for cats, so I'll feed him some more often, but not all the time. (Because when you take them to the vet to get their teeth cleaned, you'll get the lecture about dry food being better for their teeth.)

So, I'm decreasing his daily rations and keeping a much closer eye on the bowls, making sure he doesn't steal Tessie's food. (She can even out-eat him sometimes, but her petite body has more than enough metabolism to support it.) I gotta say, I'm kind of alarmed at his gluttonous nature. If I let him, he'll just eat and eat and eat and then, because his tummy can only hold so much, he'll puke it all up, and guess who gets to clean up after him? Sigh.

Maybe it's time to dig out his rolling food bowl from storage. Or maybe I should download music from the Flashdance soundtrack for cataerobics classes. Or maybe I should just tack up a Bible verse on the wall next to his food bowl: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed..." (Luke 12:15)

Oh, wait a minute -- cats can't read. D'oh!

The Wringer Chronicles, Volume IV

2009-05-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

For some reason, almost every year around this time, I've noticed a sort of foggy funk in my life. I wonder if it's depression-related. I don't feel like I'm in despair or anything alarming like that -- there's just this sort of unspoken uncertainty that's hard to shake right away. Maybe it's triggered by people in my life (who are otherwise very significant) forgetting my birthday, or maybe it's these darn allergies. Whatever the reason, the transition from spring to summer is usually NOT my best time of year. (And it's good for me to at least be aware of it.)

I think it's been more pronounced since I've graduated from college. A friend of mine pointed out once that one reason why so many of us fall apart after we finish school is because suddenly our strict schedules are gone -- nobody is telling us when to be in class or when to do our homework or even what to do anymore. But I do remember feeling pretty blue after the school year would end while I was in college and my parents would drive me home for the summer -- where I was away from my friends and the extremely cool life I'd known for the other 9 months of the year.

One thing that doesn't help is that I've never really gelled well with outdoor summer activities. Swimming? never learned how to. Volleyball? I absolutely stink at it. Baseball? ha! base sports were never really kind to me. Picnics? barbecues are nice, but they usually only lead to the abovementioned activities. I usually enjoy racket sports like tennis or badminton, but it can be hard to find other people to play with. (Even while I was at the psychiatric hospital years ago, when the counselors took us all to the gymnasium, I went straight for the badminton rackets and convinced my roommate to play with me.) Overall, I'm not athletically inclined in the LEAST, so I find it very annoying anytime a so-called friend calls me a party pooper for not participating in outdoor summer activities. Oh, come on, you so-called friend. What's so bad about renting a movie? Are you afraid of getting lost in the aisles at Blockbuster? Oh, no. I'm drowning in movie genres...

So, the promise of summer isn't always an exciting thing for me. I still have to go to work, like most of America. I don't get to wake up at 8 a.m. and play Monopoly until 3:00 like I used to do with my sister when we were little kids. (Not counting breakfast and lunch breaks.)

And, thankfully, as I've gotten older, summertime has begun to mean more about developing relationships in general than just getting a bad sunburn under the volleyball net. As May oozes into June, your friends get vacation time, and they make time to see you. You get to budget more money for spontaneous hangouts and less for allergy medications. It's a beautiful thing.

So, after the foggy funk lifts, if you invite me to play water volleyball and I laugh hysterically, please don't take it personally. Please allow me to compose myself, apologize, and offer to meet you later at Starbucks or something. Oh, no. I'm drowning in mocha frappuccinos...

Is Survivor surviving?

2009-05-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

From doing a bit of internet surfing, I gathered that Survivor -- which, in my opinion, is the greatest reality show of all time, the one that nearly all the other reality shows shamelessly copy from -- might only last for 20 seasons. And they just wrapped up their 18th. And I missed the finale!

A friend of mine got me hooked on the show in 2002 during Survivor: Thailand. It's a fairly simple, predictable format -- 2 "tribes" of otherwise perfect strangers coexist in fairly primitive conditions while they compete in "challenges" for "rewards" and "immunity" in order to keep from getting "voted off," and the last one remaining gets a million dollars. (See? I've just described nearly every other reality show out there.) Where it gets hairy is when the players form alliances with each other during the game and make promises to each other that they often have to break, and then they often take it personally later as they often explode at the end and make the final contestants cry. It's great television.

But maybe it's started to get a little old. Even my friend who introduced me to it has stopped watching. Maybe the format has gotten too predictable, no matter how many exciting twists they add to it, and maybe the contestants have gotten too boring, no matter how colorful they are. I've noticed that I haven't watched as religiously every week as I used to. Thursday nights have gotten kind of busy for me with errands, etc., and I've even slacked off on setting my VCR to tape episodes so I can watch them later. (And now Survivor's time slot even has to compete with Amy Poehler's hilarious new comedy on NBC at 7:30!)

A few years ago, I missed the finale of Survivor: Palau, the one where Tom won after competing with that tall dolphin-trainer guy, I think because of my crazy work schedule. And now I missed the finale of Survivor: Tocatins because this past Thursday night was grocery night, and I forgot to check online to see if the finale would air on the following Sunday, and I wasn't at home Sunday night because I was at a church meeting. I read online that J.T. won -- whoo-hoo! -- and I bookmarked a YouTube video of a segment of the finale so I could watch it later... But I haven't even gotten around to THAT yet. Man, what gives? The finale/reunion show is usually the best episode, and after it's all over, there's a hole in my Thursday nights.

But this Tuesday night, I noticed a different hole... now that the finale of The Biggest Loser is over and done with. And I was at home for that -- all 3 hours of it! And I watched almost every episode this season pretty religiously! And I'm not even on a weight-loss program!

So, what is it about this 2-hour show -- yes! a 2-hour show that airs on TUESDAYS! -- that appeals even to people like me who couldn't care less about counting calories or sweating in a gym? Maybe I didn't realize how much TV-worthy drama there was with people who are trying to shed pounds. Maybe I'm already used to the "immunity challenge" format. Maybe it's nice to watch a TV show where people's lives are changing right before your eyes, and there's less back-stabbing and more back-patting. Or maybe I just like to watch Jillian kick people's butts.

Whatever it is, Survivor sure tapped into something that made me -- a chick who has almost zero interest in camping or the outdoors -- a loyal fan from Survivor: Thailand until now. Well, I don't plan to stop watching just yet. I'll probably keep watching Survivor until the network finally votes it off the air.

But until then... Come on in, guys! Let's get to today's challenge. Wanna know what you're playing for? The title of Greatest Reality Show of All Time.

Yes, if I were on the jury, Survivor would have my vote to win.

The Wringer Chronicles, Volume III

2009-05-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

1) A pain in the neck
I never wondered where the phrase "a pain in the neck" came from until about a couple of weeks ago. Seasonal allergies flared up pretty bad, and after PND and a sore throat, I developed a cough. I think I have some powerful sinuses and lungs or something, because I can cough pretty darn hard. (About 10 years ago, after I developed a sharp, mysterious pain in my side, a doctor diagnosed me with "coughing so hard that I hurt myself.") Several days after my allergies went crazy, my neck started hurting. At first, it was like a crick right in the middle, but then it developed into a dull, sharp stiffness that made it painful to turn my head.

Checking my blind spot while driving was painful enough, but I discovered that I use my neck muscles for pretty much EVERYTHING else, too. Even while I was popping Motrin or Tylenol, sitting at a computer for 8 hours hurt. Reclining to watch TV or a movie hurt. Trying to sleep REALLY hurt, and I'd toss and turn until I applied some generic Ben-Gay, because I just couldn't get comfortable. The pain kind of shifted from one muscle group to the next until it finally went away altogether, Hallelujah. My cough hasn't gone away completely, because the rainy weather has kept allergens mixed around in the air, but I've noticed that I kind of smush my neck against my shoulders when I cough now so as to avoid additional injuries.

But I was struck at how near-paralyzing and constantly annoying it was to have a pain in the neck. I don't want to treat anyone to the point where they'd call me a pain in the neck. I was reminded about how in the Bible, after God set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt and gave them some laws to follow and provided everything they needed, they stubbornly disobeyed Him. He called them a "stiff-necked" people -- I guess it's as if they had paralyzed themselves in their own stubbornness! I don't want to be stiff-necked with God. I want to be soft and pliable.

2) Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!
I trim my cats' claws once a month. During April's claw-trimming, Tessie was cooperating just fine until I got to the last claw to be trimmed, which had grown so long and thick that it was practically fusing onto the paw-pad. She freaked out when I gripped the clippers around it. I spent nearly half an hour chasing her around the apartment. Her entire 7-pound being growled in rebellion as she angrily ran and hid from me. Finally, she disappeared under a chair in the living room. When I pulled the chair back, she was so stunned that I was able to grab her and trim away the layers that had grown so thickly around that little claw. You see, she thought she was safe hiding under that chair because I hadn't moved it since we've lived here.

May's claw-trimming wasn't as time-consuming because she surrendered right away. I think she learned that it's no use hiding from me. I'm her mama who loves her and wants what's best for her. (And I'm way bigger than she is.)

I hope I don't act as stubbornly as Tessie does sometimes. If God needs to trim away something in my life, I hope I don't resist and hide underneath something that I think is unmovable. He can move mountains. I should be able to let Him pull me out from under pride, unforgiveness, insecurity, or whatever my metaphorical living-room chair is.

Reflections of the third decade, part VI

2009-05-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

What a difference a decade makes!

Me at 23:
I am a very agreeable person who does what she's told and lets other people make decisions for her. (Most of time.) I believe that men are superior to women, and even if a male makes a strange decision, I'll submit to it with minimal complaining. I would rather bless people with my smile than be sincerely honest with my feelings (because that would be kinda selfish), even if it means that I'm dying on the inside.

I'm surrounded by people who believe in God and who believe in me. A bunch of my friends pitched in and bought me a used acoustic guitar. (I received it with extreme gratitude, dropping to my knees in awe.) I'm on the verge of a personal Renaissance that will include the composition of a couple dozen songs. I'm trying to sell a play that I finished writing the year before, but no one seems to want it. I'm optimistic, anyway, and I begin working on a second play and don't plan to stay at my day job for very long.

I earn minimum wage and am about to be promoted to a full-time position at $6.00 an hour. I don't have a car, but I live about a 15-minute walking distance from work. I've discovered the wonderful world of plastic money, so I eat fast food pretty frequently (even though I live within reasonable walking distance from a grocery store). I depend on my friends to give me rides to places (and every once in a while, someone will forget to pick me up).

I live alone and am totally blowing my chance to learn how to be an adult and take care of myself. My work schedule and social calendar are crazy and often unpredictable, but I still let my apartment get dirty and stay dirty, with piles of dishes molding in the sink that attract roaches. My bedroom furniture has piles of dirty clothes. People visit my apartment often, despite its unkempt condition, and sometimes my friends are extremely nice and wash my dishes. One friend even cleaned my entire place for me while I was at work one day. (In hindsight, I think I would have been better served if someone had just told me straight up, "I love you, but you live like a pig, and I won't come over anymore or give you any more rides until you clean house.")

I don't own any pets, but I decide that I like cats after a couple of the neighbors' kitties come to my door a few times and I feed them and give them a brief tour of my apartment (separately). One of them especially is very friendly and likes to climb on me and sniff my face. I decide that if I ever own a cat, I'd like a friendly one like that.

When I'm at church, I spend a lot of time weeping over my childhood. I don't really know how to let go, I worry almost constantly, and I'm very insecure. Yet I still smile. I believe that God is only happy with me when I love everybody, serve everybody, and let people walk all over me, because I'll be rewarded for it later. (Unfortunately, a really scary bout with depression -- when I'll become very angry with God and blame Him for all the crap in my life -- is just around the corner.)

Me at 33:
My personality is still mostly cheerful overall, but I'd rather be sincere than happy. I'm learning to not feel guilty for making my own decisions. Technically, wives are supposed to submit to their husbands, but hey, I'm not married yet. I do my best to submit to authority figures that God has put in my life, but if I feel like I'm being treated unfairly, I'll probably speak up. Sure, smiling can bless people, but I don't want to be a fake.

I spend a lot of time alone, but it's the season of life God has me in right now. I believe this is my time to write a novel, which I've dreamed of doing since I was a little girl playing on my parents' old typewriter. I've given up on being a playwright because my first play sucked and, well, it might be kinda hard to write good theater if I've never done any acting. I'm trying to find the balance between working at my craft and socializing, but overall, it's hard to write a novel if I spend all my spare time hanging out with people or talking to them on the phone. I still have my guitar, which is well-worn at the first 2 frets, and although I'm not the songwriting machine I used to be, I still have ideas floating through my head. I'm more into quality than quantity.

My day job pays enough money to make a monthly car payment. Other than that, I avoid debt like the plague and hope to finally pay off my old credit card balance this year. I try to save fast food for special occasions. I depend on God for money to pay bills, and I work hard at my job and even volunteer to work overtime.

I live alone again, but I make my bed every morning and empty the litterbox nightly; once a week, I do 2 loads of laundry and vacuum -- these household chores usually happen automatically. There are no piles of clothes in my bedroom. I'm still learning to incorporate the rest of the chores into my routine, i.e., dusting and dishes (the latter is my least favorite!), but I'm content with my progress. I've discovered pre-moistened wipes -- Lysol and Pledge -- which are beautiful. I don't invite anybody over unless my place is decent (or sanitary) enough for company.

One of my two cats is even friendlier than the one I met a decade ago. (She was snuggling and purring on my desk while I was writing part of this.)

When I'm at church, I usually cry during communion, when I'm reminded that Jesus died so I could be part of His family. (And I pretty much cry whenever I think about how faithful God has been to me.) Slowly but surely, I've let Him teach me how to be still and find my security in Him. I'm a much more confident person, and I'm nobody's doormat. I've learned that there's a difference between loving people and letting them take advantage of you. I've learned how to be assertive, and I'm not afraid of offending people or offering my opinion anymore, even to the point where I have to be reminded to be gentle and kind to people. When I say or do the wrong thing, I appreciate it when people call me on it so I can apologize and make it right. I know that nothing can separate me from God's love, and depression is no longer welcome in my life (I know how to deal with it now).

Whew! I'm thankful that God hasn't given up on me. :)

Disagreeing with Miley Cyrus

2009-04-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Last week, Miley made the news when she voiced support for gay marriage during a Twitter conversation. She basically said that in the Bible, it says that God loves us, created us equally, and that we should all be happy. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like Miley has read the entire Bible; or if she has, she seems to subscribe to a casual do-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-you're-happy attitude that the world in general has.

Her comments concern me because she's wildly popular. I'm almost twice her age, so her beliefs don't exactly shape my mind, but I'm sure tons of impressionable teens and tweens look up to her.

Granted, her statements were partially correct. I agree that yes, God loves us. That's in His very nature (1 John 4:16), and it's something He demonstrated by sacrificing His only Son Jesus for us (John 3:16, 1 John 4:10). Yes, He wants us to be happy and enjoy the life He's given us (Ecclesiastes 4:13, Psalm 36:8). But hopefully, anyone who was raised by loving parents can vouch for the fact that just because your father loves you doesn't necessarily mean he lets you do whatever you want, just so you can be happy.

Incidentally, not everything that makes you happy is a good thing. Or legal. What if stealing things or killing people made me happy? Would that make it OK? Not to mention, being devoted to your own happiness is called Hedonism. Being devoted to Christ is called Christianity.

The problem is that God is holy, perfect, a consuming fire. He doesn't tolerate sin, and anyone who wants to be right with Him needs to be willing to let Him get rid of any sin in their lives (Luke 9:23).

One of my gay friends who found me on Facebook zealously requested last November that whoever didn't support gay marriage needed to remove themselves from his friends list. So, regretfully, I did. He's a Christian also, so we had a rather lengthy debate via email about gay marriage and homosexuality in general. Unfortunately, he didn't believe that all of the Bible is still relevant today. I know that there are a few passages that don't really apply to contemporary times anymore, but to me, they seem kind of obvious (i.e., owning slaves, women not speaking in churches, men having several wives and concubines simultaneously). Sometimes when you read the Bible, though, I think you need to take into consideration how often something is mentioned. For instance, I think women being forbidden to speak in churches is only mentioned once (1 Corinthians 14:34), while God loving all of humanity is mentioned so many times that it would probably take me hours to type in all the references I could find (I only listed 3 of them above). Homosexuality is one of those issues that's pretty consistent throughout the Bible as being wrong, and marriage is never referred to as a same-sex relationship (i.e., Romans 1:24-27, 1 Corinthians 7:2, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Leviticus 20:13, Genesis 2:24).

Not to pick on homosexuality. I consider it a sin just as I would any other (I've listed 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 above). And just like with any other sin, God is more than willing and capable of removing it from the life of anyone who lets Him (1 John 1:8-9).

And I've struggled with same-sex attraction myself. I know how confusing and crazy your emotions can get when you're lonely, another human being accepts you and wants to nurture you, and you suddenly want to worship the ground they walk on. But God is the only One who's really worthy of being worshiped (Exodus 20:3, Psalm 2:11-12, Psalm 46:10, Philippians 2:9-11). If you're hurting, He wants to heal it and make it better (Psalm 147:3). If you're lonely, He wants to be near you (Psalm 34:15-18). If there's anything you need, He wants to provide it for you (Psalm 145:15-16, Psalm 63:1-5). If there's a war raging inside you, He wants to make it stop (Psalm 46:9).

(OK, I know, I read the Psalms a lot. :) And for the record, I'm straight. When I'm alone at night, I long for the company of a man, not a woman.)

I hope it's clear that I don't hate gay people and that I'm not just trying to kill people's happiness. I'm just concerned that our society has an attitude about homosexuality that's been getting more and more casual, even in the church. Sorry, Miley, but you can't always have the best of both worlds.

Not my cup of tea?

2009-04-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

I heard about these tea parties that popped up everywhere last week with my fellow Republicans, and I feel slightly sad that I missed out on the excitement. But just slightly.

I hope I'm not being passive about all this. The day I found out that Sarah Palin was picked as a Vice-Presidential candidate, I was no longer embarrassed to be a Republican. I voted for Mike Huckabee for President in March '08, and I like his idea about abolishing the income tax altogether.

But I'm just so burned out on politics right now to keep up with everything that's going on. I didn't vote for him, but Obama is President, and I pray that God will give him wisdom in office. Honestly, I don't fully trust the President yet, but he's got an opportunity to earn my trust. I know my Republican party is trying to harness some momentum, but I think it's way too early to criticize Obama in his Presidency. I mean, he's only been sworn in for 3 months. Give him a break. If I'm gonna hit the streets to zealously protest something, I'm gonna save it for something I feel truly passionate about, like the abortion issue or family issues or teaching Creationism in schools or some other controversial issue that I'd gladly take a stand on, no matter how many people it offends.

No, I don't like paying taxes, probably just like everyone else in America, but it's something I've kinda gotten used to. Even Jesus said in the Bible to give Caesar what is Caesar's and give God what is God's. (In other words, I pay taxes to Uncle Sam when he says I owe him, and I pay God through the church, etc., when He says I owe Him.) But if President Obama wants to give me an economic stimulus, as a lump sum or $13 at a time, I'm not gonna turn that away.

That's how I feel for now. Later, who knows? If taxes in my country get worse, and folks organize more tea parties in the future, I may just join the party. :) But I hope I won't have to.

Cataerobics

2009-04-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 4/15/09] I had this delightful fantasy the other day that I could help my cat lose weight by getting some of his toys together and letting him swat away at them while I played Rocky music in the background. (Yes, I have the soundtracks of Rocky I, II and IV on cd.) We were going to start with the training montage from Rocky IV, then move on to Eye of the Tiger, then on to Gonna Fly Now, and maybe finish with Redemption. It was going to be hilarious and wonderfully cathartic. Uh, and beneficial for my cat, too.

Tommy is basically a live, non-talking version of Garfield. He's huge, orange, and embarrassingly lazy. And possibly even nearsighted -- I've seen bugs crawl right past him, and he won't even acknowledge their existence (when he's supposed to be exterminating them!). Tessie, my petite, extroverted girl cat, is more of a real, live Nermal -- extremely cute, athletic, and not really in need of a feline weight-loss program.

But that's not the case with Tommy. Maybe he's just a cat after my own heart. I've noticed that anytime I moved back home with my parents (summers during college, etc.), I'd gain about 15-20 pounds from inactivity. But Tommy also put on some weight this last time I lived with Mom and Dad. (I think my mom felt sorry for my babies while I was at work and just kept refilling their food bowls.) When I took him for his annual checkup one year, the vet put him on a strict diet, and I think he had to lose about 2 pounds. (He probably weighed around 17 pounds at the time. Tessie only weighed about 7.)

So, it was this 2-month ordeal of me feeding Tommy this special canned food twice a day, keeping it away from Tessie, and getting up early to start the daily routine. Tommy enjoyed the food, so getting him to eat it wasn't any problem. But he went through about 2 cases of that stuff that I had to buy specifically from the vet's office. And if I fed the cats dry food, I followed the vet's advice and cut a hole in an empty liter-water bottle to create a sort of rolling food bowl. (It's supposed to be exercise for cats if they reach their paws into a bowl to scoop the food out.) Anyway, after all that -- and I was totally sure that Tommy was, in fact, losing weight -- the vet called and said he had GAINED half a pound! What the heck?? It was kinda like one of those weigh-ins on The Biggest Loser where the contestant is like, "I don't know, I gave it my all," and the trainer has their head in their hands and is doing their darnedest to hold in the world's biggest groan.

I took Tommy immediately off the diet and, a couple of months later, moved out of my parents' house. :) He did drop a noticeable amount of weight after I moved into a roomy apartment and he started strutting around like he owned the place. (And I shed a lot of my extra fluff, too.)

But somehow, he seems to have gained part of it back. (Now I understand why my mom liked to make fun of him and say he looked pregnant!) I think maybe I've been too generous at mealtimes for some reason, or maybe he's been eating/stealing Tessie's portion when I'm not looking, or a little of both.

So, I'm cracking down again, watching the food bowls like a hawk to make sure Tommy doesn't scarf down too much, and I may even bust out the rolling food bowl again. Unfortunately, Cataerobics had very minimal success. (By that, I mean he just stared at me most of the time I was flicking his toys playfully at him.) I think he gets most of his exercise when he's wrestling with Tessie or jogging to his food bowl. But we have enjoyed some swatting matches lately (mano a paw-o). I might try more of that.

But I won't give up on my little Garfield. His next weigh-in is next month, and we can do this! It's the eye of the tiger! It's the thrill of the fight!

The Wringer Chronicles, Volume II

2009-04-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 3/5/09] I wrote a new blog entry earlier this week that had all sorts of cool stuff in it -- a movie reference, Bible verses, and even some nifty alliteration. But I didn't post it after all, because I wrote a bunch of stuff that I don't really agree with anymore. I think that's what happens sometimes when you get squeezed -- crap oozes out, and before you know it, it's like, "Ewww. I didn't know it was this gross." Plus, nothing's totally accurate in your brain, anyway, when you've got PMS.

I don't like the stuff that God's been squeezing out of me lately. Sometimes, people in your life can be merciless and downright selfish towards you when you try to be merciful and selfless towards them. If you try to reach out, they ignore you. If you give them an inch, they take a mile (or two). If you try to be nice to them, they dump all over you. (Psalm 35 describes a lot of how I felt one evening when I was turning into an oozing pile of snot and tears on my living-room carpet.)

But God says (in Galatians) that we shouldn't get weary of doing good. That can be hard to do. I mean, when you try to do the right thing, and people puke all over it, it feels natural to just close up and protect yourself from them. But I need to learn from Jesus and get strength from Him (Matthew 11:28-30) and let Him be the One to shield me. He teaches us to pray for those who use us and to love our enemies. This is hard! I need His help!!

So, I've been working through bitterness and resentment issues towards people who've been so hard to love. Another thing God has been teaching me is that there's a difference between loving somebody and letting them take advantage of you. Even God, who is love by His very nature, sometimes has to draw the line with people and let them lie in the bed they've made (metaphorically speaking, as the cliche goes). So, for the sake of my sanity, I'm gonna have to start drawing boundaries and showing people some tough love... which I've been learning how to do already for the past several years, but I think I'm gonna have to kick it up a notch.

Meanwhile, I've been a little sleep-deprived, which can really get nasty when combined with PMS. The changing weather has made my cats a little hyper at night, and they've been waking me up after I've barely dozed off. Maybe I should practice setting some boundaries with them. (Sorry, Fluffy, you just earned yourself a night on the couch.) Finally finding the feline boundaries might fare just fine with very... philosophical... filching of... fishing field trips. Darn it. Well, I thought I'd give the alliteration another try. :)

The Wringer Chronicles, Volume I

2009-04-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 2/23/09] A few years ago, my mom and sister somehow got it into their heads that the best place to shop for me is in the toy section. Consequently, I've got new Veggie Tales in my DVD collection and Veggie Tales figurines that collect dust in my closet. The problem: I'm almost 33 years old, I don't have children, and I don't hang around children very often. I appreciate the gifts (and yes, I'm a Veggie Tales fan as much as the next Baylor alumna), but I'm not exactly sure why the women in my family starting shopping for me like I'm 9 years old. (Not to mention, it's a reminder that yells just as loud as my biological clock that I'm seemingly overdue for marriage and a family! AAAGH!! Ahem. OK, I think I can pull it together...)

I think they may have misinterpreted my behavior while I was living with my parents. (I moved back home when I was age 27-30.) For a while, when I worked nights, the highlight of my evening was watching Garfield and Friends on the Toon Disney Channel at 1 in the morning. And more often than not, I'd watch Mr. Roger's Neighborhood after a hard day's work.

I believe it was during that time that I learned something important about myself: When I'm really stressed out, I revert back to childhood. For instance, if I'm trying to unwind while driving home from work after a hectic day and I'm sitting at the stoplight, I'll catch myself singing something from the Annie soundtrack. ("The sun'll come out / Tomorrow / Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow / There'll be suuuuun... ") Yes, I definitely think a good dose of nostalgia is healthy every now and then, but a grown woman comforting herself with Sesame Street songs is kinda sad.

So, the whole time I was enjoying cartoons like a 9-year-old while I was 30 and living with my parents in a town that I despised and working a job that I hated, of course I was majorly stressed out. (I'm almost surprised that I didn't start sucking my thumb, wrecking 4 years' worth of orthodontic work.)

When I had a serious emotional breakdown over 8 years ago and got in my car and just drove one Friday morning, I eventually ended up in Bastrop, Texas (where I lived from 7 months old to age 6), and drove to the church that my dad used to pastor. I just parked my car, walked up to the nursery window, and just sort of stared inside and snooped around the outside of the building for a little while. I was severely distressed and stressed out, and I just sort of wanted to hang out in my childhood for a while, I guess.

Strange, huh? (Hey, blogging is cheaper than therapy. :))

Anyway, at the moment, I'm better now, but I noticed that I reverted back to childhood earlier this month, this time with theme songs to TV shows that I used to watch in the late 70s/early 80s. I was playing this YouTube video of a song quite a bit, and this one was in my mind more recently. I wonder if they sell these on iTunes? (Man, we Generation-Xers grew up during some crazy times. :))

Another thing I learned about myself during my emotional breakdown is that when I'm truly depressed, I won't brush my teeth. (Under healthy circumstances, I'll brush twice a day.) I know it sounds weird, but when I was admitted into a psychiatric hospital years ago, I had gone an entire week without brushing my teeth. (It was extremely gross, especially with that black charcoal stuff they made me drink. Blech!!) Maybe it's because I didn't believe I was worth doing even the tiniest little thing for myself, like toothbrushing. Thankfully, I've learned since then that yes, I am worth even keeping my teeth clean, and that I live a life that's precious in at least God's sight. :)

It's good to at least be aware of any iffy emotional state that I might be in. Recently, God reminded me that He knows when I'm hurting and that He's right there: "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry." (Psalm 34:15)

I'm not exactly sure what was stressing me out recently (not counting Valentine's Day) -- although it was probably a combination of different stuff -- but I'm glad that I've got Somebody to turn to. For now, I'm staying on the alert, and I've got more good news: I have been brushing my teeth, preserving those 4 years' worth of orthodontic work. :)

The Wringer Chronicles: An Introduction

2009-04-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted 2/21/09] Years ago, when I told my friend Katie that I was a kinetic learner, she asked me how that applied to my Christian walk. "Trials," I immediately replied.

You see, a kinetic (or kinesthetic) learner is one who learns by doing. As opposed to visual learners and audio learners, we kinetic learners have to really get our hands on something to understand a new concept. I know for me, repetition is essential, and I often ask a lot of questions. If I'm learning something new on the job, I won't strain my brain too much when someone's explaining something new to me, and I just take notes to refer to later, because I'm probably not going to understand it until I go back to my cubicle and try it for myself. (And it might take several tries before the light bulb clicks on in my brain. And then it stays on.)

So, as a Christian, I can sit my butt in church or go home and read my Bible about how God is good or about how I need to trust Him or about how I need to show compassion to people and forgive them -- and it may take a while for the truth to click on in my brain, heart, and soul. Sometimes, I let the Holy Spirit speed things along by teaching me what I need to know right away, kind of like how the computer programs were downloaded directly into people's minds on The Matrix. (Wasn't that cool??) But there are lots of times when maybe God knows it'll need to soak in a little longer for me. So, He lets trials come. For instance, if I need to know that God is Provider -- maybe I'll have trouble paying a bill -- then sometime later, He'll provide the money after I ask Him for it and wait for it, and I'll remember the truth that God is my Provider. (This particular truth has required lots of repetition for me! I wish the light bulb would stay on!)

Trials teach you what God is like, and they refine all the crap out of you. A very simple concept that's often taught in church is that if you squeeze something, its contents will squirt out. Like, if I'm an orange, if you squeeze me, you'll get orange juice. Or if I've got bitterness, fear, or insecurity building up inside me and I don't know it yet, a trial can squeeze that junk right out. For instance, if you happen to get a 2nd-degree burn on your thumb while you're cooking dinner one night, do you shout profanities and curse God? or do you pray for healing and come home from the emergency room exhausted but thankful? and wiser?

My point is that God uses trials to make us more like Jesus and draw us closer to Him, if we respond the right way. God didn't burn my thumb -- I did, and it was an accident -- but He used the situation to strengthen my faith. (And I also learned what oven mitts are for. And my thumb healed very nicely, hallelujah. :))

So, when I say that I'm going through the wringer, that means that God's got me in a trial or series of trials to see what I'm made of, squeeze all the junk out, and make me stronger in Him. I have a feeling that a good chunk of 2009 may be like this for me, and I would like to share this journey with you. I'm in uncharted territory, and I think I'm going to learn lots of new things about how God made me and how Jesus can live His life through me. I'm probably going to write a lot about my emotional healing. I think some old issues that I thought were resolved are still lingering, and some new issues may have cropped up.

In the past, when I've gone through trials and haven't responded the right way (i.e., haven't taken my pain to Jesus or trusted Him), it's led to depression (a slimy pit that I don't want to go back to). But that was the past. I'm a newly reconstructed creature who knows who her Heavenly Daddy is. And as an aspiring writer, I've learned to channel the angst into a healthy expression. Hopefully. :)

So, if you think Christians are supposed to be happy all the time, boy are you in for a surprise. :) For the record, yes, Christians aren't supposed to be depressed, because in Christ, we've got access to all the joy, peace, and love we could ever need! But God knows our hearts, and He wants us to be honest with Him and pour it all out to Him. We have Somebody to run to when we're hurting.

I'm probably going to be very vulnerable and share some private information in this blog series (well, about as private as you can get on the internet), so please don't be cruel. :) If you've ever wondered what goes on behind my smile or behind that overly pensive look I get on my face sometimes, you're about to get some answers.

Dear readers, I offer you... THE WRINGER CHRONICLES.

What's a Windowbrawl, anyway?

2009-04-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

When I lived with my parents a few years ago, my little half-Siamese female cat used to visit a sunroom that was in the back of the house. Unfortunately, the neighbor's larger black-and-white female cat would frequently trespass in the backyard and pick fights with my cat through the window. I wonder if both felines felt braver in fighting each other since they were protected by the window and didn't actually make any contact?

I've noticed that I'm much braver when I'm writing than when I'm talking in person. This world is nuts. There are all sorts of issues floating around that need to be addressed, and if you're introverted like me, it can be intimidating to confront a person who gets in your face and debates the crap out of you. But I figure if I'm sitting at my computer, protected by the "window" of the monitor and not actually getting the crap kicked out of me while I'm "brawling," it's all good. :) Yay, America! Yay, freedom of speech! Yay, freedom of expression!

I'd like to use this blog to express my ideas, probably address some controversial issues, and more than likely just ramble about random ideas that float through my head while I keep friends updated on my life. I hope you'll laugh, and/or cry, and/or clench your fist and... well, unclench your fist long enough to type in a comment. Let it all be in the spirit of Psalm 144.

For now, I'll be double-posting entries from my blog on MySpace. I'll insert the most recent posts from there on here shortly. (If you'd like to read really old posts, please refer to the Decidedly Wandering blog I shared with my friend Debbie.)

Thanks for reading, God bless, and come again. :)