Open your abused mouth and say, "AAAAAH!"

Earlier this week, I visited the dentist for the first time in 12 or 15 years. I say "or" because I honestly don't remember when or where my last dental visit took place. But I remember why I've been avoiding any kind of dental exam.

I had bucked teeth when I was a kid, so I wore braces when I was ages 9-13. The reason why my orthodontic treatment lasted so long was because I sabotaged it. When I was a kid, I lied constantly. I hated my braces. They made my teeth sore, poked into my gums, and kept me from eating many foods that I liked. (Or they'd keep bits of foods that I liked on display for all to see.) When no one was looking, I'd find a mirror, get an ink pen, and undo one or more of the tie wires on my braces. One time, I successfully removed the entire wire that spanned across my entire top row of teeth. When people would ask me what happened to the wires, I would tell them that the wires just fell off. I know now why I would lie, but I don't know why nobody confronted me with my lying. (And I don't know why nobody noticed that there were more serious issues underneath that lying little girl who didn't want her little mouth to be repaired.)

An orthodontist named Dr. Letmeyell Atyou (not his real name) was in charge of most of my treatment. In retrospect, I don't understand what the heck he was thinking when he decorated his office. In general, people who wear braces are not advised to eat foods that will get stuck in their braces. Popcorn is food that should be avoided and could possibly break a bracket. So, Dr. Letmeyell Atyou had a popcorn machine at the front of his office, and his receptionist would give me a bag of popcorn before I would leave each visit. Um, does anybody else besides me see anything wrong with this?

After the braces finally came off, I was required to wear retainers. Perhaps you can guess how faithfully I adhered to that treatment. (I think I ended up breaking one of the retainers.) So, my bottom row of teeth became crooked again. I went back to Dr. Letmeyell Atyou's office, where he finally lived up to his name. After he reapplied braces to my bottom teeth, he barked at me that if I messed up my teeth again, he wouldn't fix them. Dang. Maybe I should have just kept my bucked teeth.

Fast-forward to 23 years later, and all it took was one morning of me feeling food get smushed up into my gum where a tooth should have been, and I called a dentist to make an appointment. This time, I chose a nice doctor in a posh suburb on purpose. The decorations in this doctor's office made more sense to me. I don't usually like sports, but I liked how I got to watch part of a soccer game with closed captions during my tooth exam. Technology made this visit pleasant, too. I got X-ray results in seconds. Sure enough, I have a hole in my tooth, and I need to get it repaired with a crown.

The dental personnel looked at my teeth X-rays and told me that my roots were very long. She said that I had probably never worn braces. But I replied that I had, and I told her an extremely short version of the story that you just read. I also found out that my tooth decay has not reached the tooth's nerve, so that's why I hadn't been feeling any pain there. That's a good thing.

Wait. After all that blood, sweat, tears, and years of metal in my mouth, a trained dental professional can't even tell that I had worn braces?

I will now distract you with some comic relief by showing you a picture of my cat trying to take a nap in my clothes hamper -- a forbidden realm for felines in my home. Heh, heh. Now I'm not the only one in this blog entry who broke rules.

"He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet." (Proverbs 27:7)

I will now talk about a very serious topic. I've learned that growing up in an abusive environment can mean growing up with a distorted view of love. It can be extremely difficult to leave your abusive environment because you have affection for your abusers. But someone who grows up in an abusive environment may not know how to give or receive love without abusing or being abused. Perhaps the abuse is mixed in with the love, or the abuse is mixed in with what is claimed to be love. I think the verse in Proverbs that I quoted above illustrates this a bit. If you're starved for love, and you can't tell the difference between love and abuse, perhaps you'll gulp down the abuse and think that you're gulping down love. Or perhaps you'll even develop a craving for abuse, because it's all you've known. How are you to know the difference between bitter and sweet if all you've ever been fed is bitter, and you're told that it's sweet?

Jesus can show you the difference, if you'll let Him. He's the Sweetest One you'll ever meet. Maybe I'm sounding a little cheesy, but a woman who's in love with the Fairest of Ten Thousand (I'm talking about Jesus -- see Song of Solomon 5:10) is going to sound a little cheesy sometimes.

Jesus is the One who makes the crooked places straight and the rough places smooth. He restores what's been lost. He heals what's been broken. And He probably won't yell at abuse victims and threaten to stop treatment while He's healing them.

"A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out." (Isaiah 42:3)

"Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever." (Psalm 125:1, NKJV)

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." (Psalm 1:3)

I've also learned that if you grow up in an abusive environment, especially if you don't realize that it's abusive, the abuse could become so familiar to you that you become comfortable with it. After you leave your abusive environment, you could even reproduce it because it's all you know. Where you're planted -- where you settle and let your roots grow -- is extremely important. If you're planted deeply in the abusive environment, it could be extremely difficult to uproot yourself and replant yourself in a safe environment. But if you're planted deeply in God, He'll nurture and protect you. If you trust Him, all kinds of troubles and trials could get hurled at you, and you won't be moved.

It would be as if your mouth had braces trauma as a child, and when your mouth is examined as an adult, a trained eye can't spot the past trauma right away because of how deep the roots have gone. Perhaps the pain isn't smarting as it should yet because the decay hasn't reached the nerve yet. But it's OK, because you're in a safe place where the problem can be repaired, before the damage worsens or spreads, and you know that you're in good hands.

I didn't put a disclaimer at the beginning of this blog post. I hope that's OK. I also hope that I didn't say or imply anything offensive, and I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings, honest. I'm trying to sort through life, make sense of my past, and hopefully in the process help other people who have gone through similar experiences. I wasn't sure at first how deep I would go with this post. Heh, heh. Truth has a funny way of sneaking up on you sooner or later.

Dishes and cats

Now that I've got your attention, I should probably explain that I couldn't think of a deeply symbolic title for this blog post, so I thought I'd try the direct approach. Hmm. I may have accidentally achieved the cat-hater's approach in the process. (Um, I DON'T eat cats.) For the record, I'm hopelessly a cat person, and I love my feline babies extremely much. I even recently unfriended a couple of people on Facebook for some remarks about people putting cats in their profile pictures. Even after I walked away from Facebook for a little while to cool down. True story. Crazy-serious cat lady. (Um, Tirzah, are you calm enough to write in complete sentences now?)

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven... a time to keep and a time to throw away..." (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6b)

"Out of the brightness of His presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot His arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them... He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me." (Psalm 18:12-14, 17-19)

"The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalm 147:2-3)

If you've followed my blog for a while, perhaps you're acquainted with my adventures in learning how to clean house. (Trumpet fanfare plays here.) I've recently made the coolest discovery ever in housecleaning: throwing stuff away! (Kazoo plays here.)

Here's a "before" snapshot of my kitchen sink circa two months ago. I honestly lost track of how long those dishes had been sitting there, but after careful consideration, I decided that some of them weren't worth saving. I dumped some of them in the trash. I'll spare you the icky details. My sink now, as I'm typing this, is totally empty except for a few plates that I've pulled out of box storage and will relocate into cupboard storage very soon, but instead of snapping an "after" photo, I'll just keep typing and save room for the upcoming cat photo. I did mention that I love my kitties, right?

My kitchen isn't spotless, but it looks so much better. That's what happens when you're a non-domestic bachelorette: You prioritize! You spend less time attempting to cook for one, and you spend more time blogging. You spend less time dusting, and you spend more time sorting through and throwing away the piles of outdated documents and junk mail that have been collecting dust. You spend less time being a well-intentioned pack rat, and you spend more time lugging stuff out to the Dumpster and walking back with a relieved smile to your home where you know that your babies are waiting for you, and they ain't gonna miss the trash that you just threw out.

I don't like to waste stuff. There is some stuff that can be dusted off, scrubbed clean, and rescued for further use. But sometimes you just gotta let stuff go and move on.

But some stuff is definitely worth keeping.

Here is Macho inside the carrier. Choochie is on top of the carrier. There isn't any deep, spiritual symbolism in this particular photo; I just thought it was adorable that she jumped onto the carrier and started sniffing it while he was inside it. Anyway, during Macho's recent trip to the vet, I learned that he has cataracts and dental disease. He's 12 and a half years old, so he's developed some expensive senior-cat issues. I won't do anything about the cataracts (the vet told me that cataracts are just a natural part of a cat's aging, and surgery isn't necessary), but I'll need to get his teeth cleaned soon.

Once in a while, I'll hear about kittens who need good homes, and I can't take them in because I'm already at my pet limit. But wouldn't it be easier to just get rid of my old cats and start over with some new ones?

No way! I even had trouble typing it two sentences ago. I wouldn't trade my aging Macho and Choochie for a zillion brand-new heartbreakingly adorable, mewing, fully trainable kittens. Macho and Choochie are my babies. They're mine. They know that they're mine. I'm choked up now. I'm not going to throw my babies away.

Sometimes God shows me things inside me that are so rotten, moldy, rusty, and disgusting that I'm amazed that He can even look at me. Wouldn't it be easier to just throw me away?

"Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; You have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." (Psalm 27:9-10)

No way! God bought me with Jesus. He redeemed me. He adopted me. He chose me. He's NOT going to throw me away. I'm a keeper. I'm a fixer-upper. I'm His, and I know that I'm His. I'm choked up again.

I wasn't purchased, redeemed, adopted, or chosen by some wimpy little god that's made out of wood, stone, or clay, either. I belong to the King of Kings. I belong to the Lord of Lords. I belong to the Lion of Judah, the Almighty God, the One who is a consuming fire. Any spiritual enemies who mess with me will have to mess with my Heavenly Father who's already beaten the crap out of them. (By "spiritual enemies," I don't mean people. I mean principalities, powers, and demons, who all lie and who are all serious about destroying me or anyone else who exists.) I may be a crazy-serious cat lady, but I ain't nothin' compared to my Defender. Yeah, that's right. He's got my back.

I'm thinking about my babies again. I was planning to take care of their teeth before I took care of my teeth because I love my babies. And because I hate going to the dentist. (I have an appointment tomorrow, and I'll more than likely blog about my new adventures in trying to not cry in a dentist's chair. Insert whining here.)

Also for the record, that photo I shared earlier today on Facebook (about cooking, family, and a dog) DIDN'T inspire this blog post. It was accidental foreshadowing. Hmm. Or maybe God took care of the foreshadowing for me. Yeah, that's right. He's got my back.

Honey, you never tasted sweeter

About seven months ago, I posted a blog entry called Owie, which Blogger tells me is my most-viewed post so far. I guess people like to read about gory things like ripped-off guitar calluses. Well, reader, if you're one of those callus-photo fans, you're about to get another eyeful. My disclaimer is that this post will most likely be as tangenty as its Owie predecessor, but hopefully it will make sense and all come together in a sweet way.

Recently, some friends reminded me of some advice that I was given years ago: A treatment for allergies is eating local honey. Since the honey is made by local bees with local plants, eating the local honey will get my body used to the local pollen. And it really does work! My allergies bother me much less than they used to. But this natural treatment doesn't work overnight like an allergy pill. This treatment can be unpleasant and quite grueling. What you do with about one tablespoon of local honey is mix it with apple cider vinegar. This bittersweet concoction usually inspires me to sing out loud in falsetto. Wow! But after the allergy season passes, it isn't really necessary to drink the vinegar anymore, and I've enjoyed a little bit of local honey almost every day. It's kept the allergy junk away. Another cool thing about this particular local honey is that it seems to be bottled by a Christian company. They quote this Bible verse on their label:

"How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103)

I recently checked out the rest of this psalm and found some harder sweet stuff.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey Your word. You are good, and what You do is good; teach me Your decrees. Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart. Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in Your law. It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn Your decrees." (Psalm 119:67-71)

The other day while I was sitting in a church service and playing with my guitar calluses, the one on my ring finger (in the photo above, it's the second from the right) mostly peeled off on its own. It was stubborn in coming off, and I ended up ripping off a tiny bit too much. See the little red owie? It's amazing how much a tiny little owie can smart so much that it will distract you from your day-to-day activities. The owie only needed a few days to heal, but while it was doing so...

 

...I had to put a Band-Aid on it so that I could function during my day-to-day activities. The photo above actually has two Band-Aids -- one horizontal and one vertical. Ideally, I should have let the owie heal uncovered, but it was in such a location that uncovered healing wouldn't have been feasible. (All I did was fasten my car seatbelt, and the owie started to bleed. Falsetto!) What I couldn't do normally with two Band-Aids was play my guitar. It was doable, but pressing the bandaged finger on one string to play a chord would muffle one or more nearby strings during the same chord. After a while, I only needed one Band-Aid, and that made guitar-playing more normal-sounding. Band-Aids are nice, but they're so awkward to implement into your life because if you don't keep replacing them with fresh ones, they'll get wet and stinky. Gross.

"But My people would not listen to Me; Israel would not submit to Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If My people would but listen to Me, if Israel would follow My ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before Him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you." (Psalm 81:11-16)

I'm not a theologian, and I'm not a scientist. But I know what it's like to be in emotional pain, and I know what it's like to be in the middle of a healing process, and I know what it's like to finally obey God and let Him heal some owies, even when it feels like He's ripped off a little too much of a callus, and I know how embarrassing it can be when He gently or violently peels away the old, moist, gross Band-Aids. And I know what His honey tastes like.

There's a story in Judges 14 about Samson's encounter with a lion. Basically, the animal charges him, and God's Spirit gives Samson strength to rip the lion apart with his bare hands. Then afterwards, Samson discovers that some bees made some honey in the lion's carcass.

Speaking of violence, I think honey itself is a very ironic substance. It's made by bees, which are creatures that have been known to painfully sting people. Honey is made when bees regurgitate nectar. So, when I eat honey, I'm basically consuming a product that's been spit up by stinging insects. Ain't honey sweet?

Speaking of sweetness, I might never seriously consider getting a tattoo, but if I did, that's what it would say. (And it would probably go on my forehead instead of on my arm near my rock-star bracelet.) I'm not sure why, but relatives, friends, and perfect strangers alike can be very quick to call me "sweetie." I've finally started speaking up for myself in recent years and asking people to NOT call me that. I can understand the need for people to give me a nickname because my real name can be difficult to pronounce, but "sweetie" is the one name that I usually don't tolerate. I'm not exactly sure why, but it has bugged me so much that I even composed a newspaper column about my aversion for "sweetie" several years ago, and I wrote it into a song last year, and here I am displaying a photo of a fake tattoo for everybody to read. OK, so maybe there's some sweetness in my personality that God put there. But honey is often the result of a process.

"The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon." (Psalm 29:4-5)

So, this same voice of God that can be so gentle, still, and comforting is also powerful enough to rip apart cedars and, well, my insides. God is so sweet, but He's also the toughest, strongest Person in the universe. In Revelation 5:5, Jesus is called the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Lions roar. Lions are dangerous. Lions are capable of destroying creatures. Yet in Malachi 4:2, Jesus is also the Sun of Righteousness who will arise with healing in His wings. And in Ephesians 3 and Colossians 1, Jesus is also a mystery.

I'll go off on a major tangent now. Last night, I ordered a livers meal at Chicken Express with a side of okra. I ended up getting livers and jalapeño poppers. I'm not sure how the guy behind the counter thought "okra" sounded like "poppers," but I thought I'd go with the flow and try the poppers. Even though half my gene pool is Hispanic, I usually avoid jalapeños because I'm not fond of spicy foods, and jalapeños kinda scare me. I was afraid that my taste buds were going to ignite on fire for the rest of the evening, but to my surprise, the jalapeño poppers weren't that scary, and I actually liked them. I wouldn't want to eat too many of them at a time or eat them very often, but I was pleased at how tough my taste buds were. I've even developed a craving for them in the past 24 hours. Poppers!

When I get in God's presence -- the presence of the Lion who is capable of ripping apart cedar forests with His voice, the Healer who shines the brightest Light in the darkest places of my heart, the Promised One who assures me mysteriously yet absolutely of my eternal standing -- it can be sweet and scary simultaneously. If I'm wounded, He'll want to heal me, and I'll want to let Him, but it might be a messy process. There are lots of things I'd rather do with my time than curl up in a fetal position on my couch and bawl my eyes out while I'm feeling the worst emotional pain I've ever felt in my entire life, but if it means that the God of all comfort will comfort me directly in the process, well, I'm probably gonna develop a craving for this process. Sometimes Band-Aids are necessary if the process is an excruciatingly long one. For example, sometimes I'll need to seek comic relief so that I can keep my brain from melting down after thinking about an issue for hours on end. (Check out Proverbs 17:22. And cats are usually awesome comic relief.) But God has taught me that there usually isn't a shortcut to the unpleasant, grueling healing process.

So, sweetness can spring from brokenness. I wonder if the rock that Psalm 81 talks about -- the Rock where the honey comes from -- is actually Jesus in a way. I wonder if the lion in Judges 14 -- the Lion inside which the honey was made -- is actually symbolic of Jesus in a way.

I heard a pastor say at a church service once that the root of an allergy is having a broken heart. Maybe part of the reason that my allergies don't bother me as much anymore is because Jesus is healing my heart. Or maybe consuming His honey is actually treating my broken heart in a way that it repairs and reconditions my heart to beat the way that He created it to beat -- sweetly and strongly, without any owies.

I wonder if there's such a thing as sweet jalapeños. Poppers!