....wuz mah birfday!

Well, okay, not yet. Not until Monday. But tonight was my birthday party. Loving friends, freaking amazing cake, food so tasty it bordered on immoral, fun pictures, and a two-hour jump-a-thon on the trampoline.
For those of you that don't know, the last two months have been indescribably frustrating. Tonight was what I needed, a break in the gloom, a concentration of every good thing in my life into one evening. I even got my mom to get on speaker phone and tell the embarrassing stories that I hear every year. My birthday wouldn't be complete without them. It's my version of a birthday spanking. I don't grow properly unless I get that connection to the child within.
So tonight, sweaty and exhausted from jumping on the trampoline and laughing myself sick, I climbed in the shower, and played with my new Japanese Cherry Blossom shower gel (courtesy the POCettes). Got out, slathered myself with the matching lotion, and crawled into the World's Softest Bathrobe.
Purr, purr, purr.....
So, once every couple of years I have to do this, and tonight just seems to be the perfect night. Everything I love is snuggling itself up on me like a warm little nest. It's like a stupid Disney movie where all the woodland creatures are creeping up on the heroine because she's so happy and content. My woodland creature catalog would include gerbils, penguins, and beavers.

Anyway, here it is-

My Favorite things (in a rough kind of order):

Butterflies
Cool nights
Laughing until I can't breathe
The soft ache in your muscles that tells you you've played just enough.
Sparkles
Fresh cut flowers
Incense
Scented bath goodies
Fuzzy animals
Trampolines
The POC
Watching video games
LOLcats ( http://www.icanhascheezburger.com )
Webcomics
Tonya's cooking
Old people
Penguins
Down pillows
Fuzzy bath robes
Box fans
Bubbles
Candy with stuff in the center
Cookies
Hoops and YoYo cards
Back scratches (gentle ones! I'll never get those people that like the skin clawed off their backs)
Big, snuggly hugs (I view hugs the way people look at handshakes. Weak and clammy hugs just....suck. And they reflect poorly on you! And they make me feel not liked! It's okay, though, the one person I know that gives icky hugs makes up for it with other variegated coolnesses)
Ladybugs
Pill bugs
Did I mention sparkles?
The smell of grass and earth
Sarcasm

I could go on all night. But if you look at this list, 90% of it was present at the party tonight.
So, to anyone who wished me a happy birthday, but especially those that were able to make it to the party...thank you for giving me the best party in the history of birthdays.
Love you guys!

STOP GRABBIN' THE WHEEL, DANG IT!!!

Panera has entirely too many choices for bagels. I grew up with PLAIN, BLUEBERRY, and CINNAMON RAISIN.
I blame New York, personally. They gave us all the concept of hundreds of different varieties of bagels, but did not warn us that this kind of variety is given for a city of thirty bajillion people.

God often uses my AM quiet time to shove things in my face that I would never, ever, ever see otherwise. Even if it's all coming together, I would never see it if not for the "living and active" status of His Word.

This morning's lesson: STOP GRABBIN' THE DANG WHEEL! The surest way to cause a wreck while someone else is driving is to grab the wheel and try to steer yourself. The fact is that whether I like it or not God is in the driver's seat, and will remain there for the duration of everything. Amen, thank you Jesus. But why do we get so bummed and frustrated and flat-out neurotic when we have to stop trying to drive?
I personally hate driving. It is a nifty and efficient way to get where I am going, no lie. It can also be a zen experience with the proper stretches of pavement. Also, my GPS has changed my life and made driving a much more pleasant experience. Still, with all this....I hate driving. There is nothing worse than being in thick traffic with people weaving in and out half an inch from my bumper and having to brake hard with said people all up in my car's bidness. I would much rather have someone else driving.
There's a catch, though. As POC alumni Laura can attest, I am a complete wuss when it comes to letting others drive. I have to spend tense moments with my hands over my eyes. Laura even started just slapping her hand across my eyelids when she was about to do something squirrely. This is a necessary preventative measure.
See, I've got really, really, really, REALLY bad depth perception. This has made me a much safer driver than I might otherwise be, as I always brake slowly, carefully, and always just a smidge early. Others without this handicap do not find this necessary. Therefore, their safe distance is my "OMG IM GONNA DIE" zone. I am aware of my own deficiency, and know that if I watch, I will scream. Or try to grab the wheel.
Problem with life is that we can't close our eyes and not look while God drives. He wants us to watch the scenery, learn from Him, talk to Him. But we all have really awful spiritual depth perception. So we see what we think is impending disaster, when in actuality, God's already got His foot on the brake. And we scream. And grab the wheel. And then we WRECK.
Shocked? I hope not.
In Psalm 42 David is giving his soul a pep talk, telling himself over and over to put his trust in God Almighty, reminding himself of the great works God has wrought. Later, in chapter 44, he reminds himself that in all these instances it was nothing of human doing that brought about these miracles.
"It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them to victory; it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, for You loved them."

And guess what? He loves us too. We are every bit as much His chosen ones as the Israelites were. We were adopted into His family as blood relatives, dear children of a mighty King. Even when we act like little brats, we're still His children, and our hands will not win the fight. His hands over ours will, though.

Trusting God is hard for me right now, and I know it's hard for some other people in my life. It's not gonna stop being hard.

But what if, for just a second, we put our hands in our laps and stopped looking at the road ahead and started looking at our Daddy's face? What if we saw that its calm, relaxed features showed no symptom of being lost or confused or stressed by the traffic? The heart takes what the heart needs, so we're going to feel the way we're going to feel and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Except trust. And hope. And believe. And praise through and in and around difficulty. And I think that's quite enough of a full time job, especially during the hard times.

Let's face it, side-seat driving is just gonna make us carsick.

I would ask whoever's reading this if they ever have one of those days where everything seems to go wrong, but I've never been a fan of questions with obvious answers. Plus, when your attitude is stuck like mine is today, the last thing you want to hear is someone say they know what you're going through. Be warned...that's the easiest way to get sarcasm-ed into unconsciousness when I'm cranky.

Okay, maggots. I Kings 18 and 19. One of the most useful passages I have ever found for dealing with depression. Don't kid yourself. Everyone suffers with it from time to time. The twit-witted pill-popping docs that got their medical license from a box of cracker jacks seem to think that jacking with the body's seratonin levels is a good idea. I want to see a doc that won't prescribe pills until diet change, hydration, B12 and omega 3 supplements, light exposure, and exercise haven't worked. But ANYWAY. The fact is that it happens to everyone. As I have so efficiently demonstrated in this blog already, one's first inclination during the "poor me" phase is to say or think that no one else has ever suffered like you in the entire history of the world. Ugh. The last person that actually had the chutzpah to SAY that around me got their hides nailed to the wall.
Sorry, guys. See, anger turned inward is depression. Right now, I'm on anger turned inside-out and diagonal, then tied into a slipknot.
Depression is a perfectly normal response to a valley in one's life, or even just a spiritual attack. In the passage in Kings, Elijah had just won a great victory for God. Somehow, Satan convinced him that, even with the backing of a God who thought enough of him to send fire down from the heavens onto his altar, he needed to fear for his life.
So the pressures of the world got to him. Think about that scene on Mount Carmel. All those prophets running around, gouging knives into their flesh to make blood run, some possibly passing out, screaming, setting things on fire. The cacophany must have been absolutely deafening and jarring to the nerves. And this went on all day and into the evening. The smells of blood and sweat and rotting meat all would have blended together into a cloud of nausea. The ridiculous spectacle had gone on long enough for Elijah. Finally, he finished repairing the Lord's altar that someone had trashed. He dug a trench around it while everyone watched. Just like always, everyone thought he was crazy. No matter how many times what he said turned out to be right, no matter how many miracles God worked through his ministry, he was always just crazy Elijah. Finally, the trench was deep enough to hold a few gallons of water. The offering was divided and placed into the altar's top. People jeered at him as he began to douse the entire setup in water. Crazy old Elijah. Of course the Lord would respond to his cry. Of course the offering would be set on fire. But these people still wouldn't believe. This day would not end happily, no matter how careful he was, no matter how many miracles happened. He and his servants finished pouring the water, and Elijah prayed a simple prayer. Fire came down from heaven. Of course it did. It consumed everything in its path. Of course. Then, only then did everyone fall face down and believe. Only then was God a God of nations. It took God performing like a trained monkey before they would believe. And so, it was time to do what had to be done.
"Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away."
The scene of slaughter was hideous. The smell of death was on the wind, and human screams ripped through the air like cracks of thunder. When all was done, a cold fear gripped the company, and they did what any animal with three brain cells would do. They ran. They ran into a safe place, and when they arrived, Elijah told them to stay. On he walked, into the desert, now crazy old Elijah again. The next group he met would probably think he was nuts too. It didn't matter. He'd probably wind up having to kill them too, just like the prophets of Baal. Now, not only did people think he was crazy, they also hated him.
On he walked, through the dryness, scarcely conscious of the blisters growing on his feet. His legs went numb, and on he walked, praying that his breathing would stop, that his heart would still, and that he would fall away into the blackness of death. Finally, he stumbled and fell to his knees under a broom tree, the scratchy branches providing mediocre shade against the searing heat of the day, and he slept.
In times like this, God is gentle. He knows our hearts can't take much more. The human frame He built from dust is only designed to stand so much despair before it ceases to function. So He let Elijah sleep, only letting His angel wake the man when food and liquid became a necessity. Then, the angel cradled and fed the half-insensible man and let him fall back to sleep.
When he woke, the last leg of the journey was a little easier. Numbness carried him to Horeb, the mountain where God was said to dwell. Elijah went into a cave and waited, miserable, not even caring if God would exact justice on him for his lousy outlook, just hoping that it killed him so that he could see an end to this suffering. While fire burned and the earth shook outside the cave, Elijah waited.
Then, he heard it. The still, small whisper that signaled the approach of the Creator of time and space. Elohim was coming. Chills of awe and fear and wonder racked Elijah's body as he covered his face and left the darkness of the cavern. God's voice was so soft, so undemanding, with a note that said He had seen and understood everything Elijah had been through, inside and out.
"What are you doing here, Elijah?"
Elijah's composure broke, and everything he had suffered came spilling out through choking and tears and shame. Abba waited patiently for him to finish, then began giving him instructions. Elijah could scarcely believe his ears. God was telling him to go anoint one who would put to death those that threatened his life. And not only was he not the only crazy man that followed El Shaddai, the followers were seven thousand strong. He was not alone in his service. He would follow the Lord's voice, and he wouldn't be put to shame, at least not in the eyes of those who mattered. God had been preparing the way all this time, and was not even angry at Elijah for his momentary wavering in attitude. Instead, He had gently lifted him up and shown him that things really weren't all that bad.
And that, ladies and gents, is the Elijah prescription for depression. Rest, eat, pray, and listen. Better than Zoloft, huh?

I spend half my day asking animals "What's the matter?"
"What's the matter, Mollie? Why are you running in circles in the dining room and looking angsty? I know you didn't poo on the carpet, so that leaves eating something. WHAT DID YOU EAT?"
"What's the matter, Trippy? You look bilious. Did you eat a poison spider? Oh crap, you ate a poison spider, didn't you? Oh....never mind, I guess it was just gas."
"Old Lady, what's the matter? Why are you standing next to the food can and screaming? What's that you say? Too old to chow down on the dry food Trippy eats? Need soft food for your poor toothless mouth? POOR BABY!"
I should make them each a cue card that reads "Either I ate something or I want to eat something or I need to get rid of something I ate yesterday." That would solve it, and I could stop asking that question and get back to watching YouTube.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Psalm 139:23, 24

"It's no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy; 'cause every now and then I kick the livin' **** outta me."
LIT, "My Own Worst Enemy."

Satan is evil. Satan is not a little red dude in a jump suit with a pitchfork and a goatee. He is big and powerful, and he hates my guts. He hates that I am given a redemption he was denied. He hates that I, filthy little worm that I am, have access to the Glory of God, while he is doomed beneath it. He wants me to die, and if not, to at least be ineffectual for the Kingdom. To do this, he will use every power at his disposal to steal, kill, and destroy in my life. He has been alive since before the earth was created, knows the ins and outs of humanity, and is wiser than most other creatures alive. He will use this knowledge to destroy me in any way possible.
And yet, I am not as frightened of him as I am of myself.
See, it goes like this: God promised victory over Satan in the end. I know that if I abide in Christ, and He in me, I can ask whatever I will, and it's a-gonna happen, and that's one tool Satan doesn't have. So his mission now is to keep me from abiding in Christ.
This is dreadfully easy, as I'd rather play on the computer than read my Bible.
I'm not going to lie. I'm no good at it. When I wake up in the morning, my first inclination is to reach down and grab the laptop, rather than reaching over and grabbing the Word. More often than not, I do, until guilt overwhelms me and I put the puter away or turn it on Pandora in favor of Scripture.
On a good day.
God knew how hard this would be for us as humans. He knew, and He made a way out. As I am famous (or rather, notorious) for saying in Homegroup, "Everyone has a different Jesus-shaped hole, and none of our holes are exactly the same." I was tired, get off me.
God gave us a thirst for Home. He gave us a burning, unquenchable desire to be with Him. We all have it, whether we know it or not. We can use a million other things to fill it, but the thirst will still be there. Even when we quench it properly, with the presence of God, it will be there all over again in the morning, demanding to be filled.
When I taught Nurse Aides, I had a student who was, and still is, one of my very favorites. She is bright, funny, cheerful, a hard worker, and genuinely cares about people. One day, we were having a particularly grueling clinical. A group of us were in a patient room trying, for the forty-fifth time, to learn how to take someone's blood pressure. It's a lot harder than it sounds. We were all sweaty and cranky and I had two bruised arms from letting the students practice on me. This student poked me and asked if I had any gum. It just so happened that I did, and as I was pulling a stick out for her, she told me, "Thanks, I'm thirsty."
"...You're what now? You're thirsty?"
"Yeah."
Hydration is one of my big pet peeves, especially since I am so poor at staying properly irrigated myself. "Hon, there's a water cooler in the front lobby. Go get a drink."
"No, that's okay. I want to stay here and watch what's going on. I'll be fine."
Anyone who knows me will not doubt what happened next. I reached up (she's quite a bit taller than me), grabbed her by the ear, and dragged her down the hall, through the locked doors, and into the front lobby. I did not release her ear until she had a full cup of water in her hand and was drinking it.
"Now, what did you learn?"
"I learned not to make Erin mad."
"Try again."
"I learned not to chew gum instead of drinking water."
"Right. You're leaving yourself open for all kinds of problems if you let yourself get dehydrated, especially at work."
"Okay. My ear hurts."

See, her body was telling her that she needed water via a dry mouth. Chewing gum would have pacified that cue, but it wouldn't have fixed the problem. She was thirsty. Her cells and tissues needed fluid to keep working. She could have ignored it, but it would have hurt her. Over time, the cumulative damage of denying your body fluid can lead to organ failure.
See where this little metaphor is going? Good, then I don't need to tell you.
Most vices are the result of a desperate attempt to fill our Jesus-shaped void. When I say desperate, I mean it. Check out some of Webster's definitions for desperate:
1: arising from or marked by despair or loss of hope;
4: showing extreme courage; especially of actions courageously
undertaken in desperation as a last resort;
5: showing extreme urgency or intensity especially because of
great need or desire;
6: fraught with extreme danger; nearly hopeless

I think 5 is my favorite. We are a fat-cat world, and most of America has never had to go hungry a day in their lives. A while back, I did a ten day fast....NOT one of my best decisions ever. I learned what it was like to be without food. Because of chronic hypoglycemia, I never hit that phase most people hit of no hunger. I stayed painfully, achingly hungry the full ten days, and there were times that I was desperate to eat, and I was on my face before God praying for just one more day of grace. I think we may have forgotten what desperation is like. We have tried to still that thirst within, and have managed to blunt the knife edge, when all we need to do is drink from the well that is RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FREAKIN' FACES!
Seriously! It's there! It may not feel like it's helping anything at first, but God shows Himself faithful every stinkin' time.
Before I sound hypocritical, let me clarify: I'm thirsty, too, and I'm among the worst of gum-chewers. Denial is the most addictive of all drugs, and I have used all kinds of distractions to help me continue it.
What distractions, you say?
None of your business. Figure out your own and leave me alone.
My point is that this thirst is a Godsend, literally. Without it we would recede into apathy, and miss the beautiful letdown that comes from humbling ourselves before God and telling Him that we can't quench the thirst on our own. It's a process that has to be repeated over and over, but it's worth it. If I could stop fighting myself long enough to let God work, I'd be in pretty good shape. But as you will find if you take a quick read through these archives, I'm more inclined to the moronic.
Oh well. Thank God for loving morons.

A Day in the Life

So because of a monster throat and ear ache I've been experiencing, my trusty rice pillow has been tossed in the microwave repeatedly today. It feels better than a heating pad and cools down automatically, which is better for your tissues. Anyhow, I heated it up one last time before I settled in, went to do something, and when I came back, my 3,000 year old cat had pressed her back up against it and closed her eyes blissfully like she had at last found completion. My ear still hurts, but I can't bring myself to take it away from her.
Now, I know the five people following this blog must sit around at times and wonder what it must be like to live glamorous life in my sexy shoes. I know, I know, it's hard to fathom what it must be like to be a part of the riches and fame that comprise my life. Fear not! I have taken the liberty of writing out my to-do list here. In the immortal words of Roomie Lisa, "I write down the things at the end of the day that I've already done, and cross them out as soon as I write them down."
Check it out. This list is at least marginally chronologically accurate.

1. Crawl out of bed.
2. Go to bathroom.
3. Stagger downstairs into kitchen.
4. Grunt at Lisa.
5. Back upstairs to bed.
6. Sleep four more hours.
7. Quiet Time, AKA: Blog Fodder.
8. Yell at various people via text message.
9. Answer E-Mails
10. Talk with Dad on phone for an hour or so, listening to stories so that you don't have to talk, thus upsetting the monster ulcer that now resides in a den somewhere in your left tonsil.
10. Travel with Lisa to watch an independent film.
11. Repeat.
12. Stop by Kroger on the way back for nutritive substances that are Erin-Friendly. Sweat profusely in line, wishing that there were more registers open after 9PM. Realize that the ick in your throat may actually be an illness. Lodge yourself firmly back into denial.
13. Back at home, make Erin-Friendly soup. Check to see if there is ice cream left. Upon realizing that there is, squeal at the top of your lungs and jump up and down.
14. Eat soup in bed while watching YouTube.
15. Wake up with face plastered to keyboard halfway through "Gabriel Iglesias: Hot and Fluffy." Turn off computer. Grunt.
16. Sleep for the next twelve hours.

And there it is. That is my life when I am not working. And sick.
Even Jesus took days off.

Cliff bars are relatively delicious.

Okay, people, check out the first nine verses of Psalm 31. I would write it out here if I were your kindergarten teacher. Go read it yourself, lazysaurus! We're commanded over and over not to fret when we see people seemingly rewarded for doing wrong. I admit, as a chronic comparer of myself to others, I've been guilty of this a lot. I don't think I'd be able to count the times I fought and starved(figuratively speaking, of course. Food and I have a torrid love affair. Except circus peanuts. Those things are wicked-nasty) to do the "moral" thing. In the end I didn't feel one bit blessed, which (I told myself, while sulking over a comic book and a box of cookies) was okay, since virtue is its own reward, or some goody-goody baloney like that. But then I looked at others who either didn't care or seemed to be deliberately trying to live in the most immoral way possible. I am talking Brittney Spears, Dawson's Creek, Circus Peanut-level immorality. And their lives were fantastic!! That was when I had a Jonah moment and exploded at God, waved my arms, paced around, and told Him that it was all wrong, unfair, and humiliating after all I had done to watch the wicked be blessed while I struggled. Then I knocked over the best lamp in God's living room, kicked a throw rug, and stomped away while God glanced at me over the top of His newspaper, completely unaffected by my tantrum.
The whole process took a very long time to resolve, but finally God humbled me enough so that I could listen to His rebuttal. It went something like this.
"Wrong? I invented right and wrong. Keep listening and I'll tell you all about it. Fair? Be glad I'm not fair. Fair ended at the cross. Your salvation is what's unfair. Fair should be a dirty word in your vocabulary. Fair should be something you avoid at all costs. I could be fair, but I guarantee you that you wouldn't survive it. You think that behaving like my child is humiliating? It's an easy life, being a pig, lolling around in mud and pooping where you stand, but any good parent wouldn't let their child act like that. Parents that love their children bring them up to be polite and respectful, not letting them act like the pigs that are carried away by the butcher. Now stop your griping, eat your danged vegetables, and go play outside. I love you, kiddo, and I congratulate myself on creating you, but danged if you don't act dumber than a sack of snot sometimes."
God has to get krunk with me sometimes. But I gotta tell you, He knows what He's doing. And He's sure right. I do act dumber than a sack of snot.
Probably the only verse in the Bible that I just don't like is "He disciplines those He loves."
ARGH! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
If He loved me, He would zap me with insta-discipline, insta-charisma, and insta-faith. Right? RIGHT???
Wrong. We were created to be God's companions. If He creates us as we are to be with no capacity or necessity for growth, we would be pretty poor companions. It would be like a crazy scientist creating an android to keep him company. As we all know from watching Star Trek, an android without the desire or need for growth is nothing more than a part of the scenery.
....did I just nerd out for a minute, there? Sorry.
We were put in this beautiful, amazing, fallen world with the desire for growth and change, because our ultimate goal is to be the companions of God. How COOL is that? That's like your favorite celebrity (Sandra Bullock? YES PLEASE!) calling you up and saying "I want you to quit your job. I need a friend, and I think you're it. You could be my best friend full-time." But you'd have to learn to walk the celebrity walk. You'd have to look good accompanying her on the red carpet as her BFF. You'd have to know the ins and outs of a Hollywood set. You'd have to know all about all the things that interest her.
Being God's BFF is about a bazillion times harder, but infinitely more worth it. But we've got to learn how to walk the Holy walk. We've got to look good as a pure specimen of His kingdom. We've got to know the ins and outs of the Word. We've got to know about the things that touch God's heart. That takes work, people. Hard, hard work. We're humans, and we like to be lazy. I know it's one of my favorite things. But if we're not growing, we're stagnating, becoming apathetic, part of the scenery.
I make one ugly tree. The scenery thing doesn't work for me.
Neither do Circus Peanuts.