Who first thought of mixing milk, sugar, and ice? I don't know, but they were brilliant.
I love icecream. I LOVE icecream. It started when I was in college. It didn't help when I started working at the Snack Shop--my job was to serve icecream and make milkshakes. Everyone knew if you accidentally made more milkshake than the plastic cup could hold . . .you could sneak behind the divider and drink the leftovers. YUM! I loved to mix two or three different flavors. Options included Espresso Chip, Mint Chip, Butterfinger, Chocolate, Vanilla, Birthday Cake--but I digress.
Then there was Bible Conference freshman year where the field house offered $1 milkshakes for the week. A friend and I went over there, had a milkshake, then threw maturity to the wind and each ordered another! I think we went back again the next day with a mutual friend and had another round of $1 milkshakes.
Now, six years later, I'm trying to try to be good and cut back on sugar. At least I've been trying for the last couple weeks. Or has it only been a week? Ugh.
If I'm good, I can put a little symbol on my calendar--a circled S with a line through it. If I'm bad, well, I don't get to write anything.
As part of an interview process this week, I had to teach a lesson on the frog cycle to a class of kindergarteners this morning. Despite my apprehension, it went SO well. I left feeling accomplished and confident! I love teaching!
Then I went to my normal MWF job of teaching reading to a conglomerate of grades at a local Christian school. It went horribly. The kids weren't listening, everything was going wrong, as usual, and any confidence and pleasure in my abilities went out the window. I can't do this!
Before I even left the school I was figuring out how I could get some sugar before rushing off to tutoring.
Because, as the saying so aptly puts it, desserts is stressed spelled backwards.
On the drive to tutoring, I was slightly convicted. Was I going to find solace in a milkshake instead of God? Was my choice of therapy going to be icecream instead of my Father?
So, I prayed.
And right before the Chick-Fil-A exit, after quickly searching my heart, I decided that it would be okay to pray AND to get the cookies 'n' cream milkshake too.
Moral of the story: I've always got to remember that food or entertainment is the bandaid not the cure. God is the cure, though He can use food or entertainment to bless me!
Unfortunately, I've found it a lot easier to be deadened by entertainment than to pray about what is on my subconscious. Thankfully, God doesn't give up on our sanctification.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
27: trying to express the why's of this blog
Why do I blog? I blog because I need to write. Whether or not people read what I write is more or less inconsequential. Of course I want people to visit and be encouraged! But I can't be discouraged when no one reads because the point is to pour out all my beginning writings so I can learn via practice to be a better writer! (Can you tell I'm giving myself a peptalk?)
Why do I sometimes write about stuff like online dating or love? They say you should write about what you know. Mothers write mommy blogs. People into nutrition write blogs on eating well. As a single 27 year old I write about what I know, or don't know, or am interested in, or something like that. (I have to justify this to myself.)
Why do I write about how I'm realizing I've harbored more bitterness than I care to admit? Why do I write personal stuff? Not because I enjoy it! The vulnerability of other bloggers always ministers to me, and so I hope that I can do the same for anyone who stumbles across this page. (I'm trying to attain that balance between sharing struggles and sharing solutions. I can share struggles just for shock value, and I can share solutions that I'm not really applying just to make myself sound better.)
If you're reading this, thank you so much for stopping by!
~Michelle
Why do I sometimes write about stuff like online dating or love? They say you should write about what you know. Mothers write mommy blogs. People into nutrition write blogs on eating well. As a single 27 year old I write about what I know, or don't know, or am interested in, or something like that. (I have to justify this to myself.)
Why do I write about how I'm realizing I've harbored more bitterness than I care to admit? Why do I write personal stuff? Not because I enjoy it! The vulnerability of other bloggers always ministers to me, and so I hope that I can do the same for anyone who stumbles across this page. (I'm trying to attain that balance between sharing struggles and sharing solutions. I can share struggles just for shock value, and I can share solutions that I'm not really applying just to make myself sound better.)
If you're reading this, thank you so much for stopping by!
~Michelle
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| what I had considered using for my banner |
Friday, April 12, 2013
26: what not submitting to authority looks like
I work with children. One boy I especially enjoy teaching, and I like to think that he enjoys learning with me. That is, when he is allowing himself to learn.
For the first time in my very short teaching career, I have run across a child who I can (almost) shamelessly call a brat. I'm not in the habit of calling children names, but in this case, I am justified.
When I was growing up, my mom liked to differentiate between identity and behavior. So, if I had been this child, perhaps she would have said, "You are not a brat, but you are acting like one right now."
She is right. He is not a brat. But he sure is a crackerjack actor.
Since I began working with this child, I have been able to witness, in living color, what rebellion to authority looks like. It's when . . .
It ain't pretty, folks.
Makes one think twice about the supposedly nicer, more civil ways I also reject authority.
For the first time in my very short teaching career, I have run across a child who I can (almost) shamelessly call a brat. I'm not in the habit of calling children names, but in this case, I am justified.
When I was growing up, my mom liked to differentiate between identity and behavior. So, if I had been this child, perhaps she would have said, "You are not a brat, but you are acting like one right now."
She is right. He is not a brat. But he sure is a crackerjack actor.
Since I began working with this child, I have been able to witness, in living color, what rebellion to authority looks like. It's when . . .
a child tells you that this is his house so you have to do what he says.
you arrive to hear the child yelling at his babysitter.
a child tells you you can't use the word "obey."
he smiles at you, and you smile back, and then he says, offended, "Don't look at me."
a child shakes his head, crosses his arms, and tells you emphatically that you are wrong.
he tells you to leave his house and never come back (fortunately, that is rare).
It's when a child not only ignores your greeting when you enter, but proceeds to refuse to say a simple "hi" for the next 45 minutes, until, magically, in the middle of the lesson, he turns to you and says, "Hello, Michelle! How are you?" with that endearing smile of the ghost of the promise of who he could always be if he would only give up this obsession to be the boss, to be the one in control, to not let anyone tell him what to do, no matter how simple.
Makes one think twice about the supposedly nicer, more civil ways I also reject authority.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
25: simply bitterness
The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. Sometimes it can also cause bitterness.
When life doesn't happen as we would have hoped, there are several ways we might deal with the disappointment.
We can let it not phase us, accepting that life is full of ups and downs and so move on (I wonder if those who live in third-world countries accept disappointments easier than us because they've factored sorrow into their reality since birth.).
We can let ourselves fully grieve while leaning into God all the harder, like a wife might lean into her husband for extra strength, and so, hopefully, come out having known sorrow, but healed.
Or we can grieve while allowing cynicism, bitterness, and a general hardness to protect our still vulnerable insides. In such a case, the grieving never really ends, healing never really comes. Sometimes we call women who have been through hard life experiences and come out independent and capable as "strong" women. But every once in awhile their words betray that they have never really recovered and that they are still bitter.
I don't want to be that kind of strong woman. That is one reason why I've been thinking and writing about bitterness a lot lately.
Another reason is that I've seen how the amount of bitterness I have allowed in my own life is hurting my relationship with God and thus affecting how I live my life.
The other reason why I write about bitterness is because I find it fascinating. Bitterness is sneaky. It's easy for us to catch, hard for us to get rid of. We all are susceptible, and I think most live with some amount of bitterness without ever eradicating it, like living with parasites.
And so I'm obsessively combing through my heart, trying to uncover the bitterness, trying to find its source, trying to figure out the antidote.
I think I've found the antidote too. But I'm still trying to figure out how to apply it to my soul.
More on that later, Lord-willing....
When life doesn't happen as we would have hoped, there are several ways we might deal with the disappointment.
We can let it not phase us, accepting that life is full of ups and downs and so move on (I wonder if those who live in third-world countries accept disappointments easier than us because they've factored sorrow into their reality since birth.).
We can let ourselves fully grieve while leaning into God all the harder, like a wife might lean into her husband for extra strength, and so, hopefully, come out having known sorrow, but healed.
Or we can grieve while allowing cynicism, bitterness, and a general hardness to protect our still vulnerable insides. In such a case, the grieving never really ends, healing never really comes. Sometimes we call women who have been through hard life experiences and come out independent and capable as "strong" women. But every once in awhile their words betray that they have never really recovered and that they are still bitter.
I don't want to be that kind of strong woman. That is one reason why I've been thinking and writing about bitterness a lot lately.
Another reason is that I've seen how the amount of bitterness I have allowed in my own life is hurting my relationship with God and thus affecting how I live my life.
The other reason why I write about bitterness is because I find it fascinating. Bitterness is sneaky. It's easy for us to catch, hard for us to get rid of. We all are susceptible, and I think most live with some amount of bitterness without ever eradicating it, like living with parasites.
And so I'm obsessively combing through my heart, trying to uncover the bitterness, trying to find its source, trying to figure out the antidote.
I think I've found the antidote too. But I'm still trying to figure out how to apply it to my soul.
"[T]o be bitter is to let go of trust and faith in God. I cannot simultaneously have an uttermost confidence in Him and be bitter . . . ." --April 7, 2013 journal entry
More on that later, Lord-willing....
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
24: running smack dab into a strong dose of true-blue idealism
He is only 15 years old. Almost 16, he tells me. We're cutting vegetables for my friend's little sister's wedding. I've seen him on and off over the last couple years, whenever I travel out of state to visit my friend. But despite not having a real relationship with him, or at least not one that should merit real conversation, he tells me a little of his dreams as we chop olives and tomatoes for the reception dinner.
He thinks about marriage a lot, he tells me. He really wants a family. He says that more than once. He thinks about what kind of father he wants to be. He wants his children to be a better father than he will be, and his children's children to be better fathers than theirs. If the Lord tarries, he adds.
And I don't know how to handle his admission.
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Because I feel like I know reality. His desire is so good! I know he can work on becoming a godly young man and preparing himself for marriage right now, while he's still a few years short of adulthood.
But he also might find himself a decade later still without the prize. Cynicism pricks my insides.
What happens when hope deferred faces off with youthful idealism?
It depends on what's in your heart.
More later, Lord-willing....
He thinks about marriage a lot, he tells me. He really wants a family. He says that more than once. He thinks about what kind of father he wants to be. He wants his children to be a better father than he will be, and his children's children to be better fathers than theirs. If the Lord tarries, he adds.
And I don't know how to handle his admission.
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Because I feel like I know reality. His desire is so good! I know he can work on becoming a godly young man and preparing himself for marriage right now, while he's still a few years short of adulthood.
But he also might find himself a decade later still without the prize. Cynicism pricks my insides.
What happens when hope deferred faces off with youthful idealism?
It depends on what's in your heart.
More later, Lord-willing....
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
23: the mysterious amazing thing about which I have no clue
Love.
I know two, no, three things about love.
I heard Candice Watters quote Proverbs 30 in an old Boundless podcast episode today. It reminded me of what I do know about love, namely, that it is mysterious.
What draws two people together out of all the people in the world? I don't know. I have tried before to make myself love someone. (I mean, isn't love a choice?) I have almost tried to manipulate my brain. I thought that if I relaxed that the feeling would come. It didn't. Instead I felt like I was going mad.
So I don't know how it happens. Crushes I know. Chemical attractions, yes. True-blue love? Still an unconquered wilderness.
Tonight at community group a mom was saying how she used to think Proverbs 7 was about some prostitute on the bad side of town.
Now she realizes that all women have an amazing power over men. That is a mystery to me too. Why do logical, sensible, controlled men fall head over heels with emotional, talkative, melodramatic women? (By the way, those are extremes and generalizations for the sake of contrast.) Men and women are different, sometimes quite different, so how do they go together? Why do they even want to go together?
That's the big mystery.
And, yet, true committed love is amazing. A friend's boyfriend told me the story of how they met. (Clarification: They are both adults in their 30s and are heading towards marriage, not just young pups who will break up next week.) When he got to the part where he asked her out and she said yes, I interrupted with, "And you were head over heels?"
"Oh, I still am," he said. "I've been head over heels ever since."
(collective "awwww!")
Perhaps I shouldn't try to write about that which I know nothing about. But I can still make observations and wonder philosophically about it.
Oh, but I do know one other thing about love! It is a divine gift from God to mankind.
(I would like to add here that I believe a guy truly loved me once, and I consider it an extreme blessing from God that I have been allowed to experience that no matter what my future holds.)
I know two, no, three things about love.
1. I don't have a clue about it.
2. It's a mystery.
3. It's amazing.
I heard Candice Watters quote Proverbs 30 in an old Boundless podcast episode today. It reminded me of what I do know about love, namely, that it is mysterious.
"There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Yes, four which I do not understand:
. . . the way of a man with a virgin." (vv 18-19)
What draws two people together out of all the people in the world? I don't know. I have tried before to make myself love someone. (I mean, isn't love a choice?) I have almost tried to manipulate my brain. I thought that if I relaxed that the feeling would come. It didn't. Instead I felt like I was going mad.
So I don't know how it happens. Crushes I know. Chemical attractions, yes. True-blue love? Still an unconquered wilderness.
Tonight at community group a mom was saying how she used to think Proverbs 7 was about some prostitute on the bad side of town.
"With her enticing speech she caused him to yield,
With her flattering lips she seduced him.
Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter" (vv 21-22)
Now she realizes that all women have an amazing power over men. That is a mystery to me too. Why do logical, sensible, controlled men fall head over heels with emotional, talkative, melodramatic women? (By the way, those are extremes and generalizations for the sake of contrast.) Men and women are different, sometimes quite different, so how do they go together? Why do they even want to go together?
That's the big mystery.
And, yet, true committed love is amazing. A friend's boyfriend told me the story of how they met. (Clarification: They are both adults in their 30s and are heading towards marriage, not just young pups who will break up next week.) When he got to the part where he asked her out and she said yes, I interrupted with, "And you were head over heels?"
"Oh, I still am," he said. "I've been head over heels ever since."
(collective "awwww!")
Perhaps I shouldn't try to write about that which I know nothing about. But I can still make observations and wonder philosophically about it.
Oh, but I do know one other thing about love! It is a divine gift from God to mankind.
(I would like to add here that I believe a guy truly loved me once, and I consider it an extreme blessing from God that I have been allowed to experience that no matter what my future holds.)
Monday, April 1, 2013
22: simply the unphilosophical books I'm reading
I went to the library Thursday and checked out seven Christian romance novels (chick-flick novels, I like to call them).
I've read three of them so far.
A Hopeful Heart was really good. It was by Kim Vogel Sawyer, and she's just a good author! It made me want to be a rancher's wife!
Now and Always and Yellow Rose Bride were both slow to start and had unexplainable gaps, or jumps in what was going on. For example, one moment the girl would be talking to the guy in the afternoon in town, and the next paragraph it was evening and she was kissing him? Did I miss something? Or one moment the girl's host is telling her to go into the house and eat breakfast and the next paragraph she's scanning the ruins of her destroyed house? How'd she get there, by teleport? I really enjoyed Lori Copeland's Brides of the West series, which is why I checked out these other two by the same author. But with the slow starts, the gaps, and the fact that both stories ended with someone unexpectedly going insane and threatening the heroine . . . they weren't my favorite.
Another book I read the other day, a novella called Alabama, had four stories where the girls were consistently being kissed by guys they didn't know if they loved yet, and they didn't even bat an eye when they were quite casually, unexpectedly, kissed on the lips! I had to wonder if I missed something, because pretty sure if I had never been in a relationship before, like one of the author's heroines, and then a guy I knew just upped and kissed me, I would be surprised, shocked, dumbfounded, thrown into a big question mark, and most definitely would not continue the afternoon as if nothing happened, like in the book. Maybe it's a Southern thing?
No moral to the story for this post.
By the way, any storyline that has to do with mail-order brides, or, like with A Hopeful Heart, girls coming from back east to find a husband, has my immediate interest!
I've read three of them so far.
A Hopeful Heart was really good. It was by Kim Vogel Sawyer, and she's just a good author! It made me want to be a rancher's wife!
Now and Always and Yellow Rose Bride were both slow to start and had unexplainable gaps, or jumps in what was going on. For example, one moment the girl would be talking to the guy in the afternoon in town, and the next paragraph it was evening and she was kissing him? Did I miss something? Or one moment the girl's host is telling her to go into the house and eat breakfast and the next paragraph she's scanning the ruins of her destroyed house? How'd she get there, by teleport? I really enjoyed Lori Copeland's Brides of the West series, which is why I checked out these other two by the same author. But with the slow starts, the gaps, and the fact that both stories ended with someone unexpectedly going insane and threatening the heroine . . . they weren't my favorite.
Another book I read the other day, a novella called Alabama, had four stories where the girls were consistently being kissed by guys they didn't know if they loved yet, and they didn't even bat an eye when they were quite casually, unexpectedly, kissed on the lips! I had to wonder if I missed something, because pretty sure if I had never been in a relationship before, like one of the author's heroines, and then a guy I knew just upped and kissed me, I would be surprised, shocked, dumbfounded, thrown into a big question mark, and most definitely would not continue the afternoon as if nothing happened, like in the book. Maybe it's a Southern thing?
No moral to the story for this post.
By the way, any storyline that has to do with mail-order brides, or, like with A Hopeful Heart, girls coming from back east to find a husband, has my immediate interest!
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