Destination Discipline

Have you ever faced an enemy so huge, so inconceivably ugly, and so unrelentingly stinky that you knew you had no chance of winning, and so you willingly threw yourself into his arms and let him squish you into a bloody pulp? If not, your weirder than me and should read another blog. Maybe one about zombies because they don’t have emotions – they only want brains. If you are still here, today you get to read about my recent experience with that pesky Octopus of Emotional Upheaval. He is the provocateur of the most disciplined person, and if not properly tamed, will destroy relationships, hard-fought-for goals, and finally, your sanity. He is one mother of a hell beast and only those properly equipped can effectively defeat him.

Let me be clear, he is defeatable! You just have to chop off his slimy tentacles one suction cup-infused strangle hold at a time. His plan has been perfected through the ages, and he is a master of reducing even the most disciplined person to insolvability with a flash of his foul tainted breath. His tactics are relentless. (*Disclaimer: I write from a Christian worldview). With all of that in mind, let me begin.

Exhaustion

We live in a fast paced world and people expect us to move, well, fast. The advent of email was stupendous until we all realized that our capability to send correspondence lightening fast increased our capacity for stress by about 1000%. This is where the Octopus of Emotional Upheaval(hereafter nicknamed Suck-o-pus) thrives. Suck-o-pus will rip through the paper thin walls of your calm demeanor, attach his tentacles to your calm, and suck the marrow right out of it. This can result in something as simple as a case of the crabbies to something entirely more sinister; rage.

Exhaustion is not entirely preventable but our response to it is crucial. I am personally guilty of not responding to my body when it cries for rest. After all, there is always one more dish to wash, one more lunch to pack and one more email to respond to. But that is when I must break out the sword of “Enough-is-enough.” Fortunately, I have learned that I can thwart Suck-o-pus by laying down my “perfect badge” and accepting my limitations. I am, after all, only one person. Rather than lash out at the unsuspecting guppies in my general vicinity, I find it best to lop off the tentacle of exhaustion by soaking in a hot bath or taking a nap. Suck-o-pus will throw up a lot of objections but that’s what doggie bags are for. I say sock it to Suck-o-pus! Just go to bed.

Physical Infirmity

Our bodies are fragile and oftentimes afflicted. Be it depression, the flu, or a chronic health issue, Suck-o-pus reaches out from his lair of misery and goes straight for the eyes. He figures if we are blinded by our pain we might naturally forget how to maintain our composure. He will even argue that we have every right to lash out at everyone around us. Gripe and Grimace are his horrible henchmen but we can eliminate their venom by remembering that we are not alone in our suffering.

Pain is a common human experience. Sometimes, as in the case of a simple headache, we can take some acetaminophen and wait for the pain to subside. Other times we must privately acknowledge our weakness and determine how best to not infect others with our negative feelings. Emotions in this regard can be raw. It is important to acknowledge them and give yourself time to grieve. Suck-o-pus would have you stay in that state forever but you must lop off that terrible tentacle with community. Call a trusted friend and share your hurt. Ask for prayer. In the absence of people grab your Bible and repeat the promises of God.

Deuteronomy 31:6 – Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

In this regard, never, ever let Suck-o-pus isolate you from people. Once he drags you into his lair you are done for!

Disagreement with Loved Ones

You’ve been there. You want Chinese and your spouse wants Mexican. You’ve been craving crab Rangoon all week but he insists his need for salsa takes priority. Suck-o-pus thrives on these types of situations and will use his tenacious tentacles by way of your growling stomach to shoot verbal daggers at your loved one’s heart. Suddenly that date you had been looking forward to all week is in jeopardy. If Suck-o-pus gets his way, you’ll both be dragged into his lair of misery regardless of which option you choose.

I’ll be frank; I’m not the queen of compromise. My belly wants what it wants. But when I remember that frustration and anger can be felt—but not dealt—I am most effective at combating this terrible tentacle. The best weapon in this regard is love. When you feel that tentacle trying to wiggle through the chinks in your armor, think back to the days when you were willing to Walk 500 Miles to be with the love of your life. Remind yourself that love is patient, and kind, and definitely not rude. I Corinthians 13 is a whole arsenal of weapons at your disposal. And lest Suck-o-pus counter by saying your disagreement is far worse than a simple menu option, let me remind you that true love is displayed best by the willingness to lay down one’s life(and henceforth one’s will) for a friend. I have found I am only capable of chopping off this tentacle with the help of Jesus because he is gracious to remind me that is exactly why he was born in the first place—to save me from myself. When I consider that, I realize telling my husband he’s a Selfish Salsa Snob really should have no place in my vocabulary.

Unmet Expectations or Disappointment

So the promotion you were promised didn’t come through. Your favorite football team broke faith and left your city for warmer(but most decidedly drier) pastures. A traffic jam caused you to miss your child’s recital—the one you promised her you would attend and had planned to video tape. Suck-o-pus is ready with the Tempestuous Temper Tantrum of Terror. Seriously, the anger is so prurient you can feel your fist bashing through the window in order to throttle the closest available driver, no matter how innocent.

But wait. Before you allow Suck-o-pus to drag you away and poison you with relentless resentment, pull out your bevy of beautiful blessings. This is one time you can really have fun with Suck-o-pus. He hates nothing more than to be shamed by the memory of your first day on the job and how thankful you were to be employed after a long hiatus. He loathes the fact that you can use the money you would have spent on football tickets for that long overdue vacation with your spouse. He recoils with the knowledge that even though you missed the recital, you will have the pleasure of holding your child in your arms again—a blessing some parents will not experience this side of heaven. Laugh in Suck-o-pus’ face as you chop off another slithery appendage and remind him he is one big fat loser.

A Broken Heart

Suck-o-pus probably finds the most glee in suffocating his broken-hearted victims with sadness. This is one area where we have literally no control over our emotions. Anguish roils our skin like a second degree sunburn. No matter how we fight, the pain pricks and sears.

Suck-o-pus has seen many a victory in my life in this regard, and I have spent countless tears in his den of misery. There is a saying that “time heals all wounds” but I’m not sure that’s entirely true. At least not for me. There are some wounds that are incurable. Thus I find that when Suck-o-pus, that horrible Octopus of Emotional Upheaval, is wreaking the most havoc on my person, I find the fastest way to relief is through the person of Jesus. Say what you will about chocolate or alcohol or money, none of them have the healing hands of my Savior.

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” – Psalm 34:17-18

Learning how to control our response to intense emotions is a decidedly difficult discipline. It requires a certain feistiness that feels rather irrational in the heat of the moment, but when mastered bears the sweet fruit of peace. Jesus is the author of peace and therefore I find that I can empower none of these weapons without his help. I just want to throw that out there. And while it’s been fun to write about Suck-o-pus, emotional upheaval is no joke. I believe God means our emotions for good, and I am thankful for his grace to cover the times I do not have the presence of mind to employ any defense against that marauding, menacing, monster.

I was wrist deep in the most beautiful batch of chocolate chip cookie dough you have ever seen. And when I say wrist deep, I mean that I was scooping spoonfuls into my mouth. No one was home to witness my transgression. In fact, no one ever need know about it. The problem was, I knew about it. And what started as a means to relax my grip on my regimented food plan, quickly devolved into a nightmare. What was I thinking? Had I lost my mind? I was several months into my journey to lose weight and I saw myself taking a hard turn, rolling my vehicle, and crashing over the cliff. So I did something brave and simultaneously very painful: I pitched the rest of the dough into the trash. And then I started to weep.

I am always one batch of chocolate chip cookie dough away from regaining all the weight. If I sound overly dramatic, I’m not. The choice is always there. I have happened across some really challenging days where I stopped and asked myself, why am I doing this? What is the purpose of this journey? That is why my motives are so important. Because when it comes down to it, when I want cookie dough, I’m going to eat it if I don’t have a very powerful reason not to.

Let me be clear, I’ve worked very hard to establish healthy habits. I eat lots of fresh vegetables, lean meats and fruits. Because I fill my body with healthy foods and I feel relatively good because of it, I’m not really tempted to gorge myself on White Castle. I don’t “crave” it. But when I’m hurting or frustrated or crabby, bring on the cookie dough! And that is when it is most important to be vigilant. I have to go back and remember why I began this journey in the first place. And the true reason is this: I loathed my sin.

I didn’t always loathe it. In fact, for most of my life I loved it quite a lot. I loved all of the processes around procuring certain foods, preparing them and devouring them. They were my sweet comforts and I refused to be parted from them. My addiction to food taps into my deepest insecurities, my deepest longings and my deepest fears. For these reasons I was willing to lie to myself, cheat myself and sacrifice lasting peace to continue on that path of destruction. This was my fatal flaw; I thought the grace of God was enough to cover my iniquity. Surely he knew I had no willpower to stop and he understood my weakness. I knew they he loved me, and I cherry picked Bible verses that told me so. I built a brick wall, brick-by-brick-by-brick, and said, “nothing can separate me from the love of God” but I avoided passages like Romans 6:1-4. That is why the very first passage I memorized to keep me accountable was this:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” – Romans 6:12

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking that overeating, or eating foods that are not exactly healthy for your body is not exactly sin. To this I would quote Susanna Wesley.

“Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things, if anything increases the power and authority of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.”

Food does all of that for me. And that is why I must be vigilant in my fight against the flesh.

I am sad that I only came to loathe my sin because of the terrible consequences of it. I allowed my flesh to take such complete control of my body until I was its absolute slave and (I perceived) hopelessly trapped. I sat at the bottom of that deep and dark well and mourned the wispy sunbeams that came in. There was a way out but I refused to see it. And now, I honestly don’t believe it is possible to break any addiction unless you cultivate an absolute hatred of it. Because that is what it takes to break free; hatred of sin and the humility to allow the grace of God to pour in and heal all of the brokenness that addiction leaves behind.

Today if you are reading this and you think there is no help or hope for your addiction, be encouraged! Taking on one’s own body is not an insurmountable task. Sometimes, as it was for me this morning, it is walking through one arduous moment after the next with only the grace of God to sustain me. But here is the wonderful news, his grace has always been more than enough. When we are willing to lay down our love of sin–to loathe it with every fiber of our being–He is faithful to pour his love into our hearts, and give us the strength to heal and overcome our flesh.

While we are on this earth we will always be fighting. I will probably always want to eat too much. But that is why I love Jesus. His tender mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Even when I eat cookie dough. Even when I despair. And with his help I keep a vigilant watch and continue to remind myself that I love Jesus completely, and completely loathe my sin.

Sometimes you want ice cream and life gives you sour milk. Such is the case with my son, a marine stationed in a hot and dry climate. Today, it rained. Rain can be an inconvenience for people in moderate climates like Missouri, but if you live in a hot and dry climate where it rains only occasionally(and people generally freak out about wet stuff falling from the sky) rain can be a little discomforting. My son told me that initially it was nice and “felt like home”. At least until his platoon leader said, “Time to PT!” That’s physical training for all y’all non-military types. Mud + pushups = misery.

In a similar vein, a friend of mine called me today and told me about an uncomfortable situation at her place of employment. I could hear the tears in her voice as she expressed to me how some people in the workplace were making fun of her. There are few things in life I dislike more than a bully. She told me how she longs to escape the cruel comments of the people who work around her. And what do you do when your co-workers make your life a living hell every single day of your life but you need your job? Even worse, their supervisor condones the behavior. While I was listening to her, I felt the claws come out. Because I heard her tears and I wanted to defend her. Partly because I know exactly how that feels, but mostly because I love her.

Sometimes life is just hard and there is no easy escape. We are forced to walk through it. Injustice is real. Heartache runs deep. Fat won’t melt no matter how many crunches you do. So we sit there staring at the pouch on our belly and consider Roo(of Winnie the Pooh fame). Seriously, my pouch is big enough for Roo. Only my name isn’t Kanga and there isn’t a cute and cuddly baby in there. What a bummer.

When I get into that kind of funk I consider my options and well, seriously, sometimes chocolate just isn’t strong enough to numb the pain.

So what did I tell my son to help him get through the muddy days? I told him the most practical thing I could think of: he must maintain his sense of humor. I know. It’s probably not the cool mom thing to say, but I told him while he was doing pushups he should sing The Worm Song. Marines like to chant cadence while they PT and march, and so it seemed appropriate. And I really hope that one of these days I open Facebook and see a platoon of Marines singing The Worm Song.

But that seems pretty tame to what my friend is going through. Because I was a bullied child. And I remember the hateful words used against me. I remember being excluded from activities. I remember crying myself to sleep at night and dreading having to go to school. I often wish I could go back in time and punch a lot of ornery kids in the nose. But the thing that I have learned as an adult is that bullies are actually very insecure. They say and do mean things because they aren’t comfortable in their own skin. They pick on others to make themselves feel better. And it occurred to me that the only way a bully has power over a person is if that person gives the bully the power. So how does one take it back?

Courage looks good in the movies but it’s frequently difficult to live out in real life. It means believing in yourself enough to not back down when you most want to. Courage is mustering the mindset to not be defined by what other people think of you. Because what other people think really has no bearing at all on who you are. People might make fun of the clothes you wear, or your hairstyle, or your lack of hair, but there is a way to fight back. You can learn to love them right where they are.

So Margaret, are you telling me I don’t get to punch anyone in the nose?

That’s right. This blog does not condone assault and battery.

Now, I’m not saying you should be a doormat, but love begins with recognizing the great holes so many people carry around in their hearts. And once you see people as they really are–frequently sad and more than a little lost–you may find within yourself the means to feel compassion for their tired estate. And I think that’s where love starts to grow.

I have another friend at work who is one of the most brave and beautiful people I know. Her name is Donna and she is awesome. The has the best fashion sense. She has perfect hair. And she’s kind. She truly has a gentle soul. I have found in her a kindred spirit. I recognized this the other day when we were eating lunch and she pulled out a Hello Kitty sandwich container. She had placed her food in there and I thought it was totally cool and wonderfully brilliant. Donna has this independent spirit no one can break. She always puts other people before herself. She is a rock star of a mother to her children. She’s a totally cool grandma. And she is my dear friend! How lucky am I? Come to think of it, I need to introduce Donna to the friend I wrote of earlier. Because Donna has a lot to teach the world about strength and grace.

I was preparing my salad today when one of the gentlemen I work with commented on my cheese. Now you must understand that I love cheese. Cheese makes me very happy. I like muenster cheese best, but blue cheese is a close second, and I always put blue cheese on my salad. Now some people think blue cheese is weird because it has mold in it. I’m not one of those people, but I understand not everyone has the same appreciation for mold that I do(especially my husband). So as I was sprinkling the glorious green-speckled delectable dairy product onto my lettuce, I noticed that little wriggle of my co-worker’s nose as he asked me what kind of cheese I was using. And I knew what he was thinking by that peculiar purse of his lips; he thought I was a little grody. And do you know what? I didn’t care. In fact, I launched into a nice little diatribe about how cheese makes the world a better place. I waxed eloquent about cheese for several minutes while he stared at me with this confused look, as if I were perched atop a unicycle and juggling puppies. Finally he just kind of wandered off while I finished my sermon to the refrigerator. Because I was happy, and because not caring what other people think about my weirdness is absolutely the most free feeling in the world.

So here is the crux of what I’m saying, pain is a part of the human experience. Whether it be physical pain or emotional pain, we all deal with discomfort in some capacity. Sometimes it’s a platoon leader who feels it’s necessary to teach us how to exercise in the mud. Other times a person tries to steal our joy by sucking us into their black hole of misery. Here’s what I say to both situations: When life gives you sour milk, make cheese! Because cheese is awesome. Cheese is always the best response. Be the patron saint of cheese.