"The Poppy Seed Dressing Phenomenon"

I am kind of an analogy/metaphor/title geek. I like to compare, narrate, nominate, and honestly, explain to the best of my ability. Recently I made a dinner combo I referred to as “Lady and the Tramp dinner”
    Yes, rosemary seared turkey burgers with roasted red peppers and onions on red leaf lettuce. With tater tots. Gotta please the kiddos, and husband, who corporately turned their noses up at lettuce wraps and went in for sandwich bread. Then it was just moved into the category of “Poor Man’s Dinner":  Burger and tater tots. Well, I tried!

      Then for my next anecdote, and yes it has a title: “The Poppy Seed Dressing Phenomenon” I’m going explain and then tie into a completely different narrative. I bought Poppy Seed Dressing recently in an effort to increase my likelihood of eating salad because the rarity that we eat green things in this house is something I don’t want to admit. But there you have it. So I bypassed the Ranch and French and all of the normal things you eat on salad and settled on Poppy Seed Dressing (I have to say, we had it at the Whitman’s house and have never looked back!). And I didn’t want a household brand, I wanted something all-natural and real because I wanted the real thing. Not like me typically, but I felt like salad might heal my body, or something like that. So I bought this nice dressing and ingredients for a jumbo, veggie packed green salad. And for dinner, I rationed out my expensive Poppy Seed Dressing to the children and to myself. I handed it to Paul to serve himself his allotment and he set it down. And no one saw it coming, but apparently Jake didn’t think his ration was fair because he took my new gourmet, all-natural, fancy sauce salad dressing and dumped it all over his plate. Paul swore to me he could salvage it, he started pouring it from Jake’s plate into the bottle and I pretended that rice particles and chicken weren’t joining the flow. Gross. I may have shed a tear or came close, but I wasn’t even mad at Jake because he’s 4, he didn’t plan the mess that ensued. So as we go through dinner, we hear crunch….crunch…crack coming from under the table. From a dog’s mouth, not entirely unlikely in our house. So Paul gets up from the dinner table to wrestle our dog and make sure another car or doll house piece hasn’t fallen captive. Just when I thought the dressing fiasco couldn’t get any worse, we realized that our dog was crunching and cracking up the salad dressing lid.

I know it shouldn’t matter. But this is what my expensive, high-class, oh-so-coveted salad dressing looks like now. Don’t feel too bad for it, it was completely empty after only two nights of use!

(And for your viewing convenience, I can only get this picture to upload sideways. And my husband is not here to offer up his technology expertise and until he is, this will have to do.  My apologies.)

That is a true story, and now here is my analogy that only partially works. I have been ill lately and I’m sure it’s no big deal. It feels like since all of this has come on, it’s been like the salad dressing. What started as something simple escalated into something more, and then something even bigger until I could hardly contain it in my spirit. I’ve been badly afraid that something terrible is wrong with me. Then I’ll listen to a good sermon and be reminded that I have nothing to fear. I know the truth, but the battle has been so great in my mind, it’s been hard for me to stand lately. I love my kids, and I love my husband. I love my life. But I shouldn’t even be thinking these weary, sympathetic thoughts, that is not where God wants me. I was thinking today about how if by chance my doctor is not a Christian she is never gonna wanna be because I’m shaking in my boots waiting for test results! I totally hate that about myself. Because when I step back and look at the whole picture, whatever I’m dealing with could potentially be simple. And it’s like I never stop to consider that. I make agreements all the way up the ladder because I don’t feel good and I lose sight of what God has for me.

But the truth is, when I settle my soul and breathe, I am not alone. God has a plan for my life. No matter how many people pray for me to break, or pray for me to be restored, I am going to be ok. I just wanted to establish that because in my heart I desperately want to bring glory to God through the road I’m treading. The road that could literally be a minor infection that is not going away imminently. Big deal. I am safe. No matter what happens, that is my answer.  I think that is the scariest thing, I feel like if I’m walking into uncharted waters and I really don’t know what to expect, than anything can happen to me and I won‘t be prepared. But I’m walking with someone who knows the future. I simply have no reason to be afraid.

So no excuses for me. I can see why I desperately need an increase of faith in my life. And I just wanted to confess my sin here, even though the fear seems so real I can hardly stand it. It’s just an old, familiar friend. But I know, somewhere past all the anxiety, and anticipation, that I am safe. Something about a hug from the husband that brings all of this mess to rest, and in that place last night I was thinking, I need to chill out, I am like that salad dressing that just spiraled into a downward frenzy!  I get some test results back today and if they say I have Mono or something that will simply trickle away on it's on, I'm going officially be done with fear...what a waste of my time!