Nostalgia and the Power of the Mouth

I’m a grape jelly girl. I once ate buttered toast with grape jelly every day, multiple times a day, for a very long time. Man, nothing beats a good piece of jelly toast.

My Dad is a peanut butter and butter kind of man. Sometimes he’ll do peanut butter and honey if he’s feeling fancy.

Growing up, my Mom only bought grape jelly. So that’s the only type of jelly I had for YEARS. I probably didn’t even realize they made other flavors of jelly. Hence, I would just call it “jelly”.

One of the summers I spent in Poland, I distinctly remember what we ate for every breakfast. It was a large meal of deli meats, cereals, pastries, toast and…. strawberry jelly. There was only strawberry jelly in, what felt like, all the land!

It blew my mind. The whole summer I felt like I was unfaithful to my grape jelly. I ate a LOT of strawberry jelly. I still 100% prefer grape jelly to this day. However, the reason I tell you this backstory is because my husband and I bought STRAWBERRY JELLY for the first time in our marriage (my first time in all of my life).

So this morning I had strawberry jelly on buttered toast. ANd you know what happened? It brought me right back to that summer spent overseas. Isn’t it funny how certain tastes can do that for you?

Even smells and sounds! Every time I hear Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”, I am immediately transported back to 1996, to our old house, hanging out in the garage, listening to Cool 94.5, and “helping” Dad with chores.

Sweet nostalgia, it is powerful.

The ability for a single song, smell, or picture to bring someone back to a time gone past, is visceral. You feel it in your gut.

When I see this picture, I feel it in my gut. This is the last birthday card my Grandmother gave to me before she died of lung cancer. This was a formative time for me, and ultimately led to me accepting and fully trusting in Jesus. When I see this card, it invokes a lot of feelings but mostly I feel deep gratitude for the memories and time I did have with her.

Sometimes, people can have negative experiences with nostalgia. Sometimes people can become quickly triggered from a single experience, song, smell, word, or person. In the same way that nostalgia can deeply affect us in a positive manner, it can also affect us negatively.

And often times, it is misunderstood.

You may have experienced someone storming out of a room, or watching their anger go through the roof. More likely, you’ve watched someone shut down and withdraw emotionally in a conversation that appeared to be harmless.  All with seemingly unknowable causes. In both cases, it started with a trigger. A trigger, by definition in terms of weaponry, is “a small device that releases a spring or catch and so sets off a mechanism, especially in order to fire a gun” (google, obviously). 

Key word, small. Some of the most traumatic experiences that stick with people can be triggered by something incredibly small. Most likely unnoticeable to others.

I bring all of this up to encourage you. Start to become aware of yourself and be sensitive to others. When someone flies off the handle, pause and give them a second chance. Be gracious and give time to the interaction to see if it will calm down. Rather than matching their intensity, reduce the heat on your own emotional temperature, and see if it doesn’t take a better turn.

When YOU fly off the handle, pay attention to the feelings and thoughts that bounce around in your head. Pay attention to the situations that cause you to become angry, frustrated, or make you feel out of control. Backtrack to the moments prior and see if you notice anything.

And with others, be gracious. Give extra kindness and patience to EVERYONE. If I’ve learned anything in the social work realm, it’s that you never know someone’s story by simply looking at them. Everyone has stuff they’re trying to make sense of the best they can. Be gracious.

Proverb 15:28, “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.”

God is showing me that my words carry great power. My words have the ability to lift someones spirits and also crush someones heart. I am actively working to pay attention to how quickly I speak and I am writing this as much to myself as I am to you, sweet reader. Let us ponder the power of our mouth and consider how we can be light and truth to those we encounter.

Cheers

 

Three Things that Changed My Life

My creative juice tank feels low today.

I have spent the last two days avoiding this computer. My goal has been to write something once a week for a few months, in hopes of challenging myself. It’s not terribly hard, it’s just a committment thing. I had excuses all weekend which allowed me to push writing to today.

I took a 2-hour nap in a last ditch attempt to divert my brain from remembering my committment. It didn’t work and now here I am sitting at the countertop bar typing.

Editor’s Note: The writer just ran into the kitchen to try to make herself eggs and toast. It appears she is still attempting to run from her goals. She has now left the uncooked eggs and bread on the counter and has made her way back to the computer. 

Anyway, this post may be late but it SHALL BE COMPLETED!

I want to share Three Things that Changed My Life and challenge you to try one of the three items,

1. Mentorship,
2. Makeup,
3. Sharing

1.) Mentorship: My life has been greatly influenced due to those who have gone before me and chosen to help me along the way. There have been a handful of key people who have stepped in and cultivated a mentor/mentee relationship with me. Many of them have been with me for long stretches of time. I have received much correction, encouragement, and guidance in regards to my faith and relationship with Jesus; how to pray, how to set better boundaries, how to doubt well, how to think rightly about myself, how to love my husband more fully, etc. The simple choice of meeting with older (not necessarily by much), wiser women, consistently -for the long haul- has proven to be life-enriching and life-altering. The amount of times I have laughed, cried, and grown because of another women who has committed to “having eyes” on my life, is innumerable and invaluable.

There is joy and risk in being known and loved by another. 

If you don’t have someone in your life who has permission to call you out where you’re missing the mark, encourage you when you should keep going, and help you work on your weaknesses, FIND SOMEONE.

2.) Makeup: My life has had huge ramifications from a seemingly trivial decision.  I chose to put my makeup away years ago. I never realized it would become such a freeing choice ten years later. When I was in high school, I didn’t like that I felt tied to my makeup. I couldn’t leave the house without “having my face on” (“warpaint” as my Dad liked to say), I wore it for basketball games and basketball practice. It was never extra flashy…

But I could feel myself NEEDING it. And I didn’t like that.

So I put it away for a few weeks.

After the first few days of fielding the “Are you sick?” questions, the benefits were huge.

I could feel the clingy grip of facial insecurity loosen.

AND IT WAS FREEING. 

If you like makeup, wear it (I enjoy it in a much healthier way now!), but don’t be dependent on it. Be okay being yourself.

ZITS, DARK SPOTS, SAGGY EYE HOLES AND ALL SISTAS!

3. Sharing: I am learning again that I must share myself with others if I hope to have a relationship with them. As a comfortable lone ranger, I can often stay inside my head for days on end and be absolutely fine. However, I am learning, particularly through marriage, that the Big A isn’t a mind reader.

I have to speak and share and express and use my tongue to form OUT LOUD words for him to receive and translate. A simple concept, yes, but I needed to say it, because sometimes the most obvious things are the most overlooked.

I am PRESENTLY working on sharing myself more. Five minutes here, an extra sentence there, a follow up question for clarity…baby steps to connecting better with people.

So there you have it folks. Three Things that Changed My Life: Mentorship, Makeup, and Sharing.

I wish for you each to have people in your life to challenge and encourage you through accountability.

I wish for each of you to be comfortable and confident in who you are.

And lastly, I wish for each of you to share yourself with others because you are the only you there is. Unless you’re a caucasian male actor named Chris in Hollywood… then you might not be the only one.

 

cheers.

 

 

Currency

I was thinking about life today and things went deep QUICK. As all my contemplative times seem to do. Anyway, I’m in a space of considering and comparing others. Sometimes it has produced gratefulness but other times it has produced jealousy.

This friend has a baby. That friend is traveling the world. This friend has exorbitant amounts of money and creativity. Yada yada yada.

As much as I’d like to say that I realized the wrongfulness in myself, I cannot. I’ve stewed in my jealousy and grumpy discontentment more than I should have.

But something hit me today. The most precious universal currency is time.

Regardless of the state of life we are in and with whatever physical resources, the common denominator is that we have been allotted a specific amount of days. And we have the freedom to choose how we spend those days however we would like.

The second wave of realization hit me and I thought, “What am I going to spend my ‘allowance’ on?” Now I’d love to say it’s as simple as deciding to take my $4 to the store and buy sour candy and a Pepsi, but it’s not like my childhood allowance. This type of allowance is in the big leagues. We don’t receive any more after we’ve spent it (calm down-we can talk about after-life over coffee).

All that to say, I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t care where you live or how wonderfully you’ve decorated your home (although I am building mine and would love décor tips). I don’t care if you haven’t achieved what you thought your perfect life would be.

But I do care about people living abundantly each day and not wasting their life. You may have to think about this for a little while to decide what’s worth giving your time to. But surely you must put in the effort to decide what’s worth your time. You absolutely must.

All my people reading this who know Jesus…root yourself in Him and get to work for the Kingdom. Plant yourself somewhere. Put down roots and sell yourself out to something that will last.

 

(And p.s. putting in work for the Kingdom of God doesn’t mean you have to work in a Church building. God made people to be fashion designers, accountants, bakers, crossfitters, Moms, teachers, and librarians. So wipe that self-doubt off your face, He didn’t make a mistake by designing you to love the things you love and to be talented the way you are. Use those things.)

 

cheers

Garden Warriors

In Jeremiah 29 there’s a letter to those in exile, rather there’s instructions or expectations for their life. For some reason it has poignantly been a splinter in my mind. Basically, the Lord wanted the people to live and flourish IN THE MIDST OF EXILE. My first response would most likely be to retire into “Mopey town”. But God had better plans for them (and since God is consistent and unchanging in character- He has them for us too). Build houses and live in them, Tend your own garden and eat the produce, expand your family… Life in the exile. Absolutely love that. Even now while we wait for Jesus to come back, he wants abundant life for us! Even in the midst of frustrations, heartbreak, stagnation, or any other NORMAL life variable… God wants us to live and be thankful and Tend our gardens.
All that to say: I’m thankful for these little beauties… My fellow garden warriors 😍 …they have full lives of working, teaching, laundrying, crossfitting, and wife-ing. These now monthly gatherings have been such blessings.