{My younger sister went to Thailand to work at an orphanage this summer. You can read about her adventures here. She apparently found a t-shirt salesman who made t-shirts in English. Some of them are hilarious; some make no sense at all. She brought me 4 amazing little gems and I will blog about each of them in this series.}

Okay, people. Before I get flack for the language on the shirt, I need to mention a few things:

1) I did NOT purchase this. So obviously, it’s not my fault.

2) I have never worn this in public…except for that one time I wore it in public…to pick up a stranger Alex met on the bike trail. BUT DON’T WORRY. I turned it inside out at a stoplight. So then I just looked like a crazy person who wore her shirt inside out.

3) For the purposes of this particular blog, I will be replacing the questionable word with other, more appropriate, insults that start with the letter B.

Everyone good? Hokay.

This particular shirt really hits home for me because, if you know me at all, you know my love of rice.  You see, I go through these food phases where I could literally eat the same thing every day and not get tired of it. In middle school, every lunch was a bologna sandwich (much to the dismay of my poor locker partner. Sorry, Amy! I hope you still have some of your nose hairs!) In early high school, I went through a period where it was tomato soup. Every day.

 THEN, I discovered cheesy rice.

Ah, cheesy rice. Delicious rice (usually cooked with a bullion cube) topped with shredded cheese.  This little obsession carried on over into college AND my married life- meaning I ate cheesy rice at least 4 times a week for at least six years.  I even snuck a water percolator into my dorm room my freshman year so that I could enjoy cheesy rice in the comfort of my 12×12 cinder block room.

So that might explain my affinity for all things carbohydrate. Well, all those years of rice and bread and potatoes finally caught up with me in the blink of an eye with an ugly visit with a doctor. Trying to be a good patient, I actually came back in for a mini appointment to let her go over my bloodwork with me .  We were sitting in her office, shooting the breeze, when she leaned over her desk and said,

“My blood is like water- it flows freely like a beautiful waterfall. You, on the otherhand, have sludge-blood.”

Hold up, doc. You wanna say that to my face?

I was mildly offended at her choice of words and even more dismayed by her suggestion of how I get my blood back to flowing like the eternal waters. She wanted me to do that mini-meal thing where you eat small meals 15 times a day. Too bad I 1) don’t have enough time to pack even one lunch, much less fifteen and 2) I was working in a school environment, where I would have literally had to detach the children from my body so I could sit and eat my apple slice while they sneezed and breathed on it.  Incidentally, that doctor also told me that I needed to do chest presses so I could (ahem) lift the ladies, which translates into me dumping her.  Accusing me of sludge-blood and sagginess at the ripe age of 23 takes it too far, madam.

My next attempt at a doctor was an ancient old man whose only appeal (and I mean ONLY) was that he was close to my house. Every time I went, I waited at least 45 minutes past my appointment time and they never could seem to figure out why my blood pressure was so high. I even threatened (in my head) to leave and cough on everyone on my way out. The last straw was when my ringworm flared up again (thought it was scabies) and I went in to get meds. He brought out the Compendium of Rashes  and plopped down in a chair next to me. I know he didn’t mean to, but the page he showed me also happened to have pictures of genetalia with rashes on it. You just can’t come back from that (combined with the horrific wait times), so I dumped him too.

So I found an amazing new doctor- a doctor who actually schedules longer thatn 15 seconds to talk with her patients and follows up and you can email her after hours. Did I mention she’s amazing? She told me that I had high triglycerides and then delivered the horrible news- I had to bring down my carb intake to between 80 and 120 grams a day  to bring my ‘glycerides (that’s what my doctor and I call them- we tight) down and maybe even lose a little weight. Here’s the problem:

Potato- 63 carbs

Brown rice (1 cup- which is laughable)- 45 carbs

Cereal (1 cup)- 41 carbs

Banana- 26 carbs

Do you see the pattern here? All of MY foods are carby, which means I’ve met the 80 grams/day requirement before I finish breakfast. It was quite a shock. I’ve slowly but surely been learning to eat more meat and veggies and eat less carbs and fruits. My friend Rebekah’s site has helped, since she introduced me to Greek yogurt, which I totally eat for breakfast now. But really? I probably eat around 150 carbs a day. So…I didn’t follow her wishes exactly but her just saying that I need to eat less made me think more about what I was eating. Just got my blood tests back and my ‘glcerides are down (ALOT), so no more sludge-blood for this girl!

Now, let’s consider this shirt. In case you can’t clearly see what is going on, there is a person holding a gun to another person’s head. The thug is saying, “Eat more rice, banana head!” while the hostage sweats it out.  Here’s the situation I imagine:

The bull-fighting hostage, let’s call him Pat, was wooed into getting dinner with Meathead, the lady thug. Meathead made some delicious rice and Pat just raved about it over and over. Meathead and Pat start getting dinner more often, everytime eating rice. Well, Pat starts packing on the pounds from all the carbs and Pat’s blood starts to have the consistency of that homemade salsa we left in the refigerator too long.  Pat’s doctor says, “No more carbs, Pat. Don’t eat any more rice.” Pat goes to the next Meathead dinner with his resolve to only partake of the fruit salad- NO RICE. But she can’t accept this and starts to pressure Pat to eat more rice. MORE RICE, PAT.  You see, Meathead and Pat have built their relationship on the eating of rice.  It’s where they are comfortable- sitting at a table, eating rice. Meathead can’t take it no mo’ and ties Pat up, puts a gun to his head, and says, “Eat more rice, booger ear.”

(I’m going to copyright that story because I think it could make a good Lifetime mini-series. Really anything with a bullfighter in it is exotic, and thus, successful.)

How many times do we know something is bad for us but we do it (or use it) anyway because we give into peer pressure or Satan has tricked us into thinking we can’t live without it.

Proverbs 26:11 says:

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

Just to let you know, I’m not so sure this is an accurate statement. I have seen dogs eat other dog’s vomit, but never their own. I also, in a moment of weakness, tried to get Gracie to eat my vomit (so I wouldn’t have to clean it up) but she respectfully declined. I would probably rephrase the question as, “As a dog returns to its friend’s vomit over and over despite the owner shooing it away, so a fool repeats his folly.”

But really, that’s neither here nor there. The picture is that (obviously) vomit is gross and no one should be eating it. No one. It’s unhealthy and gross. So a fool, read: everyone on the Earth, returns to his folly.  Go back and read that story above again, except make these substitutions:

Pat = yourself

Meathead= Satan, habit, peer pressure, lack of resolve/control

Rice= sin, any action that is damaging to you mentally, physically, or spiritually

Feel free to also substitute your own imperatives.

Gossip about that lady with your coworkers, Barbie.

Get angry about your husband not picking up his things,  bran eater.

Call that idiot driver an idiot, buck teeth.

Think you’re better than them, bulldozer thighs.

 Watch more TV (to the exclusion of other things), braceface.

I get into these “hostage” situations quite often, as most people do, I’m sure. It seems especially hard for me to break bad habits. I need to work on my perseverance and not give in so easily. It’s like my brain controls me or something. Luckily, I know jujitzu and I can break my brain’s wrist with the flick of a finger.

Seriously, though, you need to hear the end of the Pat/Meathead saga. Here it is:

(Camera pans dramatically across an abandoned factory, where Pat sits helpless, eating a bowl of rice as his blood thickens like tomato basil soup, and Meathead watches, threatening Pat with death.) The factory is completely silent until BOOM, the front door bursts open and through the backlighting of the street, Jesus appears. “No more rice, Pat. I’ve come to rescue you from this thugette who wants to destroy you. You’re done, Meathead.” Jesus bites Meathead on the stomach and stabs her in the neck with a sharpie and then carries Pat to safety…until next time.

 

Jesus died so that He could save us from our personal rice-shoveling, Meatheads so that we can have a relationship with God instead. When we believe in Jesus, He gives us the chance to have a new resolve to fight the things that are destroying us, a new life that is free of sin and self-destructive actions.  Jesus loves us and wants us to have a healthy relationship with the Father. Here’s the kicker though:

Choosing to follow Jesus and fight the Meatheads is a daily battle.

See, Jesus resucing Pat doesn’t mean that Pat is free from tempation for ever. On the contrary, the very next day, Pat is free to wander back into the arms of the next carbohydrate queen. In fact, I can almost guarantee you that Pat will fall again and Jesus will have to rescue him…again. Pat is human- just as we all are.

How does Jesus resuce us?

1) He gives us other people to help us combat the temptation that is happening in our lives.

2) The Holy Spirit reminds us and encourages us to fight temptation through Scripture.

3) With practice, we can learn to recognize when we are sliding into sin and stop ourselves.

We mess up. Every day. The crazy thing is that Jesus knew that we would and chose to die for us anyway. That’s why His love is so amazing- every one gets it and no one deserves it.

So, I will be praying for you, sweet friends, that you and I  would be able to see where our failings are and that the Jesus in us would help us to fight against the demands of our temptations when they tell us to “Eat more rice, bitch.”

oops.

{Here’s a good Meathead fighting verse-

1Corinthans 10:13

But remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.

God is so good. Every day. Even when we are not.}