So…..a couple weeks ago, I was at work and one of the girls I work with had some chicken and fries from this chicken joint in town. You know those places….. the chicken wings are AMAZING but you know they fry EVERYTHING in the same grease (**debate me**). Anyhoo…… since discovering that I’m gluten intolerant, I can’t eat food from those places anymore (or most places, it seems). They reek havoc on my ENTIRE LIFE….. or at least my digestive system. Well, I ATE THE FRIES!!! Y’all, I ate them… and they were GOOD!
What the heck did I do that for?!?!!!?? For hanger’s sake…yep…that’s why I did it!!!!! Mmmkay, so, I was fine, it was worth it. LIES! The next day I woke up with canker sores inside my mouth (gross sounding, I know). Canker sores can be a reaction to gluten when you have a sensitivity to it. Soooooooo, NOT WORTH IT!
Now, I’ve had a canker sore before, but it was due to me eating WAAAAYYYY too much sugar. When this occurred, I gargled with some warm salt water and VOILA, it was gone. But this time, it was different. It took about a week and a half for them to begin to leave and that was after salt water gargling, Listerine, and peroxide (yep, I tried it). The pain was TERRIBLE! Every time I’d eat something, or breathe, or talk, or walk, or blink, or ANYTHING (maybe not all that, I got carried away), I was reminded of what I’d done to myself. What did I do??? I SETTLED! You’re probably thinking that I’m just being extra at this point, but I really did. I settled for something that wasn’t for me….that wasn’t good for me. And though it tasted so good, it wasn’t worth it.
My point??? Well, glad you’re interested…..sometimes we go for things that we can’t handle, stuff we know we shouldn’t have because the side effects are more than we’re ready for. Sometimes, we settle for what we can have right now, at the expense of what we really need, though it may come later. We do it because we “really want it” or because it’s convenient; but we suffer the consequences after. And even, sometimes, because others handle it with no problem, we think that it’ll be no problem for us. My system couldn’t handle the cross contamination but I decided to go for it anyway because I was hungry, and eating the fries was convenient. Like my situation, we often go for stuff and later on, we realize that it wasn’t even worth it.
What we must do is be willing to wait for what’s ours. The first thing isn’t always the best thing. What’s right in front of you isn’t always the answer. I actually left work about 45 minutes after I made the mistake of eating the fries. I could’ve waited….. I really could’ve, but I WAS IMPATIENT. And I’d put in my head that because there was
something available, I couldn’t wait and that I needed it right then (mind games, see how that works). But it always seems that way when something is right in front of you. Doesn’t it???
In life, we do stuff like, get into a relationship because it’s an opportunity but our heart and our emotions aren’t in the best place for it. We get “caught up in the moment” and we suffer as time goes on. Because, in the moment, we settle for a relationship that was never meant to be and it ends up not even being worth our time. **SN: People will always try to tell you that, “if you learned something from it that it wasn’t a waste of time”, but you know what? Some lessons YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEARN! TUH!** Your vise may not be a relationship, it may be a job that offered more money but you KNEW you shouldn’t have taken it because the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to your lifestyle or you had to perform tasks that you knew would be a stretch for you. Or, the job may not utilize your skills the way you’d prefer or the way that God intended. The thing is, once you open yourself up to things that you know shouldn’t be in your life, in your “bloodstream”, it takes a lot longer to get rid of them….to get them out of your system. Once you “settle for something” that isn’t meant for you, you kinda feel stuck in it. God can get you unstuck though.
Psalms 27:14 says, “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” You don’t have to settle for what’s in front of you when you serve a God that has what’s best for you. I know I use this scripture all the time, but it usually fits EVERY life situation: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9) We gotta remember that God knows what’s best and they we probably won’t ever fully understand His “why”. But He will ALWAYS give us more than we 1. deserve, 2. ask for, and 3. expect.
Mmmkay… I gotta go to bed. I told my boss I’d come in at 8 a.m. I’d tell y’all why the heck I did that, but I HAVE NO IDEA! I’ll DEFINITELY be having extra coffee in the morning. Anyhoo….. goodnight!
Love y’all (I really do),
Ms. A.M.White