I Choose

I heard this recently and it impacted me a great deal. Most everything in my world comes down to "I choose."

I choose to have a heart that loves big.

I choose to be more than others were for me. 

I choose to work at a high stress but incredibly rewarding job. 

I choose my children, all of them, those I birthed, those I chose, those who chose me, and those I never held. 

I choose to love and be committed to my Stephen. 

I choose to keep my distance from things and people who hurt me

I choose to love broken things.

I choose to keep showing up, even when I'm tired.

I choose to know the good even if I can't see it.

I choose to allow myself to feel all of the things.

These are just a few.

Mac N Cheese Recipe

 

Creamy Homemade Mac N Cheese

1 pound elbow macaroni

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

2 cups warmed milk or heavy cream (I personally prefer heavy cream)

1 pound Sargento Chef's Blends Shredded 4 State Cheddar

1/2 pound grated smoked Gouda

1/2 pound Gruyere

1 8 oz pack of cream cheese

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease a 3 qt baking dish (9x13").  Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  When boiling, add dried pasta and cook 1 minute less than the package directs for al dente.  Drain and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil to keep from sticking.

While water is coming up to a boil, grate cheeses and toss together to mix, then divide into three piles.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour into the butter and stir it with a whisk. Cook for 2 minutes. Whisk the warmed milk into the flour mixture, working out any lumps. Cook until the roux thickens, about 2-3 minutes. Add cream cheese and stir until smooth. Add first pile of cheese and stir until cheeses begins to melt. Remove from heat and keep stirring until completely melted and smooth; season with salt and pepper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine drained pasta with cheese sauce, stirring to combine fully.  Pour half of the pasta mixture into the prepared baking dish.  Top with second pile of grated cheeses, then top that with the remaining pasta mixture.

Sprinkle the top with the last of the cheese and bake for 15 minutes, until cheesy is bubbly and lightly golden brown. 

The Sin of Sadness and Other Nonsense

I wrote this a few years ago while in a Christian based Grad program and wanted to share.  

Here I am again, rattling cages and making people uncomfortable, but I honestly don't know what else to do. One of my classmates posted:

"Based on my personal Christian worldview psychopathology depends solely on a person’s relationship with God. This relationship is totally supported by the gospel of God’s son Jesus Christ, who gave His life for the salvation of mankind (John 3: 16). This salvation restores fallen humanity to proper relationship with their creator. This salvation heals all sorts of sole (mental health) diseases from depression to anxiety and in fact makes every believer, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). In my view, to be separate from God is to be lost without the Sheppard in a harsh and darkened world (see Psalms 23). People that are burdened down with a world of care are prone to falling into pathological behaviors such as lying, cheating, drug abuse, self-harm (cutting, and anorexia), and etc. However, the Bible teaches that when we experience heavy burdens, we can go to God the creator and he will give us rest (Matthew 11:18)." 

My response:

I appreciate your faith and dependence on God's Word, but am fearful that considering all psychopathology as related to a person's relationship with God may be both dangerous, and isolating to clients. I say this as someone who experienced years of abuse and suffered from depression and other mental health issues because of it. I did not choose to sin and separate myself from God, rather, I was abused to the point by people who claimed Christianity, that I was left thinking that if God did exist, He cared nothing for me. 

If I had gone into a therapy session and heard that my problems were due to a problem with my relationship with God, it would have only reinforced my abusers definition of who I was. I am grateful that when I did seek help I found someone who acknowledged how I was thinking and feeling while also showing me God's truth about who I was. It literally saved my life. 

There are other times when a person's mental illness is to to a physical cause and has nothing to do with their relationship with God. I am an adoptive mother to a child who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and psychosis. Her brain physically does not work the way it is supposed to because of her birth parent's decisions. I don't think there is a child who has ever been more prayed for, or a mother who has ever had more faith that God could choose to heal her baby girl, but He hasn't. 

The miracle, I am finding, isn't in restoration, though I believe it possible; it isn't in healing; though I am praying diligently for it, the miracle is that even when there is not one, God provides strength and grace to bring you thru it .

God will bring you through circumstances so that you can go back later and show someone else the way out. Joseph’s time in slavery lead to him saving an entire nation (Genesis 39, NIV). Jesus’s death and resurrection made a way so that all people can be forgiven (Matthew 27-28 NIV). Our job as counselors isn’t to erase suffering or place value on a clients relationship with God.

I love the way

 I...Love...The...Way

I literally picked a quote at random. A touch screen and closed eyes led me to this quote: 

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. Og Mandino 

I then deleted most of the words on the quote, leaving only a few, in the same order as the original. "I love the way" is all that I left. It was all you could see on my wall as a title before choosing whether or not to read further. It was a tiny glimpse, and an inaccurate one, of what I am writing about. Some cheeseball country song is what comes to mind as I read those four words together that way. There is no telling all the different thoughts that came to the minds of those who saw that post. The words, taken out of context, can be used to create many things. If you google them, there are thousands upon thousands of results, but only a few that are the actual quote by Og Mandino. 

This is one of many of the problems with social media. We see tiny glimpses of someone's life. We can take those pieces and parts and make them into anything, especially when we have decided beforehand what is and is not truth. What a very dangerous thing to do. I say, if you are gonna look, look all the way through. #Writing #ogmandino #quotes #socialmedia #ohbecarefullittlemouthswhatyousay

Tolerance Levels

I wrote this many years ago while still involved directly in the foster care/adoption world.  

Tolerance Levels

As a trauma mama, I live in a completely different world than most of my friends, and many who choose to follow or friend me on social media. Though it brings me much grief, I don't even fault you for it. Most days I'm jealous and envy your normal. But, I am not alone. I'm surrounded by other mothers who live in worlds you simply can't imagine; where your 5 year old making a moaning sound or your 16 year old waking up dry are a success. A world where the hope is to end the day outside of a psyc er or hospital visit, a world where you are more educated about medication and disease than the latest intern who has been assigned to your case. I live in a world of darkness where light is sporadic and almost dreaded because of the knowledge it will quickly fade. I was reminded earlier of a time when I was still in church and one of my children said, "oh God" in front of the wrong person. She immediately chastised me saying, "I can't believe you let your child use the Lord's name in vain." I said, "Mam, I'm just glad it wasn't 'fuck you."

You see, while some of you are upset because your child didn't clean their room or because they have a C in science, there are mothers like myself who ache because their child cannot live with them or who go to bed in hysterics after the latest hours long tantrum that ended in a police visit or hospital admission.

We don't mean to be snippy or rude, we understand on a logical level that a C in science is a big deal, but we simply cannot reconcile that with the panic we felt when we got the call our daughter stabbed herself. We are trying. We are sorry. We are sorry for feeling jealous and lost and terrified that we may never ever get to be worried about science class or rooms being cleaned. Our tolerance level is higher. It just is. It doesn't mean we don't care that our child is failing math, it just means that in our world, the fact that she sat through class deserves a standing ovation. We are trying. We are trying desperately to fit into a world that doesn't even exist to most.

Our hearts are broken. Our minds are exhausted. On a scale from one to ten, we have passed a million. I'm not asking you to understand, I am only asking that you acknowledge our tolerance level is a little higher.

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Water Damage

I recently had someone post a meme asking why certain things, like pancake mix, movies, books, statues were not considered racist when Obama was president. The reality is, they were, they have been.

I kinda look at it this way. 

One day you walk across the floor and your foot falls through causing serious injury. 

What do you do next? Start looking around and under the floor. Start looking for factors that could have contributed to the floor rot. Start pulling up boards, finding those that are broken or damaged, and replacing them. 

Yes, maybe, you walked on that floor for a lifetime and never had a problem, but now you do. 

Yes, water is wonderful. Water in the wrong place can be dangerous.

Yes, floors are necessary, but a floor that has shown itself to be dangerous must be fixed.

You can’t ignore it because you love water. You can’t ignore it because the many other people who walked on the floor were not injured. 

You cannot ignore it because others knew it was dangerous and walked around.

You just have to fix the floor. When you know better, you do better.