Welcome to the Funny Farm (20 page)

Right?

Of course, when it comes to bingeing on junk food, it's easy to know when I've overdone it. My scale, body shape, energy level, and even my blue jeans don't hesitate to scold me when I get too far out of line!

But what about those other binges? What about when I've binged on head candy—when I've filled my brain with ideas or images that are materialistic or hedonistic, when I've lusted after lifestyles or laughed at plot lines promoting values I don't embrace. What happens then?

It's so easy to get desensitized.

Several years ago, my friend Cherie Spurlock taped an index card above her TV. On it were these words, taken from Philippians 4:8: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (
KJV
).

If I took that verse to heart, I'd definitely want to cut back on the head candy, those nutrition-free binges of input that fatten up my sin nature and leave my spirit clogged and lethargic.

Maybe this wouldn't be a bad subject to bring up with family and friends. Maybe we could encourage each other to think about what we put into our brains. Maybe we could talk about making healthier choices. Maybe we could even figure out how to take that verse from Philippians and make it come alive in our own daily walks.

I think these would be great conversations to have.

I think they'd be even greater if we had them over root beer floats. Meet me at Dairy Queen. I'll be the one on the John Deere.

46

Spin Doctors

S
O THE OTHER DAY
I'
M SITTING THERE
watching the surgery channel.

No, really. I'm serious. I don't know if they actually call it the surgery channel, but that's what they do. They show operations. Real surgeries on real patients. It's actually very cool.

So, anyway, I'm watching the surgery channel when my husband walks up behind me and stands there watching the screen for several minutes. Finally, his eyes still transfixed on the TV, he says, “So what is this, a cooking show or something?”

I say, “No. They're replacing a kneecap.”

Larry never answered. He just made this strange gurgling noise as he careened from the room.

I don't know why I like the surgery channel. Maybe for the same reasons I like psychology, dieting (when it works!), and snorkeling: Because sometimes it's fun seeing what's hidden under the surface.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit that some things that are undercover should stay that way. My own personal kneecaps fall into that category. We've been close for years, my kneecaps and I, but I've never actually laid eyes on them, and I'd just as soon our relationship stay that way.

But for the most part, I love figuring out what makes things tick.

This is probably why my girlfriends and I can dissect a problem for hours and never run out of angles to discuss. We should all get jobs on national TV, like those men and women who can fill literally hundreds of hours of airtime analyzing an eleven-minute presidential speech.

Except I don't want to analyze politics. I want to analyze things that really matter, like kids and husbands and frustrations and dreams and goals. How to cope is good for at least a two-hour conversation on any given day, as are weight loss and various beautification procedures. You'd be amazed how much mileage my girlfriends and I can get out of talking about unwanted body hair alone.

Sometimes, the outcome of all this analyzing and dissecting is that we stumble onto some very workable solutions. Other times, the best we can do is table our conversation until the next time we're together, when we pick up pretty much where we left off. Not unlike a miniseries. Except this one goes on forever, kind of like
Shogun
seemed to do except with far more commercial interruptions, most of which look uncannily like children.

But I have a question. What if we CAN'T figure it out? What if we dissect, analyze, probe, brainstorm, and whine ad nauseam and we STILL can't get it solved? “It” could be anything, anything at all. “It” might be a clueless husband, a demanding career, a rebellious kid, stubborn love handles, tenacious creditors, or a long, dark spiritual tunnel in which we're not entirely sure whether the light ahead is the light of day or an oncoming train.

I have a couple problems like this. Problems I've been dissecting for years. Which is fine, because I think it's good to study and ponder and even whine now and then as we try to figure out the enigmas of this thing called life.

But I'm starting to wonder if there's not a time when it's right to put down my tweezers and my microscope, when it's best to fling wide my hands and say, “Okay, Lord, all my intellectual prowess hasn't gotten me diddly as far as this problem is concerned. So I'm taking a break, here. Please remove this problem from my life YOUR way, or show me why it's here, or help me trust you, or something. But I'm going to stop tussling with it like a puppy with a dishtowel. I'm going to stop working so hard. It's yours. It's in your hands. I'm taking a vacation.”

In time, maybe we'll go back to wrestling with our problem, because, after all, God gave us these brains of ours for good reason. But whether we do or don't, taking a break and putting a long-term problem squarely in the capable hands of a loving heavenly Father might be just the ticket.

Besides, think about how good it would feel to relax a little. And if we're whining less, imagine all the spare time we'd have. In fact, now that my problem's in good hands, I think I'll kick back and watch a little TV.

I hear there's a tonsillectomy on at three.

47

Quack, Quack

L
AST NIGHT
B
ETH AND
I
WENT OUT FOR COFFEE.
She's in the middle of remodeling her bathroom and was feeling stressed with her husband and kids and the plumber and the tile man and just pretty much life in general.

So we ended up in a booth at Chile's.

We scanned the menu, ordered two cups of coffee, the tuna fillet and grilled veggies, then went back to discussing Beth's stress and the fact that she was down to her last nerve.

Little did we know that our waiter was about to find that last nerve and walk all over it.

It started when he brought coffee, sugar, and cream but no silverware.

Beth spent the next five minutes trying to wave him down. After she asked for silverware, he brought forks but no spoons.

Another five minutes passed as Beth tried to get his attention. When she did, she growled, in a voice reminiscent of Linda Blair's in
The Exorcist,
“We'd like some SPOONS here.” He apologized and promptly brought us two long-handled iced tea spoons that would have made it possible for us to stir the coffees of the couple sitting four booths away.

By now I was trying hard not to laugh, and Beth was trying hard not to make headlines in the next morning's paper: “Waiter in Critical Condition after Being Bludgeoned by Spoon-Wielding Midlife Mom.”

I looked across the table at my friend. “I have three little words that will save you.”

She asked, “What are they?”

I said, “Be a duck.”

She said, “Excuse me?”

I said, “A duck. Be one. Okay, close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Visualize with me. You're a duck. The clueless waiter is a drop of water. He falls on your feathers. He rolls right off. Water off a duck's back and all that. You're not even wet. Let it go, Beth. Let it roll right off. Take a deep breath and let it go. Be a duck. Say ‘I'm a duck.'”

She closed her eyes and said, “I'm a duck.”

(See why I love my friends?)

I said, “That's right. Be a duck. Be a duck. Be a duck.”

She opened her eyes and flashed me a wicked grin. “You know, this is going to come back to haunt you the next time you're upset about something.”

I laughed. “I know. And when my turn comes, don't worry. I'll be a duck, too.”

I love figuring out new ways to cope with the stresses and messes of life. When life hurts, what helps? Indeed, my last two books have been dedicated to answering that very question—each book contains more than a dozen tried-and-true ways to feel better when life throws you a curve.

Although I have to admit, the duck speech came out of the blue. It was a new one even for me. But I think it helped, and I'm definitely going to try it myself the next time I feel my blood start to boil.

I wish you and I were immune to crisis, but unfortunately we're not. Emotional crises, family crises, health crises, beauty crises, even trainee waiter crises—we're subject to them all, aren't we?

Not long ago, however, I experienced a crisis even I wasn't prepared for. It was a crisis of faith. I'm writing about this because last week I got a letter from a woman named Deborah who wrote, “I've been living on antidepressants for the past year and am struggling with my faith.”

And I could really relate, because a couple years ago I found myself in a lot of emotional pain, and somehow, in the process, my faith took a real beating as well.

Now, I've met folks and I'm sure you have, too, who—when crisis comes a callin'—say, “My faith is the thing that got me through.”

One of my girlfriends was like this. Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer at 32, brain cancer at 35, and was a citizen of heaven by 37. But in the meantime, everyone who loved her got to watch her faith grow into something massive and muscled and strong, an Arnold Schwarzenegger–sized faith, and it was a beautiful thing to see.

In MY times of crisis, however, my faith becomes an eighty-pound weakling that couldn't get me out of a soggy paper sack.

Not all the time. But more often that I like to admit.

I'm happy to say, however, that the thing that gets me through—even when my faith is knock-kneed and anemic and in need of an awful lot of handholding and antibiotics and maybe even CPR—isn't a thing at all but a Person.

A couple years ago I was in such emotional pain that I was having a hard time walking with the Lord. To be honest, I wasn't even trying. And when it came to prayer, the best I could muster was a single plea, and for months these were my only words to God, and they went like this:

“Lord, hang on to me. I know I should be hanging on to you, but I'm not. The truth is, I feel too wounded and broken and angry and rebellious and hurt right now to hang on to you. So if I'm going to get through this at all, it's got to be up to you. See me through this, Lord, hang on, please hang on to me and don't let go.”

And guess what?

He hung on.

When life hurts, what helps? The list is long: laughing, crying, counseling, working out, music, insightful sermons, caring friends, gardening, whining, praying, reading, reflecting, and even quacking come to mind.

But sometimes everything seems to fail, even our faith. In other words, sometimes we quack and sometimes we crack.

Even then there's hope. Because even when our faith's not strong our God is faithful.

Daisy, Daffy, and Donald don't know what they're missing.

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