Stressed Spelled Backwards is Desserts

Why is it that Thanksgiving and Christmas Holiday eating causes weight gain?  It is hard to understand how an ounce of cake turns into a pound of fat over night and that same pound of fat takes two weeks of hard work in the gym to remove.  Five Christmas parties equal ten New Year Resolutions that are broken by the time Valentine’s Day arrives.

Things like this make the holidays depressing.  I do not know about most people, but when I get depressed, I eat.  A super-sized order of Big Mac, fries, and diet Dr. Pepper help my depression.  If I cannot get the Big Mac, desserts will help drive depression away.  You do know that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

Preaching is a stressful job.  Just think of all the eating invitations that preachers receive.  I know I do not look like it, but I am a picky eater.  I always try to please cooks and people who prepare meals for me.  One can never afford to make the cook angry.  I get stressed thinking about what might be in my Big Mac if the cook is angry.  I have heard horror stories about foreign object allowances in our food during processing.  It is depressing and Big Mac time.

I have had a few occasions where I have worried.  One time Mama Green invited our family over for Sunday dinner.  Before being a pastor I was supply preaching at Mama Green’s church.  Mama Green was a short, bent, lady.  She had a contagious laugh and infectious love for the Lord.  As she readied the table, my family, along with another couple from the church, looked at all of Mama Green’s earthly goods.  She had some neat stuff in a slightly unkempt house. 

She filled her table with large bowls of good old country cooking.  It was a table right out of Miss Manners or Dear Heloise.  Gathered around the table, Mama Green asked the husband of the other couple to say grace.  We started the feast.  Did you know that kids could embarrass you?  My daughter Angela tried that day.  She spotted a large roach crawling among the food bowls.  She said, “Daddy, there is a big roach on my plate.”  Boy, I’m glad Mama Green was hard of hearing.  When Mama Green asked what the dear little girl wanted, I think I patched it by saying that she wanted some pig roast or a big piece of roast.  I motioned and whispered to Angela that it was okay.  It made the meal a little more difficult to eat.

That’s almost as bad as the time we were eating green beans and my baby son Aaron found a worm.  I told him that the worm was full of green beans and the worm added a little more meat flavor.  Angela removed it from his plate and Aaron does not eat green beans.

One Sunday afternoon we were frying some French fries.  We kept smelling this foul order and could not find the source.  That was until we dumped the fries along with a French fried green lizard.  Aaron responded, “I wondered where my little lizard was hiding.”

I have always had the fear of being on a mission trip to a foreign country and having an exotic meal.  I have heard of missionaries who have been served camel eyeballs, goose intestines, and fish heads.  I'd rather have roaches and worms.

Stuff like that reminds me of a cousin returning home from a hard day’s work, entered his kitchen, and found this delicious aroma.  He removed a lid from a boiling pot and discovered the contents and source of the aroma was a beautiful pink meat.  He used a fork to get some of the tender meat.  It was delicious.  As his wife entered the kitchen, he quizzed her about the meat.  As my cousin chewed a large mouthful, his wife said, “Hog lights (lungs).”  My cousin spit them out, but his wife loved them.

On another invite to a home after church, we gathered around a beautiful arrayed table.  It had all the amenities of fine dining.  The silverware, utensil, and napkins were an etiquette masterpiece for American dining.  I worried how to act, but my worries quickly subsided.  There on the placemat was cat hair.  While we were at church, Old Tom decided he would take a nap on the elegant place mats and napkins.  I am glad I did not get a hairball.

 As you can tell, these things have only slowed me, not stopped me from eating.  If you are depressed from reading this, go get a Big Mac or some desserts.  Remember when invited to a home for dinner; do as Paul told the Corinthians about meat offered to idols.  Do not ask, just eat it.

But fortunately God doesn’t grade us on our diet.  We’re neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it.  But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a Christian still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track (I Corinthians 8:8-9 The Message).

But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak (I Corinthians 8:8-9 NIV).