prismaticbleed | iscah meal log 061417 (Reply)

Jun. 14th, 2017 09:30 am = welcome, Heather!!! ♥

Breakfast= two slices of French toast, double butter, scrambled eggs, apple juice, vanilla VHC, vanilla soymilk, earl grey tea, three sugar packets, and one honey. Again, breakfast was a little difficult because there was a lot of talk, AND I was shame/ guilt dissociating over the honey, as usual. I just feel so awful for not really "liking" it? It's too burny-sweet for me. But there's that infamous childhood fear: "Is that a sin?" Is it a sin to not want to put honey on my food, solely because I don't "like" the taste? Is it a sin to want to journal instead of playing Scrabble? And dude I STRUGGLE with that. I actually discussed that with Staff after writing that last sentence, because just "stating" such an obviously distorted, painful, ugly-feeling thought was literally painful & nauseating. SO. I want to just leave that in the dust, BUT not before completely and solidly refuting it for the distortion it is: What's the real, ONLY definition of a "sin"? It is that which is done out of fear. No faith, no love. THAT makes something a sin. BUT. Humans slip up; it's INEVITABLE-- because we AREN'T God. We're IMPERFECT. We're incomplete and we're totally clueless without God. But, and I happily repeat myself on this-- that's the paradoxical beauty of life. That flawed factor, that weakness, allows for humility-- and from humility, ALL other virtues bloom. ♥ And seriously, dude-- LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES. (What, what, what are you doing?) But really, chill out, love. You want to do Good. You sincerely, wholeheartedly WANT AND TRY to be as Good as possible in everything you do-- BUT!! It's ONLY when you get caught up in fear that you stumble over your own feet. Is "not liking" honey a sin? NOT IF YOU'RE ACTING OUT OF LOVE-- in which case you can totally appreciate & value & love the honey AS God's Creation, wonderful & unique,even if it's not the "wisest choice" in that situation!! "Everything is allowed;" "everything is clean in and of itself;" BUT "not everything is edifying," and "if a man thinks something unclean, then it BECOMES unclean FOR HIM." Applied here? The honey is innocent & Good & totally clean & allowed-- BUT!!! If some distortion is projecting lies onto it-- fear, anger, disdain-- then suddenly it "becomes unclean" because THOSE LIES ARE UNCLEAN. And THAT is when it becomes "a sin" to eat a food-- SOLELY BECAUSE YOU AREN'T EATING FOR GOD'S GLORY, when you let fear in! So, remember that. You, in your Loving heart, blessed so by God, for God, through God... your heart CAN AND DOES LOVE EVERYTHING. So, quite literally, I CAN eat every & any food, ever, AS LONG AS I DO SO FOR GOD. And I couldn't do that this morning, projecting such shame & guilt & fear onto the innocent food, therefore forbidding myself from loving it SIMPLY BECAUSE I DIDN'T GO TO GOD ABOUT IT. And I contritely, miserable admit that-- because now my aching heart has SEEN its fault and it takes DETERMINED HOPE in now having the Grace TO understand WHY and HOW it stumbled, and by that same Grace, being DEDICATED to NOT SINNING AGAIN in that way, through vigilant trust & surrender & Love for God. I am terribly sorry that I messed up, BUT now I-- thank God!!-- can correct my steps, and strengthen my capacity TO do Good, in becoming ever more aware & open to God. Gotta water & fertilize that virtue-seeded heart-garden, after all! ♥ But yes. I think that, deep down, I knew that, at breakfast-- that if I let go of blind fear and turned to God in prayer like a child, He WOULD correct & forgive & heal & redirect me, even in an instant-- and I WILL admit, I put ALL my effort into loving that honey. Even though I was still struggling with misplaced shame & false "dislike," I put that honey on the firm-soft french toast crusts, kissed with butter, and I LOVINGLY, FORGIVINGLY ate them-- and I thanked God for them, for the gift of such wonderful foods, for the gift OF food... for the honestly beautiful sweetness of the toast & honey & butter ALL singing together in beautiful amber tones, rich & harmonious, like a joyous peal of bells! ♥ I actually want to cry a little-- in the face of such vice, with the honey almost being condemned, God manifested His Glory and Love in response to my desperate but faithful prayer for deliverance FROM those vices... and, after all that, I was STILL able to love the ENTIRE breakfast, honey & all. And it was BEAUTIFUL. ♥ God just... blows my mind, really. He brings the most beautiful Light out of darkness, EVERY day, EVERY TIME... honestly! Even if we can't see it, God ALWAYS succeeds. God ALWAYS conquers sin & pain & vice. Even if it totally surpasses our human capacity to understand it at all. God wins. God saves. And NO act of Good is too small to Glorify Him totally... even breakfast can sing His praises. ♥

Lunch= grilled cheese on wheat bread (w/ two tomato slices & a lettuce leaf), Fig Newtons, salsa Sun Chips, vanilla Greek yogurt, and vanilla VHC. Yet again, thank God for Psyche & Jewel & Harmonia, who are all TOTALLY FEARLESSLY HAPPY when eating in quieter public environments-- Psyche is just orange, dude; orange folks are always so courageously warm & bright that "wallflower" behavior (such as self-consciousness & performance anxiety) doesn't even occur to them-- they love people & life & their own lives as people too honestly & openly to be proud or hesitant, or to hamper that love in any way. So Psyche can sit at that nervous table, quiet and tense, and jovially crunch through a bag of Sun Chips, crumbs & awkward sizes and messy fingers & all, without worrying a bit about "how he looked," because he was eating with JOY & LOVE, as politely as he could, and the chips were as innocent as he! But yeah-- his love-strong behavior there PROVES that any fear of "judgment" that any other fronter may have is NOT based on Truth, and has NO actual merit, and CANNOT affect their inherent worth as a living thing, because ALL such judgments are NOT OF GOD!! They are NOT, because they condemn! They ridicule & mock, they show no compassion or mercy or kindness or gentleness or understanding-- they CANNOT LAUGH, not from the heart!! I don't consider anything but "childlike laughter, joyful & wonderful & loving & happy to be alive, to even BE "laughter." And honestly? Good humor-- a VERY Orange Virtue (just look at Psyche & Lynne & Pagotamiar & so many others! ♥)-- is one of THE MOST POWERFUL things for conquering pride and self-absorption, EVEN in "hidden" manifestations such as "fearing what others think of you." I also have to apologize-- all this is sounding like condemnation on MY part, too, and perhaps deep down it IS, out of fear of my capacity for such unhealthy behaviors BUT. That very sentence carries its solution within it-- that capacity is only because of fear. In order to release that fear, AND therefore, release those behaviors as well-- all I have to do is choose That which drives out ALL fear-- LOVE. Obviously, beautifully, simply & profoundly. And if doubts & condemnations ever creep in about that? Think of Vezerai. I'm serious. The real me, the TRUE me, would never laugh at love, let alone THAT example of its power to conquer fear-- quite literally. But yeah. As I've said countless times and will CONTINUE to say, even if only out of sheer courageous stalwart dedication TO love, that virtue is not only the very anchor & cornerstone & driving force in our treatment process here, AND in our life in general, but it is ALSO the very essence of GOD-- of the CORE OF ALL CREATION. Anything & everything that dares scoff at Love ONLY can do so out of fear-- and as you also know, such things cannot last. So yeah. Don't ever be afraid, dude-- not of anything, especially not something as silly & empty as a judgment-- such things only arise from distortion, and are inherently false. The ONLY judgment that matters, the ONLY judgment that even CAN exist, is GOD'S... and His Judgment, His Only & Final Judgment, is based on LOVE. God's Love, and whether or not we lived BY it, FOR it, IN it-- and we can ONLY do so THROUGH God... through Christ. In Him, we are judged as SAVED, because in order TO be in Him, we must Love Him, and Trust Him... and ONLY GOD can inspire such virtue; only His Spirit IN US can move us to such True devotion. And thence we are adopted. We are free and unafraid, as long as our hearts REMAIN in Him... and literally the ONLY thing that can shake us from that peace is the CHOICE of fear. God CANNOT stop loving us. But we can choose to doubt, to hesitate, to fear. God will remain steadfast & True & Loving, but we can sure get ourselves stuck in a place here where we can't feel that... every time we don't trust Him, even if we don't even realize that's what we're doing. But that's what self-consciousness is: it's focusing on "self" instead of on God-- and such a focus will ALWAYS feel anxious & lost & scared & depressed & hopeless & angry... because such a focus is not looking to God, and therefore is turned away from Love. However. The heart cannot bear such an unnatural view, and that is an ETERNAL, UNDENIABLE HOPE for ALL Creation-- every heart yearns for its Creator. Every heart yearns for Love. And so, no matter what happens in this life... deep down, every heart will eventually return to God, even if He has to push it a little... because in the end, He just wants us home. ♥

3PM Snack= a mint chocolate NuGo bar, for the sake of standing strong in Love & hope & forgiveness & courage even-- ESPECIALLY-- in the face of doubt and hesitant anxiety and fear. Love soothes, comforts, reassures, protects, and strengthens. Love picks up every broken thing and holds them to its heart-- it cleans & bandages their wounds, and patiently nurses them to health... so that they, too, may become Love to others. ♥ But remember, too, Love's friends: humility, gratitude, faith, trust, hope... ♥

Dinner= guess what kids WE'RE BACK ON LEGIT SELF-SELECT!!! ♥ AND we got to go with Jessie today, on her last day. We finally got our COPE dinner date-- and hopefully in the future, we'll be able to have one OFF-unit! ♥ For tonight, though, this was truly lovely. We didn't worry at ALL-- we nabbed our CS first, checked all the entree options and picked the one that was both the newest & easiest to build off, and then got it done! So yeah, our timing was TOTALLY BOSS. ♥ We got: one slice of sourdough with turkey lunchmeat, provolone cheese, lettuce & tomato, pepper, & one mayonnaise packet; one slice of light whole wheat bread with egg salad, lettuce & tomato, pepper, & one mayonnaise packet; two decaf black teas with the tiniest bit of french vanilla/ white chocolate cappuccino & half-n-half added in; and a slice of chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Also? I got an unexpected blessing with the "half sandwiches" today, which is why I didn't list them as such-- the deli dude, who was super sweet, didn't want to assume incorrectly when I said "one slice of bread" and so he essentially gave me open face sandwiches. Which was BRILLIANT because I was therefore able to have half sandwiches with TWICE the thickness a whole sandwich would have had! Honestly dude, it was WONDERFUL. ♥ The egg salad was QUITE INTERESTING because I had no idea what to expect! But it's literally just chopped-up hard boiled eggs, rich in their belovedly familiar glossy eggy taste & texture, plus those crumbly-dry-soft yolks, mixed with a bit of mayonnaise to keep 'em together! Simple, but lovely-- and actually very nice on the light whole wheat! A darker wheat would've done MUCH better-- the light color & delicate tone-vibe of the eggs harmonizes best with a dark & heavy-wholesome base, also neutral I would think-- but the lighter one was still sweet and kind, albeit blending a bit in "frequency" with the equally modest & gentle eggs. Possibly more mayo would've helped, a LOT, to add a level of vivid tone to lift up BOTH neutral-er egg & bread flavors at once... but most of that mayo went with the sourdough sandwich because DANG, SON. It was just the perfect fit to the turkey & provolone & tomato, and again, I could only take two packets today! Nevertheless, the egg salad actually sang REALLY well with the tomato, which offered a similar zesty-lifting effect, and the lettuce, too, helped the bread (brown & green are essentially made for each other-- just look at Nature!!) taste a little stronger. ♥ So really? It WAS a beautiful little sandwich! AND I am now quite the fan of egg salad-- that sweet deli dude put a legit scoop of it on the bread, like an ice cream serving. It was visually glorious. (Kudos to you, bro!) And it tasted just as lovely, of course! ♥ Oh-- and lest I forget, the black pepper addition on both was BOSS with the mayo. Also I just realized I haven't sand the praises of the TURKEY SOURDOUGH PROVOLONE. ♥ Oh my goodness. HELLO NEW FAVORITE SANDWICH! ♥ And consider this-- I had 3 slices of each on one slice of bread. That half was STACKED, bro-- and it was AMAZING! I have become quite the fan of both turkey and provolone in my time here-- and their tastes harmonize quite nicely! Plus, sourdough is ALWAYS great, as is mayo.

8PM Snack= a chocolate chip NuGo, a mint chocolate NuGo, and a pretzel NuGo... for Jessie, of course. ♥ And every one of them tasted SO clear and good and lovely. ♥ The CC's chocolate crisps were so evident & sweetly cocoa-y with the differently sweet, lighter soy crisps around it... the mint in the MC chocolate was SO minty & beautiful & the chocolate crisps were beautifully dark-rich but not sugary... and I have NEVER tasted the super unique agave flavor in the pretzel crisp so clearly before! ♥ Thanks, God!

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SELF SELECT 061417 = Jun. 14th, 2017 05:30 am = #6 (DINNER) ~WEDNESDAY 0614~ (1) D | (2) S | (3) P | (3) F | (1) CS
1) Sourdough bread; 1 slice (1S) 2) Provolone cheese; 3 slices (1D) 3) Turkey lunchmeat; 3oz (3P) 4) Lettuce & tomato (~V) 5) Light whole wheat bread; 1 slice (1S) 6) Egg salad; 1 cup (1P 1F) 7) Mayonnaise; 2 packets (2F) 8) Raspberry cheesecake (1CS) 9) Decaf black tea; 720mL (+cappuccino flavor) (-) = The deli dude gave me OPEN FACE SANDWICHES so when I halved them to make actual sandwiches, they were SUPER THICK & DELICIOUS. ♥
(S) marble rye, onion kaiser, croissant, blueberry bagel, chicken soup, french roll, focaccia bread, strawberry jello, frozen yogurt, cheerios, (P) ham, chili, pepperoni, tuna salad, baked fish, hummus, pizza, hot dog, german ham, chickpeas, green peas, (D) pepperjack cheese,