Eating Comfort Food at Wine o'Clock after Retail Therapy
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1
In June 2019, our family went on a mission trip to Peru. While helping build a church addition for children with special needs and their families, I snagged my knee on a rusty rebar protruding from a metal frame. Friends helped me pull my leg off the dirty spike and sat me in a plastic chair before removing their mortar-covered work gloves to “examine” the wound with a little hand sanitizer and an iPhone flashlight. On the surface, it was just a tiny hole. But I knew how deep I’d been impaled. I insisted it was fine, so we smothered it with Bactine and a band-aid and returned to laying bricks.
That evening when I removed the dirty bandage, I saw a red ring around the puncture. It was swollen, hot and hard to the touch. I refused to consider the need for closer examination. By bedtime, the infected area had doubled. I just wanted to rebandage, ignore the obvious and get through the rest of the week. I felt so vulnerable outside of my “home turf.” I wanted familiar accommodations and a language I understood before succumbing to more intrusive probing. But a doctor friend in the States took one look at a photo I texted and sent the names of three antibiotics I needed immediately. Our team found them at a corner pharmacy (no prescription necessary) and the infection began to improve by morning.
It's not that I didn’t trust Peruvian healthcare. I have no doubt that their medical professionals were qualified to treat my infection. But it was all so unfamiliar. Their system, processes and facilities were new and unknown. Uncertainty was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to cope with it. I just wanted to deal with it later.
Dismissing, even denying, our discomfort is natural. Avoiding anxiety is easier than addressing it. Money is tight, bills are due, parents age and kids rebel. Schedules, deadlines and appointments conflict. Appliances break, cars break, relationships break. There are missed opportunities and misunderstandings. Jobs change and people change. Life is hard, unpredictable and never fair. Fear of failure encouraged my relationship with alcohol. But the fear of feeling enabled the dependency. Fearing we’re failing in our marriage, with our children, at work, or in friendships threatens our identity. Fearing the future of finances, health, and relationships jeopardizes our sense of security. Insecurity and uncertainty compromise our reality and creates anxiety. Of course, we’d rather hide than handle!
No wonder we’re quick to rosé all day, and shop ‘till we drop from a food coma. A glass of wine to take the edge off. A pint of ice cream to comfort a broken heart. A click on “submit purchase” to suppress the envy. We’ve all done it. It’s a natural human reaction to want to comfort uncomfortable feelings. Doing something to distract us from our problems, to numb negative feelings, is almost instinctual. Drinking, eating junk or going on a shopping spree feels good when we’re feeling bad ... in the moment. But responding to life's stressors with cabernet, candy, and click-throughs is not a wise long-term plan. Drowning our sorrows in frosty mugs or waffle cones is not self-care. Coronas, cupcakes, and Coach bags don’t help us cope! They only help us conceal. Self-care that promotes concealing over coping is self-medicating. And self-medicating is the first step down a slippery slope towards self-destruction.
Just like the skin around my puncture wound swelled and turned red to warn me that something was wrong, our feelings notify us that something is off and we’re in need of further examination. Continually ignoring our feelings inhibits our healing. We get stuck in a purgatory of feeling the same negative feelings over and over because we’ve never explored the cause of the pain. We eventually lose the ability to process any feelings productively, and the problems only grow.
We have to feel our way to it, in order to heal our way through it.
So, where can we go that’s comfortable and feels safe to begin examining our feelings. How do we treat, deal with, what we find when we feel weak and overwhelmed by the pain? How do we endure life’s challenges, hurts and disappointments instead of escaping them?
To God, our Refuge. What a comforting word. It means “shelter or protection from danger, trouble.” Its “anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape.” God tells us we can hide in Him (Psalm 31:20, Psalm 32:7, Psalm 113:114). He invites us to share our feelings with him, no matter what they are, so that we can use His strength (Psalm 28:7, Psalm 61: 3, Philippians 4:13) to combat whatever conditions and circumstances we face and feel comfort (John 14:27, John 16:33, Isaiah 26: 3-4) while doing so.
God promises us peace, not perfection. Life isn’t fair. Change is hard. Feelings get hurt and fears are real. I know with full confidence that God is peace. I’ve felt it, I’ve experienced it, and I’ve seen it embrace my own children. He knows our feelings and our fears before we even have them. He’s awaiting our awareness of our pain and imperfections so that He can comfort and console us. He’ll guard our hearts (feelings) and our minds (fears). He’ll reveal what we need to know about ourselves and how we need to react when He’s confident we’re ready. All the while, the peace of His presence and the comfort of His control releases us from the burden of fearing failure and fearing feeling.
Practice Because We’re Imperfect
Listen to “Lord, I Need You,” by Matt Maher. This is my internal anthem. I’ve listened to it so many times that my mind (and heart) automatically play it when I’m scared, hurting, anxious and overwhelmed. It’s a prayer. It’s a way of reaching out to God and saying, “I can’t do this alone, please take it from me, I know you’re here and that you can.”
If God, our refuge, is where we go, how do we find relief from our burdens without seltzers, sweets and style trends? We must shift our dependence to God, through prayer. By talking to Him throughout the day – in the morning, in the car, in your head, in front of the pantry and just before the liquor aisle, we can find the strength to choose otherwise and grow more confident in confronting our problems with Him by our side. It takes time and practice on our part. He’s ready and waiting. Try it.