Almost Peach Ice Cream

1 lb bag frozen sliced peaches
1/4+ c. raw honey
3/4-1c. organic skim milk (you could probably sub almond or coconut milk with good results)

Just before dinner, use a canister-style blender, pulse or blend on medium until smooth.  Season to taste with cinnamon, ginger, or other spices that suit you.  Pour into an appropriately sized dish and put back into the freezer while you eat dinner, then surprise your family with this healthy, ah-mazing dessert.

You're welcome.

Virus Scan: Initiated

I attended a meeting recently about natural health, and spiritual goals for the upcoming year.  During the course of the event, a single idea kept repeating itself in my mind:  emotions which are buried alive remain alive.  The facilitator gave an example of how, when she would respond in anger, she would find herself thinking and acting as a child, rather than the adult she actually was.

In light of scripture, and in light of a world view which looks through scripture to examine reality, I realized that somewhere within me lies the answer to the reason I respond to people the way that I do.  Why is it that I repeat myself many times when I speak, saying it a little different each time, trying to ensure that the listener understands exactly what I am trying to convey?  Why is it, when someone is angry or unhappy with me, I become physically uncomfortable and try all means possible to run away from the situation?

I have come to understand, over time, that like a computer, our body stores information that can be recalled later, both voluntarily and involuntarily.  So, I prayerfully asked God to bring to my memory the reasons for my actions.  Over the course of several days, I would ponder on those emotions, and scroll back through the history of my mind, trying to find the first time I encountered those feelings.

What I am talking about is not self-hypnosis, repressed memories, or any such thing.  I am simply talking about consciously recalling active memories, reaching back historically to a place that I could identify as a starting point.  I did not meditate on these emotions, or involve any other person; rather, I presented a query to my mind, and let my memory do the rest, over a period of a few days.

As I was riding back from a date night movie with my husband, looking quietly out the window onto the familiar eastern sky, I realized the beginnings of much of my neurosis had occurred before I was even five years old.  For example:

• I was taught that children are to be seen and not heard.  My step-father was often displeased with my inquisitive nature, and I received many beatings for talking too much.  On one such occasion, he had taken me to see my grandmother, and I tried, with as much as a four year old can try, to remain calm, and quiet, and not speak too often or freely.  Desperate for his approval, when we climbed into the truck afterward, I asked if I had "talked too much this time."  He informed me that I had, in fact, talked "too d*** much," and when we got home, he held me up by one arm and beat me with the wire end of a fly swatter.  It is from this experience that I learned the concept of failure.  This, and many many other examples, taught me to believe that no matter how hard I tried, I would never succeed at following the rules, and I would always be deserving of any punishment set before me.

• Soon after this incident, I tried to explain to my grandmother that I was afraid to go home with my step-father.  She tried to ask the right questions, and I tried to give her the right answers, but it wasn't until many years later that she understood what my four-year-old mind had tried to convey.  Needless to say, I went home with the abusive step-father, and spent the rest of my life, even now, repeating and re-repeating my words, making sure that my listener is absolutely certain of what I am trying to convey.  In fact, when I feel like I am being misunderstood, the same feelings of panic well up within me, as if I am once again that trapped little girl, about to be sent home with the man who hurt her.

• My birth mother spent much of my young childhood trying to avoid the way I looked.  She would try to bleach my freckles off with lemon juice, or tell the photographer at the preschool to "make sure and snap the picture before she smiles all the way," so I learnt to cover my freckles with piles of concealer and smile in a sort-of down-turned way that didn't show my teeth - - that was before I forgot how to smile altogether.  In fact, when I was in musical theater, I had to sit in front of the mirror for over an hour, which chapstick on my teeth, teaching myself how to smile and memorizing how the muscles felt, so that I wouldn't fail my class for neglecting to smile on stage.  I have spent my whole life lamenting the body that God put me in, and trying desperately to change it.

• At some point during this stage, my birth mother was admitted to a psychiatric institution for suicidal tendencies.  I seem to recall that she cut her wrists in the hospital, and then called the nurses for aide.  I learned that mental problems were either a joke or a stigma, and a sign of weakness rather than a need for healing.  While she was hospitalized, my step-father informed me that I was not to call him "Daddy" any longer, since he wasn't my father, after all, and he left me with my grandmother for many months until my birth mother came home from the hospital.  I learned that no one wanted me, and that love is something that is subject to change at any time.  I would spend my whole life trying anxiously to be loved, only to mistrust and push away those who loved me, in fear that they would abandon me.
  

These are only a small sampling of what I uncovered when I sought to find the origins of my strange behavior.  In this, though, I have found not defeat, but victory.  Though I am responsible for each of my sins, I can rest in the fact the God is my avenger, and he does not take kindly to those who abuse children, especially those who love God.  (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2)  Though I have a long path ahead of me, I can take comfort in knowing that God is a physician to those who are sick (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17), and that those who mourn will be comforted (Matthew 5:4).  

I have posted before on the ability of our body to respond to repeated emotion in the same way that it responds to repeated intake of foods, medicines, environmental toxins, etc.  I recognize that the vessel I dwell in, that is, my body, has been marked, and carries with it the reminders of the pain that I relived and recalled, as well as the joys.  It is my goal, then, to seek out and heal the damage that has been caused, as I uproot and neutralize each source of fear spiritually, and seek to heal the physical damage caused by carrying it around with me.

Virus Scan:  Initiated.