We have cheesecake 3 times a year. One being my birthday. The second being Memorial day. Side note: I just love memorial day. The pool opens. All of your family comes over. You get to eat all sorts of grilled food. Summer is ahead of you. School is behind you for a little while. Flies are everywhere but you don't really care because, hey, it's summer. Tina makes cheesecake. It's a win win win. The third being thanksgiving/Christmas time. Not necessarily on those days but around that season. When Tina makes cheesecake it's a special time. Let's be real, the day of my birth is special. Christmas? So special. Memorial day? A delightful rarity.
I told Tina that we should make a cheesecake every week this summer. Try something new. I mean we love it why don't we have it more often? Right? I've got to be right. But my petit, slim mom shook her head and said, "I would weigh 481 pounds by... the end of summer and it would steal our joy of only having every once in a while. In the meantime, we should definitely eat it for dinner."
My first thought? Mom, you cray cray.
Eat it for dinner? But it's against everything you ever taught me! I should be eating vegetables for dinner. Perhaps something considered "lean cut" and fat free. Cheesecake for dinner? That can't be okay. It's against tradition. You've been lying to me my entire life. The rug is getting pulled out from under me. Just the thought of that makes me want to run a marathon. What will my vegetarian friend think of me? She'll probably shake her head and think, "That unhealthy, fatty. She should be eating something considered lean cut and vegetables for dinner". She would never actually think that about me. At times I'm an irrational and dramatic schoolgirl.
I think learning to rest is a lot like learning to eat cheesecake for dinner. For the longest time I didn't think I needed to rest. I didn't think it was okay. I was too busy meeting with my small group girls, or working, or trying to rest to no avail, or running from one crazy overwhelming situation to the next. Over time I just get more and more exhausted and confused. I panic. I forget that rest is where pure joy and peace meet. Rest recognizes that the Lord is fully in control and that life continues without me thinking everything through. Truth is, when I try to run my life I usually run it into the ground.
Rest is so necessary. Eating cheesecake for dinner is so necessary. It's countercultural. It's against everything you think is right. It's against doing, because you don't do anything. It's blissful and joyous. It's the sugar of life. It's a God given gift. It's a hard gift to accept when you haven't accepted it in a long, long while. He uses it to recharge me. He uses it to show me who's boss. He uses it to hold me. He uses it to teach me grace. He uses it to show me I'm weak.
There are times when you just need some cheesecake for dinner. A big piece. And when you're finished scrape the plate. Make sure you get it all. Thank the Lord for it. Refuse to feel guilty about it. Let your heart feel sweet satisfaction.
If that isn't enough, watch the celebrity apprentice in your unders with your mom for a couple hours. Make a fire pit in your back yard and roast marshmallows with your brother when it's still light outside- and then laugh a lot when you smoke up the entire neighborhood. Read Cold Tangerines and cry like a little baby because it so resembles your life you can't handle it. Lay in your bed really still under a quilt that your great great grandma hand sewed and see how it feels to be really still and really quiet again. Discover peace again.
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