Hannah's Heartstrings

So yeah. Its on Netflix, and I've always been curious, so I've been watching it. For some reason I really enjoy medical dramas. I guess they make me feel better about living my healthy lifestyle.

The show has its moments. Its ridiculously dramatic, so much so that Kyle can't even watch it with me because he just laughs at it all and critiques more than normal. The amount of relationship hopping that these characters do...wow. And most of them are so emotionally messed up, its a wonder they even function on a daily basis. But still, the show has its moments.

So naturally there are a few thoughts that have arisen while watching this show. And naturally, I feel the need to blog about them. So here we go...

{WARNING: Spoilers and strong subject matter.}

You do not have the right to demand acceptance/approval.
I'm sorry. You just don't. If you do something that you know people around you are probably not going to be ok with, you need to know that they do not automatically have to welcome your questionable decision with open arms.
Callie knew that her father would not be exactly happy about her dating a girl, and when he was appropriately upset, she instantly threw out the "Why can't you just accept me for who I am?" card. She retaliated by cutting him out of her life. Um, sorry, but he isn't the enemy here! You don't get mad with someone because they choose to stand against something they believe is wrong. You don't get to shove your choice in their face and demand that they be ok with it. It is their God-given right to not approve of choices they believe are wrong. You don't have to agree.
And quit meshing acceptance with approval. They are not the same. I have said this many times before...I can still love you and accept you, but I am under no obligation to approve of the choices you make. It is my right to choose the things I approve of and allow in my life.
So you don't get to demand that.
Get over it.

Sex is not the open door to a relationship.
Literally, like, every single character romance in that show begins with physical contact of some sort. They haven't even gone on a date, and they've slept together. Its so predictable. They see each other, end up attracted, there's kissing, then all of a sudden there's sex. The next day, they are super awkward and maybe, just maybe, they go out on a date and see where it goes from there.
So I have to ask...would they have dated if they hadn't had sex? What if they didn't jump right in bed together, and maybe got to know each other a little bit first? Maybe their relationships would have lasted a little longer.
Sex should not be the first step. Or the second. Or the third. Or the hundredth for that matter. The biggest problem in this world is that we have devalued sex and likened to the importance of a handshake. There are so many steps in a relationship that should be taken before sex is even considered. And yet, so few people take them anymore. Its no wonder that relationships don't last, people are unhappy, children are created with abandon and left with broken families before they can even walk, and no one knows what its like to real, meaningful, committed sex.
Quit using sex as your hello.

Sex is not always awesome.
It actually cracks me up. When Izzie and George got together for the first time, they claimed to have the most amazing sex of their lives. So they fell in love. They started a relationship. But when they went to make love again, they found the magic had gone. They couldn't figure out what was wrong (wasn't hard to figure it out....they were drunk the first time, and barely remembered it, so of course it was amazing). They ended their relationship on the basis that it just wasn't right, and they couldn't make it work. So basically, the sex was bad, so the whole relationship was bad.
Are you serious??
Welcome to the real world. Sex isn't always amazing. Sometimes, it is bad. Sometimes, its nonexistent. But its not the end of the world.

Love doesn't matter if your beliefs don't match
April and Jackson ran off and got married because they loved each other. They hurt several people in the process, but hey, they're in love! Nothing else matters, right?
Fast forward to their first fight. Its a doozy. And guess what they argue about? The fact that she is a Christian and he is not. She wants to raise their children to believe in God and know they are loved by him, but he views her faith in God as ridiculous.
Its moments like that, when you realize that the person you love doesn't hold important the same things you do, that love doesn't matter. All the attraction, romance, fuzzy feelings, and exhilaration...none of it matters.
I once was very interested a guy that believe in God and the Bible very differently than I do. After much deliberation, I chose not to pursue a relationship with him, because I knew that there was no way I could raise children under his belief system. It was a defining moment in my life, because I realized that no matter how much I liked this guy, my beliefs were more important than my emotions.  So several years later when I met Kyle, I knew that I could allow my self to fall head over heels for him, because our beliefs not only matched perfectly, but through knowing him, I was able to expand and develop my beliefs in ways I never imagined. He never made me doubt or feel that what I believed was unimportant. He helped me perfect it. And it was because of that fact that I knew I could love him.
Love and romance are important parts of a relationship, but they should never be what defines it.

***

There are plenty more thoughts that have arisen while watching this entertaining show. These are just a few, but I felt they were rather important. Have a happy day, folks!

Some time ago (over two and a half years ago, in fact), I posted about saving my first kiss for marriage. This post came about three months before I met the man who would become my husband and ultimately change my life forever. It is very interesting to now step back and see just how much I have changed since then…and how my personal experiences have played out compared to how I planned them as a teenager.

At the time of that posting, my friend Jason challenged me that people who made such a declaration were being prideful. In a bad way. I’ll admit I was a little more than a bit offended and came back with a cunning explanation that my declaration of saving my first kiss for my wedding day was a matter of conviction, not pride.

Mmm-hmm.

A year prior to my kissing post, I wrote a very poignant article on the subject of avoiding certain popular books and movies due to their content. It was mostly about Twilight, but I touched on others such as Harry Potter and High School Musical. I must admit…I was brilliant. It was a really good article. This part in particular hit me when I went back to read it again:
“…The last point I mentioned is one particular reason that I refuse to be a part of any Twilight camp. It’s the same reason I’ve never watched High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Harry Potter, or any of the other popular secular infatuations. Obsession with anything but God is wrong. Passion about anything that does not somehow bring glory to God is dangerous. And indulging in something so demonic and so far from God as Twilight is sickening.
“I believe this with my whole heart, and am cautioning my dear brothers and sisters in Christ to think and pray very hard, and to examine the true motives of their hearts before reading or watching Twilight. We are called to be lights in this world and reflections of our Savior. Is Twilight so beneficial to this calling? Is it so necessary to fill our hearts with such a vile concoction, merely for the ability to discredit it or argue about it?”
Wow. I know, right? For a twenty year old, I really had it going! I’m only being just slightly sarcastic here, because in truth, you gotta at least give me the credit of being firm in what I believed, standing my ground, and speaking out for what I thought was right.

I’m not here to bash my past self and say how stupid I was and how my eyes have been opened to the real world and all that blah-blah that usually happens when a homeschooled, Christian kid gets out into life and has a taste of (dare I say?) rebellion.

I am here to say that I’ve learned a lot over the past 3-4 years.

I’m also here to say that the reasons behind my convictions at those points in the past are still the same.

I did get kissed. By my fiancee. Before we were married. Only my brother and his dad knew about it until after the wedding, and it was the sweetest thing in the entire world. Its literally how we got engaged. We had been talking about getting engaged, and when the night finally came that we made the decision, Kyle whispered to me, “If I kiss you, you’ll know its official.” You see, our kiss was important. It was so important that we wanted it to be between us, and only us. We were adults, and we had already gone through a lot as a couple. Most importantly, we wanted to be together. So we made it official with our first kiss. No fanfare or public display. It was just so perfectly us.

The reason behind that kiss was no different than if we had done it for the first time on our wedding day. The specialness and importance was still so evidently there. The timing and experience was all that was different.

I have watched Harry Potter, and am planning on reading the books. I have also watched High School Musical. The latter was simply for fun, and I have to admit I enjoyed the trilogy a whole lot. I have a weird weakness for that type of music. I still have not watched Twilight, and currently have no desire to, simply because I have better things to watch and it just doesn’t interest me right now. But I have a few things to say about Harry Potter.

I was just a little more than super impressed.

The story was brilliant, if a little strange at times. The characters were unique and lovable, and portrayed traits that we could all do well to learn from. They were courageous, undying loyal to those close to them, with real emotions, hopes and dreams. They stood up for what was right, and knew that some things were more important than even their own lives. They were admirable. And unforgettable. Just like a story should be.

And yet again…my reasoning is the same, though perhaps a little more well thought out than before. And perhaps some will call me a hypocrite for this, and for the kissing thing, but it wouldn’t be the first time, so it is what it is. I watched Harry Potter and High School Musical at a point in my life where I could handle it. I still don’t think young kids and even early teenagers should be allowed to pour over such fandoms, because it is too easy to get sucked in. I remembering being 12 years old and so obsessed with Anne of Green Gables that I could hardly think straight. Talk about being impressionable! The thing I liked most about being introduced to them at a later age was the fact that my days of mooning over and dreaming about such stories are over. Sure I will get emotional over stories…(like who didn’t cry when the Doctor says goodbye to Rose? Or what about that feeling when Ron and Hermoine FINALLY kiss? Or when Flynn Rider saves Rapunzel by cutting off her hair?!?!)…but I will cry over them like a normal girl, mop up my face and move on. The end. I’ve enjoyed it and appreciated it, and now there are other stories.

That’s called maturity people. Ok, well maybe sobbing over a Disney movie isn’t maturity. But knowing how to enjoy a story for what it is, pick out the good stuff and leave the rest…that’s maturity.

I’m still naïve. I will still continue to stick my foot in my mouth about seemingly everything that ever comes out of it. But by golly I will defend what I say to the death until something comes along that proves me otherwise! Oh the burden of being a stubborn little know-it-all. I may not know a thing about what I’m talking about, but at least I think I do and I will hold that stance till kingdom come. And there lies my biggest fault. Now you know.

And yet…maybe its not a fault. Maybe I’m just overly passionate. Maybe I just say things about what I believe and about my preferences in life that I should just keep to myself. For instance, just recently I got into a big Facebook married-women-group argument over a post I made about how I irritated I was with mothers who let their kids run rampant around stores and gave their kids a three-count option of obedience. Oh man…did I take some flack for that! A-hundred-and-sixty-some comments later, I was still the bad, judgmental, childless woman that had no idea what I was talking about and should learn to be more humble. Yeah…maybe I should have just kept that one to myself and spared myself the trouble.

The bottom line is this: I learn, but I learn slowly. So odds are I’ll keep saying things that I later will have to revisit because my experiences have given me a better perspective. Just bear with me.

I’ll get it eventually.

I am weird in more ways than one, but I am weird for a good reason. It has taken me two years to get to where I am now and you couldn’t pay me to turn around and go the opposite way. I enjoy this sane, peaceful, balanced and almost powerful feeling way too much to go back.

I am many things…gluten-free, corn-free, blood-type-diet-follower (for the most part) and vegetarian (ovo-vegetarian to be precise). I am also an herb freak, somewhat of a hippie, and I strive to eat organic. We won’t go into me conservative-homeschooler-ness just now; my odd eating habits are enough to keep anyone amused. :)

This wasn’t just some off-the-wall decision. I was not influenced by peer pressure or religiosity. This was 100% based on the health of my body, the sanity of my mind, and the gripping fears of my heart.

This is the whole story. Chronologically, in the best detail as I can remember, here is what happened:

Sometime around 2001-02: I began experiencing “twitches”. At first they were just annoying; I would jump involuntarily, my eyes would flutter and I would lose concentration for a moment, particularly in the morning sunlight. I just ignored for quite a while.

July 2009: Part of my family and I were planning on going to Tennessee for the weekend. The day before we left, I ate a ton of microwave popcorn (which we didn’t attribute to my problems until much later). The morning we were supposed to leave, my dad had an asthma attack. I woke up at 4am, thinking we were going to be late leaving, and found out my dad was sick so we couldn’t go. For all reasons considered (early morning, popcorn the night before, upset, and bad time of the month for me), I experienced what my mom called a “petite mal seizure”.
There began the long haul of finding out what was wrong with me. I praise God every day that my parents did not take me to the hospital that night. If they had, I would have been put on medication and would now be dealing with being a “vegetable”.

August 2009: I had some incentive to figure out what my problems were, because I intended on taking a trip to Colorado with my brother for a homeschool reunion. So by my mother’s advice, I went gluten-free. Unfortuately that was only the tip of the iceberg. I ate some things I shouldn’t have during the trip and did experience some twitching.

October 2009: A couple weeks before another homeschool trip, this time planned with friends, I woke up in the middle of the night and experienced another seizure. In the morning after, I woke up with no recollection of what happened except for the very beginning. The skin around my eyes was covered in broken blood vessels, and my tongue was bruised on the end. It took me nearly a week to recover. This time I figured out two things: I was extremely sensitive to corn and I was made worse when people coddled and doted over me.

February 2010: My family discovered “The Blood Type Diet”. Since my parents knew their types, my siblings and I got tested to find out ours and we gave it a shot. It made the most sense we’d ever heard. And what did we have to lose? Feeding my blood sounded crazy, but it was worth the try. I was willing to try almost anything.
I noticed marked improvement with my struggles, but even more incredible was that my dad’s asthma decreased almost 100% in three days.

I focused on “doing the diet” for the next year. During that time, we discovered the methylcobolamin form of vitamin B-12. My dad took it for energy and his asthma, initially. Then one day I took it and felt immensely better. It has since become my life saver and best friend. :)
I still experienced minor “twitchings”, but mostly during my time of the month, either the week before, during, or the week after. So long as no one paid attention to me (make me upset or nervous), I was generally okay. This was hard because my family worried about me and wanted to help me. It was hard for them to understand that the only was to help me was by not helping me.

So a year passed as I added, removed and discovered many things in my food life. It was about 50-50 split between rewarding and frustrating. I would jump for joy at finding something I could eat or after having a particularly good month. And I would cry in anger and fear during a bad time when I couldn’t control my twitches and couldn’t figure out what else to do.

I prayed everything I could think of; “God, please heal my body!” “Lord Jesus, I can’t do this alone. Please conquer whatever is happening to me.” “God, show me what to do!” and on and on. I knew in my heart that my prayers for healing were foolish. That was not what I needed. God knew I needed this journey, this story. Little by little, I found the tools that led to my healing.

June 2011: I became a vegetarian. I still eat eggs, so I am not a hard-core vegan. I truly believe that this was the final key to my healing. This, next to the B-12 methylcobolamin, made the biggest difference in my body. I had never felt better. I was even able to spend a week in Chicago, eating not a whole lot of food, running on less sleep than normal and during a time of the month that had previously given me trouble.

It sure felt like a miracle to me.

I am strongly of the opinion that, had I gone to a medical doctor with my problems, I would have been diagnosed with some sort of neurological disorder/disease. I was heavily immunized as a child and I do believe that damaged my nerves and cause my intolerance to so many foods. The biggest benefit of my favorite vitamin, B-12 methylcobolamin, is that it repairs myelin, the sheath that protects nerve cells.

And so, my B-12 is repairing my damaged nerves and my food life is strengthening the rest of my body.

Right now, I feel invincible, even though I know I’m not. I still slip up. I still get angry, scared to death and incredibly frustrated. I confess to nearly bursting into tears in the Whole Foods Market in Chicago when I found veggie chips that I could actually eat. Then didn’t I eat the wrong ones and suffered a feverish neck and headache later that evening.

I’ve learned to be incredibly creative in the kitchen. If I’m hungry for something, I figure out how to make it, or else go without. I’ve found I can survive for days on lettuce, apples and water.
Being a vegetarian is quite helpful too. People understand it better, and nod compassionately when I tell them, rather than staring blankly when I say “I’m allergic to corn, wheat, gluten, pork, beef, and I follow the blood type diet.” Maybe I should just start saying “I’m allergic to food.” That would be about 75% true.

To be honest, I don’t mind if people poke fun (gently) at my oddness. If I didn’t laugh at this, I would be in tears all the time.

This is not about my own self-satisfaction or anything. This is about me being able to function normally and live a beautiful, vibrant life. I want the sanity and strength to be able to live my absolute best for God, and if it means giving up the fleshly freedom of being able to eat anything on the planet, then so be it. There is huge comfort in eating my little salad and knowing that I don’t have to worry about my brain short circuiting on me the next morning. If the worst thing I have to do in life is say “No” to the food everyone else is eating, then I will be blessed beyond my comprehension.

As a young woman who prays for the opportunity to be a wife and mother someday, I came to the realization that I hold the future in my hands. During my “twitching episodes”, I would often involuntarily drop whatever I was holding in my hands. What if I did that when I was holding a baby? That alone was enough incentive for me to do whatever I needed to do in order to heal myself.

I know the story isn’t over. I think I’ve found all the keys, but who knows? There could be one more thing out there that makes my life even better.

I am so thankful to my Lord Jesus Christ for the opportunity to live in this age with its superiority of knowledge in all things healthwise. I praise Him for my family who keeps me going in the right direction, for the friends who encourage me and keep me laughing, and for everyone who has given me even the smallest bit of information.

My prayer is that God will use my journey to help someone else discover their full potential in a complete, vibrant and balanced lifestyle.

Romans 8:18 & 37, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present times are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”