A Grown-Up Taste

It all started when I wrote a post about being well, and choosing to love anyway, even in the really hard moments.  I scheduled it to go live, and forgot about it.

Until the day it went live, and I discovered my own words were being used by God to convict me. 

That was new.

Until it happened again this week.  I wrote a post on the weekend, just some quick thoughts, forgot what day it was scheduled for, and, on the day it went live, spent the day eating the words I'd written.

I even wrote a post about eating my own words, complaining about being a grown-up, and having to make choices.

And then, with my own post about eating my words ringing in my ears, I made the mistake of chatting with a dear friend, and whining a little about this newfound method of God's voice and conviction speaking to me.  I sent her the post I'd written and her response was telling.

"Why do your words have to taste bad?"

umm... excuse me?

"If you write good words, and you eat them, why do they have to taste bad?"

I hate it when God borrows her voice.

I've been thinking a lot lately about "grown-up" tastes.  I love to cook, and these days I'm far more brave about the recipes I'll try.  I don't reject a recipe out of hand because it has one ingredient in it that I'm not necessarily fond of.  I learned to broaden my tastes because of compromise, and I learned compromise sharing a grocery budget with my roommate.  I can honestly tell you that these days I eat dishes with mushrooms, onions, and even cook regularly with ground beef because of her.  They are foods (well, not ground beef, that was just over-exposure as a kid) that to me, are grown up tastes.

My friend's word's resonated.

Why do your words have to taste bad?

I was whining about conviction.  She was pointing out that I pray regularly to hear God speak clearly, and I was now hearing him in my own writing, and complaining about it.  "Not like that, God.  You can't speak like that."

I talked in an earlier post about wrestling with the choices before me right now.  Choose life, not death.  Choose joy, not despair.  Choose healing, not festering wounds.  Choose forgiveness.  Choose to love even when it costs something.  About how those feel like really "grown-up" choices to have to deal with, and about how my default response is a favorite Meredith quote from Grey's Anatomy, in which in a rather stunned and panicked tone she cries out, "I'm an adult!  When did that happen, and how do I make it stop?"

But even in those moments I heard the echoes of scripture reminding me of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians, "When I was a child, I spoke and thought as a child.  But when I grew up, I put childish things away."

And I am struck, too, by these words from the author of Hebrews, "You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.  Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word.  You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right.  Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong."

Maybe it's time to develop a grown-up taste?  Maybe the words God offers don't have to taste bad when I need to eat them.  Maybe it's time to develop a taste for the word of God - his conviction, guidance and direction - in whatever form they come in.  Even if it means eating my own words.