Lord of the Sauerkraut

Lately, my thoughts have been consumed by food--making grocery lists, figuring out how to get the items needed for my special diet, researching said special diet, meal planning, and then actually preparing the food. I cook an average of two meals a day. When I say cook, I don't mean that I throw chicken breasts, a can of cream of whatever soup and a cup of rice in the crock pot (although boy, do I wish I could). I mean that I gather fresh onions, garlic, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, squashes, greens, etc., wash them, peel them, chop them, configure them in a way that I can get my family to eat them and sweat over a hot stove and busy oven while they sizzle. From prep to table, I usually budget 90 minutes to 2 hours for dinner. Granted, I'm slow-moving, but still. And that doesn't include clean-up! In addition to those two meals, I have to make little extras like bone broths, ghee (to which I am apparently allergic), and probiotic food. (Can you believe that the woman writing this post is the same woman who complained about cooking every day in a week just a couple of months ago? These days, all I do is cook! My, how we can change . . . .) Sauerkraut is currently the only probiotic food I've attempted because it's relatively fast, easy, allergen-friendly and cheap. And surprisingly, I find it to be absolutely delicious! As you can see, I mean it when I say that I am CONSUMED.

Awhile ago before I began the GAPS diet or knew what it would entail, the Lord impressed upon me that I would indeed be healed of my sickness but that my healing was going to take a long time and it would require a lot of hard work. Not long after receiving that encouraging and slightly scary word, I began my research into GAPS. As I read, I remember thinking, "Lord, how on earth am I going to manage this task feeling so fatigued all of the time? I don't have the energy for this!"

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' " (2 Corinthians 12:9)

He has certainly proven Himself in this word to me. I have no idea how I have managed to do it, but I have managed to produce the required amount of wholesome, gut-healing food without fail every. single. day. Feel free to view this fact as a miracle. I certainly do.

Another concern I had about beginning this diet was related to my time with the Lord. I knew that I would be busy. In the past, busyness often meant that I would miss a day or more of reading my Bible and spending time in prayer. I have come to view God's Word as my lifeline and prayer as my strength, and I cannot imagine surviving the day without those things.

I remember studying John 6 several weeks ago. Jesus warned his listeners, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set His seal on Him." While studying the GAPS diet, the danger of laboring only for the food that perishes (daily bread . . . . or in my case, broth and vegetables) became a very literal concern for me. I feared that all of the work I was to put into healing and nourishing my body would rob me of the time I needed to spend nourishing my soul. However, God has answered my concerns by building two new activities into my daily schedule that have rendered this danger impossible--Sara takes a nap two hours after waking and two hours after Sara wakes, I collapse from exhaustion. Sara naps, Micah plays, I sip my tea and read my Bible for I simply cannot do one more thing without taking a rest.

If rearranging my schedule wasn't enough, God has also been doing this cool little thing in which He opens my eyes to His presence during the most mundane, everyday tasks--while pulling a shirt over Micah's red head, while observing and deciding how to respond to Sara's temper tantrums, while chopping vegetables, etc. These revelations come out of thin air, simultaneously knocking me over the head like a frying pan and sweetly warming my soul like a ray of sunshine.

My favorite head-knocking, soul-warming experience is my most recent. On Saturday, I made sauerkraut, the very important probiotic food mentioned above. (I will delve into the reasons that probiotics are so important for me in a future post.) In an effort to invite you into the metaphor, I need to share a bit about the process--

To make sauerkraut, one must take a head of cabbage, wash it, peel away the bruised and wilted outer leaves, cut it into quarters, pull out the core, and shred the leaves with a knife or food-processor. The shreds must then be tightly packed into glass containers along with filtered water and a tablespoon of all-natural, unprocessed sea salt. The containers should sit upon the counter for an hour or so until the shreds begin to soften and wilt. At the end of the hour, the containers are emptied into a bowl, one by one, and the shreds are smashed so they will release juices important to the fermenting process. The smashed, shredded cabbage and juices are placed back into the container, which must sit upon the counter for 3-7 days.

My frying pan/sunshine moment occurred as I stood smashing my cabbage. My eyes suddenly opened and instead of cabbage, I saw myself. I saw myself pruned and washed, cored and chopped, salted and smashed--all to serve a higher purpose far beyond my raw, unregenerate state. Raw cabbage would reek havoc upon my seriously impaired digestive system. It has to be transformed if it is to be helpful to me. Likewise, I cannot reach my full potential without my own season of "smash and wait." Oh, how my eyes opened! Oh, how I saw! I have been asking, "Why me? Why me?" with wist instead of wonder! I should be asking with wonder! Isn't it wonderful that the Lord would think upon me, poor and needy and raw and cabbage-like as I am? Isn't it wonderful that He would take the time to pick up the shreds in which my circumstances have left me, place me into a bowl and carefully, lovingly press me until I become something else, something more? 

This is what God's power does--it makes my weakness my strength! Truly, this illness is a "messenger of Satan" (2 Cor. 12:7). Satan had his purposes in this trial, but those purposes are nothing so noble as transformation. He is out to destroy me, but God is over-ruling him in every domain of my life in which he threatens to enter. My body has been attacked, yet it serves as a portrait of grace because it is doing things it should not be doing. I'm SICK, y'all! I should NOT be able to spend 4-5 hours in the kitchen every day! My mind has been attacked. It is a miracle that I haven't given up by now, yet when the dark, depressing thoughts come, the Lord brings through the "brain fog" His words I have hidden not in my mind, but in my heart. His words defeat Satan every time. My spirit has been attacked. There are times I want to run away, but the presence of the Lord is my anchor, my strength, my stay. His presence is also my joy, which is the reason I can smile when I have run out of reasons to do so . . . . because He is always near. Not that I smile all of the time or even half of the time. Let's get real, here. Life totally sucks for me right now. But joy does remain, and a single smile in a day is pretty miraculous.

A few weeks ago, my friend Jenny mailed me a copy of this beautiful poem of which I was reminded as I stood at my counter smashing sauerkraut on Saturday--

Broken Lilies

 by Alice Hansche Mortenson

"While working in my garden,

I one day leaned too low

And rudely broke two lily buds

That I had cherished so;

Regret and consternation

Across my spirit stole,

But tenderly I gathered them

And placed them in a bowl.

And to my joy they did not die,

Their fragrance filled our home;

They seemed to open lovelier,

Thus set apart alone.

Oh, I shall never doubt again

The Gardener Divine,

Who breaks His buds, not carelessly,

But with the wise design

That He may draw them close to Him

Through sorrow set apart,

Their fragrance breathing sweeter in 

The garden of His heart."

To some, God speaks in the garden; to others, in the kitchen or the schoolroom or the office. He is God of both big and small. He is Lord of the whole earth and Lord of the sauerkraut. He is the King of my heart. And I am so glad that my illness has opened my eyes to His worth!

"It is in life's common experiences, that Christ usually reveals Himself to us. One of His disciples asked Him to show them the Father--he wanted some remarkable revealing, a great glory, like the Sinai splendor. Jesus said, 'Have I been with you these three years--and have you never known Me? I have been showing you the Father all the while!' He had been doing this in sweet, gentle living, in patience, in kindness, in thoughtfulness, in purity and simplicity of life. The disciples had seen all these beautiful things in their Master, day after day--but they had not dreamed that these were divine revealings; that in them, He was revealing God!"---J. R. Miller, "The Life of Jesus"