The Day my Dinner Blew Up
I didn’t even hear it explode.
The kids were young, loud, and running circles around the kitchen, and I was just trying to get dinner on the table. So when the timer beeped, I opened the microwave, expecting a perfectly cooked spaghetti squash. A convenient and easy dinner, am I right?
Oh, how very wrong I was.
Instead of dinner, I found squash everywhere.
See Exhibit ‘A’.
On the door. On the roof of the microwave. The sides. Everywhere.
I didn’t know a squash could do that. Did you?
Turns out, I was right all along – you CAN microwave squash. But I had missed a very important part of the process.
Apparently you are supposed to poke DEEP holes before you stick it in the microwave.
I had pierced the squash, but not deep enough to release the pressure. Just enough to scratch the surface.
This was definitely a case of “user error.”
Without the deep holes, the squash had built up with pressure, eventually exploding when it couldn’t withstand it any longer.
I have to laugh when I think about that night all those years ago (don’t worry, I’m a much better cook now- I haven’t exploded ANYTHING for years.) Because the truth is, I’ve been that squash more than once in my lifetime. I’ve snapped at my kids when overwhelmed with my to-do list, or I’ve cried silent tears in a church pew because the pain was too much to keep inside.
Why, or why do the tears always come while in church in front of others??
There are times I am confident I am looking like I’m doing fine on the outside when inside me the pressure is building until eventually, usually at the worst possible times, I pop. Whether it’s from exhaustion or due to frustration, maybe feeling like there’s too much on my plate and I just can’t keep up, or just dealing with deep sadness that finally bubbles over the surface after I tried to push it down for too long.
Well, it’s probably because we aren’t supposed to hold it all in. God invites us to bring the pressures we are carrying to Him. The stress, the worries, the frustrations, the overwhelm – He wants us to bring ALL of it to Him.
If we don’t release it to Jesus, it ends up breaking us, often making a mess not only of ourselves, but also of those standing too close to us at the time.
1 peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”
God never asked us to pretend like we are fine to everyone around us. Not only does He want us to cast our cares on Him, but He also places us in community so we don’t have to carry it alone. When we tell others, “I am not okay,” it opens the door for them to sit with us and pray with us, shouldering some of that burden so we are no longer on our own trying to lift it ourselves when it’s just too heavy.
I know it’s hard to convince ourselves of it sometimes, but those tears, whether at home when we are alone, or in the church pew, are okay. God wants all of us – not just the well put together parts. A silent, tearful prayer up to the Lord such as, God, I can’t do this anymore…please help me,” is sometimes all we need to realize we were never alone in carrying the heavy burdens of this life.
If you feel like you are buckling under the pressure, don’t wait till you explode. Hand it over to the one who cares for you. Once you release it to Him you’ll be amazed at how much lighter you’ll feel.
