Bread and Wine: Sweet Potato Fries with Siracha Dipping Sauce
In this chapter of Bread and Wine, Shauna Niquist talks about what morning sickness; or more appropriately, morning, noon, and night sickness, taught her about love and self-worth: It's not something you earn, contrary to our personal preferences.
This didn't resonate with me at all. I mean, I've never, EVER tried to work betterharderfaster than those around me, just to be noticed. Nooo. I've never, EVER entered a group and calculated how I could outshine everyone else there, despite the fact that I was exhausted, overcommitted, and distracted by other priorities on my plate.
Never, EVER.
And never, EVER have I been frustrated by the fact that people who seem to do relatively little, who sometimes seem to take so lightly and in stride, do just fine, and perhaps receive more attention, more accolades, than their butt-kicking colleagues.
Never, EVER.
Obviously, I'm joking (and crying) over here.
Niequist's words are all too familiar to me. While she shares how morning sickness specifically caused her to reevaluate her thinking about love and self-worth, for me it's sickness of any kind: A bad cold. Lousy headaches. The kids get a stomach bug. I sometimes find myself terrified by illness, realizing the cramp it puts on my productivity, my plans, my program. And while I know how significant it is to accept times and seasons from God's hand, it does a number on my ego. Which isn't a bad thing, I realize, but still. Death is hard.
Niequist's recipe in this chapter is a tasty little number of sweet potato fries with sauce--one meal she could get down during pregnancy. Let's talk about it a little, then get on with our egos and how they really need to take more naps and drink more hot tea.
Let's eat.
The Recipe: Sweet Potato Fries and Siracha Dipping Sauce
Ingredients: potatoes, olive oil, sea salt. Sauce: mayonnaise, ketchup, Siracha sauce
My husband and I adore sweet potato fries. My kids can take them or leave them, preferring the white and fried variety. However, we ALL gobbled up this batch.
Niequist points out that baked fries are of course softer than their fried relatives, but she gives a neat little technique where you heat the baking pans FIRST, and THEN you pour the oiled and sliced potatoes onto the pan to bake. Salt them AFTER they're cooked and it adds a little extra crunch for the softer baked fries.
The sauce is nice, but honestly my husband and I were looking for some superior version of Red Robin's Campfire Sauce. This isn't it--it's basically spicy ketchup, which is juuust fine, and we eat allthebottlesofketchup at our house, but it didn't have THE kick we were looking for.
Next time I'll just make the campfire sauce.
The Chapter: "Morning, Noon, and Night"
Parenthood teaches so many things, doesn't it? Among them: paradoxically we are stronger than we think we are, but we don't have to be as strong as we think we should.
Niequist writes about her second pregnancy and its accompanying debilitating nausea. The nine month's up until her son's birth was a constant, ahem, stream, of illness that kept her primarily bed ridden, and from one perspective, unproductive.
"For the [rest of my pregnancy], my life was primarily about managing sickness, and everything else was a very distant second," (119).
What this brought up for her was the realization of how much self-worth she placed on her capabilities rather than her intrinsic value:
"Being sick forced me to confront the part of me that believes people only love me and keep me around because of what I can do for them. Some people are included because they're beautiful, or rich, or really smart. Some people are included because they're professionally successful. I get to stick around because I get stuff done. That's my thing [….] What would happen to me if I could not longer get things done?" (120)
It's interesting that this is a fairly brief chapter. Niequist doesn't actually include moments of epiphany or a moment where someone rushes to her side to assure her that she is loved and valued in all manner of ways, despite sickness and non-productivity. Instead it seems to be a message she had to merely receive and accept for its inherent truth; humanly affirmed or not.
"Being so sick for so long was a crash course, not one I would have chosen, not one I handled well, certainly. It was a painful education, but one I needed, one that forced me to embrace the risky but deeply beautiful belief that love isn't something you prove or earn, but something you receive or allow, like a balm or a benediction, even when you're at your very worst" (120).
This is something I'm continually confronting for myself-- that my strength and productivity as a person, professional, and yeah, a parent, is not an indication of my intrinsic value.
Frustratingly, this particular getterdone-girl finds that God's love is a constant with or without my herculean efforts.
I think Jesus mentioned this a time or two (maybe). From the parable of the workers in the vineyard who all receive the same wage, to the disciples arguing who gets the best seat in God's house, Jesus' message deflates that human notion of hierarchy and yes, productivity. We are all the same in God's eyes. In fact, the more we become like little children, losing sight of power trips and comparison, the closer we are to God's heart.
Since becoming a parent, I have watched as personal and professional plans become paused or rerouted because of what the kids need. I have been aghast at my own illnesses and weaknesses. Why can't I parent and write five books a year? Why can't I cook supper AND have vacuumed floors AND fresh-linen smelling bathrooms? #momfails
I kid. Life is difficult. Parenting, exhausting. I might need to be more realistic about my human capabilities!
But in our weaknesses, and maybe especially in our weaknesses as parents or caregivers, we are given the chance to receive love and grace from God and others in ways we probably didn't plan on or try to earn. Like grandparents dropping in to help. A friend takes over a deadline you had. Your spouse takes care of supper after an overwhelming day.
And that's okay. It's a very good lesson in God's grace, the fundamental thing we need.
I'm learning when weakness and illness set in for me or my kids and I can't be as productive as I want to be, I try to take more naps and drink more hot tea. I ask for help (kind of, still working on that one), or just let things go and focus on what's immediately important, like getting everyone fed, but the dishes wait.
Often I find what I thought was so important, would be so productive, wasn't. But the love I witness, the grace I accepted, was.
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