That time God kicked me in the Food Court

If you were to have told twenty five year old me that ten years later on a random Saturday I would be crippled, out of work, and spending my morning limping around the mall with my four year old only to get kicked by God in the food court while eating some crappy Chinese food I would think you were nuts....
But that's what happened.

'Mama, look at me.  I'm a mannequin!", declared my son as he plastered his face and one dirty boot to the display window of the women's section in Bootlegger.

This was my chance. It was supposed to be a quick trip.  Get in, go to the drug store (done), AND.... maybe check out the spring fashions at Bootlegger.  After a long and drab winter and the fact that it was technically spring despite the fresh dump of snow, I desperately needed an article of clothing that made me feel happy. The search for joy in the form of a blue cotton floral that hugged my boobs just enough to make me feel like a hot under thirty, instead of a thirty five year old mom wearing oversized crocks in the mall, got called off abruptly as my four year old son who was pretending to be a mannequin in the window for the last ten minutes gave up his pose to announce his boredom.

Last fall I had to give up my job of nearly five years because I could no longer walk or lift my arms high enough to brush my damn hair let alone lift my serving tray.  Thankfully my time as a server was just about to be at an end anyway as I was already more than three quarters done my education in holistic nutrition, and hopeful any day now the swelling from the rheumatoid arthritis would finally cease.  I already felt so much better.  I lost a lot of weight, the constant fatigue was gone, I could get dressed without help again.  But the pain was still there, as was the horrible footwear.  The joints in my fingers and toes were swollen, gnarled, and covered in nodules, but every day I stretched them out, biting through the pain.  I knew with ever fiber of my being that I could heal this....but seriously how long was it going to take?.

As we reached the one hour mark in the mall I knew I hit my time limit as my son mysteriously developed a hearty limp and whined that his feet hurt because he was allergic to shopping. We scuffled up to one of the fifteen tables allocated to the single Chinese restaurant that made up the entirety of the Tamarack Mall food court, and I left the kid to unload while I grabbed some food.

Yes I KNEW that this was not the ideal food choice.  My list of food sensitivities was a bit daunting and for the last nine months I ate like a crunchy super hero. With the exception of my weekly coffee and spelt muffin I thought my diet was as clean as it could get.  Seriously how bad could a plate of fried rice be, given what I had already accomplished.  It couldn't make me hurt any more, could it?

I slid into the seat opposite my son and divvied up the heaping pile of rice onto his paper plate and gave him the plastic spoon, then sighed with relief as he happily started shovelling it in.  It was surprisingly busy for a small town mall. Despite the snow I suppose much of the community, like myself,  was embracing spring with a shopping experience. I watched as most of the tables around us filled up. As a relatively housebound mom I just sat and embraced the cacophony of sights and sounds of being surrounded by a collection of other humans, seventies light rock streaming from the mall speakers, and popcorn popping in the nearby theatre prepping for the matinee.  After a minute I finally I opened my Wings soy sauce packs and dribbled them over my rice and stirred it up with my flimsy miniature fork.  I managed about three forkfuls and was chewing with hope that my blood sugar wouldn't spike along with my kid's moody exhaustion after this excursion, when I felt the table shake.

I paused.  Noting that it was probably just me feeling the effects of hypoglycaemia I carried on, until I felt a whack under the table, my chair vibrating. I glared at my son.  "Why are you trying to kick me under the table?".

"I'm not" he said and kept eating.

Another bite and WHACK!  The table shook. "Please stop trying to kick me under the table son", I pleaded politely.

He just lifted up a palm as if to say "not me" and continued to happily eat his rice.

After the third time I immediately ducked my head under the table to catch him in the act, only to find my once again sweet and satiated son happily waving his stubby legs under the table nowhere near me.  It was then that I realized that unless he slid all the way down in his seat, and even then, he would not likely be able to reach far enough to make my chair vibrate with each resounding shake of the table.  At this point I was seriously perplexed and freaking out a bit.

I was not one to be weirded out by the strange.  As a psychic, empath, and medical intuitive I had already experienced my share of the mysterious.  Feeling the light touch of a loving presence, feeling people's emotions, seeing in their bodies with psychic x-ray vision, or sensing the energy around me was not new.  I had come to terms with the fact that my relationship with the spiritual was not something I could shake off.  I never asked to be like this, I just was, and my whole life I tried to ignore it.  Despite these abilities my very logical and science minded brain still regularly had me question my gifts, and of course the gifter.  The existence of God/Creator and their willingness to help was not something I had confidence in until two years before.  After a desperate and wholehearted plea to God to help me heal resulted in a path that seemed magically lit up for me (like I could see things literally light up), I finally came to the conclusion that God made me this way and was always willing to help if I paid attention.  And while I appreciated all of the help and sprinkling of hints, like breadcrumbs, that led me down the path of holistic health, sometimes the noise of life or my own thoughts or doubts, muddied up the message.  Until this very moment when the table stopped shaking and the entire food court, the entire mall, all of existence reverberated with the words....

"STOP!"

I paused with the fork loaded up with rice, halfway between my paper plate on the sticky table and my open mouth.

"THIS FOOD DOES NOT SERVE YOU." The voice said with a stern yet calm cadence.

I just blinked......
I don't know how long I stopped breathing for before I realized that I was feeling light headed and my fork was shaking.  It dropped, landing on my plate.  I left it there.

Slowly I turned my head around and noticed not one other head lifted.  Not one person turned looking for the mysterious voice that took over all other sound.  Nobody else wondered why the thundering voice of all creation just told them to stop eating their crappy Chinese food.

In the thirty plus years that I was aware of connecting with the spiritual, I had kind of come to the conclusion that spirit spoke to us in quiet ways, through signs, synchronicities, our intuition in conjunction with awareness and presence of the divine in our daily life.  Not once, ever, did I ever imagine that God would actually speak directly to me, let alone give me shit over my food choices.  But here I was, stupefied and clearly the only person of the fifty plus nearby, getting yelled at. I was in awe, humbled, and also honestly felt like a bit of a dumbass.  How is it an almost certified nutritionist whose diet consisted mostly of veggies on any other given day, warrant divine intervention? It was just one crappy plate of fried rice, wasn't it?

After getting yelled at by God one doesn't f*#k around.  In the years to come I furthered my education and began to dive deep into understanding more about chronic illness, gut health, intestinal permeability, and autoimmune disease.  Needing a grand gesture of intervention would all make sense to me later.  But in that moment I didn't yet know the full why of this, and could only work with what I did know.  So I took stock of my plate of food and assessed the potential threats that I was aware of, my food intolerances.

Canola and other seed oils.... I assumed by the white jugs on the floor of the food vendor kitchen.

Corn.... present in whatever condiments were thrown in, as well as the kernals in the mixed frozen veg stir fried into the rice.

Gluten....in the condiments and more in the soy sauce I drizzled heavily on my rice.

Could it really be this simple?  I didn't fully know yet that the answer to this was YES it absolutely was as simple as small amounts of these things that kept me in daily, relentless pain and disfigurement.  It was little bits of things that together made a virtual BOMB for my gut and was repeatedly triggering immune reactions.  It was in part because of a larger issue, but acknowledging these small things made huge differences. After that day and for the next two years I adhered to a complete and total avoidance of my known food stressors.  And what happened over the next two years was nothing short of miraculous.  Not only did the pain subside after a couple of months, but after a six months I fit into normal shoes again.  After a year and a half I no longer had fingers that curled or had nodules. Feats that my rheumatologist warned me would never happen as permanent damage was inevitable.  There were other benefits as well as a result of this devotion to adequate change.  It was not an easy couple of years, especially given the lack of gluten free options more than a decade ago.  I missed my damn muffins, but it was worth it. 

Full disclosure, I of course ended up doing way more than just an elimination diet.  I practiced what I learned.  I ate better, I lived better, I supplemented and cleansed.  I went down a major path of healing and I didn't look back for many many years.  It changed me.  And...it wan't the last time God would talk to me.  But that will be another story for another day, maybe.

For now dear reader, I would have you ponder this.  If you already thought that you knew what you needed to do to change your life and your health would you do it?  Or do you really need to keep being so stubborn and in sooo much pain physically, mentally, emotionally and/or spiritually for so long that God needs to intervene?
If sadly my friend you are the kind of stubborn ass that I once was and/or you just need a nudge to help you let go and surrender, consider this, this blog, these words, as your divine intervention, your sign from God speaking through one middle aged woman, that you are valuable enough to be saved, and that you just need to start with what you know in your heart to be the answer.  The rest will come, when you are ready.  

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Author's note:  While this may be a short story, this tale is 100% true and based on my personal experience on that fateful Saturday. More than a decade has passed since that day, and I don't know why I am sharing it now.  It was simply....time, like it needed to be done.  Perhaps God just wants me to share, perhaps I needed to be reminded to give thanks for this moment daily, or perhaps I need to renew my devotion to myself and the path God set out for me (probably!).  Either way, if my sharing of this experience had a positive impact on you in any way then it's purpose, and therefore mine, was fulfilled.  Feel free to leave a comment or share with others.
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Much love,
Myia