Baby steps and Planet Sushi

In this thing called love I'm definitely a babe in Christ. I take baby steps as a friend of mine would say. I do little things that are palatable and relatively easy. Maybe someday I'll have the stomach to eat meat, but for now milk is about all I can handle.

I mentioned keeping my piehole shut in an earlier post. That's a baby step. Elementary. Physical babies mature by learning to talk. Spiritual babies mature by learning to keep their mouths shut and keeping their ears and hearts open. Pocket books too I imagine.

Another thing I've started to do is something the KJV calls "preferring my brother". I've been trying to apply in a variety of ways. I let other people make decisions instead of trying to be a "leader" all the time. I find that life is more interesting that way.

For example, some time ago I stopped suggesting restaurants when with other people. "Where do you wanna go?", they ask. "I don't care, wherever you want to go. What ever you want.", is what I say. It takes a little longer this way because they invariably want to let me decide because I so obviously don't WANT to decide. Honestly, I don't give a rip where we go, I'd rather they enjoy it. Whatever flips their switch is cool with me. I'm sure there's something on the menu I'd enjoy. Thank you Lord for that little victory.

Sometimes though this drives me crazy. I have one particular friend who is extremely indecisive when it comes to picking a place to eat. She literally will changed her mind 10 times while we're driving to the first place she picked. One time I drove back and forth across town three times until she finally settled on a restaurant that we'd already passed twice. It took everything in me to keep my piehold shut and not, at the very least, stop the car and throw myself into oncoming traffic. But, we finally ate and it was all good.

Yesterday this practice took me out of the familiar land of burgers and taquieras to the alien planet called sushi. A co-worker has been really helping me out lately so I wanted to treat her to lunch. She kept insisting I pick the place since I was paying. I almost had to stop the car and refuse to go further until she picked something she wanted. She finally picked....a sushi bar. Uh, I'm not a sushi person. Period. If it aint cooked I don't eat it. I'm sure the little devil on my shoulder was laughing his butt off at this one.

Laughing devil and all off to the sushi place we went. Out of about 50 things on the menu only one looked appetizing to me. Ironically enough it was actually an appetizer. And I enjoyed it. It was deep fried, thank God. My friend ordered some strange creations that I admit were pretty to the eye. Art on a plate. But I don't normally eat art. I admire it. I admired the art as she ate it.

And she loved it. She made me eat a bite and she laughed till she cried at the look on my face. You know what? Seeing her have such a good time was totally worth spending 30 bucks on a barely dead meat. She had a great time and she felt appreciated. I'm cool with that. In fact, I think I got more out of it than she did. And I'm the one that paid, how is that possible?! haha. Whoever it was that said it's better to give than receive was a pretty smart dude. Who said that anyway?