SALAD DRESSING STRESSING (and HIDDEN BLESSING)

by sallySALL

AUTHOR’S NOTE: If “everyone but Sally” already knows this, 1) I ain’t surprised, lol, but more importantly, 2) the point is still valid. So stick with me till the end! :)))) 

I’ve been trying to get a Particular sandwich dressing into my Instacart order for a few weeks now. 

It’s called Boarshead sub sauce or something like that. 

Anyway, I always forget about it till the last minute, after I’ve hit send, or else, I remember it right after I added water to my cart, but before I remembered tomatoes, or whatever, and it slipped my mind, and it slipped my mind, and… I end up without that salad dressing.

It’s happened like five times now, literally. 

And I was annoyed, annoyed with myself for forgetting, and annoyed with the Instacart app for not letting me add items after placing my order. (They do half the time, and they used to do so without exception. Their app has undergone several updates, and their policies have changed a few times since I signed up with them in 2020. For the record.)

Anyway, the whole point of today’s thing is related to something I felt Holy Spirit whispering to me when the aforementioned scenario played out, yet again, like an hour ago.

I heard Him Say (not audibly, but “that Still, Small Voice” that all InDwelt Peeps (™) recognise after walking With Him a while): 

“read the ingredients label again…” 

Which I did. 

The first ingredient was canola oil, which I had read was healthier than vegetable oil and “on par with olive oil, in terms of safety and taste.” 

For the record, I DO pay CLOSE attention to ingredient lists, and I do research any ingredients that I am unfamiliar with. Always. 

For, as some of you know, I have quite a sensitivity to bioengineered food, and anything that has been modified unnaturally; surprisingly (to me, anyway), even some items that have come into existence via selective breeding have ended up giving me rashes and muscle aches for days. 

So when I say I’m sensitive, I really am sensitive. Even a 10 year old wallpaper paste with a harmful, ”not fit to be around humans” reputation has ended up, giving me a rash and a migraine immediately. 

I guess you could call me a canary in an old mine, lol. 

So while the word CANOLA didn’t trigger a negative (mental)  reaction in me, immediately, I was still a bit curious. 

Or maybe He was still whispering to me. 

And He WAS. Coz, like, minutes later He Tells me to look it up online.

Several sources, official US government sources, even, claimed that canola oil was “perfectly safe for human consumption.” A few mentioned that it was “higher in trans fats even in small amounts.”

So it might be unhealthy, but was otherwise considered safe. 

Holy Spirit would not let up though, and told me to keep going in my search; I’ve learned through the decades to never ever ever ignore that still small voice and sure enough, in several very buried links… I found that Europe had (not? There’s a debate online, lol) actually outlawed canola oil… due to a certain substance called erucic acid, which some papers describe as “a known carcinogen.” 

(NOTE: I don’t know what’s true re: this and what isn’t, but you best believe i be doin a deep deep dive on this very topic once i’m done editing this here thingie. You should do your own research and pray about nutritional decisions, tho. I’m SUPER sensitive, so even a wee bit of inflammatoryness in something is not gonna fly in my kitchen. But you could be just fine and not get sick, so… )

I know that people on each side will have different arguments against or for a particular action, policy, or whatever. They question this research study or that report, and as a scientist, myself, I always do too. 

You may be wondering what is the point of all this, and I’m certainly ready to share it:

I was vexed with myself and with the world and with all sorts of things, because I wanted something. I thought it was OK to have this thing. I didn’t perceive any reason why I shouldn’t have this item, so long as it fit within the parameters of my diet and I could afford it and it wasn’t illegal or anything like that. 

Something was getting in the way of what I wanted, and I must have felt entitled to it, or else I wouldn’t be as vexed as I was. 

I mean, my favorite deli always left the salad dressing off of my wraps! (wah/lol.)

 And when you are in a keto-based diet, it’s like… I’m already suffering from the lack of flavor, and the lack of fiber, if you get what I mean, hah. lol. So even if the following question isn’t par for MY course, anyway, I found myself asking (literally the one time I’ve asked anything of this nature, and i ain’t talking about salad dressing in this rant about salad dressing, lol):

“Is it too much to ask for a simple bottle of salad dressing so I don’t have to feel like a raccoon whilst chowing down???” 

(NOTE: I was NOt doing this bratty demandingness towards GOD, because to be honest, it didn’t occur to me that there was a supernatural reason behind the blocking of my salad dressing bottle. For the record, I do not believe that it is even OK to question God, in any situation or circumstance. I find it actually illogical to ask why when catastrophes happen, or when a person dies. Because if God exists, if God is sovereign, and if I am not sovereign, aka there’s way more stuff in this world than I understand, and I do understand that, then I understand that I will never understand everything, and I will not even get to fully understand anything… Not while I live on this earth, anyway. And I’m fine with that. I am not protesting against it, and frankly, even though that would not be the system that I came up with if I were in control, I am not in control, and I’m very glad of that. It’s hard enough trying to run my own life much less anyone else’s life lol.)

SO… back at the ranch, I wanted something, there didn’t seem to be a reason for me to not have this thing, and so I was frustrated with being kept from it. 

(Or that it was being kept from me, actually.)

Until just now, when I looked up canola oil. 

And I thought back to every single time I got a DRY wrap from that deli, and grumbled in my heart about how the person who made the sandwich was being lazy or rushed or something. And I had been vexed. 

I remembered all the times I TRIED to buy the salad dressing myself for when my deli wraps were as dry as a bone. And I realized that I had not been thwarted. I was being protected. By God.

Even when I didn’t understand it, even when I thought it was a nuisance instead of a block, even when I didn’t realize I was being protected… I was being protected. 

When that relationship didn’t work out and you cried for months… what if you were actually being protected? 

When that new job or business opportunity or the lease on that “dream apartment” fell flat… 

What if you were being redirected from a time wasting diversion and into the purpose and calling that you were made for, The thing that would fulfill both you AND God’s Will for your life? 

This world is not all there is, my friend. There’s more to our lives than we even realize. More opportunities, more potential, more pitfalls, more purpose. And there’s more than we can see. 

We might think that we’re calling the shots— well, that we should have the right to call the shots, even when ”meddling” friends and relatives and bosses and employees and neighbors and governments and viruses yada yada get in the way. But.  

(even when i breathe and i’m not aware of the fact that i’m breathing automatically–with breath that ain’t mine–i am breathing. And It Is I AM Breathing! PRAISE YOU LORD!)

Apart from our own ambitions and fears and anxieties and desires and plans, the things that actually end up calling the shots— if we allow them to, anyway (for better and for worse) are, in fact, those things we can’t see, those things that some of us, many of us, may not believe in or acknowledge or even realise exist. 

Not just God, but His angels… and the angels that left His service, aka loser demons. 

Obviously, no human can see these things, and because we can’t see them, even when we DO see the effects of such a salad dressing bottle thwarting, we may not even understand, at first, which side it came from. 

One of the biggest angelic interventions I’ve ever experienced involved a Stolen keyboard. 

Yes, I truly believe that when I bought five keyboards that arrived dead from amazon, it was supernatural.

I NOW believe that when I bought the sixth one, a beautiful Roland from a pro music store, and when it was (allegedly) stolen by the courier, well… i NOW believe that the theft was actually ordered by HEAVEN, not hell! 

For months, I thought that it was the devil trying to get in the way of my recording of my first album, but after much prayer and much fasting, though not enough fasting, since I’m whining about sandwiches ha, I NOW realize that it was meant to keep me from relying on musical equipment and also offered to me as a strengthening hurdle. 

Just as weights at the gym are meant to strengthen our bodies, going through stuff in our lives is often meant to strengthen us in other ways.

 Jesus didn’t say keep evil away, he prayed that we would be strengthened against the loser demons and their machinations.

He didn’t say that he wanted his children to be taken out of the world; He Strengthens us so that we can BEAR anything that is thrown at us BY the world!

HALLELUJAH To our Divine Personal Trainer! (The PRECIOUS Holy SPIRIT <3 <3 <3

I pray The LORD Grant you and yours (and everyone on earth!) His Majestic strength, comfort, and most of all, His spiritual clarity and His discernment. Bless us, LORD GOD, With all of these blessings and more, and allow us to Feel Your Presence in our lives! I pray all these things over us all In The MIGHTY NAME OF JESUS, AMIN! <3

Much love to you, friend <3

sallySALL