It’s funny, sad, and scary to me what we readily accept as truth. I didn’t own a pair of flip flops until I was
twenty-one because my mom convinced me early on in life that flip flops are
dangerous. She told me I would stub my
toe if I wore them; I believed her and didn’t pester her for a pair, but I’ll
admit, I was a bit jealous of my friends who owned several pairs. I especially liked the neat-o flopping noise
the shoes made. All I had was a lousy
pair of jelly shoes - which produced no noise - only sweat - and left strange
imprints on my feet when I took them off at night.
My senior year of college I got a little wild on Spring Break and picked
up a pair of flip flops at an Old Navy in Fort Lauderdale. I think my mom was more disturbed by the flip
flops than she was by the nose ring I also acquired while vacationing in
Florida. But I’ve learned that my mom is
wrong about flip flops; I’ve been flopping for over ten years now and I have
never stubbed a toe while wearing a pair.
To think, all those years I missed out on as a kid - I might need
counseling. And as I talk to my
therapist I’ll tell her not only do I feel cheated by my mom, but by our
educational system as well.
You see, when I was in fourth grade I made a model of the solar system
for the school science fair. I included
the nine planets I had been learning about in class – Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus (the planet the boys always laugh about),
Neptune, and Pluto. For over 75 years
teachers and science books insisted Pluto is the ninth planet in the Solar
System. But suddenly, in 2006,
astronomers declared it was no longer a planet, and I was a bit perturbed. As it turns out, Pluto is nothing more than a
“dwarf planet” – whatever that means.
All I know is that the science community has been lying to little kids
for years, and I can’t help but wonder how Walt Disney would feel knowing Mickey’s
dog – named in honor of the planet’s discovery - is a phony.
The
lies I have believed about flips flops and Pluto make me wonder: if my well-intentioned
parents sometimes say things that are not true, if science sometimes teaches
what is not true, then maybe, just maybe, people who appear to know a bit about
Jesus sometimes fall short in presenting what is true.
* Excerpt from I Hate Books on Christian Dating - A Memoir Journey Towards a Mysterious God
What's fascinating is that as I've wrestled with what I've been told and taught about the Christian faith, I've also been wrestling with what the medical world has been teaching women about their bodies.
The claim by science is that a woman's iron stores (i.e. her ferritin level) isn't all that important. Yet, iron is needed for transmitting oxygen throughout the body, and women lose iron each month as they menstruate. Unless a woman's hemoglobin levels drop, she won't be told she is iron deficient. But I know from personal experience, a woman's hemoglobin levels can read normal and she can still be iron deficient.
The most prominent signs of iron deficiency:
headaches
fatigue
weakness
signs of depression
When it gets really bad, like it did with me, iron deficiency also leads to heart palpitations and breathing issues.
As I wrote a friend, "Perhaps all these women going gluten free to feel healthy just need iron pills, rather than a radical change in diet (with the exception of those with celiac disease, of course). Iron deficiency causes headaches, fatigue, weakness, and signs of depression. Hmmm... perhaps some women could use more oxygen rather than migraine medicine and anti depressants."
I promised I'd let up on Ferritin posts, but I have one left - the note I shared with my doctor.
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