I kid you not.
I was in the middle of making one of my favorite comfort foods. It's an easy, go -to recipe for macaroni and cheese with tuna fish mixed in. A childhood favorite that I've never quite grown out of.
After making the pasta and putting the cheese sauce on simmer, I grabbed the tuna can and the can opener. My brain did what it does best: lilypadded from thought to thought.
(I should interject here by explaining that my brain isn't normal, at least I don't think so. Something I am doing or seeing sparks a thought or idea which causes another thought which leads to another and another, which eventually leads to something totally unrelated to the first thought. I have deemed this lilypadding. My brain ends up so far away from the original spark it isn't funny. But I digress....)
I put the can opener on the can of tuna and began to turn the dial. As I opened it, I started to wonder why tuna comes in the cans it does. I've only ever seen it in the flat cylinders. Never tall cylinders. Never plastic cups. Always flat cylinder cans.
This leads me to think about the fact that tuna is a fish, which leads to how they get tuna in the small cans, which leads me to picture the canning process with the real live animal.
This thought makes me stop and I immediately thought "in this case, ignorance is totally bliss."
See, canning tuna is something I'd rather not know the details about. I'm better off not knowing how they can it, because I find it creepy. I have a weak stomach and an active imagination (shocking, I know).
I lilypadded one more time. After I realized I'd rather not know about canning tuna, it made me think about my life and how there are probably a lot more important things that I'm better off not knowing.
It's funny. I've lived most of my life searching for answers. As a math teacher, I teach my students how to problem solve. How to analyze a problem from different angles, how to set up a plan to find an answer in numerous methods. I like to find answers. I like to fix things. I like to make life make sense. I like efficiency.
But maybe that's not healthy in every situation. Maybe it's not what I need.
How many times have I asked myself why? Why did God allow me to have such a terrible high school experience? Why did He allow me to live through a hellacious year after college? Why did He allow me to befriend people who were unhealthy for me? Why did He allow us to be infertile?
I've spent most of my life trying to figure it out. My life, that is. Asking why. ALL. THE. TIME. I've driven myself crazy, sad, etc trying to figure out God. Never did I take the perspective of maybe it's in my best interest to stay out of the know.
You can't unsay something.
You can't unsee something.
You can't unknow something.
Maybe God knows me better than I realize and is keeping me in the dark for my own good. If I knew the reasons behind why He has chosen this particular road for me, I might not be able to handle it. It might be a burden that's just too great for me to bear. David says:
"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens." Psalm 68:19
I'm going to let it go. I'm going to stop searching for answers to why life is the way it is. I think it's safe to assume that in most of life's difficult situations, ignorance might really be bliss.
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