Why do we eat Judy Dolls?

I don't know if this is something that I should be ashamed of or not. I watch Grey's Anatomy. And I love it. A lot. It's the one show that has makes me cry. All the time. Like a little baby. Like a teenage girl. Like a pregnant woman. So I am all three ages and stages in one when I watch this show.  I am an emotional mess and it's probably the reason why I lose so many friends when they watch Grey's with me. And it's how I will know who my future hubby will be. It is at those Grey's watching moments that I am my worst. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But if he can stick it out through that, then he can stick it out through pretty much anything. So anyway, it's my obsession. I like it. A lot. And I don't just throw that around.

Moving on from my hysteria over the show. I am currently watching it while studying for finals that I will fail. I watched the Enough is Enough episode. In this episode there is a guy who eats judy dolls.

Judy is so cute. 

I mean I've eaten some things that could be considered weird. Pennies, dog food, George Mason food, just kidding George Mason food is good. But the things that I ate, I could swallow, easily. The guy in this show swallowed Judy doll heads. Like Barbie doll heads. Swallowed them. Whole. With hair. And if you think that it's just a show, it's not a big deal. You are so, so wrong. This show has meaning and depth. Put aside the senseless sex and sometimes lack of common sense and intense fear of relational commitment for just a second and you have a show that is an observation of the complexity of human nature. Or maybe you could argue that those things just add to the complexity. So there. The fact that this man swallowed Judy Dolls, is important.

Obviously the question at hand is why the h would he swallow ten Judy doll heads. I mean it can't feel pleasant. Have you ever tried swallowing a Barbie doll head? Not an easy task my friend. Not even in the show. So even the sex driven, common sense lacking surgeons question the motives that this man had to ingest doll heads.

Yummy right?

Toward the end of the show, after they had removed the doll heads from the man's stomach, he somewhat answered the question of why he swallowed those doll heads. Once his tummy was doll head free, he said that he felt empty. First of all, he feels empty because ten doll heads is a lot.

But it goes a lot farther than that. The reason why this man ingested these doll heads is to make himself feel full. To avoid the sinking sensation of being empty.

So what does being empty feel like? It's those moments in life when you are worn out and exhausted. When you are at your limit and you honestly feel like you can do no more. When you are running/living on absolutely nothing. That's the feeling of being empty. It's a scary feeling. A feeling that I would do anything to stay away from.

So why do we eat Judy dolls? The same reason that we give ourselves away, the same reason that we turn to other things that numb us from the world. Because sometimes we think that living with the guilt is better than living with the emptiness. But in the end this is a no win situation. The things that you take, use, eat to get away from the emptiness end up hurting you just as much if not more. The Judy heads may have taken the man away from the emptiness but they also put his life in danger. And the emptiness,  the Judy dolls themselves are just as scary.

The Judy dolls themselves are weird and uncomfortable and don't make anyone feel good. So this is what it comes down to. What we rely on, the Judy doll heads, don't make us feel better and the emptiness is too scary to deal with. So what the heck does that leave us with?

I'll tell you what that leaves me with. It leaves me with nothing. I have nothing to fix the emptiness. I have nothing to make it better. I am useless. And that has been a hard lesson to learn. So when I am not enough, that would seem like the end of a hard fight, right? But that's not the case, when we have nothing  what does that leave us with? It leaves us with the love of a forgiving and redeeming friend. A love that heals. A love that fills the emptiness. A love that we have never known. A real love.

Can you imagine that? Something so great that takes away the pain? Takes away the feelings of our inadequacies? So instead of ripping dolls heads off and eating them to feel full, what if we turned to this love?

And here's the hardest concept of all. We can. We have this love at our fingertips, we can use it to heal our pain. But we don't. Why? Why can't we use this love? What is this anyway?

This love is the love of our eternal unfailing friend, our passionate and caring lover, and our stable, unchanging, always loving, and forgiving Father. It is the love of God. So why can't we accept it? Why do we not turn to this when we are hurting? Why is it so hard to believe that we have a Father who always loves and forgives?

This is something that has been on my heart a lot recently. And no matter how much I think about it, no matter how much I talk about it, discuss it, question and search for an answer, I can not find one. Why can't we accept love that is being given to us? Why are we obsessed with hurting? I don't know that anyone really knows.

Maybe it's because it is so hard to love ourselves, that we find it difficult to believe that someone else could love us.

Maybe it's because we have been disappointed so much, that investing in just one more relationship is too painful.

Maybe it's because we are too used to being the only ones we can rely on, the fact that there is someone else is unreal.

Maybe it's because our lives have been fairly simple to this point. We don't feel a need for a loving Savior.

Maybe it's because the concept is too scary.

Or maybe it's just easier to not.

Whatever it is, the empty feeling will always, always be the most terrifying feeling. And whatever it is, the things that we use to solve the emptiness will never be enough.

So maybe the first step is admitting that we eat doll heads. We use other things to solve the emptiness. Are those things working? Are we aware of the emptiness? How much pain will we have to go through until we begin to consider love as a solution?