It's so hard...

  
  As a lot of you know, I've had a roller coaster issue with my weight for many, many years. I guess most of my adult life.  I know I'm not alone. I've heard many of you talk about the same thing, up and down, up and down.  It's so frustrating!  It seems like when I think I have conquered it in the past, it crept back up again, and there I was as heavy or heavier than I was before I lost the weight.

     Some contribute excess weight to genetics, some to environment. Others to just consistently making really poor choices or feeling as though they are addicted to certain types of food. My thoughts?  All of the above. I really do believe that all of those factors play a role in our physical bodies. Children who have heavy parents tend to be heavy themselves. Food, bad food is all around us and constantly advertised. It is just so difficult to consistently make good choices when our world, especially the Southern part of the US has no function unless food is involved.  It IS all around us! But then I got to thinking...you know, a person could easily have those same thoughts about things that we, as a society, consider really detrimental to our health., like drugs. My parents were "druggies". It's all around me! I have such a hard time making good choices when it comes to doing drugs.  My body craves them. Hmmm...

      I found this the other day when I was reading a book that Katie gave me years ago.

"Self-control is kind of like a gravy boat.  Sure, you've got it, but you don't ever use it.  We battle with our conscience, bargaining for one more minute of sleep, one more hour of television, one more piece of pie, one more new sweater...We know that we shouldn't, but we find the most imaginative (and illogical) ways to justify our actions and push self-control out the window.  More often than not, self-control often loses the inner debate.

 

There's a line from an old children's song that defines self-control this way: 'Self-control is just controlling yourself.  It's listening to your heart and doing what is smart.'"

 

Legacy of Virtue, A Devotional for Mothers

by

Amy Nappa and Jody Brolsma

As much as I hated to admit it, when I made the spiritual application to my life concerning self control with what I allow to be taken into my body, it seemed to click for me. Is it easy? No. It continues to be difficult for me every single day...every single day. It's an area in my life that I really struggle with. But children of God, true children of God live to please their master, not themselves. Pleasing Him is their top priority in every aspect of their life. If we are taught to add self control to our lives, how can we justify falling short here? It's just one of many things that we're told to add to our lives, but it is no less important. The question is, "Am I willing to make the application in this area of my life?"

⁵ But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 2 Peter 1:5-7