Jen at Conversion Diary has set a new food goal for herself:
Thursday morning I was an angry, bitter troll of a person; Friday morning I felt calm and peaceful and was able to take it all in stride and count my blessings. And what I ate in the hours beforehand had a lot to do with it.
These two examples are consistent with what I have observed over and over again in the past month. I have realized that my tendency to sin -- to lash out, to indulge in self-centered behavior, the think angry or uncharitable thoughts, to turn away from God -- is tremendously impacted by my diet. Eating healthy won't make me a saint, of course; but it will remove a lot of the mood fluctuations that leave me extremely susceptible to temptation to sin.
...Now that the option of weight loss has been taken off the table, I'm left to approach my relationship to food with a completely different state of mind. I'm left to pray not about how I can lose that last 10 pounds, but about how I can find the foods that will give me energy and stamina to lose some bad spiritual habits. My motivating visual now is not the image of me in a beautiful dress, but the image of me in a beautiful state of mind.
Now that strikes me as a fantastic set of goals -- goals that can be met and gratified many times each day.
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