This morning, the Local Artist and I confess our problems with proximity. We’re on a health and weight loss journey together, and we realize we cannot let ourselves near the cupcakes and cookies without eating them all.
“I’m just too weak,” she says.
“Me too,” I say.
“I have problems with proximity,” she says.
“Exactly. This is my problem exactly,” I agree.
We can’t resist internally assimilating whatever we let ourselves near. Sometimes, it’s right and good to flee the cupcake table at the school musical’s reception. Sometimes, it’s right and good to flee situations that test your resolve whether emotionally or spiritually.
The apostle Paul advises us to flee from anything taking us from God and “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” instead. I love that verb flee! It produces the kind of image I’m carrying around today: A woman turns, arms flailing above her head, as she runs for her life from the pink frosted cupcake towards the gentle carrots.
Sometimes, you just have to flee.
________________________
What’s one thing you’re fleeing from today?
0 Responses
Goodness – two stories thanks to this post. Last night, my director brought around cupcakes for everyone because we had such good patient satisfaction scores. Because I can't swallow, I told her I would take something else instead; she said I drive a hard bargain and agreed.
Carrots – when my mom realized she was actually in the dying process, she told my sister – if I had known it would be this fast, I wouldn't have eaten those carrots at lunch (implying she would have eaten cupcakes).
Flee when right; celebrate when right :). Thanks for all your posts.
(You had to know I would comment!) When I was in training, one of my mentors told me she might take a bite of some forbidden gooodie and then push the rest down the disposal incanting “The disposal needs this more than I do.” Simply touching the cupcake and forcibly destroying it gave a measure of satisfaction that made the denying her appetite a bit easier. More recently I have begun to say to myself “I like being thin and fit mmore than I like the sensation of eating this.” TOTAL lie but it feels empowering to say and strengthens my resolve.
(Sorry…not very spiritual…)
That's a great comment about carrots! Thank you, Roberta!
I like this! PS, did you note how Joe Paterno won over mothers of potential recruits by claiming their sauce was better than other players' mothers' sauces? I thought that was VERY ITALIAN! A fun quote from the memorial today.