Eating Carbs and Spirituality.

I’m gluten intolerant. It’s terrible (Clearly, I struggle with positive thinking on this front). Consider a life of no pizza, no burritos, no cookies, cakes, bagels… etc. You get the idea. Luckily, nowadays gluten-free wonders are popping up all over the place! I do not always maintain a gluten-free diet, and often I pay the price. I won’t go into detail of what that means. Suffice it to say, it’s not pretty. Because of this special annoying dietary detail it is always easier for me to avoid carbohydrates rather than fat when dieting. Usually, going low-carb for a while can help me maintain or lose a few pounds. However, the older I get the more difficult it becomes to lose even an ounce.

I have a friend who is a diet master. She’s lost a ton of weight and looks amazing. You know the type, adorable, thin, so cute that you don’t know whether to hug her or hit her. Yep, that’s my friend. The weight just seemed to fall off of her, but I know that it took work and a lot of dedication to get where she is now. It wasn’t easy, and I’m really proud of her!

When I’m dieting I think about food every second of the day. It consumes me as I carefully monitor what I consume. To maintain a weight that I’m comfortable with I have to always be watchful of my habits and try not to slip into the "finishing the kid’s fries because there are starving children in the world" routine.

Any smart woman will tell you that “diet” is a bad word. Really, what it’s about is a complete lifestyle change. There is no quick fix and no pill that eliminates an extra 25 pounds of french fries, trust me. Being healthy takes a daily commitment, albeit a daily regime. It does not mean you can’t celebrate Thanksgiving with pies and your mother’s glorious sweet potatoes. It does mean that the week after Thanksgiving you probably should not eat the rest of the pies for breakfast or make multiple trips to the refrigerator to spray the whip cream directly into your mouth.

Spirituality works similarly. You cannot assume that punching the clock on a Sunday morning will make you any more of a spiritual giant than you were the Saturday night before. Improving your spiritual walk takes work and commitment, and must occur more than once a week. Regardless of how great or terrible the minister is at your church, your spiritual life depends on you and you alone. Your spiritual walk is a daily journey that you walk only with the Savior. Unfortunately, you can't blame someone else for your lack of spiritual depth or the number that shows up on the bathroom scale every morning.

If we take a hiatus from our prayer life, or reading the Word, then it is our own responsibility to commit to getting back on track. Spirituality is a life style. Christianity is a life style. It is a daily focus and must be a priority if we expect growth.

Too often I fear that Christians depend mountain top experiences to boost their spiritual walk. Spiritual mountain top experiences are amazing, and we all need them from time to time. However, much like our dietary habits, Spirituality is a journey with ebb and flow. We must feed ourselves to be spiritually healthy, and we can’t always wait to be fed.

Furthermore, if you are in a spiritual rut or pit, there is not always a quick fix, and if you are solely dependent on Sunday for your spiritual health, that might be a big problem.

Daily talks with the Father can be the first step to getting back on track. Reading scripture also does amazing things for a struggling soul. Either way, you must decide to get healthy and it must become a habit, just like dieting, just like exercise.

Don’t ever believe that once you feel comfortable that you can’t slip off track. Because, it happens. I’ve been there, too. Thankfully, our spirituality is a journey and not a one time test of skill.

Seek wisdom.
Pray often.
Make your spiritual walk a priority.