Smitten by mittens…

My ten-month-old granddaughter has very busy hands and enjoys exploring her ever expanding world by touching everything within grasp!
The various toddler groups she goes to, are all a long walk away, so she needs a hat, coat and mittens to keep warm in her pushchair. She is however, out of alignment with her Mum on this matter – time and time again she pulls off her mittens and despite Mum’s best efforts, eventually ends up cold and miserable.

Sometimes I’m a bit like my granddaughter – I do things that aren’t conducive to my wellbeing – despite God nudging me to make a better choice.  As the saying goes ‘old habits die hard…’
Many years ago, I needed to lose weight, but by the time I reached a healthy point, my mind had been hijacked by an unhealthy urge to keep losing. It had nothing to do with body image and everything to do with hidden depression.
Although I now appear to be reasonably recovered, truth is, deep within old thought patterns die hard.

This week though, the story of the mittens is helping me move on from habits that are way past their ‘best before’ date. I want to live life to the full, and to do this, I need to be fully nourished. So rather than appeasing any urge to eat in an unbalanced way, I’m being mindful of the truth contained in the words (attributed to various people including Einstein and Ford)

If you always do what you always did
you’ll always get what you always got

I guess that we are all addicted to something in our lives. We can probably all find a word that completes the sentence ‘My name is … and I’m an …’
But we are more than our addiction to alcohol, pornography, gambling, drugs, food, social media, perfection or whatever our vice is. As a believer, I’m smitten by the truths brought together by Desmond Tutu:

Goodness is stronger than evil.
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness.
Life is stronger than death.
Victory is ours through Him who loved us.

May I keep on these ‘mittens’ of truth, and grow into my true self…

Truth is… “Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come” 2 Corinthians 5:17