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| PHOTO COURTESY OF FRAICHE YOGURT |
TODAY THE WORD is YOGURT. I know that some of you who know me and understand how southern I am are smiling right now and thinking to yourself, “Arline eats yogurt?” I do! My health conscious daughter introduced me to yogurt several years ago in an effort to move me into a healthier eating regime. Oh, how I resisted at first. It had a different texture than anything I had eaten and I thought, “I have to eat this, maybe healthy eating is not for me.” I feel yogurt is an acquired taste unless you go the route of the sugar added not quite so healthy yogurt or get the frozen yogurt that can be topped with a thousand candies, nuts, fruits, and even chocolate. Now, we may be talking, I thought. That delusion got squashed very quickly and rightfully so and this is the reason for the topic for the blog today. I am having yogurt this morning, and it is healthy non fat Greek yogurt with fresh fruit. This preparation gave me the thought of how we change things in our life to suit our desires, not our needs. In other words, we want to adjust to appease and that in itself is not healthy. While on one hand, to tell others I eat yogurt gives an impression of health conscious habits but it is necessary to look farther into the description. Am I eating the healthy yogurt or piling on the “goodies but baddies” on top and defeating my purpose?
Now for the deeper thought…..Do we do this misrepresentation in other areas of our lives? Do we pretend to be a good employee and steal time from the company we work for? Do we portray total faithfulness to our spouses and at the same time do what we call “harmless” flirting? Do we give to others when it is selfless or do we give when it suits our image? Do we say we trust in Our God but question when our prayers are not answered immediately? Let me say this please, I am speaking to all of us on this and getting real. Not everyone will go the healthy route and sometimes even the best of us will feel we deserve the toppings with disregard to our spiritual health, but God is there to guide us back to what is healthy for our souls. Life presents all kind of unhealthy temptations and our souls can benefit if we choose the healthy, wonderful lifestyle and be frankly honest with ourselves. At points in my life, I didn’t want to be frank with myself. I find it so enlightening to be honestly free now. I make mistakes and have to pray and “straighten up my spiritual diet” and God hands me my “soul diet” (bible) and forgives me for getting off the program. If all of us will commit to “soul happy diet” our lives become easier, better things happen, and we acquire a taste for the healthy living and we “exercise” God’s love. Let’s get healthy in our souls today!
FEATURED BIBLE VERSE:
Exodus:
“He said, ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to His commands and keep all of His decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.’ ” Exodus 15:26
(c) Copyright 2012-2017 Arline Lott Miller. The material here copyrighted, use only by permission.
This is fabulous Arline! Love the tip about non fat Greek yogurt! I’m going to try it next week when I buy groceries…