New Year's Resolution: NO Gluten!

Copyright 2011:  singeronthesand photography

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud 

of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders 

and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run 

with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Hebrews 12:1

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?  For many people, the very thought of them brings a chuckle and a smile, for who in the world keeps those resolutions anyway?  I resolve to start tomorrow to not eat so much.  I resolve starting tomorrow to go to the gym every day. I resolve this year to take more time to enjoy life, rather than constantly trying to snatch the brass ring.  I resolve… I resolve… I resolve…

I am gluten-intolerant – a condition that I wish I did not have, but most certainly do.  If I eat anything that has gluten in it, I can (will) become one sick puppy. Last night was just such an occasion.  On Christmas Eve, I had convinced myself, yet again, that it wouldn’t hurt me to eat one little cheese bun (does it ever stop at just one?), and Sunday morning, the world was still beautiful and my tummy was fine.  Fast forward to Tuesday evening.  The gluten portion of my meal (far more than one bun) was not digesting, and slowly ground to a stop in my system.  Everything I ate from then on was only semi-digested, and just backed up behind the gluten.  When the situation reached critical mass last night (full stomach), the pain that resulted from a digestive tract full of rotten food was beyond description.  Not a pretty picture?  No, indeed.  Bet I’ll never do that again?  You have no idea…

I have done this to myself so many times I have long since lost count (at one point landing in the Emergency Room four times in eight weeks).  Dumb?  You’d better believe it!  But oh, so human.  Day always follows night, one plus one is always two, and I will always get sick, to one degree or another, if I ingest gluten.  Plain and simple. Why, then, is it so easy for me to say, “This time it will be different!”  Or, perhaps more pointedly, “This time I can get away with it.” 

Notice in the second paragraph of this blog, I said, “If I eat gluten, I can get sick? It is always an afterthought – sometimes far after, for me to say “…WILL get sick.”  The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things…”  That is certainly true in my case.

So my #1 New Year’s resolution for 2012 is:  DO NOT eat gluten of any kind.  This time, however, I think it is high time to lay this burden at God’s feet and say, “This is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment battle that I cannot possibly win on my own.  I really need Your help – today, tomorrow, and every other day!  I covet your prayers for my human weakness.  I do not know your New Year’s resolutions, but I will pray that you will hand the really important ones over to the One who has the power to empower you.