Pomegranates

When I was growing up my grandma had a big pomegranate tree in her back yard, each year it produced tons of pomegranates which I loved! most kids do, they are fun to eat, they are tasty and really messy. The thing was my grandmother hated them! I'm not sure why, I suppose because they were so messy, but I don't really know for sure. This morning on my walk we passed by a yard with a pomegranate tree in the front yard, Olivia asked me what kind of a tree it was and I told her "that's a pomegranate tree" then I told her about the tree in grandma Dorothy's yard when I was growing up and how grandma Dorothy hated the pomegranate tree and she tried to chop it down once but it grew back, "why did it grow back?" my 4 year old wanted to know, "because she didn't dig the roots of the tree out, she just chopped the tree down, and it grew back" I told her. Such is sin isn't it? I started a bible study course yesterday called "The Lord's Table" it deals specifically with the sin of gluttony, or any other sin that is centered around food. Food has been something that has been a form of bondage in my life for many years, for as long as I can remember really (I remember going on my first diet when I was 9 years old), and though that bondage has worn different faces throughout the years I have always been tethered to an unhealthy view of food in one way or another, my love of food, my hatred of food, my desire for bad food, my obsession with good food, my emotions and feelings of failure that eating food bring to me, then the negative body image associate with being overweight and the desire that that brings to eat more food... and on and on the vicious cycle goes, I have come a long way with my food choices and way that I exercises my body, even with my body image, but that all came from chopping the tree down, now it is time to fully dig out the roots. I have come to the realization many times that we get labels attached to us throughout life, some put there by others some by ourselves, but we tend to grow into these labels, Don't we?  I think it's time to start trashing the ones that are lie's like "worthless" "loser" "failure" "fat" "ugly" "hopeless" and start to wear the designers labels (my apologies, I know that sounds terribly cheesy, but it's true)  "redeemed" "forgiven" "beautiful" "important" "loved" "free" and my favorite one "healed"  In 1 Peter he tells us that through Jesus' wounds we are healed, we ARE, present tense, because of what he has already done the gift of healing has already been given to us, we just need to embrace it and accept it and in some cases work it out, I know there are many different views on healing and lots of controversy over this issue and I don't care to get into all of that, I know that sometimes God chooses to heal physical ailments this side of heaven and sometimes he does not, but this I do know, God's plans are always the best possible ones. Period. And we don't always understand, and as far as I am concerned that is ok with me, I have wrestled too much with God already about why certain things are and how come this and how come that, and he always wins, he is God and I am not, his thoughts are not my thoughts and I am grateful for this... but when it comes to bondage and emotional pain and difficulty I believe God's good plan is to heal and restore, to set the captive free (Isaiah 42:6-8), to show his power and love, and  to bring glory to his name. So I embark on this journey to embrace healing to accept it and to walk in freedom through him and with him, glory be to his name.

51. 1 Peter 2:24
    “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”