As some of you will know I have ‘given up sugar’ – it has been about a year now and is well settled as the way that I eat. I’m not sure whether it has changed the way I experience taste – it is not as though the idea of chocolate turns my stomach! At the same time though I no longer miss cake or crave some Dairy Milk. What I have noticed is that I do sometimes hanker for the experience of them – the comfort or the occasion surrounding them.

I was dusting a gingerbread Christmas tree with icing sugar yesterday (a bit of a blog momment as my friend the doctor would say!) and some of the icing sugar made its way to my lips (it kind of creates its own atmosphere in the kitchen doesn’t it!) and it just tasted alien to me. On the other hand the flavours I pick up from savoury things that I eat have intensified as has the pleasure at the variety of texture etc.

So in a way my appetites for flavours have changed significantly over the past 12 months.

But what has this to do with being a ‘woman saved by grace’ (- as it says on the tin)?

I have been praying lately for a change of taste preference in my life and loves. When it comes to sin I don’t want to say “no” to sin as someone on a diet who might reluctantly turn down a second slice of cake or portion of pudding – but rather as someone saying “no” to an offer of poison! I am asking God that the misleading appeal of sin would fade and its true ugliness be revealed to me.

I wonder if I could develop a better habit of (all by grace!)..

1. Spotting the sin habit/pattern
2. Looking beyond the fact that it is not permissable – that it breaks the rules; to see its ugliness and the offense it is to Jesus, of how disguting it is given what Jesus has done for me.
3. Repenting of it – I recently read (and have probably mentioned before) the idea of soul vomit – a violent rejection of its place in our lives.
4. Putting it to death by pouring God’s truth all over it and leaving it no room to return by installing God’s truth in its place.

I might try and work through some examples in the future, but I am off to an advent lunch so

To be continued…and do comment if you get the chance. 

On a totally different note – I am considering getting a .blog domain name so that it is easier for people to find me – what do people think?