flings and thorns

I remember watching this movie Outsourced, and there is a subplot where the main guy sleeps with a girl who is betrothed. She says that many of her married friends had a "holiday in Goa" (a fling) before their nuptials. Well, I've just finished my Holiday affair with carbohydrates... It's been at least a month since I tracked, and SHOCKER, I've put back all the weight I lost on WW plus some. I use the term "affair" because I willfully overate and made poor food choices. I stared sin in its chocolatey face and said "Get in my belly!" I failed the test, multiple times and it's showing on the scale. This sinfest comes at an interesting time, when I'm dealing with a friend who has chosen to pursue a lifestyle of sin. This friend loves Jesus, but has decided that their struggle is not against sin, but against their identity. And since it's "not healthy to struggle against who you are", my friend has decided to pursue how they believe they were made. Genetically, I have a predisposition to diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. My genes *make* me struggle with food addiction... But my genes don't make me fat. Eating a bag of kettle corn and sitting on my ass make me fat. I'm not here to argue about the nature of sin, but I believe that we are made in God's image. Anything that is in us that is not of God (sin), is a result of the Fall. Yes, we may be born with specific struggles, thorns in our sides, but those should not define us. What defines us is the grace we receive when we fall into the traps set by our human nature. But the danger comes in looking at the thorn and saying "You've been here as long as I can remember, so you must belong." This is simply not true, and I personally can't wait to have my thorn(s) removed!