Booby-trap

boo′by trap` n. 1. a hidden bomb or mine that can be set off by an unsuspecting person who steps on it, touches a tripwire, or the like. 2. any hidden trap set for an unsuspecting person.

www.thefreedictionary.com 

Playing the Game of Booby-trap

My grandkids know there is a closet shelf with a little stash of old-school vintage games at Grandma Cindie’s house. When they were younger, we’d play some of those games together when they came to visit. In those days, it didn’t seem to matter that my games weren’t played on a device or a big screen. It was the time spent together enjoying one another’s company that mattered. Of course, it didn’t hurt if grandma had freshly baked cookies or a favorite snack on hand.

The object of the game was for players to take turns removing pieces from within the spring bar “trap” without measurably moving the bar. If you were successful in removing a piece, points were earned based upon the color of the piece (which generally corresponded with the difficulty of removing it without moving the bar). The player who had accumulated the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

Booby-traps in Life

Even though you were expecting the trap to snap, it always seemed to come as a startling surprise. This may seem unrelated, but follow my crazy train of thought here…

For the past couple of years I’ve been making a consistent and dedicated effort at improving my overall health by cleaning up my diet. Discovering that excessive carbohydrates were my body’s “booby-trap” was an important key toward dealing with inflammation-related health issues, including debilitating migraine headaches, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and agonizing joint pain. I was very close to my health’s spring snapping unexpectedly, but give thanks to God for guiding me to make changes that would bring about healing and improvement in all of those areas and more.

It also means I’ve said goodbye to eating more than just a bite of desserts, breads, rice, noodles, and starchy veggies (like corn, squash and potatoes). Since we cook and eat together, my husband has vicariously adopted many of my eating habits, but his affection for high carbohydrate snacking has very unintentionally created several booby-traps for me.

The fact that Wayne buys me my own carb-friendly treats tells me that he doesn’t mean to tempt me. Nonetheless, those stashes call my name way too often and are a source of dietary danger and difficulty for me. Especially the chocolate stashes. They are, for me, a booby-trap.

You see, an alternate definition of the word booby-trap is:

A source of danger or difficulty not easily foreseen and avoided.

It is hard to avoid because it is my job to bake lots of delicious desserts for our memory care residents and staff to enjoy. I love my job, but the carb-laden treats that I create make our friends who live at BeeHive happy, but pose a dangerous challenge for me.

I practice intermittent fasting (IF) as part of my low-carb eating plan, which basically means that I have adopted a “lunch-to-dinner” 6-hour eating window. I enjoy two protein-focused meals each day: a great breakfast or lunch around noon, and dinner at around 5 pm. Whenever possible, I try to be finished with eating my meals somewhere between 6 and 7 pm.

Recently, I asked God to help me gain victory over my workplace temptations. It was about that time when my mentor in low carb eating challenged her Low Carb Revelation followers to begin incorporating intermittent fasting into their eating plan. She also suggested we consider adding a long fast day each week. I took up that challenge on July 1st when I devoted myself to further dietary discipline by beginning “dinner-to-dinner” fasting on one of the two days per week that I work. There are a whole bunch of benefits to my choice to incorporate fasting into my eating plan. In the context of avoiding booby-traps, however, this discipline has helped me resist those sugary bites, licks and tastes at work.

The Real Booby-trap

Tucked in toward the end of my Bible is a little book (a short letter, actually) called James. There are a couple of verses in that letter which explain the real source of my problem with carbs–and with overeating in general. It’s not Wayne’s snacks tucked in here and there throughout the house. It’s not all the sugary desserts at BeeHive (my workplace). It’s not the soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones calling my name whenever I drive past a McDonald’s. It’s not the open bag of chocolate chips in my pantry. Here’s the real booby-trap.

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

~James 1:14-15 ESV

It’s my own desire. My own desire to give in to the temptation of eating excess sugar. My health conditions testified that my addiction to eating a diet high in carbohydrates was killing me. Sugar has a tight grip on me and only my faithful God can provide a way of escape for me. I believe that He led my friend Paula to challenge me to practice fasting for His glory.

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

– 1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV

I truly believe it is not beyond my ability to honor God in this area of my life. I can do this only by God’s grace and pray that it will be for His glory.