Graffiti + Truth = Good Health

I've been thinking about graffiti lately. What got me started thinking about it is the graffiti application on facebook. You can draw a little picture and leave it on someone's facebook wall! (Doesn't that sound fun? I don't know how to do it, but really, really want someone to teach me.) And then I began thinking about graffiti in the real world...on bridges, buildings, and other places that were never intended to be "graffitized." I am drawn to it... it is so THERE in a big, bold creative way... colorful and expressive. I wonder about the person behind the design...and I feel a bit drawn to the rebelliousness that must be driving that person. I am like that person...I , too, have a rebellious spirit, and so I tend to disregard the fact that someone, for selfish reasons, chose to use someone else's property as their canvas. And then there is the more obviously destructive graffiti. I remember being a little 5 yr. old girl swinging on my swing set in the backyard, and witnessing 2 teenage girls spray painting the big bad F word on the side of the white garage that belonged to the elderly couple who lived behind us. Maybe that's not graffiti. Maybe that's simply vandelism. Either way, it was paint. And it was applied for selfish reasons. My dad, always the good guy, knew where those girls lived and so he went to their homes, talked to their parents, and those girls showed up behind my house again with paint brushes and a can of white paint. They did not enjoy the process of undoing their wrong, but they returned the little white garage to it's original state. Now, THIS IS THE PART THAT APPLIES TO MY HEALTHQUEST! And this is very simple. I have a naturally rebellious spirit. We all do. I am naturally selfish. We all are. And I have been given a gift. We all have. A body. It is a container; a vessel. It holds something more valuable than any other created thing. Our soul. And our soul has really important work to do. We have people to love and care for! Just yesterday I began to understand more fully that I am not my body. I am IN my body. And in my selfish, rebellious nature...upon this gift I have been given, which was intended for good purposes, I have "graffitized" it with a big bad F word....FAT! Not only on the outside, but throughout the inside as well. It is true that in order for my soul to do the beautiful work it was created to do, this vessel must work the way it was intended to! And that is the reason I am on this Healthquest on the Homestretch! Like those teenage girls experienced, there are parts of the "undoing" process that I will not enjoy. But this isn't about "me." This is about being selfless....and about being whatever the opposite of rebellious is. I was born inside a healthy body...and now it's my responsibility to repaint this garage...remove the F word...and get back on the path I started on!