Holidays of Horrific Proportions

I walked into the store and blithely noticed the holiday décor. A large package caught my eye (as it was designed to do) and I stopped. I stared in horror at the monstrosity. The selection of gigantic candy baffled the senses. A ring pop that was the size of a softball. Yard stick sized Twizzlers. Hershey kisses that could be basketballs. Had I entered some terrible processed-food-hocking hell?

I would only later think about the marketeers who conjured up such processed peculiarities. The hedonistic henchmen who—like gold prospectors did in the early 1800’s—desire to mine every cent from the consumer’s pocket by way of their stomach.

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking, “So what? Who cares if they make giant candy? It’s not like they are hurting anybody. Margaret, you are jerk! I love golf ball sized jelly beans! Shut your orating orifice.”

All right. I hear you. Let me back up a bit and explain why I hate giant candy. It may not be the reason you think.

When I was a little girl, my mother had a dear friend named Pat. Every Christmas she would visit my mother and bring me and my sister a large candy cane stick. I remember the first time I saw it. It was amazing! It was like a candy cane only bigger and it lasted a lot longer. I remember cutting my tongue while sucking on it and enjoying every second. Thirty something years have passed but every time I come across one of those candy cane sticks, I think of Pat. Memories swell like a cloud of beautiful butterflies and I am incited to buy one. I want to feel like I did when I was young and carefree—back before adulthood knocked me in the head with a horseshoe.

This is what we call nostalgia. Nostalgia is a wonderful feeling I am prone to embrace like a mug of (sugar free!) hot chocolate on a cold night. Unfortunately, greedy corporations have learned to prey on this feeling. They use our feelings to entice us to unclench our fists and let the coins roll from our palm to theirs. This is manipulation and I think it is wrong.

The holidays can be particularly difficult for our friends and neighbors because of nostalgia. If someone has lost a loved one or has particularly painful memories, a song, a smell, or yes, even a glimpse of candy can start a fire they cannot easily extinguish. Some run to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain. Others use food like a tonic-time machine to evoke memories the past. The manipulations are endless.

The sugar addict in me finds it difficult to gaze on candy (especially Recess Peanut butter cups and M&M’s). And while I have practice at walking away, there are times I still pray, “God help me not to buy and eat that thing that to me is sin.”

The Bible specifically condemns idolatry and sensuality. First, I know I have a problem with food as an idol. Second, my favorite place to eat dessert is generally in bed (with a good book).  And while many do not equate eating with sensuality, the passion with which many gluttons approach putting food into their mouths is, well, grossly exaggerated to the point of sensuality.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” – Galatian 5:16-24

The bible doesn’t condemn idolatry and sensuality because it wants to keep me from having any fun (as many people think it does). The bible is mainly interested in setting captive people free. That is why Jesus came to earth—to set me free from my sin. He had strong words for people prone to lust in his “sermon on the mount”. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” (Matthew 5:29-30)

There is something worse than obesity: hell. Yes, it is a real place.

This is why I hate greedy corporations that manipulate my emotions so that I will become addicted to their products. They want to separate me from the love of Christ. When I lived in slavery to food and topped the scales over 300 pounds, I felt like I had no hope of ever breaking free of the need to live for food. When my blessed Savior gently told me I needed to learn discipline, I discovered that saying “no” to my craving for physical pleasure brought me into closer relationship with God. The difficulty with which I learned how to stop consuming processed foods and sugar caused me to rely upon the promises of God by way of his words in the bible. Only then did I experience the sweetest sensation known to mankind; the pure love of God.

We are at the very beginning of the holiday season. The (marketing) vultures are circling. The ravening lions (Hershey, Nabisco, etc.) are sharpening their teeth. The geniuses who use “A Christmas Story” as a weapon are set to stoke our emotions—along with our appetites—and nothing short of the Bumpass Hounds will stop us from consuming our Thanksgiving turkeys to the detriment of our waistlines. Who will save us from annihilation?

Jesus.

The Apostle Paul once wrote, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Today, if you are struggling with the holiday of horrific proportions, take heart! The captive can be set free by calling on the name of Jesus. One does not need to indulge to reminisce. One can celebrate with love instead of food (or alcohol or nicotine or marijuana or meth). Nostalgia may invoke memories from indulgences of years past, but it can also be the impetus for creating new and beautiful memories of the captive who tastes the sweetness of true freedom.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Psalm 34:8