Forgiveness

Having a hard time forgiving myself this morning...or just letting it go. Last night we finished dinner early and had about an hour and a half before Jason and I had to be at small group. So we got this crazy idea to go to Chilis to have dessert. UGH! Really? I haven't had much sugar or starches for over a month so this idea appealed to me, but in the back of my mind I kept calculating how much cardio I needed to burn this off. I justified doing this by thinking this was a little get-away date with the hubby...we like to do things spur of the moment and we haven't had the funds to do much of this lately. So off we went to Chili's, told the hostess we only needed a dessert menu and were lead to our table.
We ordered.
It came.
A large, heaping helping of chocolate lava cake with a beautiful mound of vanilla ice cream covered with hard chocolate on top. I stuck in my spoon and out poured that lovely chocolate lava. Yep....I filled the spoon, and before I knew it, that spoon was in my mouth, along with all that amazing chocolate and ice cream. YUM! Before I took another bite, I mentally drew a line in that cake to mark my portion of what I was going to allow myself to eat. I savored every bite of my portion and enjoyed my hubby's company on our little get-away date.
First thing I did after getting the kids off to school this morning was check out all the work-outs on our on-demand. (I have lots of work-out videos that I rotate doing on a daily basis, but wanted to try something different) I decided to try Jillian Michaels' SHRED. 30 minutes of a great work-out and 300 calories burned. Then I headed to the computer to record this in my daily SparkPeople exercise journal. THEN...I made the mistake of going to the Chilis website to look up the "nutritional" info on the lava cake! Holey Buckets!!!! Only 1020 calories!!! Good thing I only ate about a third, which is still horrible.
So, I fell off the wagon and am feeling a little bruised, but all I can do is focus on what I put in my mouth today, get another work-out in this evening and crawl back up into that weight loss wagon I will travel thru the rest of my life on.
Forgiveness. God so graciously gave me this gift...and forgives me. I know some people who have sinned, and can't seem to get past it and accept God's forgiveness. I feel this is offending God. Kind of like if you give a friend a gift and they hand it back to you and say, "no, I don't deserve this, I'm too horrible of a person to accept it", but only multiply this times thousands. I'm not saying it's okay to sin knowing that you can later ask for forgiveness, but we are all human, and all sin. Jesus died on the cross for us so that we are washed clean of this sin. Don't ignore it, confess it....and God will forgive.
Going back to the chocolate lava cake. I don't believe this was a sin against God. But I did a little research on the word sin. One of the definitions I came across: the state of having commited a violation. Eating this cake was a violation against me and my commitment to getting healthier. But I also know it's not healthy to dwell on this. I also know it was a time of spending some quality time with my hubby, which makes our relationship healthier. So, I forgive myself for eating this yummy dessert, and am glad I got to spend this time with my wonderful hubby.
Forgiveness is a healthy thing.
If you are holding on to something today, confess, and give it to God. He is a Forgiving God!