Journal Entry #10

What area in your life requires the strongest guardrails?

I think that the area of “food” requires the most guardrails in my life. Food has always been a temptation that made me become fatter, and fatter, and fatter…

Food, by itself, is a good thing. Food keeps us alive, and food is also enjoyable according to our tastes. However, I keep telling myself this whenever I see good food: “Oh, it’s just another (food), it doesn’t matter if I eat one more (food). I won’t become that much fatter. But think of how happy I’ll be! Oh this (food) tastes so good, so I should take one more!” Through the years, this temptation and lack of guardrails has led me to becoming quite overweight, and may create some health problems like diabetes when I grow up.

At the present (September 2013), I am very overweight in comparison to my country (Hong Kong)’s average. I feel like I need to establish many guardrails against the amount of consumption I should eat, but it isn’t easy. Every time after I eat, I go: “Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that much. Oh, I’ll be able to eat less next time. It’s okay.” As a matter of fact, it’s not okay. I keep eating and eating, and gaining more weight in the process. I should have established guardrails before I know what will happen, because I know the end result. I especially chide myself when I get stomachaches from eating too much (actually happens quite often, at least once per 1-2 weeks). After the chiding, I eat as much the next day.

I think that I should establish more guardrails before the real problems start to occur, and that I should pray to God for the strength to resist such temptation. Guardrails are an important part of my life that I need to create before it’s too late.

Journal Entry #8

Describe a past situation where you didn’t establish a “guardrail” but wish you did.

When I was in fourth grade, I had a surgery with 20 stitches because I didn’t establish a guardrail.

This guardrail was physical (not emotional/mental), and it was that I shouldn’t become too excited during games and lose myself. I was in church that day, and we were playing mini golf. A golf ball went over the fence, and everybody rushed to see it. Excited, I ran, not noticing a dome shaped sewer cover on the ground, then tripped. The fence had an extra screw that was sticking up which it hit my glasses and my glasses cut my right eyebrow. I immediately bled heavily and was rushed to the hospital.

I realized that if God hadn’t given me glasses, I would have been blinded in my right eye and it would have hurt quite a lot. God, in saving my eye, seeped a message and guardrail that I should control myself while having fun, not becoming overly excited and losing my self-control.

After my surgery and 20 stitches, the experience didn’t hurt as much as I expected it to be, and I now know that God always protects us, and through mistakes he teaches us to establish guardrails against doing anything foolish.