Devilish Dove Chocolate Sayings

It'll be a close call, but "Never Paid Full Price" has a good chance of beating out "Devoted Mother and Wife" on my headstone. My coupon clipping system borders on obsessive and my passion for shopping garage sales has reached an all time high. Mom always taught us to shop the sales and the way the price of gas keeps going up, sometimes I think this way of life is mandatory.


My most recent coup was when I scored eight buy one get one coupons for bags of Dove chocolate. Scouring the ads showed Target running a sale on the candy. I made a run for it and came out with 16 bags of chocolate for $20!


Why do I think I can handle this?
How are 16 bags of chocolate going to help me fit back into my size 10 wardrobe?
Wasn't it obvious that I was addicted to food and that food had become my idol?


So I piled the chocolate into the back of my pantry where it would be "safe." Where I wouldn't be tempted by it, you know? Where I wouldn't think about it's creamy texture, the rich taste spreading slowly on my tongue. Where my husband wouldn't notice a mountain of chocolate and how it slowly disappears.


I'd stop by the pantry

• ...on my way upstairs to get a crying baby
  
• ...on my way downstairs to enforce a time-out
  
• ...to reward myself for all of the hard work I do
  
• ...on my way to the laundry room to wash yet another soiled sheet
  
• ...to get the phone and talk to my husband who's out of town
• ...to lift my spirits when I feel insignificant or neglected

And the Dove people know what they are doing. They put little messages on the inside of each candy to reinforce the little voice in your head that tells you "it's okay to eat chocolate...you deserve this...one little piece won't matter..." Some that I recall:

• Temptation is fun… giving in is even better...

• Be mischievous.. It feels good...

• Hey- Why not?

• Follow your instincts.

• Naughty can be nice.

• Lose yourself in a moment.

• Don't think about it so much.

For your average person these are light-hearted messages written in the name of fun. For me these messages are the voice of the devil.

Whoa, you might say, isn't that going a bit far? Not really.

If Satan can get me to start thinking of going down the path of temptation I'm already half-way there. God wants us to take our thoughts captive and keep them above board. Little messages in chocolates that tell me to give into what I feel...well, that's how I got into this predicament to start with.


Thankfully the Holy Spirit gave me strength last week to ditch all of that chocolate. (I unloaded it on some willing colleagues :) Praise the Lord that last night, as I woke to tend my screaming 3 year old, that the chocolate wasn't there as a solace and that I could bypass the pantry. (I actually stuck my tongue out at it as I walked by. I think Satan was sitting in there pouting.)


I realize that my struggle with food and weight issues are going to be with me for the rest of my life. But I also realize that this is a blessing. It has brought me into a more real relationship with God than I ever could have imagined. Glory to him. Amen.