I’m sitting on my yoga mat, eating a poptart. My third one of the day, if I was to be completely honest.

I ate the first two burned-to-coal ones this a.m. at my desk, while entering homeopathic prescriptions into my work computer.

The irony of all this–the collision of my super-refined discount brand breakfast “food” and my yoga mat healing arts life…really, it epitomizes my truth.

I am the one who says, “Poptarts are really candy bars pretending to be breakfast.” Yet, when cravings hit, I can’t find distilled water but have passed the cereal aisle four times, what lands in my cart but store brand blueberry frosted poptarts. My most human parts scream the loudest. I want the noise to stop, so I give in.

In my bus riding, toasterless life, this treat was warmed in a cast iron skillet with, wait for it, yes, margarine. Some would now be casting their vote for h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t! Can’t say that I would blame them. Can’t say I would vote with them.

We all have ideals and crisis mode. And I am so tired, I can’t give a hoot mode. Or today I can’t see how God made me good mode.

Thus, I eat poptarts while writing in a notebook, trying, at the same time, to stretch my hip flexors. I walked 5 miles yesterday and the blue yoga mat underneath me seems to lack its usual cushion-y feel. I am not able to ignore the messages of stretching and pressure here–of muscles, of acceptance or fitting in. Living a life that is not completely congruent with my ideals, my morals, or the mission of my church doesn’t mean that I have failed. Besides refined sugars, I do crave what is good, what I believe I can be.

I feel like the picture of a woman eating supersized fries in her car while gulping down a diet lemonade. Not hypocritical, just sitting on the fence sometimes. I know the life behind me well. Know that life enough to say that I want the Life before me. I do not understand balance in a cellular way, for me, it is more of a silly dance balancing on a board that is on top of a big colorful ball. No one is really good at it without practice.

This side of heaven we will never completely escape the poptart parade. Yet we can try. Once I eat these last 3, I’ll be ready to make the effort to walk away…really, just give me like 5 more minutes. Make it ten–there is a reason these things are for exercising on and not for naptime.

I am encouraged that many years ago, a man had to admit to the same struggle. Ok, so Paul may not have been craving poptarts, but still….

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ …. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  (Romans 7:15-20 NIV)

So I wonder, what kind of irony do you hold in your hand?

By Mindi Headrick, I Will Show You Yours