I was sick for months. I bought all different kinds of medicine from the pharmacy and tried all kinds of treatment, including home remedies, but nothing made me better. When I came to the point that I might have to quit my job, I went to see the doctor whom I got to know through my work.
My doctor prescribed me medicine for a week, and she firmly counseled me to avoid sugar during that period of time, because sugar weakens the immune system and slows down recovery.
It wasn’t easy to take sugar out of my diet. Most delicious foods had sugar in them, and fruits and juice were no exceptions.
It was the hardest on the first three days. Whenever I had a meal, I wanted to have something sweet for dessert. Snacks were also a temptation hard for me to thrust away. But I was determined not to even look at or think about the foods that have sugar for my health.
The hardest moment was when coffee was right in front of me. It even hurt my heart to suppress my desire to drink the sweet coffee.
Whenever I felt tempted to drink coffee, I counted up to ten or just left that place, and I told myself so many times that I needed to think about my health. I had no other choice, because I would be unable to even focus on worship service to say nothing of preaching the gospel if I didn’t get better. Fortunately, I regained my health little by little as I paid much attention to it.
I realized many things during that time. Being extremely on guard for foods with sugar in them, I kept thinking of the word of Mother, “God’s children must not do anything that they are not supposed to do or see anything that they are not supposed to see.”
Whenever I remembered Mother’s word, I felt how much of a sinner I am. Mother always teaches us that we need to avoid all evil habits that harm our souls and be cleansed through God’s word. However, I often acted according to my foolish sinful nature instead of putting Mother’s words into practice. I often gave in to all kinds of temptations that knock on my weak mind.
During the feast, I confessed all my sins to God and eagerly asked Him to help me get rid of all the sinful and worldly habits for my spiritual health. As a blessing of the feast, God cleansed my spirit.
When sins are in me, it feels like carrying a heavy bag. My soul has become light as I have been forgiven through God’s grace. I don’t want to make my soul heavy again. Just as the Bible says, “Avoid every kind of evil” (1 Th 5:22), I will get rid of all the evil habits and run towards heaven with light steps.