At each new year, I proclaim, I am going to make some changes in my life. I am determined to make more money so we don’t struggle so much. I am finally going to change the way I eat and begin a real exercise regiment. I even promise myself that I will be a better Christian. I will read the Word more and be extra loving and generous.

Quickly impacted by its environment, cotton candy almost immediately will begin to absorb moisture from its environment. This causes it to become coarser, denser and lose its shine. In the same way, my resolve is often weakened by the words of others. I allow their barbs to make me coarser instead of loving, tighter instead of generous and depressed instead of shining with light.

There is another sticky mass of sugar that is a lot more durable. Made in the ordinary kitchen it can be quite an arduous task. So much so that in earlier days, friends were called in to help. That candy is taffy.

Unlike cotton candy, it is not formed by hot air, but by boiling. If you take it off the stove too soon, you will have nothing but a gooey mess. Leave it on too long and you have a rock hard, but brittle mass.

Once the taffy is at the right temperature, it is poured on a buttered slab of marble to cool. Then butter hands begin to pull and stretch it, fold it and stretch it once again. When it is the right consistency, it can be cut or shaped and then put in a waxed wrapping so it is easily accessible.

What if I approached change as taffy this year? I would have to be willing to take the heat and continue on even when I was ready to quit. I would have to be vulnerable enough to allow others to stretch me, even criticize me and finally, I would have to be willing to be prepared to be served; to benefit others I would have to be willing to lay down my own agenda occasionally to meet the needs of others. Loving unconditionally isn’t always convenient.

Many changes do not come about because it requires tenacity and hard work. I want the microwave experience. I don’t want to lose five pounds this week—I want to lose twenty. When I can’t, I quit.

Change requires vision. Seeing the accumulation of loss of pounds instead of each individual pound will push me to the finish line.

Another adjustment that has to be made is in my deserve level. My deserve level actually serves to self-sabotage any positive changes, for after all, I don’t deserve to have more money, live more comfortably or be healthier.

To adjust the deserve level you must answer each accusation with two questions: Who told you that and was it the truth?

We can hear error so long that we no longer question it and accept it as truth. Surely before Christopher Columbus many believed that the world was flat and if you sailed out too far, you would fall to your death. How many ‘flat world’ experiences am I clutching? What would it take to get in the ship and sail?

Making definitive changes in my life these are the questions I must answer before preparing another list of cotton candy promises. Finding those answers will probably be more difficult than the change itself for it’s confronting my belief system. Sometimes one’s belief system is laced with half-truths or invalid ones. To know a truth and take it as your own requires self-examination. Where do these truths come from and which ones do I believe?

I choose to line my truths with the Word of God. So over the years some of the things I have been taught have had to be cut away for they just did not line up with that standard. There is a plumb line in the Word. I am still off-center, but I am a work in progress. I have stepped into the boat and I want desperately to sail, but the fears birthed out of the half-truths anchor me down. It is time to cut the rope and sail.