I absolutely love chocolate chip cookies. I love them small. I love them large. I love them with tiny chips. I love them with chunks. I love them made by Keebler’s elves. I love them make by my wife. I love them baked. I love them raw. I love them with a tad of vanilla. I love them without the tad of vanilla.
I don’t love what chocolate chip cookies do to my waist. I don’t love what they do to my self-control. I don’t love what they do to the number on our bathroom scale. Yesterday I was feeling particularly vulnerable while picking up milk at our grocery store. As I picked up the milk I felt the cookie urge. As I walked past the cookie aisle I’m sure I could smell them beckoning. Visions of sitting in my easy chair with a bagful on my lap filled me with thoughts of paradise. Surely in heaven there will be a chocolate chip cookie tree in my garden. There will be no serpent.
I am so grateful I learned my weekly memory verses when I was a yet a boy. On each shoulder sat a convincer. In my left ear came a voice that said, “Just one. You’re a man. You can handle just one.” In my right ear I heard the whisper, “Remember Psalm 1:1. Repeat after me. Blessed is the man who walketh not past the cookies nor standeth in the aisle staring nor sits with a bagful on his lap.”
I wish I could tell you I won. Well, I did – sort of. Instead I bought a bag of chocolate chips. Forget the dough, baked or raw. Sometimes compromise isn’t a bad word. It has ten letters, not four.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 17, 2016
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