The Lessons of Proverbs

Yesterday was the end of the Proverbs 31 day challenge and I feel I have gained new insight into God's will, but before I talk about what I learned, I want to share a success with you: The last 10 years of my life have been marked by awful allergies, including food allergies. Besides the "normal" allergies, I have a condition known as Birch-Apple Syndrome, which is a fancy way of saying I am allergic to a protein in birch trees, apples, and a few other foods, including carrots, peaches, cranberries, and soy. Over the years my tolerance for the protein has decreased and my food allergies have grown. This year my allergies have been markedly less so I thought I might reintroduce one of the foods I am allergic to (apples). I developed a plan and this last month I have taken to sampling apple slices. I had a proactive and reactive response plan in place, in addition to praying for God's blessings on their experiment. Today was my fourth exposure to apples and before taking a single bite I prayed...and I didn't have a reaction to the apple, which I ate in its entirety! While I had success today, I don't want anyone to assume they will have success too.  Allergies are very serious and a severe reaction can happen at any time so consult your doctor before trying to reintroduce any food allergen back into your diet.

Now onto Proverbs. There were a few lessons that repeated throughout Proverbs, but the one lesson that resonated with me the most was to not be quarrelsome. The idea that patience leads us to overlook an offence and prevent a quarrel, as well as the images of a quarrelsome wife, stuck out to me. Each verse that reflected these ideas felt like God poking me, "Hey you! Listen to this. Take this to heart. Learn from it!" I don't mean to be, but I am a quarrelsome person. I forgive, but I rarely overlook an offense. The truth is when I am wronged I want justice, I want the person to realize their mistake, and I want them to make amends so I can forgive them and be reconciled. But this rarely happens. More often there is a fight and a missed opportunity to show love and be loved. I need to remember love is more important.