can·di·da [kan-di-duh]

So it's official, well not actually official but by my own diagnosis, my body is infested with a horrible case of candida. This yeast has overgrown my intestinal tract giving me annoying and painful symptoms one on top of the other. This yeast is beginning to spread throughout me, it will grow and get worse if I don't stop it, so the only way to stop it? Lots of pills; probiotics, detoxes, candex, cleanses, enzymes, blah, blah, blah. And a very strict diet; no carbs, no grains, no sugar, no fruit, no caffeine, blah. Which leaves me to eating merely vegetables and (some) meat, which is much harder then it even sounds. You just have to get creative and have a positive attitude... today at starbucks: iced, decaf americano, no milk, sugar-free vanilla! Ha, take that candida!        With this ridiculous sickness that has had me rolled up in the fetal position in pain and at other times had me so lethargic you'd think they stuck me with a pain killer and marijuana syringe.  But this internal growing fungus is more common than you think, everyone has it, just to different degrees, unfortunately I believe I have some allergies to assist in all this treachery. But this fungus inside my intestines has got me to thinking about other "candida." 

Let's have a look shall we ...

"I hope there are some who will brave ridicule for the sake of common justice to half 

the people in the world." Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827–1891), British feminist. As quoted in Barbara Bodichon, Introduction, by Candida Lacey (1987).

"Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about?"

 George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. (First produced 1897). Marchbanks, in Candida, act 1, The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with their Prefaces, vol. 1, ed. Dan H. Laurence (1970).

"That is what all poets do: they talk to themselves out loud; and the world overhears them. But it's horribly lonely not to hear someone else talk sometimes." George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Marchbanks, in Candida, act 2.

"We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it." George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, criti

c. Morell, in Candida, act 1.

   

     These quotes are amazing, but why was the play called Candida? or who would name their daughter Candida? I mean come on, there is a candida blog, a candida diet, a candida play wright, candida cleanses, a candida song (by Tony Orlando), a candida center, candida albicans, thrush, overgrowth and candida yeast. And a big one: candida symptoms, symptoms that have entirely changed my life style. But in the bigger spectrum of life, lets look at a comparison or analogy, if you will, that candida provides for us. I believe it may be more important than the physical turmoil I am now facing.

     Candida, a yeast that plants itself, that we all have, if not taken care of, overgrows and takes over. When you die there is a yeast that decomposes the inside of your body, this is the same yeast that currently resides in my stomach. So bigger picture? How many of us, how many times, do we, do I allow this yeast to overgrow and take control? 

 I am no longer talking about yeast, I am now talking about sin. We all have a seed of sin planted within the hollow bones of our skeleton, now how many of us lose focus and allow that sin to begin to grow with in our very structure and take over? We can so easily lose focus and stop disciplining ourselves. Stop watching what we feed our mouths. If you constantly feed yourself carbs, you will get a horrible case of candida; if you constantly feed your self with the ways of the world, the ways of selfishness, the ways of sin, you will get a horrible sickness.

 

  A sickness not of the physical kind, but of the soulful kind. The genre of sickness that takes you steps, sometimes miles away from the grace of God. A sickness that makes you lose sight of the kingdom, that makes you lose sight of where you belong in the spectrum (God, others, and then you). An overgrowth of "yeast" in your gut will pull you farther from our Father, will pull you farther from the light, the hope, the love that you were born to belong to and fellowship in. 

    I'm not eating carbs or sugar right now, but I can't help wonder what else I shouldn't be eating? Certain music, certain relationships, certain entertainment, certain activities? What else should I be fasting from? Because when we take the sin out of our life we tend to get our eyes opened, it is so easy to sit in a brain fog, blind to our wrongness when our bellies are bloated full of the wrong filling. 

Hebrews 12, what a great passage on what discipline we should obtain, what great words on the love our God holds for us. Hebrews 12: the directions for our soul's cleanse.