Anthem of My Heart: De-coding

**WARNING: Don't get thrown off by the hefty start to this entry...there are some good points further down if you can hang in with me.**

Deoxyribonucleic acid..........say that three times fast.....no? Yeah, I don't blame you, even correctly pronouncing it once is enough to tie a cherry stem in a knot on your tongue. Sooooooo, for the purpose of this blog entry and our own sanity, we'll use it's more common name...DNA. Don't worry though, I have no intention of discussing grooves, base pairing or supercoiling here. Fascinating as it may be, genetics is not my field of expertise so any attempt on my part to try and explain molecular studies would be like asking Fozzy Bear to explain the stock market.
So then why did I bring up the subject of DNA if I don't plan to discuss it? Well....I do plan to discuss it, but in a way that perhaps you haven't thought of before.

For weeks.... well, I suppose it's really been months...I've been trying to create a blog button and pull box to use here at AMH. You might think that would be a simple task....but html code and I don't mix well...so it's been an absolute nightmare logistically. Every time I thought I had it, I would test the code and "DENIED"
.....*sigh*....exasperating to say the least. Some nights I would just break into tears from sheer frustration and exhaustion. See, the funny thing about html is that one simple keystroke can mean the difference between success or failure....a space where it doesn't belong or an extra bracket can corrupt the entire code....similar to our own DNA. A seemingly simple molecular change can change EVERYTHING.

(On a sidenote though, I did finally get that html code to work as you may have already noticed if you already saw the grab button and pull box over on the side column here. Special thanks to Beth at Uppercase Living for the BEAUTIFUL design! xoxo )

When talking genetics, these errors in coding are called mutations. For my purposes here today I'm not going to go into detail about all the many kinds of mutations, although it really is FASCINATING stuff. I'm specifically going to refer to something called a frame-shift mutation, because they disrupt the entire gene code. If you want to read more about genetics though in a very reader friendly format, please feel free to check out my source for the following definition found at Genetic Health.
In a frame shift mutation, one or more bases are inserted or deleted, the equivalent of adding or removing letters in a sentence. But because our cells read DNA in three letter "words", adding or removing one letter changes each subsequent word. This type of mutation can make the DNA meaningless and often results in a shortened protein. An example of a frame-shift mutation using our sample sentence is when the 't' from cat is removed, but we keep the original letter spacing:

Original	The fat cat ate the wee rat.
Frame Shift	The fat caa tet hew eer at.

So where am I going with this? Well, last week I was talking to a friend of mine about the thought patterns in our lives. She was telling me how when she was in her first marriage she had become so accustomed to having to take on the responsibilities of her, less than enthusiastic husband that even after her divorce years later and remarriage she was still programed to think she had to carry that role. Now, her current husband is a wonderful man who is strong in his faith and an excellent worker, provider and her biggest fan so she should be able to rest easy right? Well, yes.....but there is the small issue of coding. Mental, emotional and spiritual coding...like html code or DNA code...if one simple line of bad coding gets in there it completely shuts things down or causes them to function in a manner they were never intended to. Her mind had been coded for so many years to think she was responsible to carry certain roles in the family. So much so in fact, that when her job came to a crossroads she was feeling stressed wondering how they were going to make it.

It took another friend of ours to remind this woman of the blessing she has in her current husband. Her fears of not being able to make it were no longer founded because she has been blessed with a Godly husband who is more than willing and able to carry the load for their household should she suddenly find herself out of work. That realization was earth shattering for her....her previously imbalanced world had suddenly become balanced! As she processed the thought and let it really take hold she began to see and feel shackles fall off of her mind and her spirit. Her coding had a bad line thrown in the mix years ago and she had become so accustomed to the malfunction that it became normal. Armed with her new found freedom however, a weight has been lifted off of her life. Her coding has been corrected and she can now function in a healthy way again.
You and I are like that...we all have within us, bad lines of coding that need to be removed so that we can function properly. The secret is to stop pretending those lines don't exist, but to recognize it and where it came from so that we can address the REAL problem. Maybe your bad coding came from an abusive or non-existent parent, or a trauma early in life. Perhaps you had a cheating spouse or were part of a toxic church. Wherever those funky lines of bad code came from...they can be corrected. Sometimes with a little simple thing like the realization my friend had....sometimes it may take deeper rewriting...but nonetheless, there is hope.

So what is the next step? Well...you can't move forward until you first realize you're being held back. So, as always the number one thing to do and the best place to ALWAYS start any journey, is to pray. Prayer is a tool, a sort of red phone to God...so use it! You don't pray? Well...start! If you want to get someplace you've never been it requires you do something you've never done.
I'm not talking some mamby pamby prayer either, I mean, dig out your garbage, expose the skeletons, 9-1-1 PRAY. Listen to me, God knows it all ANYWAY...all of it...so it's not like you're really pulling the wool over His eyes and hiding it from Him. So between you and Him alone, air out the laundry and ask Him to show you the areas of your life that have bad coding. (Tip: if you have situations, arguments, problems etc that always seem to come back up in your life, that probably means that you have a line of bad coding in there regarding that.) Next ask God to show you how to reprogram your heart, mind and soul so you can be a healthier person. Sound too easy? HAH....it only sounds that way...trust me...this will be the hardest battle you have fought in your life....but once all is said and done, it will be the most victorious freedom you have ever experienced. I can promise you that! I will be praying for you though, as I always do, and please if you are new here at AMH and you want to send me a specific prayer request, you can either post it in the comment thread or send me a message through Facebook.