Day 19: Converting

I have been baking a bit lately and many of the recipes I have from the US call for things like "a stick of butter" or a small package of cream cheese.  I find all of this frustrating when I no longer live in a country with standard insider measurements!  I have to figure out how much the American measure is referring to and then convert it to metric measurements.  I'm good with temperature (although I still double check oven temps), I get kilos and pounds (kilos are 2.2 pounds so you always sound lighter in kilos!), and I'm pretty good with liters and gallons.  But even after living here for 13 years, I find the ounces to grams and inches to centimeters the most difficult of all conversions.  I just cannot get a point of reference for those.  I have finally learned that 200 grams is almost 8 ounces so at least when something calls for a cup, I can get close!  None of it would've ever have been possible without using a metric conversion chart.  I just had no point of reference for understanding what 200 grams is.
It's funny to me how after all these years, metric still feels foreign.  It is really hard to deviate from something that is so ingrained in your mind.  It got me thinking about how hard converting is and why in other more significant areas of our lives we often need an outside force to bring about change in our lives...something that will help to establish new ways of being and doing.  I suppose our entire Advent journey is a slow road to conversion.  Daily we seek to turn towards Jesus, but without the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives, we won't be able to keep turning in Christ's direction.  But that's in part why our Christian lives are a journey, not a one time event that we have and are then done.  Instead, it requires that we intentionally make decisions to walk away from ourself and turn towards God.  We can meet Christ in a moment, and our sins are forgiven through Christ's once and for all decisive act on the cross, but to really know Christ, well, we have to keep choosing to allow ourselves to be changed.  Is your advent journey creating conversion in your life?  What has changed for you?  What still needs to change?