Faded Genes

How a gene mutation helped me conquer my sin.

Genetic testing once revealed to me that I have something called MTFHR Gene Mutation. Don’t ask me details as my brain cannot seem to wrap itself around the intricacies of such a diagnosis. What I do know is that this genetic predisposition makes it difficult for my body to process the vitamin B9 and wreaks all kinds of havoc on the system, including, but not limited to, detoxifying difficulties, brain fogginess, and allergies.

Needless to say, getting and staying healthy has been an uphill climb. Genetic testing can be helpful because it can alert you to certain predispositions to diseases. But proclivity doesn’t have to render a positive pronouncement! I have learned that I can circumvent certain symptoms through nutritional, physical, and mental health processes. In other words, I do not have to be subject to genetics. Rising above the inherited interpretation is not impossibility!

And neither is consuming generational habits and sin. (I use consuming here as a verb and an adjective)

Currently, thankfully, I am not subject to bitterness or unforgiveness towards my parents for what they weren’t capable of giving. The Lord has healed my heart of such pain and faultfinding. But I am currently aware that there are certain habits picked up over the years that stem from childhood observation. Detailing it all would dishonor my deceased parents.

What I will say, though, is that awareness plus Holy Spirit conviction is the key to lessening those pesky inclinations. And you know what they are in your life. They are the words, gestures, opinions, judgments, etc. you wish you could take back as soon as they emit from you. You know, those behaviors  that hurt the other person, but you find yourself doing them and saying them more times than not and something in the back of your mind tells you this has got to change!

Ask the Lord about it. Ask Him if it’s something learned…a genetic predisposition of sorts. And be courageous enough to ask Him to change that gene before it mutates and becomes unruly.

Years have flown by from the time I met Jesus. He has been patient with me as I remain His problematic patient! The changes have been subtle, but constant. The genetic pull lessens as I heal in the identity I have in Him, the offspring of the Perfect Father. The familial genes are fading while the DNA of Heaven binds itself to my soul. Jesus Himself has broken the “curse” and I no longer helplessly bear these negative inclinations as the faded colors of ancestral habits are being tinted by His blood.

“Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.” –Heb. 9:14