And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors
and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.
When she heard about Jesus,
she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
Immediately her bleeding stopped
and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered,
“and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ “ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her,
came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear,
told him the whole truth.
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
– Mark 5:25-34
“God’s way is the way of faith and freedom. When we bring our struggles with food, eating, and weight to him in honest surrender, we can be restored. For this to happen we must allow God to lead us to a place where we are:
Free to risk–letting go of the past in order to live unencumbered in the present (1 Peter 5:6,7)
Free to change–being transformed from the inside out by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2)
Free to trust–trusting God and the way he made us (1 Cor. 6:19)
Free to love–loving as Christ loves us (John 13:34)
As we act in faith and surrender to this kind of freedom, we will experience a new relationship with God, with ourselves, and with our bodies.”
——— This idea of being free to risk has really hit me afresh. We talked about this in our Thin Within online support group chat the other night. If we give our coping mechanisms–if we dare to reach for the hem of Jesus’ robe even while we lay hemorraging in the dust–what if he doesn’t choose to heal? What if he doesn’t choose to change me?
The hemorraging woman in Mark 5 believed that just a touch of Jesus’ robe was all she needed. In that act of faith, I wonder if she got more than what she bargained for–God’s power surged through her in a burst of healing. She had risked everything she had left–all her hope, all her dignity (if she had any left)–to weave through the crowd even though the culture had declared her “unclean” for years. She had tried everything else–and had always come up with dashed hopes. She had to be free to risk…this time the last of her hope as well as everything else. With the last bit of daring she could muster she lurched for the hem of his robe–even through the crowd of people, all who hoped to get closer to him…
As she risked it all, dared to put “all her eggs in this basket,” she experienced transformation. But in order to do that, she had to be willing to risk losing it all…again.
When we come to the Lord with our disordered eating, and choose to change the way we cope with anger, with frustration, and with all our other emotions…when we willingly surrender the way we have turned to food in order to cope, we take a huge risk. How will we cope now?
We begin to see the truth–the truth that sets us free–that our issues with food, eating, weight aren’t about food–not really. It is about something so much deeper and thus, it has the power to hurt so much more profoundly. What IF I hope and am disappointed? What if I am left…hungry…I mean with my soul hungering yet?
IS it worth the risk?
I wonder…had the bleeding woman not been healed if she would have regreted the act of lungeing for Jesus’ robe. I wonder if, in spite of disappointment, there would have been something in her that would have rested in resolution. Somehow, I don’t think she would have regreted taking the risk, even if things had turned out differently.
But things didn’t turn out differently. She was healed.
Am I willing to let go of the past in order to live unencumbered in the present? That means letting go of the way food has comforted me, been a companion for me, numbed me to anger and pain…been the focus of my Saturday nights and celebrations. Am I willing to let go of all the “been there done thats” that have come before and believe that God is even now doing a new thing? Am I willing to risk?
Are you?
I challenge you to journal a prayer about your willingness (or lack of). Ask God to meet you where you are just as he met the bleeding woman.
NOTE: I am leaving for DisneyWorld early tomorrow morning. My daughter and I are meeting up with my dear friend, Jan, and her daughter for 5 days in the happiest place on earth! If I don’t have a chance to blog while I am gone, I will see you when I return!
Judy Halliday asked me something a month or two ago that has stuck with me. I guess it has been “fermenting” in my mind and heart.
She knows that the book Thin Again was used powerfully in my life. It is a book (for those of you who don’t know about it) that was released first in 1995 with the title Silent Hunger. Then, it was published a couple of times (same book) as Thin Again. Most recently, it has been published with yet another title: Get Thin Stay Thin.
I haven’t been crazy about the newest title, liking the first title the most. But there is something that has been resonating in me with this latest title…even if I don’t like the title. I think it is the fact that…well, ok, I have gotten thin. But will I stay thin? The title is sort of speaking an answer to that. It sounds weird to say that…
So anyhow…Judy knows that years ago, I was passionate about how this book NEEDS a workbook to help people work through it and to discuss it in a small group setting. At the time we were working on the writing of the Thin Within book, it just wasn’t God’s time, though. Since then, I have brought it up a couple of times as well. It still hasn’t been time.
You can imagine my surprise when Judy mentioned it to me. I still am uncertain that we will move forward with the idea now, but the timing of it intrigues me. Right now, when I am most in need of revisiting some of the deeper issues behind my dysfunctional relationship with food, it does seem intriguing that it might be time now to launch into a writing project…the one I have had a passion for in the past.
Over a year ago, I even tried to reread the Thin Again book. I couldn’t get into it.
Today, I picked it up again. (Thus, the title of this blog entry: Thin Again? Again? LOL!)
Each word is resonating with me just like it did so many years ago. I hope to process some of it here on the blog…and as I do, perhaps some of the ideas for the workbook that we will be working on writing will surface.
If you have the book Silent Hunger, Thin Again, or Get Thin Stay Thin (again, these are all the same book with different titles), PLEASE consider participating in this by posting comments at the end of the blog entries. I would LOVE to get feedback from others and see how God uses our exchange to show me what HE wants in a possible workbook.
Just to whet your appetite, here is from the Introduction…
“Hunger is a universal experience. Television, newspapers, and magazines bring wide-eyed and sunken-cheeked faces from around the world into our homes and our hearts, and we are grieved. yet even those of us fortunate enough to have an abundance of food are hungry. We sit down three times a day to tables laden with food, but our deepest hunger is not satisfied.
“Each of us has a hunger deep within where no one can see. And although it may not be obvious, this hunger is the most universal of all. It is the silent hunger of the starving soul. It is silent because we don’t recognize it or have words to describe it; silent because it has been muted with years of behavior designed to still its voice; silent because the noise of our world prevents it from being heard.
“But this hunger cannot be completely silenced. It cries out to be heard. It is our compelling desire to be loved, protected, and considered precious. It is a God-given hunger for genuine intimacy wherein our deepest needs for security and significance can be substantially met.”
(Get Thin Stay Thin page 11)
—-
I hope you see what I mean. If you don’t have this book you can get it for less than $7.00 in its latest incarnation. 🙂
Gratitude–expressing it–is so life-changing…not just in the long haul, but giving gratitude to God, sometimes even just with an act of my will–can even change my (and ME) NOW!!!
So, given I have been finding myself in an ever descending spiral of frustration this week, I know that expressing gratitude is the way OUT of the pit!
Psalm 22:3 says (KJV): But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
For those of you who, like me, can’t believe that the verse doesn’t actually SAY: “God inhabits the praises of His people,” after hearing it quoted that way for years, I looked up the word from KJV translated “inhabitest” and “enthroned” in other more modern translations.
The Strong’s exhuaustive concordance says this word “inhabitest” means the following:
to dwell, remain, sit, abide 1a) (Qal) 1a1) to sit, sit down 1a2) to be set 1a3) to remain, stay 1a4) to dwell, have one’s abode 1b) (Niphal) to be inhabited 1c) (Piel) to set, place 1d) (Hiphil) 1d1) to cause to sit 1d2) to cause to abide, set 1d3) to cause to dwell 1d4) to cause (cities) to be inhabited 1d5) to marry (give an dwelling to) 1e) (Hophal) 1e1) to be inhabited 1e2) to make to dwell
I have put my objections aside! 🙂
GOD DWELLS in the praises of His people. He remains, he stays, he sits down in…my praises! WHOO HOO! It works for me!
God chooses to live in, dwell amidst, show up in praises of His people.
That is pretty awesome.
So, it stands to reason, that if I am in a pit of discouragement, defeat, loneliness, lies, disobedience, shame, despair, pity…whatever my PIT walls may be made of…well, if I start praising God anyhow, giving gratitude to Him for anything and everything I can think of (no matter how trivial)…then HE MOVES IN. I have this feeling that if he moves in to my praises, it won’t be long that, as my praises lift him up and exalt him, that I will float on up out of my pit with it all! Sounds good to me!
So, I am heading over to my gratitude blog to add some more things (some may be reruns) that I am giving God praise, thanks, and gratitude for. If you want, you can use the comments and join me in giving thanks, adoration, gratitude, and praise to God. Nothing is too small…nothing too trivial.
In faith, I know that this changes me in the long haul, but it also changes me NOW. Focusing not on what I am disgruntled about (a lengthy list, it seems), but on HIM and all HE does…
I share the following with the permission of a dear friend of mine. She told me this story in email and I thought it too perfect an illustration NOT to share with you. I hope it encourages you!
My 10 year old son, Zach came up to me tonight all solemn. He said, “I have to tell you something. I was playing in the big dumpster across the road today.. I just thought I should be honest and tell you the truth.” (It had never occurred to me to forbid him playing in it, since I couldn’t have imagined why anyone would even WANT to, lol.)
Anyway, my heart just swelled in love for him. I hugged him and thanked him for telling me, and said that it is true that he shouldn’t be playing in it…broken glass, or snakes or all kinds of dangers lurked in there. But that I appreciated his honesty and told him he was a good boy…
The point is, that simple confession came from a boy who was not afraid of me, he felt the “sin” and didn’t want there to be broken fellowship…even though I wasn’t aware of any break…awareness of wrongdoing made him feel bad, and he did what he needed to remove the burden and not “hold out on me.”
That was such a picture of the real nature of confession. How many times have I been playing in a dumpster? Finding delight in rubbish, unaware of the hidden dangers lurking beneath my grimy treasures. God isn’t waiting to pounce when we realize that playing in our dumpster would displease Him…and if we confess, He even joyfully receives us, and our confession, as a precious gift. It is a great intimacy booster. It shows love and trust on the part of the child, a desire to be right and to please the Father who has shown Himself trustworthy and kind.
And if God feels anything like I felt, the love is even greater in those moments, because you come closer in intimacy. My son completely bypassed the need for “punishment”…his confession showed his heart was tender to me, and desired to be obedient to the spirit of my desires…even beyond the “law” that I might have laid down for him. He wanted to keep the channels of trust open between us. And that is what I desire to do with God…keep those channels open, the relationship secure in its intimacy. And to stay out of those trash dumpsters!
There is a play on words going on in the title of this post. “God doesn’t count.”
I don’t mean “God doesn’t matter,” because of course He does! He is EVERYTHING that matters!
What I DO mean is, He doesn’t count! He doesn’t say “1, 2, 3, 4….” and so on.
–> GOD DOESN’T COUNT YOUR SIN(s) Do you believe that?
Or do you think “I have stuffed my face again. I keep doing the ‘sin repent sin’ cycle thing…and I know God has had it with me…It is only a matter of time before he says ‘That’s it. NO MORE. I am THROUGH with you!’ “
If you are convinced that you can out-SIN God’s love, kindness (which leads us to repentance), then ask Him to help you believe Psalm 32:2 a which says:
Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him…
You see? God doesn’t COUNT.
He can out-love, out-forgive, out-kindness anything you can possibly throw at him.
He doesn’t stand up in heaven with a tablet, making a list and checking it twice to see if you have been naughty or nice…and…suddenly, do a second take…
….Oh no!! Horrors of HORRORS!
………”No! That sin, right there…that ONE sin…is ONE too many! No more forgiveness, no more pardon! No more kindness, no more long suffering! I count ONE TOO MANY SINS against Lisa…against Lou…against… ________ .” (Insert your own name there…)
Further on in Psalm 32, we read:
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD “
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
David knew what it was like to struggle with starting a day with good intentions…to begin again, and again, and again…only to cave in to temptation. Instead of hiding from God, he tell us acknowledging his sin, confessing them…well, it didn’t end badly. God wasn’t counting his sin.
Instead, God forgave.
He keeps forgiving.
Jesus paid an exhorbitant price so that forgiveness could be constantly, freely extended to you…no matter how *many* your sins. If we insist on believing that God “has had it” with us…then we are sucking the life right out of the cross of Christ. We are saying that the death Jesus died has its limits…that it isn’t sufficient.
Do we *really* want to say that?
Let’s believe! God doesn’t count. When we begin again, we really do begin again…fresh start, clean slate…
1 John says God is love and 1 Corinthians 13 says that love keeps no record of wrongs done. So, I have to figure…then God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.
No, God doesn’t count.
(If you wonder if this blog entry is peddling “cheap grace,” I want to re-state that Jesus paid with his life…There is nothing about grace that is “cheap.” We are challenged not to go on sinning intentionally, willfully so that grace may increase…however the bible also tells us that if we claim we are without sin we lie and God is not in us…So, I receive David’s admonishment in Psalm 32. I seek hard after God and when I DO sin, I confess it and stand cleansed…forgiven…my sin is not counted against me…all because of the high price paid for me to have this privilege. I don’t trivialize it…I bow in reverence and submission…and welcome every possible benefit that has come to me through the extreme sacrifice Jesus offers me…)
In the bible study workbook No Other Gods, by Kelly Minter, I was reminded yesterday morning that it is ever so easy to remember the past (a theme of my blog entries) through rose-colored glasses.
— When I am disappointed that I am no longer hungry and need to stop eating in order to glorify God with my eating and drinking (and stopping the same!)…
–When I know I must “fast” this bite (these bites) to Him as a sacrifice of praise…
–Do I then, in turn, remember it this way: “I used to be able to eat all of that…”
Or, do I also remember the COST?
There *was* a cost to eating the way I did in the past!
Am I like the Israelites when they remembered Egypt: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.”
They had selective memory. They glorified the past forgetting that they were miserable–mistreated and subjected to hard labor.
Do I have selective memory? Do I remember the high blood pressure, the shame, guilt, the fear that I would *die* of a heart attack or stroke? Do I remember the embarassment of not being able to sit in an airplane seat without my hips popping up the arm rests? Do I remember all the family vacations that I didn’t go on because doing *anything* was too embarassing, humiliating, or uncomfortable for me? Do I remember that the dentist wouldn’t even fill a cavity that needed filling because of his concern for my blood pressure even though I was taking medication to bring it down? Do I remember the concern I had for my horses–that, if I rode, I would make them uncomfortable or uncertain of their footing–to the point where I chose *not* to ride at all? Do I remember all the professional events associated with my husband’s job that I refused to attend at his side because of embarassment and feeling like a tent should I have happened to find a nice enough dress that fit to wear to the event?
Do I remember the conviction day in and day out…and the way I knew with all my heart that I was allowing my heart to harden, to become callused…because I refused to submit my appetites to the Lord? Do I really remember accurately? The bondage, the captivity?
Or do I merely remember “the _______ I ate in Egypt at no cost…?”
Kelly challenged me in the bible study…and I invite God to never let me forget the truth of how I lived. It wasn’t freedom. Far from it. It wasn’t enjoyable…not even all the brownies and cheese enchiladas I could have possibly wanted (way outside of 0 to 5 eating!) could numb me to the pain of the existence I had settled for. It was *far* from the abundant life that the Lord died to give me!
Lord, let me not forget! Burn it in my mind that I might never glorify the past. It was captivity, it was bondage…it was horrible. Help me to look forward, to press on, to go further still for what you have yet in store. I praise you and trust you, Lord. Amen.
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.
But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal
to win the prize for which God
has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
– Philippians 3:13-14
I haven’t arrived.
God is yet doing a new thing. Yesterdays are filled with victories and defeats, but I am called to forget what is behind and reach toward what is yet ahead. In Hebrews 12:1,2 (and elsewhere) I am called to shake off anything that hinders…even the “good” things, the victory medals, the praises and accolades…and also to shake off the sin that entangles–all the “failures.” I am called to press on, to push forward, to go further still, deeper yet.
God has called me heavenward.
GOD has called me heavenward. This is about I AM…YAHWEH, the KING of the universe….GOD…
God HAS called me heavenward. He HAS done it. I don’t need to wait for a maybe thing. It is DONE.
God has CALLED me heavenward. He has issued a CALL. I have heard it. I am responding to that call.
God has called ME heavenward. It is not for me to worry about others–God will do HIS job and I am to do mine. It is ALL about him, but he has invited me…ME! Amazing!
God has called me HEAVENWARD!!! This isn’t about this earth, about this life. It is about HIM and about HEAVEN. Colossians 3:1-4 challenges me *because* of what God HAS done to set my mind on things above, not on earthly things. To set my HEART on things above…His call is Heavenward, my life is to be lived with Heaven in view!
I’m casting my cares aside I’m leaving my past behind I’m setting my heart and mind on You Jesus I’m reaching my hand to Yours Believing there’s so much more Knowing that all You have in store for me is good Today is the day You have made I will rejoice and be glad in it Today is the Day!
I am living, for all practical purposes, as if I am godless.
How is this possible?
The past week or so, I have had difficulty processing Breezy’s diagnosis, I guess. For some reason, it has sent me into a topspin. I think it is partly because, in order to do my BEST for his care and to manage his disease effectively so he doesn’t end up foundering and in intense pain (and ultimately having to be put down), I must invest a lot of TIME (something I don’t have) and MONEY (something else I don’t have). Feeling this way makes me feel GUILTY (something I have a LOT of, it seems).
So, instead of bowing before the throne, I have gotten an edge going…a cold shoulder to God (who created Breezy and has blessed our family with him). This is a result of PRIDE.
Pride has led to PRAYERLESSNESS.
PRAYERLESSNESS is living like a GODLESS person.
For all intents and purposes, I am a practical atheist when I live like this.
This realization hit me like a ton of bricks this morning during, of all things, my quiet time.
You see, I can keep going through the motions of spending time in God’s Word, filling in the blanks in my workbooks, even parroting prayers from Stormie Omartian’s books (and even maybe praying my own) yet never really converse with the King of the Universe who wants to be invited into my life, to invade, to flood all my empty places with Himself.
I know an author I read somewhere once, mentioned this “practical atheism” view before. Was it John Piper? C.S. Lewis? I can’t remember…if you know, please let me know!
In any event, boy, was a smitten with this awareness.
God wants IN. He wants IN my every bite, my every swallow, my every word, my every thought. He wants to be my HOLY OBSESSION. He wants my blood to be “bibline” so that if I get cut out pours His truth…(well, you get the drift I trust).
While I feel like I “know” God’s Word inside and out, His precepts “like the back of my hand,” arrogance keeps this “knowing” at arm’s length. Why? I don’t have any clue. I know that it isn’t better my way apart from Him.
Somehow, I need to allow all that intellectual “knowledge” to come home to my heart. From merely a so-called intellectual “knowing” to an emotional, spiritual (and whatever else) BEING. I believe that this is vital.
I don’t want to live as if I am godless. I don’t want to make decisions apart from inquiring of the Lord or a perfunctory “Bless this choice God, because you have been silent on this for all of 2 seconds, so I am running ahead with the decision that I think you should make…so bless it, ok? Thanks.” I want to wait on Him.
I get asked about photos a lot…so thought I would put together a slide show that sort of shows a jet trip tour through my weight ups and downs since Fall of 2002. I consider the photo from Summer of 2006 my true “Before” photo…even though there were many “Befores.”
You can see from my yo-yoing weight why I find maintaining a somewhat stable weight now so important…and also why I battle the voice that tells me again and again that I will yet gain weight back–that this weight loss and new lifestyle is temporary. I am clinging to God, but still struggle so very much.
This idea of being free to risk has really hit me afresh. We talked about this in our Thin Within online support group chat the other night. If we give our coping mechanisms–if we dare to reach for the hem of Jesus’ robe even while we lay hemorraging in the dust–what if he doesn’t choose to heal? What if he doesn’t choose to change me?
