The horse dream ended up in a very real way being a nightmare—God continued to shut down everything to which I looked for satisfaction but Him (including my horses!).
I stopped riding due to challenges the horses faced (the one in the picture wasn’t even 5 yet and came totally lame…surgery was required…he is only 9 now and is retired). Between that and my escalating weight (again), I stopped riding. This was a heartache as well.
God was insistent. Gentle, yes, but insistent. Would I look to Him? Or would I continue to resist His call?
In the fall of 2006, I got involved in an online Christian horse owner’s list. I wanted to fellowship with other believers who loved and were owned by 🙂 horses. I guess the group owner “Googled” my name and found out about my involvement with Thin Within.
The internet is an amazing place. We can be whoever or whatever we want independent of how we look. In real life, had this woman seen me, she might have been very polite and never even mentioned a “Christian diet book” to me given I carried 100 (or so) extra pounds—even if I “helped write” it! But, not having seen me, she didn’t know I didn’t practice what I preached…And innocently asked me about it. She had no idea that this was something from my past—or was it?
She was a tool in God’s hands to flush me out of hiding!
In fact, she asked me to lead the horse group members through an online study of the Thin Within book. Good grief! God was actually pursuing me! Rather than interpret it as indicative of His great love, I felt trapped. 🙁 And a bit annoyed.
Not willing to be Jonah and run the other way, however, I went along with it. After all, no one had to know the truth–that I was almost as big as ever and didn’t give a flying fig about surrendering this to God…right?
I am sure that precious woman didn’t have a clue how God was using her. She may have only known that she and others in the group wanted to lose weight (or, at the very least, make it through the holidays without gaining) and Thin Within was a “Christian diet” (or so they thought—it isn’t at all, but they didn’t know that yet).
It is funny how the Lord works things out.
Early in November 2006, I began to share lessons about Thin Within on the Christian horseman’s list. Getting to know the group, I also shared the video of Daniel and Dodger.
In response to that, I discovered that a young mom of a four year old boy…who had been diagnosed with the same autism spectrum disorder as my Daniel—Asperger’s Syndrome—was also present on the list! When we began to talk about our sons—hers only 4 years of age and mine 14 years old—we shared and talked and shared and talked some more. I had walked this road 10 years ahead of her…and God used her earnest questions to soften my heart some more. There were times when I would come through an email exchange in tears…both at the pain I had touched upon in my own life in order to reach out to her, but also with joy that the years of heartache had an outlet…a positive one.
God showed me again…He spins straw to gold if we allow it.
The question was, would I yet continue to resist that God is God? Could HE use me in some way to encourage another about her child’s autism?
How ironic…I found that, in spite of myself, I did have encouragement to offer her. If nothing else, I could share pitfalls to avoid, blessings to rejoice in…and as I shared with her, I found that God was redeeming many years of pain, years of resentment that He chose to make my son autistic, years of feeling God’s “cold shoulder.” I began to consider that God had much more tenderness toward me, and toward Daniel, than I realized.
As I shared daily in just two short weeks with the online horse group about Thin Within, God continued to melt my heart…this time, combining the awareness of the truth about Thin Within with his gentle nudge to look at all the areas of my life I had yet to surrender or to surrender…again.
Because of what I learned in 2001, I knew forgiveness of others, of myself and, even of God, was an important factor. I knew that, if nothing else, it would help clear the air in my life and lift burdens I was carrying needlessly.
Not so nearly the huge undertaking it had been in 2001, I was able to move forward quickly.
Early on, a song came on KLOVE radio that echoed the stirrings in my heart for the first time in a number of years:
You are my desire,
no one else will do….
help me find a way,
bring me back to you…
You’re all I want.
You’re all I ever needed.
You’re all I want. Help me know you are here.
God was making a way in the wilderness…and a way to bring me back to Him. That song was like a healing ointment applied to my heart, softening it. God gently peeled back the callus…and the heart beneath was tender.
Another song ministered to me deeply– “He’s My Son” by Mark Schultz. God used that song to show me that He was, indeed, aware of my heartache and pain. He reminded me that He, too, gave up His Son…only He gave His Son over to sinful man. He was not asking me to do that. He asked me to trust my only son to HIM—to the Lord. To let God be God.
As if to confirm what He was showing me in the stillness of my quiet times with him, another song came on the radio while I was driving through the canyon near our home:
God is God and I am not
I can only see a part
of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God
God showed me unmistakably that he cares, that he is here, that he is making a way, even when I see no possible way for that to happen. He IS doing a new thing, even when I don’t perceive it.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
He is faithful to complete that which He has begun (Philippians 1:6). I had allowed my vision to be blurred by bitterness and fear. As these blinders came off, I could begin to see the truth. Truth sets me free (John 8:32)—The truth that He loves, He cares, He is involved…He calls to me, to you. He beckons to us to draw near to His love…so great a love. So unfathomable, in fact, that we may miss it.
I challenge you, dear reader…believe Him for the truth. He says the truth is that He IS doing a new thing. Will you choose to believe God? To believe what He says?
Tomorrow, I promise 🙂 the close of this lengthy testimony.
In the Fall of 2002, my family and I moved to the country to fulfill a life-long dream I had of owning horses. All the work of preparing the land, fences, including the moving of tons of rock (literally) by hand caused me to work my tail off (literally) outside. When we moved, I weighed in at 230 pounds. But I quickly began to shed extra weight primarily because I was working outside so hard. The physical demands being placed on my body were more than the amount of food I was putting in, so I began to shed weight relatively quickly. I deceived myself into thinking I was now applying the TW principles. I got down to 170 lbs, patted myself on the back and arrogantly reconnected with folks at Thin Within, including the Hallidays.
I again began to write articles for Thin Within’s ThinLine magazine. A few pieces were published, but, honestly…they were devoid of heart. I wasn’t living the message, and this time God wasn’t going to let me get away with not living the truth. It wasn’t about weight. It was about my heart which I continued to withhold.
I should have gotten the hint when a piece I wrote on the Abundant Life didn’t make the cut for the magazine. In my arrogance and pride, I refused to see what God was saying. I even tried participating in online support groups, but these experiences, too, were cold–devoid of heart for me. My heart was rock solid—frozen…HARD. I wanted God to snap me out of it, but He was calling me to live according to the truth that He had already revealed to me. He had done so much for me…and yet I continued to insist that He do more. I was not yet willing to make the hard choices.
I still hadn’t surrendered food and eating to the Lord. I definitely hadn’t surrendered my son’s autism…and it continued to be a heartache to me.
Not only that, but issues with my mother intensified at that time, causing even more bitterness—reopening the wounds that God had done so much healing of in the summer of 2001. Unfortunately, rather than apply what I knew to be true—that I needed to keep short accounts and walk in forgiveness moment by moment—I stored up bitterness. The wedge intensified, not only in my relationships with people (including my mother), but also in my relationship with the Lord.
I chose not to deal with this at its root—a big mistake.
God used the horses to minister to my soul and to Daniel’s. Below is a video showing a special connection between Daniel and our formerly abused mustang, Dodger. In the video, you can see where my weight had gotten. That wasn’t even my heaviest…it was on its way down! I wrote about the special connection Daniel and Dodger had and that piece was published in the Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul Volume 2.
As the big outside work projects were completed, the winter began and my body was no longer called on to do as much physical labor outside, the weight began to pour back on. The truth was evident. I hadn’t dealt with the heart issue…my heart was still chained to food—as if there had been any doubt! Shame intensified again…and I once again withdrew from friends that might remind me of the Thin Within message.
Stubborn. Rebellious.
It wasn’t that I didn’t *know* what to do! I knew all right. But I remained content (in a manner) with my arrogance and pride, refusing to surrender. I got angrier and angrier at the Lord.
My blood pressure had become an issue even while I was thinner and more active—before we had moved. Now it was off the charts and I needed more medication to manage it. I would fall asleep at night wondering if I would wake up or have a stroke and die in my sleep…or a heart attack. We live on the side of a steep hill and three times a day I went out to spread hay all over the hillside for the horses…and there were times I wondered if I would keel over down there and how long it would be before my family would notice that I hadn’t come back in…and I would be out there dead in my tracks. 🙁 You know…that isn’t the abundant life that Jesus came and died to give to me. And it is NO way to “live.”
In late 2005, when I reread an email I had sent off to my sister in an emotional frenzy, I was shocked at the absolute hatred I verbalized for our mother. God used that to knock me soundly upside the head. I was shocked at what I had become. Not just physically…but inside, too! After all the “forgiveness work” I had done in 2001, what had happened? It was a reflection of the deterioration of my heart that was visible outwardly in what I had allowed my body to become as well.
God used that exposure and a series of events to begin to peel away the hard callus over my heart. My Mom ended up in incredible emotional and physical need. God used this to show me what “faith choices” really were. I could step out in faith and choose with an act of my will to do that which I didn’t FEEL like doing. I discovered, as I stepped out in faith and believed Him for what He wanted to do, that my heart softened to my Mom who had so great a need for the first time in her life.
This was a difficult time as I lost my Mother-in-Law with whom I was incredibly close. In a very real way, Phyllis had been the godly loving Mom I had never known in my own biological mom. She was a prayer warrior who loved Jesus and she was my best friend even before I met her son :-). To lose her at the same time that my own Mom needed me—I knew it was no accident.
A note about this multiple-part testimony: It seems so self-indulgent to me to share here on the blog all of this “All About Me” journey thing. My hope is that you will be encouraged! No matter how much “wandering” you think you have done, I am willing to bet I have done more! No matter how long you feel it has taken you to “get it” with regard to Thin Within principles, I am willing to bet it has taken me longer. No matter how many poor choices you feel you have made, I hope you can see I have made more! And *I* had a set up for “success” years ago!
So…that is why I have chosen to take the time (and space) and share this lengthy testimony with you. I truly hope that you can be encouraged. I have been the queen of failures, the master of flaky “commitments,” the expert of “good intentions!”
But God can and will turn any of it around. ALL of it matters! Rather than think it proves that I am a failure or flake, I choose to believe that it proves that God has deposited into my life investments that are now finally “maturing” (even if I am not! LOL!). Truthfully, if He can finally get through to me given all the chances I have had, then He can definitely transform ANYONE! So BE encouraged! And forgive me for going on and on with my testimony…
Letting Shame Win
Continuing from part 3…
The book project merged into another writing project through the holidays of 2001—what has now become the 12-week Thin Within Foundations Program material. As with the birthing of any work of value, there were many challenges. Looking back now, I can say it was all wonderfully worth it!
But at the time, facing the impossible tasks of writing constantly for short deadlines while trying to keep my home and homeschooling my then 8 and 10 year olds…emotionally, I was a basket case. What could have been an opportunity for growth—well, I allowed it to send me back to familiar coping mechanisms instead…plunging myself head long into overeating! Can you believe it!?
Do you find yourself gravitating toward that which is familiar–even when it is destructive? I know I do if I am not vigilant and guard against this tendency! That period was proof of that!
My journal entries at the time I was writing with Judy read like one struggling with two extremes (or what TW calls the pendulum swing). Resolved to demonstrate the freedom in practice that I knew Jesus had paid for me “in theory,” I repeatedly confessed my struggle with overeating to God and begged for His rescue. I lamented that even during my partnership with Judy Halliday—a wonderful mentor—still I hadn’t begun to live out the freedom that Jesus paid to provide for me. The feelings of defeat were, at times, absolutely overwhelming. More than ever before, I began to understand these words of the Apostle Paul:
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:18-24)
The problem was, I continued to leave out verse 25 and chapter 8 verses 1 and 2 which reads:
Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!…Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
I continued to write for the Thin Within company through the first part of 2002. The book came out in Spring of 2002. We filmed the earliest videos for the company about that same time. But how was I supposed to testify about the effectiveness of the Thin Within approach when my body didn’t reflect that truth? I knew it *was* effective, but I wasn’t choosing to live according to what I knew. What kind of testimony is that? (More shame piled on…)
It is still difficult for me to see or hear that people have viewed those early TW videos…but I know God can use even a cracked pot to contain his glory!
Nevertheless, the “truth” I lived at the time wasn’t the truth I knew in my head. Shame began to return to my life more quickly than any weight I had formerly lost (which is saying a lot as the weight had returned QUICKLY).
Shame is dangerous. It causes us to isolate, to hide, and furthers our sin/shame patterns. have you found that to be true? I know now that if I have been hiding out at home and not getting out to see people as often, to evaluate my life…what is going on. Am I caught again in a shame cycle?
This, too, is written about in the Thin Again book. So much of what I had learned remained only in my head, however. The more I knew and didn’t apply, the greater my shame.
At some point, I supposed I couldn’t “handle” continuing to connect with my friends and mentors in Thin Within if I wasn’t going to change. Slowly, I drifted away from my association with the Hallidays and the Thin Within company.
In fact, I was ashamed that my name had been placed not only in the acknowledgements of the TW book, but also inside on the front page! God’s call was irrefutable. Yet I continued to resist.
Oh, dear reader…my heart is heavy as I share these details with you. I do so in the hopes that you will know that no matter how rebellious or sinful you may feel you have been or even are…I have you beat! My own rebellion is far greater!
When it comes to giving my heart and eating to the Lord, no greater love could have been given…and yet I continued to resist. So many chances. So many opportunities. Yet I began to feel as if I didn’t want my name to be associated with Thin Within or the Hallidays. I felt I would reflect poorly on the Hallidays, on Thin Within and on the Lord. I wasn’t yet living the truth that I knew was contained within the pages of the book. Shame is so deadly.
Do you feel totally defeated by the holidays? I hope not!
But if you do, consider this…the Thin Within book says, a single defeat never has to be a final defeat! We learn a million things that don’t work in our journey to discover what does! So maybe you learned this holiday a bunch of things that don’t work if you are going to walk in victory over obsession with food, dieting, exercise and so forth. Celebrate all you learned! 🙂 If we feel bloated, fat, overweight, stuck, and most of all…SHAME…we have a choice right now. What will you do with this moment? This choice?
Will you make a flesh-filled choice, based on your emotions? That generally leads to more shame, more bloated feelings and more feelings of defeat. (Unfortunately, this is an all-too-familiar place where we spend lots of time…)
OR…
Will you take this moment captive for the Lord, for yourself and the goals you have…and choose to make a FAITH-filled choice? Will you observe and correct right now, in this moment and just choose now to step forward?
Here is a tip that I use pretty routinely to help me curb my greed and to eat less food.
Whether it is ice cream or a tasty entree, I will routinely offer the last two bites (at least) to my dogs or, if they aren’t available, the trash can/garbage disposal. There is something very helpful to me in not acting like I am entitled to everything on my plate, even if the helping is smaller by far than portions in the past.
So, if you have a dog or two (and your vet approves :-)) you might consider offering the last bite(s) of your meal to him/her each time you eat. It really makes a difference for me. Even if I am not at a 5 yet, it helps me to just will myself to let go of those bites.
So how did I go from all I learned and experienced in the summer of 2001 to 250 pounds in 2006?
To answer that, I have to fill in the time gap between summer of 2001 and summer of 2006.
I process what I am learning by writing about it all. I enjoy sharing what God is teaching me in case anyone else can be encouraged. That is one reason this blog exists. Writing helps to bring home whatever truths He is working on in my life. I also hope that the bumps and bruises I get stumbling along might not be for naught…maybe others can avoid the pitfalls I have stumbled into…If someone can be encouraged or helped or inspired (or warned!) in any way (God is amazing!), then it will be worth it, in my opinion!
So, through all my dieting and obsessive working out, I wrote online devotions. Whether it was Weight Watchers, First Place, Free to be Thin, step-aerobics, marathon running, calorie counting, dabbling in The Zone, or even while leading Weigh Down classes, I wrote online devotions for an online distribution list (like a Yahoo group). I scratch my head now as I wonder how I could be blind to the continued captivity of my heart all the while, but that is something I guess that took more time for God to reveal to me!
When I first read Thin Again in 2000 and while I worked through the material more deeply in 2001, I continued to write devotions online. Honestly, I had a lot of starts and stops. I thought I had “released” weight only to “recapture” it again…on and off, on and off.
I met Judy Halliday in the summer of 2001 at an informal gathering in Dallas, Texas. Unknown to me, Pam Sneed (bless her heart) had sent Judy some of my online devotions that paralleled the Thin Again material.
Mid-August 2001, I received a phone call that surprised me quite a bit. Judy Halliday asked me if I would consider being the writer/collaborator for the new Thin Within book. The manuscript deadline was September 30! The Thin Within book that had been published in 1985, while filled with powerful truths, was written primarily before Judy was a Christian. Judy wanted to update it to reflect truths she had discovered since God got a hold of her life and grounded her in the precious Word of God.
I submitted additional writing samples to Judy and Dr. Halliday (and their agent) to be considered for the collaborator role on the book project. Having never done anything like that before, I was floored at the possibility. My journal entries written at that time reflect that I was frightened, excited, and just simply…blown out of the water! What on EARTH was God thinking? 🙂
Within two weeks, Judy and I were off and running, starting the partnership with a wonderful full day together where our hearts clearly connected in a way that only God can accomplish. Doing most of our work via the telephone, fax, and email, our goal was to have an 80,000 word manuscript completed within one month! It was quite the wild ride.
I joked about it then (and still do) that God wanted me to GET this material…so he decided to have the author of it hold my hand through it all! I am a slooooow study, however…as even that didn’t do the trick for me. Nevertheless, it continued to strengthen a foundation that would be built upon later.
In fact, you would think that connecting daily—and sometimes multiple times daily—and getting “inside the head” of the author of the Thin Within program so I could write her thoughts on the page for the Thin Within book, I would be all set—finally living according to the principles and “melting down” to my “God-given size” daily! You would think that it would have been a prerequisite to my being involved in the first place!
From a human perspective, that is certainly the case. But I guess if God can call a Jewish Christian-killer to be his number one missionary for the Lord Jesus (that is the Apostle Paul) or a man with a fidelity problem to write about godly marriage (that would be Solomon), he can call someone with “issues with food and eating” to link arms in writing a manuscript to speak to these very issues. While I am definitely no Paul or Solomon, the principle is there…”God, who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17b)
Thought for you, reader…To what task is God calling you that you keep assuming He would never call you to…all because you assume you don’t “qualify?” Please reconsider His invitation. God has prepared things in advance for you to do…(Ephesians 2:10) and in your weakness, His strength is made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9).
God calling me to this clearly demonstrates in a very tangible way that God not only is a God of grace, but he sure does have a sense of humor.
When people think that God doesn’t “approve” of them or condemns them for the way they have sinned in their eating, it really breaks my heart. That is NOT our God! If it was, he wouldn’t have ever let me touch the Thin Within manuscript let alone chosen to use me in a partnership with Judy and Dr. Arthur. It still boggles my mind, but it is true.
While our God IS a holy God who desires sanctification for His children, He is also loving in His gentle insistence! If you have been reading this and you wonder about the kindness and love of God reaching to so great a sinner…know it is true. Our Father chose to send His Son… “He who did not spare His own son, but graciously gave Him up for us, how will he also along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) And “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly!” (Romans 5:8) Before we had our “act together,” the Father planned to send the perfect lamb to be slain for us. He did this because He knew we never could pull off holiness apart from His gift to us!
What God was teaching me through all of this is that God’s kindness leads me to repentance! (Romans 2:4) Such amazing, overwhelming, longsuffering kindness…
Many of you surfing the web may be trying to figure out how to manage your feelings after the Christmas challenges you have faced. You may be in emotional pain, struggling with anger or you may be feeling intense disappointment with yourself or others.
Add to that…are you tired? I mean, like really physically tired? You may not have gotten the rest you need with all the holiday preparations and, add to that, you have been working yourself to the bone trying to get the house ready, the meals prepared, gifts purchased, packages wrapped and some sent…the past week you have really spent yourself for others. You may have entertained, had fallings out, planned big parties, had challenges with children home from school, experienced the passing of a loved one…gosh, the list is endless…all while trying to balance the rest of what you normally do!
You maystruggle with regrets you have about rebellious eating or things that happened over the past few days (weeks? months?) and you may be mindlessly surfing the web to try to numb yourself. Do you ever find yourself in a place where you don’t *want* to feel any more?
A dear friend recommended a book that I have been sneaking time to read. It is marvelously compatible with the message of Thin Within and brings to light what all of this boils down to. Here is a quote that says it so well:
“…we are constantly faced with two choices. We can make a ‘faith choice,’ regardless of how we feel and follow what God desires by saying, ‘Not my will, but thine.’ (Matthew 26:39) Or we can make an ’emotional choice,’ to follow our own thoughts and emotions over what God has asked and trust in our own ability to perform it in our lives.” (Against the Tide – Getting Beyond Ourselves by Nancy Missler p. 44)
Here we are at the end of the Christmas craziness. Sadly, many of us who love the Lord Jesus, have gotten swept up in it (I know I have!). We may have let down our guard and our eating may have been dishonoring to God (I know I have). We may care or not. Add to that the tiredness and the emotional challenges…and we are vulnerable. Plain and simple.
We are faced with a choice as Mrs. Missler says in the quote above. Right now, in this moment, you and I have a choice. Will we make a faith choice? Or will we make an “emotional choice” or what Thin Within calls a flesh-filled choice? Will we observe and correct in spite of our feelings pressing us to do otherwise or will we allow our emotions to drive our choices now, causing us to continue in making flesh-filled choices? Will we grab our wills and offer the parts of our bodies to the Lord as instruments of righteousness? Or will we allow our bodies, minds and spirits to be driven along by our emotions, our tiredness, our vulnerability?
Let’s grab the moment here now in front of us. Let’s grab it for the Lord. Let’s choose in this moment to make a faith-filled choice…one that acts in trust that the Lord is bigger than all we feel and face right now. If we need some sleep, let’s get some sleep. If we need to forgive someone for disappointing us or deeply wounding us, let’s choose to do that…
Whatever it is that God is pressing on our hearts right now…let’s do it. Let’s choose the faith-filled choice, not the flesh-filled, emotional choice. This moment, this choice, matters.
If you make a choice right now for the Lord, I hope you will comment here and let us know about it. I am praying for all of us to observe and correct and forget what is behind and press on to what is ahead…to reach out for that which Jesus intends for us. Lord, please let it be so. In the precious Name of our Lord Jesus, Amen.
I am convicted this day…this day that commemorates and honors the birth of the Lord Jesus. My life has been like the people in Bethlehem that Joseph and Mary asked to make room for them…no one could make room for Jesus to enter their world. No one could take the time, make the sacrifice. How like those people in Bethlehem I must be…busy about my life, my preparations for that which I value. Do I fail to make room for him in the “inn” of my life at this time of year?
There is yet time. I will set aside my preoccupation with self, with family, with food preparations, with gifts, with timing of what happens when…and offer my heart to Him…Welcome Lord Jesus. Find room here in my heart and life. Be at home here.
Merry CHRIST mas, all. (From all of us…)
From the Bylsmas – Bob, Heidi, Daniel, Michaela. Horses: Harley, Doc, Breezy, Dodger. Dogs: Daisy and Jordan. AND Dusty the Chinchilla, too! 😀
In the summer of 2001, I began to work through the material in the Thin Again book. (This is NOT the Thin Within book, as the Christian version of that wasn’t published until 2002.)
I had read through Thin Again, but hadn’t processed the questions at the end of each chapter. I knew God was calling me to take time to allow him to heal me. There were reasons that I struggled with this cycle of eating, gaining, pulling myself up by my bootstraps and dieting, losing a lot of weight, only to start the cycle again. By insisting that it was all about my rebellious choice to sin (something that I felt WDW taught in error), I hadn’t dealt with some root issues.
God used the summer of 2001 to walk me through the valley of the shadow of death. I discovered that at the root of my tendency to overeat was bitterness, anger, lack of forgiveness. Many might not understand how these things could be attached to overeating. Throughout my life, I had experienced abuse and early on I had taken on some coping mechanisms for that. I had to own my responsibility for choosing behaviors that didn’t honor God, yes, but I began to see that there were underlying reasons this was something so challenging for me.
God gently but firmly led me to face into all the wrongs done to me…I journaled each and every occurrence of anything that I could think of that had wounded my heart. From my earliest years to just moments ago. Some might say this is self-indulgent. All I know is that God led me to do this. He led me to journal specifically that I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE EACH AND EVERY ONE. He led me to make this leap of faith…that he would enable me to do it.
In this, there was great healing. Because I chose with every painful memory to journal how each offense made me feel, I cried my way through that summer finding comfort and rest only in the arms of the Lord. Choosing to forgive, however, was like unlocking the shackles that had held me.
God used a Thin Again friend I had made in a Yahoo group to help me to go through this process…something that Thin Again calls “unwrapping grave clothes.” This precious sister was there to pray me through this process, to hold me accountable for pressing on, to spur me on to love now in the present, to continue to choose to forgive, even as I faced into past wrongs.
In all of this, I also had to choose to forgive myself for sins I had committed against others, against myself, against God. I know that 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of ALL unrighteousness, but somehow, I managed to resent MYSELF. I even resented God! Not only did I need to choose to let God be God (“forgive” him, in a sense), but I had to confess that arrogance to him as well.
As you can see, this is a multi-layered issue…thus the imagery of unwrapping graveclothes like when Lazarus stepped forth from the grave when Jesus raised him from the dead. The Lord was raising ME from the grave of past wrongs, bitterness, lack of forgiveness…and I needed the help of others to unwrap the graveclothes just as Lazarus did before I could experience the life that Jesus intended.
God did an amazing work through this. He established a truth in my life for me that I couldn’t deny. Almost without question, even now 12 years later when I revert to “that which I do not want to do is that which I do” with regards to eating, it almost always indicates that I am feeling wounded and am in need of forgiving someone. During that summer, I learned just how powerful choosing to forgive really is.
Today, if I struggle with rebellious eating, my current accountability partner knows to ask me “Who do you need to forgive?” It is a powerful truth in my life that bitterness, wounding, and lack of forgiveness are directly connected with overeating.
You can probably do the math, however. If I learned that in the summer of 2001, how was I at 250 pounds five years later–in the summer of 2006 when my “before” picture was taken? 🙂 More on that the next time…
The horse dream ended up in a very real way being a nightmare—God continued to shut down everything to which I looked for satisfaction but Him (including my horses!). 
