I praise God that His mercies are NEW each morning.
In my sin last night you know what? I got angry. Interesting how rather than humbly bow before the Lord, I would just cop an attitude and get angry. I can sort of laugh about it now…how like a spoiled child I can be!
I went to bed. That was a good move. I was tired.
I am up early this morning, planning to ride with my daughter on a trail ride…this day is new, stretching before me with possibilities to grow closer to the Lord.
I choose to forget what is behind!
I hope to write later today about how to pick an accountability partner since some of you have asked about that!
Then, in future “installments” I hope to post how to make it through the rest of this season without being like “most Americans” who gain weight this time of year! We don’t need to and we can still enjoy the holidays anyhow! I know it for a fact!
I praise you, Lord, that you have given all of us who are here, a new day, flooded full and overflowing with your new tender mercies. Thank you that because of Jesus, we can approach the throne of grace boldly to receive mercy and help in our time of need. Oh, how I need you today! Thank you that you are King, yet you are intimate with me. Thank you that you know me and love me and like the children’s story, The Runaway Bunny, there is NO place I can run where you aren’t there, arms open wide, beckoning me homeward. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made! Thank you, Lord! In the name of Jesus, Amen!
Good grief. What on EARTH have I been DOING today? š (Blogspot needs emoticons!)
The answer to that question is: “Eating everything in sight.”
I don’t think I have EVER had a day like this since starting down this path in November of 2006.
It began as just a “slight” mess up…I ate when I was at a 1 and went to a 6. (Instead of 0 to 5 or true physiological hunger and stopping when satisfied.)
Then, before I knew it, YIKES!!! The lady Michaela babysits for sent us home with two HUGE bags of home made cookies!!!! GOOD GRIEF! In the five minute ride home, I had “offed” 4 cookies!
I have now tied those bags up in double plastic grocery bags and shoved them up into the closet. I will let my mother–er…my *daughter*…know of my difficulty and she will keep me in line!
Hubby wants to take those cookies to neighborhood fellowship group tomorrow night…what he doesn’t realize is that I was on my way to polishing BOTH bags off and they would likely be GONE before then! Just when he wasn’t looking for 15 minutes! (After having too much pizza for dinner, too…bleah!)
Everyone around here thinks I am just so “saintly” now…given how “faithfully” I have applied myself to eating 0 to 5 for over a year. I feel like a hypocrite. Bleah.
Today has proven “But for the grace of God, there go I…” down the tubes….I mean, in a heartbeat.
How is it that chocolate chip cookies can still have such power over me that I would throw out every sane thought?
Ok…now it is time to practice what I preach so well. I am going to observe and correct…confess and repent…I am going to consider this defeat anything BUT a final defeat! Nope. It is a hiccup on my path, but that is IT. This failure does NOT define ME. The Lord Jesus defines me and in His eyes and because of His sacrifice, I am a saint in His eyes. I am redeemed. I am His precious child.
I choose to live like it.This moment is snatched for His glory. I am pressing the restart button right now. I am forgetting what is behind and pressing on to what is ahead.
After about a week of my sending her my hunger graphs each night, she shared these thoughts with me:
Most of the days, you do really well until evening. You get your spiritual feeding in the morning, when you have your time with God. You have your physical feeding throughout the day, as you get physically hungry and eat. Is your spiritual strength wearing thin in the evening, so you falter and stumble, and eat, at night? Is it possible for you to take 10-15 minutes alone of quiet time with God after dinner or even late afternoon, or even 8:00ish? Just some time to strengthen you so you don’t fall into eating because you have grown spiritually weak because you have not fed yourself spiritually since early in the day.
Isn’t this great? She is so right. The Lord showed this to me years ago, in fact…it was at 3:30 each day that I struggled…and so I began having extra time with the Lord about 2:30 and that sure helped. So I will take my accountabilty partner’s advice…I did tonight, in fact.
Another suggestion from my friend:
The other time you have a problem is when you get frustrated or angry and turn to food instead of going to God with the emotion. Can you, IN THAT MOMENT, ask God how you are feeling? If you know how you are feeling, can you tell God how you are feeling about whatever it is, instead of eating? You usually identify the feeling after the fact, but can you, IN THAT MOMENT, determine the feeling and take it to God? I realize I am throwing your words in your face, but that’s where I learned a lot.
What a blessing is someone who is honest in the Lord! She is right. I have used the words “Grab the moment and surrender it to Him” so many times (or words like these). God is faithful to USE a moment upon another moment upon another to build days that honor him…yet I DO tend to let precious moments slip by. My friend has brought up something important. So I plan to capture more of those moments for Him.
One of my goals for this go through of the Thin Within book has been to be more diligent in eating 0 to 5. This has included refining my hunger numbers. I typically have stopped eating when I am “No longer hungry” instead of “Just before too much.” I have been calling that a “3” though…what that has amounted to is that I “fudge” a bit at times.
Since that clearly has been a provision for my “flesh,” I have decided (not too long ago) to redefine that as a 5.
I also decided that this goal of “being more diligent about eating 0 to 5” would best be accomplished with the help of using the Hunger Graph.
Additionally, I have solicited the assistance of an accountability partner! I send her my Hunger Graph each day. She has been a tremendous help to me and won’t let me get away with justifying anything!
I have to say, a year ago, I don’t think this would have been helpful. But it is now. God alone knows why!
Yesterday’s Hunger Graph is below :
I had five eating occasions, as you can see. The first four were at 0. I did pretty ok until lunch and then “fell off the wagon” again later in the evening.
In talking about this with my accountability partner, it has helped me to see where I get derailed. It is emotions. I need to purposely invite God into my emotions. Yesterday I worked hard on developing a website for the lady who helps me with my horses (Melissa Pelletier…she is awesome!). I was frustrating myself and not getting other really important things done because of my stubbornness. I insisted that I could learn something, to figure it out…when the truth is…most who do that on web pages (I have found) have some sort of developer software that they use for it. I refused to “be beaten” by it…and I should have set it aside.
Anyhow, I got frustrated and decided to eat! Duh!
So, I am resolving to be deliberate about inviting God into my emotions. Here’s hoping.
Ok…serious stuff is important to share, but I have to share fluff, too. Is that ok? š
My daughter is 13. For the first time in my life, she is borrowing MY clothes! Is that not just impossibly weird? I mean, my sweaters (new ones! YAY!) and shoes…but even my jeans. Last week, I got behind in the laundry and she asked me if I had JEANS she could borrow. ExcUUUUSe me?
In my brain I am still “the fat lady.” (I guess I am getting serious here…) When my 13 year old asks to borrow my clothes, it is just plain weird. A part of me says “Can’t you SEE? I am HUGE compared to you!!!” I guess the truth is, well…the truth is, that is a lie! I am not huge any more. I wonder why my brain keeps thinking otherwise? I have been about this same size now since May or June or so. Been maintaining for six months (another new thing, by the way…in the past when I lost weight, it was only for the fleeting seconds it took me to bend over, kiss the scale with glee and hop off the scale…presto…weight came back on!).
So I wonder when my brain will “see it?”
No matter.
I will continue to enjoy my daughter borrowing my clothes (granted, they are big on her, but still! LOL!!!)
In my quiet time this morning, I was led to a passage in Job. The passage is Job 22:21-26 and says:
21 “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. 22 Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart. 23 If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored: If you remove wickedness far from your tent 24 and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, 25 then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you. 26 Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. Job 22:21-26 (NIV)
The study asked me to extrapolate from this the steps to repentance. I found this to be really illuminating. From this passage, I got the following…
Steps to repentance:
1. Submit to God 2. Be at peace with hiim 3. Accept instruction from his mouth 4. Lay up his words in my heart 5. Return to the Almighty 6. Remove wickedness from my home
The study had me look further in this short passage for the blessings and benefits of repentance. This is what I found…
Blessings and Benefits of Repentance:
1. Being at peace–I believe that when I choose to quit striving with God–in effect make *my* peace with him–then he causes the peace that surpasses all understanding to guard my heart and mind. It is something I do and then something He does in me as well…so it is both an action of repentance and a benefit of repentance
2. Prosperity–not necessarily the way the world defines it
3. Restoration (praise God!!!)
4. The Lord Almighty will be my precious treasure–I will delight in Him and, with a clear conscience, be able to lift my face up to Him…
Now I don’t know about you, but this is definitely motivating! The point of the lesson was that in repentance we can experience glorifying God afresh. When we habitually sin and refuse to repent, God’s glory is squelched. We may not lose our salvation, but it is like one friend said to me, God’s glory is hidden by the muddy, miry, torn, frayed, tattered rag of a coat I insist on wearing…it is the coat of habitual sin, shame, and the self-life. If I toss that coat off, God’s glory can shine forth and no longer be hindered…
Another thought about “repentance,” though is that God’s KINDNESS leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). It isn’t fostered by condemnation.
In Thin Within, we call confession “observation” and repentance is called “correction”–those steps to do what *God* wants…to choose with an act of my will to go His direction and get off the Path of My Performance and back on to the Path of God’s Provision.
Lots of us have moments (ok, years even!) when we feel like “quitting.” What are we talking about when we say that, I wonder?
Are we slipping back into the diet mentality?
The way I see it (in this sane moment!) is that I am on a journey with the Lord Jesus. I can’t quit the journey! That is like quitting life! I just can’t do that! š
I think that what I …or maybe *we*… do is turn one corner or another. If our focus is on weight loss, it feels like we are “on” or “off” a diet…”successful” or a “failure” once again…that old dieting mentality is hard to shake. Maybe *that* is what we “feel like quitting.” Well, good!! š Let’s quit any and all diets!
BUT…let’s press on to know the Lord Jesus!
You see, this is a journey of walking with the Lord. It will last our lifetimes. It is about being conformed to the image of Christ–I don’t know about you, but it will take my entire life! LOL!
Just as he wants what I say, what I think, where I go, who I hang out with…and every single thing to be honoring to him, my attitude toward food, eating, my body is just one more aspect of my life I offer to Him.
Food isn’t what life is about.
Paul says: For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)
I think when we seek to live righteously, at peace with God, ourselves, and others, and allow joy in the Spirit to direct our choices, the food really becomes less of an issue…just like cussing like a sailor might not be a temptation or problem for me, I think that offering this aspect of our lives to the Lord also begins to be just an “incidental” in the “giving all of who I am” to Jesus!
That is my hope.
Of course, I think it becomes MORE of an issue, the more I focus on it being THE issue. Does that make sense?
So my theory is, if I keep asking God to give me a tender heart to heed his voice in all things, it affects how I talk to my kids, how fast I drive, how I spend my money *and* it sloshes over into my eating, too…same as with the other stuff.
Of all the emails I get asking me about Thin Within the #1 question asked is: “Why is this so hard for me now and it wasn’t before?”
I think the question points out that we keep comparing ourselves to ourselves…and not just that, but we keep fixating on our bodies…the WEIGHT!
What I think we have to do is cling to God…seek to become more like Jesus, denying ourselves, taking up our crosses DAILY (and moment by moment, too) and following him…over to talk to the lonely person at the back of the church, down to the Union Gospel Mission to serve for 2 hours, to the bible bookstore to buy a bible for a friend without one, to my mom’s house (in spite of the emotions I battle there), to offer forgiveness to my son…and to say no to __________ that I want to eat when I am not hungry.
If we look ONLY at this moment…not backwards at where we were or where we *think* we were 3 years ago (or whatever)…and not ahead at what we *hope* to be…but capture THIS moment for the Lord…I think it will revolutionize things!
Can you give THIS moment to the Lord??? Sure you can! š
Delight and rejoice in the victory of this moment…and now another and another…truly…it is that simple and we miss it. We are so busy thinking in big blocks of time… But what about the miracle of this moment?
I really think this makes all the difference in the world…and beyond!
Let’s drop all comparisons and “time frames” and choose to live in this moment…
If you are like many (me included) and know that it could be a problem, how about surrendering even the scale to God. If we wonder if it holds us back (or know in our heart of hearts it *does) then let’s be done with it!
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free! Let’s spread our wings and fly…in THIS moment!
WHooo HOO! We CAN do it…right NOW! š
Don’t think about tomorrow…it has enough problems of its own…and don’t look back…God wants us to quit camping on that mountain of victory from the past and establish a new victory in THIS moment!
How could we even *think* of quitting? We have barely just gotten started!
There is a honeymoon period for many of us with Thin Within. Are you in the honeymoon phase? If so, rejoice! But prepare for what is ahead!
Others of us know what I am talking about….WE HAVE HIT THE WALL! YIKES!
I think one reason for the wall is because as we seek to submit our heart to the Lord, he begins to make it clear he is going to get into our business…he wants full complete surrender. When we sense that this is the case, sometimes we begin to rebel again. Then the Lord begins to purify…like a refiner’s fire. Oooooh…it can really hurt quite a bit as we see just how proud and arrogant we have been.
But as we submit to this process we begin to once again submit our eating and our choices within 0 to 5 to him…we begin to desire to honor him with the choices in all of the things in our lives. We no longer compartmentalize things…but allow him to truly invade our lives completely…
The process IS hard. Harder than it is in the beginning…but it is effective. It is a heart change…a thinking transformation as he renews our hearts and minds. We have to allow him to change the way we think about food, our bodies, eating…and ultimately everything.
He will show us how forgiveness will unlock some of the things that hold us captive to eating when we aren’t hungry…but we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death…It WILL get hard…but it works.
I am a slooooow learner…well, no…I am rebellious and allowed my rebellion to go on quite a long time. (Even now I struggle with it…) God began the Thin Within phase of my journey SEVEN years ago!!!! But it wasn’t until 13 months ago that it really began to “work”…I see now that all the time that came “before,” He was working on many things that weren’t physical…but boy…if I had given up because of not seeing the physical results, so many other things He has accomplished would never have happened.
Anyhow…if it has gotten hard…HANG IN THERE! This IS a new thing, too! Cling to Him and ask Him to work complete surrender in your life…He will do it…I believe that.
This is something I wrote years ago…but for some reason, it speaks to my heart today. I hope that it encourages someone…
Jesus called the children to him and said,
“Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
I tell you the truth,
anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God
like a little child will never enter it.” – Luke 18:16, 17
While waiting in my car at a nearby elementary school, two little girls walked by my car heading, I suppose, for home. The bell had rung, class had been dismissed, the “ho-hum” or “hum-drum” afternoon had begun.
Then, with a sparkle in her eye, one exclaimed to the other, āCome here! Let me show you something!ā The girls ran a few steps to a small grassy field blanketed in yellow flowers. They kicked off their shoes and began dancing and playing amidst the flowers, smiling and giggling with glee.
I watched as they played, pretending they were fashion models with flowers between their teeth, in their hair, and wrapped like jewelry around their necks and arms. The little girlsā ecstasy was enchanting and exhilarating.
Soon, the twosome skipped through the blossoms and scooped up large handfuls of the blooms and threw them in the air! At first, my heart broke at the thought of the flowers being yanked up by the roots…I wondered how other little girls could enjoy them? But the field was rich and healthy and I was soothed by the thought that other flowers would grow there. There will be more flowers and more girls and more dances.
Then, one of the girls plunged headlong onto the ground, as though she couldnāt get close enough to the objects of her joy and delight. She lay there encircled by yellow flowers as her friend threw handfuls of the blossoms over her, showering her with what seemed to be small bursts of sunlight.
As I watched, I wonderedā¦when did I change? When did I stop taking off my shoes? When did I stop skipping? When did I become more afraid of briars and stickers than of apathy? When did picking flowers become sacrilegious?
I want to recapture that sense of wonder, that joy, that adventureā¦the child-like heart that plunges into beauty and wallows in the joy it brings.
In Luke 18:16, 17 Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
I believe, in some mysterious way, that those little girls showed me how to receive the kingdom of Godā¦Iām to receive it with reckless abandon, joy, and enthusiasm, putting aside my high and rigorous regard for ārules and regulationsā and my desire for the āpracticalā or āsensible.ā
The Lord calls me to go barefoot more often and to worry less about stickers, to skip more, to pick more flowers, to smile and giggle more, and share it all with a friend. He wants me to desire to be so close to the object of my joy and delight that I plunge myself headlong into His ever open arms.
In His sight, I am a āprincess on paradeā and His Kingdom has come! I will receive it with joy, gladness and wonder!
