First: There will be a Thin Within chat today at 2-3pm Pacific Time, 4-5pm Central, and 5-6pm Eastern. If you are in Canada, check to be sure which time zone you are in! I hope you can make it. Visit this link to learn how to chat or, if you already know how, come directly to http://www.thinwithin.org/chat . I hope you can make it! We have only one more chat after this one!
As I wrote about previously, this is a season that God is calling me to have my computer turned off a bit more. This means I am writing less. I anticipate that this season won’t be a lengthy one, necessarily, but as I help my son transition from homeschooling into college (hopefully full-time by January 2011), I want to be available for him. Also, my daughter is transitioning from our rather “loosey goosey” approach to homeschooling to a very rigorous online academy associated with a major Christian University. Many things are changing in our home and I want to give my family my best. In fact, this is a large part of my Thin Within journey–to remove chaos wherever it is found in my life and to allow God to sanctify all of my life–I don’t want to compartmentalize any more. I want order in my life, not just my eating. 🙂
I still have a heart for ministry to those whom God may bring into my life online and in person who share struggles with food, eating and body images issues, but my priorities have shifted a bit for this season.
If you want to keep on top of what God is up to in the days and months ahead in my tiny part of the world, I hope you will consider subscribing to my newsletter. The subscription form is in the right hand side bar. In the future, I anticipate letting people know about writing projects that will be under way–the book proposal submitted to a wonderful Christian literary agent was accepted a couple of months ago and I pray that in the future it will be under contract with a publisher. All in God’s good time, of course. I would love to be able to let you know about that and other things God is up to as the seasons continue to change, so please feel free to subscribe to the newsletter if you want to know any updates as they happen in the future.
Terrific resources are available for you as you continue on this journey. I hope you will consider making use especially of the Thin Within forums — there is a great online community with helpful folks. Julie is the administrator there and does an amazing job. She has years of experience with Thin Within–working it at a very deep level. She writes beautifully and with such heart. She loves the Lord and His people and it is evident in everything she says. She is incredibly authentic, too.
Facebook has a Thin Within page, now, too. Pam Donaldson, wife of Joe Donaldson who manages the reins of the Thin Within company (with the partnership of Judy and Arthur Halliday) posts frequent updates there. It is a great place to get little reminders, practical tips, throughout the day.
I will continue to post as God leads, but I know that many may quit visiting the blog. 🙂 I understand if that is the case. I do hope you will subscribe to the newsletter. I send out once a month, if that. (I skipped August!).
Summer is filled with fun and frolic. Picnics and lounging, enjoying the long days and laziness. It is a wonderful time!
One of the most enjoyable summer picnic fun events can be old-fashioned potato sack races and three-legged races. In the three legged race, two partners stand next to one another and tie the legs next to one another together. Then, they have to run together to the goal, trying to beat others with the same objective.
AP Photo/The Jamestown Sun, John M. Steiner
If you have ever done this event, then you are aware of just how important it is to be “in sync” with your partner. If your left leg is tied to your partners right leg, you have to step your left out as your partner is stepping her right leg out. Outside legs have to be in sync too. Not only that, but the steps have to be of approximately the same length. If one has a larger stride–which might possibly seem the most effective in a normal running race–that person has to shorten his stride for the one with the smaller stride.
Getting a rhythm is vital to this process. It helps if one is the “lead” partner and the other follows the stride length and repetition of the lead partner.
Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25
God calls us to run with him…not just a three-legged race, but through life–clinging to him, tied to him as if tied leg to leg.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
Galatians 5:18
Jesus calls us into ongoing relationship with and total dependence on him. He calls us to keep in step with Him. As we do this, we aren’t bound by any law to tell us what is ok to eat and what isn’t. We are free to listen to the Spirit’s voice. In fact, we are free from the restraints and the condemnation that comes via the law when we listen and obey the Holy Spirit.
When it comes to this journey, we don’t abandon praying in favor of merely following hunger and satisfied physical signals. Instead, we depend 100% on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us. Just as he uses our physical body’s cues to tell us when we are in need of sleep, he uses our physical body’s cues to tell us when our body needs fueling. Just as we don’t question or suspect our body of lying to us about sleep, but lie down and close our eyes, instead, we also need not question our body’s physical need–there is nothing evil about our body’s physical need for food.
We do look to the Lord to confirm that it is His will at this time for us to rest and for us to eat. It is clear from the gospels that he cares about both:
Then, because so many people were coming and going
that they did not even have a chance to eat,
he said to them,
“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Mark 6:31
Jesus has intended that we get rest and get nourishment. He uses our bodies to signal when the need is there. We then turn to Him and Psalm 145:15 “happens:”
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.
We live by Romans 6:13:
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness,
but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life;
and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
Where in the past, we may have given ourselves over to justifying eating for any number of reasons, now we offer our tastebuds, our stomachs, our salivary glands–all of it!–to God as instruments of righteousness! We have been redeemed.
Therefore, if anyone isin Christ,
he is a new creation. The old has passed away;
behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Because of what Christ has done, I know that I have the ability to live as one redeemed. I have the ability live, offering the parts of my body to God as instruments of righteousness. PRAISE HIM!
We don’t maintain an attitude of entitlement, however. We know that our body, mind, and heart can be deceived so readily. So we stop, look, and listen, depending on the Holy Spirit to testify with our spirits that we are to eat, what to eat, and when to stop.
Just as surely as we might sense the Holy Spirit’s leading: “There is a woman over there who needs a kind word…I will go over and encourage her.” The word said, the leading may then be: “It is time to move on and allow the Lord to continue to move in the woman’s heart and I will pray as I go about my day.” Always leaning completely on the leading of the Lord, aware and open to the fact that he uses the body he created to signal me of physical need, but the most important thing in determining what he wants is listening and obeying HIM. THAT is my priority.
When I do this, it is like a pair at a three-legged race who are in step with one another. It is smooth, sweet, and successful!
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
This is about SO much more than food, eating, and our bodies. This is about LIFE and sanctification–becoming more and more Christ-like! Isn’t it awesome how he can use something as mundane as food and eating to show us just how much he wants us to be bound to him? Don’t you just love him so?
I filmed this short video (just over 3 minutes) while FREEZING to death in my house…the upstairs stays bearable and the downstairs stays FREEZING! So, thus the blankie. 🙂
AND, I have had quite the day…sorry about the frazzled appearance. Definitely NOT the way I would show up for a speaking engagement should any come knocking! LOL! Been a homeschool mom today and loving it (well, for the most part!). Had two classes of PE and haven’t bothered to change. I am heading to my bath now! YAY!
Anyhow, I wanted to be sure to share this with you.
How about you? What is God calling you to do? So many women need the truth of how God sees beyond their size and far beyond their shame. Is He calling you to share with a small support group?
Let’s press on and be faithful! Even if you have “fallen” behind…keep in mind PLEASE that God takes us where he wants us in HIS perfect timing! This journey is uniquely yours, so even if you are reading this assignment in the spring of 2011, no worries. You are right where you need to be. 🙂 I hope this encourages you.
Hang in there. Ditch the perfectionist lie. Be faithful.
1.) Ongoing assignments to keep at a tiny bit each day or as often as you can:
Attributes of God list
Praise and prayer time using 5 things from your cumulative list
Gratitudes – 3 each day is a great goal, but whatever you are able to do is great!
Forgiveness phrases – being repetitious each day, writing these out, can really bring it home to your heart. When you find yourself going “back there” to a place of needing to forgive again, begin the practice again of writing out intentional forgiveness phrases.
2.) Take time to carefully read and complete chapters 24, 25, and 26.
3.) Meditate on the following quote from Day 24 of the Thin Within book:
Look on your trials as an opportunity for the Lord to form and shape your character. He will provide a way of escape if you are open to it. You can be confident that He will not allow anything to prevent the accomplishment of His plan and purpose for His beloved, you. He will provide the grace and the strength you need to emerge victorious.
In light of your current circumstances, how can this truth move you out of a place of distraction, discouragement, or defeat, and into the way of escape and victory that God has for you? Journal your answer to this question and/or post a response here. Others may be encouraged by what you share!
4.) In Day 24, you are asked to re-evaluate your goals. We will be done with our study in a couple of weeks. God can yet do amazing things in your heart, your mind, and in your physical body. While we don’t want our focus to be on the physical, we also understand that often our eating is a barometer of what is going on within. It is not too late to revamp your goals…and then break each down into manageable pieces. Maybe you need to ditch your first set of goals all together! That is fine, too. Do this activity (found on pages 260-261) prayerfully. Share with us here what God leads you to do if you feel so led.
5.) Share with us here: Which Thin Within tools have you found to be the most helpful? In what way has the tool been helpful? Which TW tools have not helped you? Why is this the case for you?
6.) Chapter 25 has some wonderfully practical exercises. Eating the Thin Within Way With My Family can be extremely helpful. Even if you aren’t participating in our group study, you can answer this question! Brainstorm some of your potential obstacles to maintaining eating 0 to 5 eating, given your home life. Do that in a column on the left side of a piece of paper. On the right side, prayerfully brainstorm potential solutions to those obstacles. Share with us what God leads you to come up with!
NOTE: For those of you with children at home, Judy Halliday and Dr. Joani Jack wrote a book called Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World based on the same principles as Thin Within. It is a great book–easy to read, but power packed. I highly recommend it!
7.) On page 270, you have a chance to do a similar activity. What potential challenges will you face eating at a potluck or buffet? Write those in a left column. In the write, prayerfully brainstorm potential solutions. Share with us what you come up with here. We would love to see!
8.) Chapter 26 leads us into a discussion of the difference between satisfaction and gratification. How does this distinction strike you? How might this affect you, your eating, your other choices in life?
9.) In chapter 26 we are encouraged to write a “Goodbye” letter. If you feel so inclined, share your letter with us here and how this exercise has affected you.
10.) Join us for our chat this week. It is Thursday, from 2-3pm Pacific time, 4-5pm Central, 5-6pm Eastern. I hope you can make it. Visit http://www.thinwithin.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2256 to find out how to join us.
11.) Keep praying for yourself, for me, for others in our study.
12.) Plan now for the fall. What will you do to press on in your journey? If you don’t want to do a Thin Within study, here are some other ideas that may help:
Search for Significance by Robert McGee. Get the version that has the book in the front and the study guide in the back. I HIGHLY recommend this for those of you who have discovered that perfectionism is having an impact on you. This book is amazing and you will be changed! 🙂 I promise.
Breaking Free bible study by Beth Moore. This study has been updated. Yours truly got to be at the taping of it. 🙂 This material is incredible and dovetails beautifully with Thin Within. I hope you will consider doing it. You can download the videos from Lifeway for $5 each. It is worth it if you have the money. But if you can’t afford the videos, the study is still outstanding!
Get Thin Stay Thin by Arthur and Judy Halliday – this book gets to the heart behind much of our struggle to put the principles of Thin Within into practice. It isn’t a workbook and the material is very deep. But this little book is POWER PACKED. It was previously published as Silent Hunger and then as Thin Again. God used this to transform my thinking and to set me on this path.
Hi, everyone. I have to reschedule this week’s chat. Instead of tonight, it will be Saturday at the same time. I will be in the chat room Saturday evening at 5pm Pacific Time, 7pm Central, or 8pm Eastern. I hope you can make it! Sorry for the change–my family and I are all going to Yosemite National Park for the day on Friday.
After the mishaps with my doctor (actually a nurse practitioner) during the past month (of which I wrote briefly in the previous blog entry) and since I have never been very happy with my doctor there, I asked for recommendations from local friends and got one for a doctor who also happens to be a Christian man. Yay! I met him today for the first time.
I must confess that I called my previous doctor “Dragon Lady.” I have written about her here, here, and here.
There can be no doubt that I needed to get a new doctor a LONG time ago. But it took the medicine mishaps of the past month to get me to finally do it! It was scary what they were doing to me with prescriptions!
So, today, I had the joy of meeting Dr. Vince Licata. He smiles. A LOT. Nothing like Dr. Dragon Lady! In the course of conversation, do you know what he said to me? He actually referred to me as being about at my ideal size…he didn’t even LOOK at the number from being weighed today! (Neither did I, given my current insanity.)
I LOVE THIS MAN! He just looked at ME. He mentioned that I was clearly “athletic.” Can I KISS him, now?
Why was Dr. Dragon Lady so mean?
I certainly don’t see myself the way the new doctor does, but (pinch me, please!) this man is now my DOCTOR! I can die happy! LOL! I mean, if *anyone* could give me a non-biased, but professional, objective opinion, I think it would be him. It isn’t like I went shopping for a doctor who would say these kind of nice things to me. 🙂
How about you? What non-biased, objective statement might someone use to describe you? Is it possible that others see you very differently than you see yourself? As with my former physician, are there “unsafe” people in your life that God might want you to get distance from to act on godly boundaries?
I don’t have a scale at home. Now I really know why all over again.
Long story short: I went to the doctor with a mild health concern. After two prescriptions that made things worse, instead of better, I was able to tell there was a change in my weight because of the way my clothes fit. The scale at the doctor’s office confirmed that I lost 8 pounds in about 2 weeks. The weight change was from not digesting things well due to bad reactions to the medicines prescribed. This is NOT a good thing!
The health problem is (I think) gone.
Now I have this “scale thing” present in my head.
It is amazing to me, in fact, that I am such a mess mentally from having been weighed and having this change! Suddenly everything I do or eat is being evaluated in terms of “I want the number on the scale to be lower the next time I go in, whenever that may be…” It concerns me, of course, that I lost 8 pounds lost in 2 weeks from being ill in response to medicines, but, in my twisted way of thinking–the old dieting mentality has kicked in–I have thoughts like: “Oh, well, let’s make the most of it and keep losing.” This is the way my mind used to work when I got the flue in the “old days.” It is like I feel compelled (truly…compelled) to act like the weight loss is something I must preserve and build on…Good grief.
This wouldn’t be so bad except it is with me constantly. I feel the presence of a number to define me, constantly. I have been free of this for over a year now. It is like a monkey on my back again. It is odd to me that I am so weak. That I can’t seem to use a scale as a tool even once a year…
God is using this to show me just how much I need him to experience freedom.
How about you? Do you battle with mental “junk” that happens when you step on the scale? Do you allow the number to define you? We are more than our weight! The number does not have the right to define us–only our Lord has that privilege!
I have decided to lead a LIVE group going through the Thin Within workbook–Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook #1.
I am hoping some of you will go through it with me here at the blog and, more, that some of you will even choose to have LIVE groups as well!
I hope to be at least a week ahead of those of you leading live groups so that I can offer you resources and thoughts that the group I lead found valuable/helpful. I will be offering two orientations for people to find out about Thin Within in my town, one on August 29th and the other on September 1st. I will have my first class on September 8 when I will assign the first week’s lesson to my class. We will go over the first lesson on September 15. I will post resources for you following my meeting with my group, so, for instance, resources for leading/studying Lesson 1 in the workbook will be posted probably on Saturday, September 18th.
So, what I need from you is by August 30th, use THIS post to let me know that you will participate and if you will have a group with you or not. This can be an informal group of 2 friends…or 1 friend! OR, it can be a group of 100 ambitious ladies! 🙂 Whatever God leads YOU to do. Let me know here what your plans are for this study. It is my desire that as many of us as possible will be connected LIVE in face-to-face opportunities with people. It doesn’t mean you have to be, but I do want to encourage it!
If you haven’t seen it before, click on this link to read about what is included in the workbook kit.
If you are a visual person and haven’t seen my “infomercial” about the workbook kit, yet, you can click on this link to see the post that includes the video.
$45 is a lot of money to most of us these days, so, prayerfully ask the Lord what HE wants for you. If you lead a group, I believe Thin Within gives you your workbook kit for $25. 🙂
Don’t forget to respond to this post by August 30th to tell me if you will be participating and if you have people who will do it with you! 🙂 I can’t wait to hear! 🙂
“I just decided to quit Thin Within for a while. I just couldn’t do it right.”
“There is something I am not getting about eating 0 to 5. I am not losing any weight.”
“There is too much freedom with this approach to eating. I do better with counting calories/points/blocks/fat grams” (etc., etc!).
“I haven’t lost any weight yet. I don’t know what is wrong with me!”
“I gained back all the weight I lost when I did Thin Within before. What is wrong with me?”
Many of us who apply ourselves to living the principles taught in Thin Within often struggle with thoughts like these. Sometimes, we stop and start the book or workbook numerous times. We visit the forums, this blog :-), the Thin Within Facebook page, maybe even the Thin Within SparkTeam, or a Thin Within Yahoo group–earnestly for a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months, before we again become discouraged and thoughts like those above fly through our heads.
Let’s recognize what is going on here! This is perfectionism rearing its head. Are you, like me…not having ever considered yourself a perfectionist really? Thoughts like these are tell-tale indicators that perhaps we are!
Not only that, but I want to suggest that these thoughts reveal that our focus needs to shift. Is the physical–our bodies, weight, size, shape–really what God wants us to spend such energy on? Even if we were at our “ideal body weight” (whatever that is!) would this be freedom, to constantly be clinging to the size and struggling not to gain an ounce? God calls us to freedom and He defines that that is!
For our light and momentary troubles
are achieving for us an eternal glory
that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal.
– 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Truthfully, in Christ, I believe we all have a longing for our eternal heavenly home–for perfection. It is a godly longing for perfection. But this godly longing becomes a roadblock when we stop and allow it to determine what we will do next. Or when we focus on the things in this world that are temporary (such as our body shape and size). In fact, it isn’t just a roadblock–it is an idol of our heart. Let me explain.
God is in the business of sanctifying his people. He justifies us. He declares us holy and righteous in Christ, but our Christian life does not stop there. God is in the business of progressively leading us to a holy life. One moment at a time, one choice at a time. We are being cleansed, sanctified, practically washed up, if you will.
BUT we won’t arrive at “perfect” this side of heaven.
That is just the reality!
Something we have to realize is that when we insist on perfection–“Doing it right”–or else we will quit, we are not allowing God to direct our paths. We are leaning on our own understanding. We are not acknowledging him or the eternal work he is doing within. We are elevating our pride in our performance above his personal leading in our lives.
The truth is even when we aren’t reading or “doing” Thin Within, God is at work in our lives. Perhaps he is doing something deeper–a work that must be done in order for me to get to the next level of freedom.
God values faithfulness so highly. When I know that God has called me to respond to my hunger and satisfied signals and to invite him into my eating experience, when I am convicted that I need to be rid of my bathroom scale because it is an idol in my life, when I am called not to give in to the pressures to have a Barbie body even at 48 years of age and 2 kids later…even when I don’t do any of these things well, FAITHFULNESS is what really matters! Hanging in there. Please, this is not “doing it perfect.”
Faithfulness means, every time I wander, every time I fall down, I allow GOD to lift me up again. It means that I rejoice in my weaknesses, because in my weaknesses, HIS strength is clearly seen. It means that I know that even when my weight isn’t where I want it to be, GOD IS FAITHFUL AND IS AT WORK DOING WHAT MATTERS INSIDE OF ME.
The following passage, one I quote here frequently, is the antithesis of perfectionism. Yet here it is! God’s thought on this matter!
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses,
in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.
– 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
Let’s reject the mentality that we must bail if we aren’t “doing it” perfectly!
Let’s be faithful and trust the Lord that He is at work in us doing a new thing!
How about you? Do you struggle with wanting to quit when you aren’t “doing” this thing perfectly? Will you take a moment and affirm what is true about the work God is even now doing in you? Will you allow your weakness to be a showcase for His marvelous strength?
