By the tine you read this, I will be heading off to the airport. I get to go visit an incredibly dear friend. I will be flying off to Mt. Vernon, Washington to visit my original mentor and friend, Debby Lynn. It was sitting in her bible study and getting to be a part of her life where God gave me the desire: “I want to know, love, and live God’s Word like she does.”
I believe I never could have participated in the work with Thin Within and definitely not the writing of the book had it not been for Debby’s influence in my life. So in a very real way, she has ministered here and on the forums as well (even though she has never literally been to either!).
Anyhow, I will see you all Monday evening. The blog will continue to be active while I am gone as I have set up a couple of posts to keep posting.
The winner in our drawing for the workbook kit #1 is lacangeleyes from the Thin Within forums. There were over 20 names entered in the drawing and she is the winner!
If you happen to come to Cool, California and hear the shrill “call of the wild” of what sounds like a woman laughing hysterically, it could be you are close to where I live with my family, dogs and ponies.
Meet Dodger.
He is our mustang. And verrrrry talkative. Frankly, he would just assume be returned to roam the range as hang out with people and he doesn’t have much use for other domestic horses, either. He seems to think he is in a class all his own (and the other horses treat him like he is right). He doesn’t prefer life inside a fence line–except for one thing–the abundance of food to which he has access compared to what was offered him 20 years ago in the Nevada desert when he was wild!
Dodger is always preparing for the famine–or so it seems. He inhales anything that is edible, and many things that we thought weren’t edible! He is an “easy keeper,” which simply means that he gains weight on air. đ (I wonder if *I* am an “easy keeper!” LOL!)
But being round doesn’t stop him from always wanting food and hollering for it incessantly.
For instance, if my husband or I should happen to open a window in the midnight hour because it has finally gotten cool enough outside (the horse pasture is down the hill), Dodger shrieks his shrill whinny through the night. Some may have problems with barking dogs in the wee hours. Well, it is our horse hollering that may get us in trouble.
Why does he do this? Any sign of life at any time of the day OR night, and Dodger feels the need to communicate: “Me! Me! Feed me! Have you forgotten me?“
Go figure! I DO feed him what he needs. Actually, probably more than he needs judging from his rolly polly physique. đ I never forget him. He is precious to me. I will always be faithful to bring him his next meal or be sure I arrange someone who will. He needn’t be anxious about that. The provision is there!
Nevertheless, he continues to communicate any hour of the day or night, “I am here! I need FOOD!”
Dodger reminds me of me. Like my round friend, I won’t be starving any time soon. In fact, I have plenty of “meat on my bones” as my mustang does on his. There is no famine coming any time soon. Just as thoughts of food seem to distract my mustang from anything else (like staying still during monthly hoof trimming), making him ancy and eager, I, too, have thoughts of food on my mind constantly! Or just about!
In my case, it isn’t about the way I was raised–unlike Dodger, I have never had to scavenge the desert dust to ferret out the nutrition I need to stay alive! I am surrounded with abundance! The reason I think about food so much is because I have developed the habit of looking to food to satisfy some other need or hunger in my life.
If I hollered every time I thought of food, I wonder if my family and friends would ever have any peace! Actually, I know the answer to that one. They wouldn’t! God is definitely working on me in this–and there has been progress, certainly! Thankfully!
So, as evening falls, I open the back door and the greeting of my equine friend reverberates through the forest as if to sound the dinner bell, I am reminded of this passage in Psalms:
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
– Psalm 145:15-16
Our Great GOD is the provider of the food I need, but I love that He also satisfies my desires. I need to turn to Him!
How about you? Are you like Dodger, always anticipating the next meal before the food in front of you is gone? Are you looking to food to satisfy a need or desire that the Lord wants to meet for you? He promises that he will give you food at the proper time and satisfy your desires, too. Let’s look to Him today for this!
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If you want to read or see more about Dodger and what a special pony he is, please visit this YouTube video. It presents the partnership he has had with Daniel, my autism spectrum son. For more pictures of Dodger (who was featured in Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul Volume 2) go to this link. You can read a shortened version of the Chicken Soup story at the Bureau of Land Management website here.
I have also been accused of waffling around…of not being committed enough!
So, is Thin Within the only way to lose weight? What about if you are a Christian?
In my life I have lost 100s of pounds including 105 lbs. with Weight Watchers…most of which I promptly gained back once the accolades stopped coming and an overuse injury stopped my obsessive exercising.
And, as you may know, I released 100 pounds with the Thin Within approach — eating between physiological hunger and physiological satisfaction — between June of 2006 and September of 2007. I went a bit too far in my thinness and now I am a healthy size for my stage of life, but still working on being consistently active to fend off all the aches and pains that assault my body.
So, what do I believe? Is Thin Within the only approach that is suitable for a Christian?
I think I would have to ask what a person’s highest desire is. If we are going to answer that biblically, we would probably say that our highest desire should be, even if it isn’t, to be like Christ, to make him known, and glorify him.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it this way:
“What is the chief end of man?”
‘To glorify God and enjoy him forever!”
So then, whatever we do in life…whatever we do…the question can be asked, “Does this glorify God? Do I enjoy Him in this?”
And: “Am I becoming more Christlike through this endeavor?”
Diets are designed to have rules to follow. The approach to most diets is “Follow these rules and you will lose weight.” “Do these things and you will win the reward.” Much of the time, it is prescriptive. Little attention is given to hunger or satisfaction. A lot of attention is given to the food, manipulating it, counting it, preparing etc., etc.
How like the Law this is!
My personal struggle with this is that with the focus being on food and on rules in dieting, I am not sure how dieting can actually move me forward in my desire to be Christlike, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. For me, dieting is like the law…I have been set free FROM these things!
So I say, live by the Spirit,
and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit,
and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.
They are in conflict with each other,
that you do not do what you want.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
~ Galatians 5:16-17
Thin Within is about nothing if it isn’t about learning to listen and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit as He directs you personally and specifically.
As you progress through Thin Within, you will discover that because there are no laws and rules to follow, your dependence on the Lord can grow–if you let it. Nothing else has done for my personal walk with God what the Thin Within approach has.
So, for me, I can say with confidence, Thin Within IS the only way. My focus on the Lord has intensified, my worry and concern about my size, shape, weight, and food has dissipated. I have been able to enjoy freedom that I could have only dreamed exist.
Which is most consistent with my godly goals of becoming like Christ and to glorify him?
For me, the answer is clear–depending on God for courage, strength and wisdom to know what he is leading me to eat, why he is leading me to eat, and when he is leading me to eat–is God’s answer to me about my weight and eating problem.
Dieting actually totally 100% counter to it.
How about you? Do you still feel like dieting is a viable alternative–one that you may yet return to? Why do you think dieting still seems inviting to you, if it is?
We are looking at the blessing of Developing Discernment today during our chat time. Come whether you are keeping pace with us in our study or not! Come even if you can only come for a little while! Just come! We would love to have you.
We are chatting from 5-6pm Pacific Time. That is 7-8pm Central and 8-9pm Eastern.
No daddy ever intends to molest his baby girl. In fact, most daddies would kill (or seriously maim) any man that did such things to their daughters.
That is the tricky thing about sexual addictionâit is progressive. It takes something a bit more dangerous, a bit more ânaughty,â like most addictions, to get the same thrill. Even if that âsomethingâ is molesting your own daughter. A man who never dreamed of doing such things, does. He is compelled as if by some unseen force, to do the atrocious, the dreadful, the horrific.
My dad was a medical doctor. His patients thought he walked on water. He was a hero to the masses by day and a child molester by night. Sex addiction is no respecter of persons. Professional saint or struggling ex-con, it doesnât matter.
I am sure my daddy lived in an alcohol-enhanced state of denial about what he did routinely. As a pre-teen, I was uncertain about life and doubted the love of troubled parents. I didnât want to âhurt his feelings,â so I tried only to shift just out of reach of his groping hands, but I never actually stopped him. I didnât even really understand that he was doing something that was so heinously wrong. I knew it felt âyucky.â Years of loving (and proper) scratching of my back as we watched TV together evolved into a demon that owned his soul and sucked the life and innocence out of me through the hands of the man I should most be able to trust for protection. I learned to despise the daddy whose approval I so longed for. My virtue was killed by his addiction and so was my image of what a loving Father is. (Is it any wonder I struggle with the image of a good Heavenly Father to this day?)
Photo Courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu
Over thirteen years later, while in a courtroom serving on jury duty for the first time, the judge described the allegations against the accused. As I heard the sordid details of what the man supposedly did, my heart raced. My mind screamed with absolute certainty: âHE IS GUILTY! Make him a eunuch!â The man was accused of molesting young girls at his daughterâs slumber party. During the judgeâs description, I flashed back to one of my own slumber parties years before where my father had encouraged my girlfriends and I to go âskinny dippingâ in our swimming pool. I remembered seeing him peek out the window through curtains barely parted and had assumed he had been looking out for us to be sure we were safe from a late-night pool accident.
I had a rude awakening in the courtroom that day. The judge cleared the court and questioned me about my obvious agitation. Fresh in the awareness that what had happened to me was, in fact, the stigma of âchild molestation,â I was dismissed âfor cause.â
And so began the road to healing.
The journey has been long. I carried not only the emotional devastation of what my dad did, but also a literal physical weightâa self-imposed prison that provided safety for years. I discovered as a pre-teen that I could comfort and anesthetize myself with food. The subsequent weight gain of using food this way also served to hide my âgirlishâ features from the eyes and hands of any would-be violatorsâDad, or neighborhood boys who, I found, were after the same things. Behind a wall of fat, I would be left alone.
That courtroom realization was some twenty-plus years ago. I am now involved in ministry to women who struggle with body, eating, and food issues. I have discovered that many of the women I have the pleasure of ministering to have similar histories. Their issues with food, eating, and the self-loathing of their bodies often began with fathers, uncles or âfriendsâ who used the girls they knew as their personal play things. Some of these women have been molested. A few have been raped. All have plunged themselves into the comforting arms of food where they have found stability and safety. The extra weight many of us carry has served as a protective shell, guarding a precious treasure hidden away beneathâa priceless prize that was violated at some point our lives.
For many of us, our eating and body issues began as a product of sexual abuse at some point in our lives. In fact, many of us may not even realize it until we have a moment like I did in the courtroom that day…and the awareness that we were molested falls on us like a cold winter.
For some of us, shame has caused us to embrace the identity associated with a sin that was committed against us. This has wreaked havoc with our view of ourselves, our view of God and, often, our view of men.
The long, hard, climb out of the pit in which we find ourselves can only happen through the fellowship of sharing in the sufferings of Christ. There is no easy solution. Jesus told us that the truth will set us freeâeven a truth that is extremely painful to face. Although he was speaking of the Word of God, I have nevertheless experienced this principle holds true about facing my past as well. As I refuse to run from the truth in my past, choosing, instead to embrace it and to walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death with the One who was there all along, believing God will redeem the years the locusts have eaten, I begin to find healing of my wounds.
I am a healthy weight now and enjoy a blessed relationship with a godly husband who is a gift from the Lord. I must daily die to selfâespecially as it relates to choosing to forgive my now-deceased father for what he stole from me. I choose to pursue a walk with Jesus in present time. This isnât âsanctified denial,â but it brings me step-by-step closer to that which God intends.
===========
This post was written specifically for “Sex Abuse Week” for The Idea Camp. I got involved in this blogging project when I saw a post by Dan King of BibleDude.net asking for bloggers who might be willing to speak out about difficult topics regarding sexuality and the Church leading up to a conference that is scheduled for September.
When I heard that one of the themes was sex abuse, I knew that I had to write about an aspect of my story I have only alluded to previously. With Dan’s kind encouragement, I revisited some of the darker places in my personal history. The result is a somewhat rough piece, but I hope you will yet discover the amazing, relentless grace of God.
Thank you, Dan, for believing that the captives can yet be set free.
This week we are reading and completing the material in chapters 13, 14, and 15. Pace yourself! I didn’t do a very good job of that this past week! How about you?
This week’s assignment:
1.) Please check in!If you are going through the study with us, would you mind commenting? Anyone who checks in on THIS post and makes a comment on THIS post, will be in a drawing to win a Thin Within workbook kit! Yes, you read that correctly! đ If you comment on THIS post by Wednesday, July 28, I will put your name in a hat. I will draw a name Thursday morning of this week and have Joe Donaldson from Thin Within send you a workbook kit if I draw YOUR name! đ Just let me know in your comment that you are studying with us, or gleaning something from the study, or…well, whatever you want! If you aren’t sure how to comment, just below the word “Print PDF,” click on the word “Comments.” It looks like this:
Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook #1 Details
2010-07-24T12:00:00-07:00
Heidi Bylsma
Posted by Heidi Bylsma at 12:00 PMComments (4)
Click on “Comments” at the bottom of this post and you will be able to post your check in and be included in the drawing for a free Thin Within workbook kit!
2.) Continue your list of God’s attributes. What are you learning about the Lord? I saw that Believerkjk has a blog she is using to chronicle her Thin Within journey and she has posted down her sidebar a list of “What God is Like.” I love that idea!
3.) You have seen this before: Take time each day to praise God for some of the attributes on your list. Let’s keep it up! This praising prayer is powerful! Especially when we are tempted to give in to “Woe is me…” Remember, instead of “Woe is me, Great is God!”
4.) Keep adding to your gratitude journal.You are keeping one, right? đ Trust me when I say that it isn’t gritting your teeth and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps that will transform you and this journey for you! It is exalting God to His rightful place, praising him for who he is and thanking him for what he does! This is the way we keep ourselves in our place, too!God is at work transforming us from the inside out.
5.) Read and complete Days 13, 14, and 15 – through page 159.
6.)Respond to this thought this week on the Thin Within forums or here: One of the temptations we will face on this journey comes as we realize, though simple, eating less food is far from easy. The freedom we are offered can actually be frightening, especially given that we have used food to cope with stress in the past (often). Now we have too much freedom! Or so it seems! We don’t trust ourselves and then, when we DO eat less, we FEEL! We don’t like that! This is when we will be tempted to return again to the slavery of dieting. Have you had that temptation yet? If not, it will probably hit. Many begin to feel tempted to count points or calories again. What lies are at work? What is truth that you can use to combat the lies?
7.)Can you identify with William Well-Meaning, Larry the Legalist, or Abigail the Achiever mentioned in chapter 13? Which one and why? What practical things can you do to keep yourself on the Path of God’s Provision?
8.) Describe “Spirit-filled eating“ (page 136). What do you think of that term?
9.) Complete the “Belief, Actions, Result” activity on page 146. What truths has God brought home to you during the completion of this material?
10.)Speak the ten affirmations on page 147 out loud. What do you think as you say these things? Do you believe them?
11.)Plan ahead for Day 15. On Day 15 you will arrange an opportunity for yourself where you can have a meal that absolutely delights your taste buds, but where you practice all the Keys to Conscious Eating. We want you to have a chance to experience what it is like to eat and live this way by being really intentional about it. You can plan the meal to be out or in, the atmosphere to be “just so,” the foods and beverage to be what you love, to have a companion(s) or not. If you need a babysitter, plan it in advance. This is “on-the-job training” in how to live and eat the Thin Within way!
12.) Join us at one of our chats this week! You can find the chat schedule at our God Is Doing a New Thing website). There is a link to instructions there as well.
Look for ways that God is at work in your life this week. We know that he promises that he IS doing something new this week. Of this, we can be certain! Philippians 1:6 says so and so does Isaiah 43:18-19!
Don’t forget to comment by WEDNESDAY on THIS post, to be in the drawing for the free workbook kit!
For those who couldn’t or didn’t want to watch my “infomercial” đ about the Thin Within workbook, I thought I would share with you here, some of the features of the resources that Thin Within offers, specifically highlighting the Rebuilding God’s Temple Workbook Kit #1.
The first kit is the most comprehensive and comes with three pieces: Â
Workbook #1
The Temple Toolkit
The Memory Challenge Cards (click on the image to see a large version and click again to see it magnified further):
The contents of Kit #1
First, the workbook itself, is a spiral bound volume that has material for 12 weeks of study. To download a sample of the material, visit this link. The download is an Adobe Reader (.pdf) file of Week One – “Hope.” After you download it, print it and take a week to try it out! đ
Each week consists of the following:
Lesson material – This is dense written material that you will read to glean the concepts that we are teaching or reviewing during the week. I usually recommend about an hour spent with this, highlighting, asterisking, and looking up the verses in my own bible. I may even write comments in the margin or, if I am leading a group, questions to be sure to ask participants.
Each of the reading portions of the lesson are divided into these segments:
Introduction – a brief overview of the week’s focus
Spiritual Information – the relationship this material has to the Scriptures
Physiological Information – the “mechanics” — what you can actually doto make additional changes in your eating to honor the Lord
Integration – How it all works together
Exercises – Don’t worry! These aren’t calisthenics! LOL! They are basically guided daily quiet times. đ Each week includes “exercises” for each day of the week. Days six and seven are optional and a bit “lighter.” Days one through five include the following sections:
Going Deeper – This relates some aspect of the lesson you have read to your life
Bible Study – This shows how Scripture illustrates or illuminates the principles taught in the lesson
Knowing God By Heart – One of the best parts, this is a study of the attributes of God. We have found that the way a participant views God impacts how she will view food, herself, her body, as well as her willingness (or not) to surrender this aspect of her life to the Lord for His purposes.
Getting Practical – These are suggestions for putting some of the mechanics of the program into practice
Memory Challenge – Hiding God’s Word in our hearts will enable us to be reminded of our commitment to him when we are weak! Memorizing scripture is extremely helpful for renewing our mind and changing our thinking!
Review of the Week – This provides a space where you can summarize what God has shown you or questions and thoughts you have had. This section is especially helpful when you meet with others in a group setting. đ
In addition to these resources in the workbook, there is an extensive Introduction at the beginning and Appendices in the back, providing a great deal of material that will support you on your journey.
But wait! There’s more! đ (Couldn’t resist saying that!) Not only do you get the Workbook, but when you purchase the first kit, you also get the Temple Toolkit. This is a resource that offers a place for you to log your own journey throughout each day during the full twelve weeks. As you progress through the material, the pages change to match what you have learned in the workbook. Let me show you what I mean.
The first image below shows Days 25-28. Click on the image to see a larger version and then click again to see FULL size what these pages look like in the temple toolkit:
Days 25, 26, 27, 28 in the Temple Toolkit
As you progress through the workbook and new material is introduced, the Temple Toolkit changes, too:
Days 49, 50, 51, and 52 in Temple Toolkit
Again, click on the image above and then click again on the bigger image to see it full size. You will see new tools have been added.
Of course all of the tools are optionalas you go through the 12-week workbook. If you have come out of a background of excessive charting and graphing, you may only want to use the journaling pages. Or, as time goes on, you may experience freedom with one tool and not another. The Lord will lead each person individually. Some have freedom to use all the tools, charts and graphs.
By the time you are closer to the end of the first twelve weeks, you will have been introduced to all of the tools. Note how the material in the toolkit has evolved:
Days 77, 78, 79 and 80 in Temple Toolkit
Again, “Wait! There’s more!” đ When you order the first kit, you get not only the Workbook, the Temple Toolkit that changes as you go through the material, but you also get the Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards:
Memory Challenge and Temptation Buster Cards
Again, click on the image above and the larger image, to get a full size view of what these include. You cut them up and can carry them with you so that Thin Within isn’t just a bible study that you begin in the morning and leave behind the rest of the day. These resources are very supportive in helping you to keep the principles that God is leading you to embrace and apply with you throughout the day.
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.Â
Do what it says.Â
Anyone who listens to the wordÂ
but does not do what it saysÂ
is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and,Â
after looking at himself,Â
goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
~ James 1:22-24
We don’t want to just accumulate head knowledge, but then leave it behind for the rest of the day! We want to ACT on what we learn in our times of study and in God’s Word!
I realize that $45 is not a “bargain price” for a workbook alone, but I trust you will feel like it is worth it. This material includes three months of workbook material and exercises, as well as the Temple Toolkit which would probably cost $20 for something like that (if you could find such a thing!) separately. (It isn’t sold separately at Thin Within, so this is hypothetical!) Truthfully, with the money you save by eating less food :-), you will be able to afford a kit for yourself and a best friend, too! (Ok, so now I am taking my infomercial over the top…hope you are bearing with me! LOL! But it IS true!)
Thin Within isn’t a big company. No one pulls in a big salary. The proceeds from sales of the workbook go to cover the costs of producing these materials, keeping the Thin Within website functioning, other expenses (like the phone!), and small stipends for some of the Thin Within team members. So while the cost of $45 may seem steep, it isn’t padding anyone’s pocket. I am sure you will be pleased with the quality of the materials you receive. (Boy, do I ever sound like an advertisement today. Sorry about that! I just really believe in this material and am eager for the word to spread!)
If you decide that you want to lead a group we have resources available for you including video clips, leader resources, and a page at the Thin Within website that offers all kinds of ideas for running your orientation and weekly meetings. Not only that, but Judy Halliday and the Thin Within team are even now working on a printed leader manual that will be available (Lord willing!) in time for you to run your fall Thin Within groups through the workbook kit #1.
One additional piece of information that many are unaware of is that there are 3 additional workbooks, each covering 12 weeks. The material is designed so that if you run a group and have people who have gone through workbook #1 before, they can do workbook #2 or #3 or #4, even while you lead through workbook #1. Each of the workbooks are presented in 12 weekly themes that parallel each other. These are the themes for all four of the workbooks:
Hope
My Body–God’s Temple
Identity in Christ
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part One
Restoration
Counting the Cost
The Fight of Faith
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Two
Building Godly Boundaries
Forgiveness
Prayer
Celebration of God’s Grace, Part Three
No matter if you have people in your group who have never before participated in Thin Within or, three time veterans, when your group is on week five, everyone will be studying, reviewing, learning about the theme of Restoration. This helps prevent the material from becoming stale! It is a great system that allows people of all experience levels to enjoy a group together, studying and reviewing together.
This fall, I plan to lead a live group through this material as well. I would love to hear from you. Prayerfully consider it. Then, request permission from your pastor, elders or women’s ministry leadership if you need to do so for leading a live group. Then, by August 30th, 2010, check in here (or the Thin Within forums and let me know what you are planning to do! You don’t have to “register” your groups, but if you do when you call Joe and Pam Donaldson at Thin Within 1-877-729-8932 (9:00am-5:00pm Eastern) to make your order, I believe they will send you additional leader resources. Let them know that you are planning on participating with Heidi’s online leading of the class, but that you have a LIVE group that will be joining you. I will be explaining this more in August.
For now, if you want to participate, here is what I recommend:
Pray
Get permission from anyone that you need to in order to have your class
Publicize your class. There are resources available here.
Check in here or at the TW forums to let us know that you have a live class that will be participating
Order your materials!
Keep praying! đ
I plan on having my first group session a week ahead of what I recommend for the rest of the folks. I will post here an informal video and written suggestions, giving you ideas about what you can do each week to lead your group. I got this idea from Beth Moore’s Living Proof Blog. A couple of summers ago, she did this with ladies going through a bible study written by another author.Â
Our study will be more intensive–most of us are ready for that once fall has arrived! I do recommend that you plan to meet each week, but if you can’t, then every other week is certainly better than nothing! You will have to adapt how you use the materials to suit your group the best.
The suggested dates for you (but feel free to adjust and adapt as needed) are:Â Orientation the week of September 12 Week One the week of September 19 We will continue through the holiday season, taking a week off here and there.
We will have our grand finale just after the New Year, with a wrap up of all we have learned and “Where Do We Go From Here” session.
Some of you may want to continue leading groups into Workbook #2 or do another #1 so that new folks who want to start the New Year with weight loss (like so many do) have a place to go.
It isn’t too early to start thinking about this now!
Hi, everyone. There is a chat today from 1-2pm Pacific Time. This is 3pm Central or 4pm Eastern time. I hope you can join us. We continue to expose the lies that we have believed and replace them with truth. Visit http://www.thinwithin.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2256 to know how to chat. I hope to see you.
