This journey has been about so much more than my weight…and it continues to be. Recently, God has shown me that I have continued to allow my perception of myself to be defined by my performance–externals–which, in the eyes of the world now appears to be “poor.” Having gained some of the weight I had lost, I am a “failure” in the eyes of the world (maybe even the Christian world!). I know in my heart that there is more at work here than that.
My eating, for instance, has been mostly within godly parameters during the past 2 – 3 months. The same parameters within which I operated to lose the 100 pounds and keep it off for a year. So, go figure. Bottom line… I know that I have God’s seal of approval! 🙂
As I have shared previously, I think my body has reacted to my choice to obey God about laying down the constant intake of caffeine (probably about the equivalent of 120 ounces of diet coke each day or more…). I think doing that has pretty well kept me at this “new” weight. (Again, God delights that I choose to obey him!)
I am realizing slowly and accepting even *more* slowly that THIS may be my “natural God-given” size and the previous lower weight may have been my “UNnatural, caffeine-given” size. It is a tough thing to swallow and shows me just how much I think like the world in this regard! I will continue to invite God to renew my mind and to transform my thinking. He is faithful.
When I began to read in The Search for Significance about shame, I realized that God has some lessons for me here. It is as if I have renewed a relationship with an old, familiar… …”acquaintance.” Shame seems to accompany me again… or it sure is trying to do so!
Shame often engulfs us when a flaw in our performance is so important, so over-powering, or so disappointing to us that it creates a permanently negative opinion about our self-worth. Others may not know about our failure, but we do. We may only imagine their rejection, but real or imagined, the pain resulting from it cripples our confidence and hope. The Search for Significance, McGee, page 101
With weight…everyone sees the “failure” or the “flaw in our performance.” It is a bummer!
I have made this “failure” so important and overpowering and disappointing…
But here is the deal. Having seen this, and been reminded of it again and again over the past few months, I WILL NOT allow it to define me! NO NO NO! 😀
Just as the quote above says, I have imagined people rejecting me over this and it has crippled my confidence and my hope! That is NO way to live.
God is continuing to work a change in my thinking. He is helping me to see just how valuable my choice has been to honor him about the diet soda–and that the struggle I have had since has been worth it. To the world, it may appear that I am another “dieting” failure. But I know that isn’t the case! I know that what I really am is a “laying the idols down” SUCCESS! 🙂
Going even deeper, though, I know what matters most is NOT my performance, but what Christ has done for me. He alone defines my worth and value. He is showing me more and more each day what that means…theoretically and practically speaking how it applies to my life when the rubber hits the road.
I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
– Psalm 40:1-3a
I continue my side trip through the theme of The Present, Not the Past, in keeping with the focus of chapter 7 of Get Thin Stay Thin.
The excerpts below are from The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee. This book is being used by God to continue His transforming work…the “new thing”…from the inside out. It is flooring me how much God is at work changing the way I think.
…nothing forces us to remain in the mold of the past! By the grace and power of God, we can change! We can persevere and overcome! No one forces us to keep shifting our feet in the muck of old failures. TSFS, page 95.
Right now, I CHOOSE to get my feet (and face) out of the muck of old failures! I CHOOSE to step my feet on SOLID ground–the ground where Youdefine me through all you have done for me and in me in Christ Jesus. These aren’t empty words. You have done amazing things. Which will I value more? Place more emphasis on, focus on the most? MY behavior and performance (which is, of course, flawed?) or all YOU HAVE DONE? Jesus’ “performance” on the cross and His resurrection? Oh! It seems so amazing! So ridiculous that I would struggle at all with this! It is so clear to me in this moment!
From page 97 in The Search for Significance (not really a quote, but not really all my own words…sort of a paraphrase application…):
I am deeply loved, fully pleasing, totally accepted by the God of the universe. I anticipate that, as I continue to study God’s Word, experience loving relationships with other believers, I will gain a better understanding of the way God values me. This will improve my sense of self-worth, as my sense of who I am will be based on TRUTH–God’s Truth!
I want what the author has–past memories may be painful, but through Christ my present attitude about myself will continually change. I see how this will lead to life-long transformation relative to my struggle with eating and my body! It is a HUGE factor in all of this!
I know in my head I HAVE NO REASON TO BE ASHAMED and that covers a gamut of compulsive moments… Sure, I will continue to experience “failure” and “success” as I step out into new things (and try to improve upon “old” things I have done for years…). God will use these instances of failure and success to teach me that DESPITE MY CIRCUMSTANCES MY WORTH IS SECURE IN HIM!
Change is possible, but it is a process. TSFS, p. 98
Sometimes people get in a big hurry with the process of “losing weight.” Whether it be on the forums at the Thin Within website, at church bible study, at the gym–wherever!–there is an urgency to LOSE WEIGHT! But God is after a transformation in our thinking. If thinking differently, believing differently, and depending on HIM differently aren’t at the core of the physical changes, we have only reverted to yet another diet–even if it may not seem like it. The changes will be temporary.
Truly changing permanently is a lifelong process. P-R-O-C-E-S-S — Gosh, even typing it that way is too slow for me! LOL!
So let’s get out of the muck of our past and believe God for the new today and the future he has planned for all of us. We have heard and reheard Jeremiah 29:11 and it IS true.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
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 43:18-19
It IS true that God IS doing a new thing…right NOW. This moment! Toss off the muck of past failures and defeats…and yes, even past SUCCESSES! Sometimes those beat us up more than past failures. It doesn’t matter if you lost 390 pounds with Weigh Down or Weight Watchers…God wants to free you from weight beyond imagining RIGHT NOW! Me, too! He IS doing it! He promises that which he began he will complete! Let’s cooperate with him. Are you with me?
Chapter 7 of Get Thin Stay Thin focuses on “The Present, Not the Past.” I find my study of The Search for Significance pointing me to this emphasis as well. The chapters on shame have been very powerful…and I realize, now, that I have been on a pendulum that I only realized and mentioned here at the blog yesterday.
Too often our self-image rests solely on an evaluation of our past behavior, being measured only through a memory. Day after day, year after year, we tend to build our personalities on the rubble of yesterday’s personal disappointments.The Search for Significance, p. 96
This is NO way to live.
Here is a question…my past failures are a fact. The love, mercy, and power of God is also a fact. Which one will I value more? To which will I ascribe more significance to affect me today? If I continue to value my failures, I will continue to be absorbed by a “woe is me” sort of attitude…the feeling that I am “stuck.”
God’s Truth (big “T”) is way BIGGER than my truth (little “t”). He brings HIS Truth to bear on my truth unless I choose to value my truth more by saying I am stuck allowing it to define me. I love that he doesn’t ask me to deny my truth…he wants me to embrace HIS Truth and to allow it to override, influence, the impact of my truth on me now. (Don’t know if I am making any sense!)
Lord, I see this so clearly in this moment. All through the years I have allowed my sense of value to be based on my behavior–whether I’ve failed or succeeded–done well or not. So, when I lost all the weight, I felt like I was on top of the world! A success! I had arrived! The world noticed and celebrated! I felt good about ME! ME! ME! I was a conquering victor!
Then I began to desperately cling to that trophy…to the trophy of a thin body and to those Levis–instead of to you, Lord. Thank you that you have forgiven me for that.
But as my grip on those idols kept slipping, my sense of value and identity slipped with it. I was a failure in my mind. I clearly had not changed where my sense of value came from. I hadn’t really overcome the shame of the past (which is what I thought had happened because I felt so much better about myself), but I had only masked it.
Shame comes from letting my past poor performance define me. My shame was replaced by pride when I was performing better…”succeeding” in the presence. It was like the flip side of the same coin. I am so glad to see this right now. Lord, please let it change me. Thank you for showing me this truth.
I seem to keep swinging between pride and shame. Is it possible I never was truly free of shame? That the pride was really just masking the shame? Oh, Lord, remove it at its root! However painful it may be DO IT, please, Lord!!!
God has convicted me about how I relate to my past. Years ago (and along the way since) I went through a lot of my past experiences and faced abuses and mistreatment I experienced–as a kid, a teenager, an adult, from unbelievers and believers, from family members and those I barely knew, from classmates, close friends, and strangers. It hasn’t always been easy, but I have found joy and peace in being obedient to the Lord’s mandate to forgive, and have applied the blood of Christ, choosing to forgive “just as in Christ the Lord has forgiven” me.
I feel no obvious resentment, anger, or hostility for many of the things that I have “forgiven.” When I do sense resentment or anger surfacing, I typically have found such relief and freedom for *myself* in forgiving, that I work through it again rather earnestly, so as not to allow a bitter root to be established in my life with all the poison it can spread.
Nevertheless, in some ways, I seem to hold on to the past by pointing to it for a reference point for now. It is like if only I can show people what my past was like, how horribly I was treated in the past, and show in comparison just how completely God has transformed me, that is a good thing, isn’t it?
Well, yes and no!
Yes, it is a wonderful thing that God has taken my broken, battered, heart and life and transformed me from what I surely would have been apart from him, and given me a wonderful family–two great kids, a loving husband, a terrific home life…I am SO blessed! These are incredible things!
But, NO… I seem to almost relish the retelling of my past story a bit much so that I can take pride that I have not become what I would have been. In other words, I have formed my sense of my identity based, in part, on my past failures and my past life…which I have supposedly extended forgiveness for and been forgiven for… How much can I really be FREE of the past if I continue to retell the stories of the past, so I can point out “Look at how great I am in light of all I have been through?”
Obviously, I don’t go parading around stating it in such an obvious way (not usually!). People would see through that. It is more subtle than that but my flesh and the enemy of my soul delight in the way it trips me up.
If my identity or sense of who I am now is at all intertwined with who I was in the past, I am not entirely sure I am living in the present or can truly experience the freedom that the Lord wants me to experience in Him.
I may also NOT really be forgiving!
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, necessarily, but, like Robert S. McGee says in The Search for Significance it does mean that I won’t relish the memory for any purpose. At least that is my take on it.
Even with my Thin Within journey, I wonder about this. If I retell my story again and again about being a “dieting failure” and even a “Thin Within failure,” am I really forgiving myself for my past rebellions and indiscretions? Sure, there is a point where my testimony is valuable for encouraging others…but where does my emphasis–my focus–lie? Is it on what I was and “look at me now!” Or is it on what Christ has done? Am I really seeking to glorify Christ? Or self?
If I retell the failure part of my testimony again and again, is it possible that I am allowing that to define my worth and value a bit too much now? And then, just how big of a leap is it for me to take one of my “mistakes” todayand think, “See? I haven’t changed that much after all…I am still the same old failure, pretending not to be!”
Forgiveness is the desire to extend to another the freedom and release that we ourselves have been given at the cross.Get Thin Stay Thin p. 151
If I truly have forgiven myself for my choices in the past and have forgiven my mom, my dad, and others for wrongs done against me, I will want them to be free from that past, too. I will want them to be released. I will want to experience FULLY the freedom and release that Christ affords me…and want that for others as well.
I definitely won’t use the way I was treated or the way I behaved to make me feel better about myself now.
The need to forgive runs very deep. It influences everything. It is pretty hard to live in the present moment if I harbor resentment for anything done an hour ago or a decade or three ago. Like so much baggage, it loads me down…
I am asking the Lord afresh…to please show me where a lack of forgiveness is hindering my walk with him. It is ironic…as I do this, there are fresh offenses occurring faster than my mind and heart can register…not to me personally, but indirectly affecting me profoundly.
I know that this is somehow intricately connected with my perception of myself, my value, my body, my eating. It is hard to be willing to “go there.” I believe that true forgiveness requires that I face full on into the offense and the wounds it causes…to allow myself to feel without the benefit of the “numbing agent” used previously…to ask the Lord to do the work he intends to do through the fires of this pain.
Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. – Luke 17:33
When we relinquish control in order to gain our lives in God, he always gives life back to us more abundantly. Dependence–the soul turned toward God, trusting in God, allowing life to unfold according to God’s will–centers our lives upon God’s grace. GTST, p. 131
In the past 5 months, I have been progressively releasing control to the Lord in ways I never did before. Letting go of my addiction to caffeine has resulted in HUGE changes in my body. I don’t know if things were being masked by the caffeine or my body has reacted to not having caffeine pumped into it constantly…or both…but I am having to get to know myself as if I have never applied the principles taught in Thin Within before. It has been unnerving…unsettling…and, at times, so very disappointing.
But in the process, I have had to return to totally depending on Him. He guides me, he comforts me, he confronts me when necessary. He steadies me, he directs me. I didn’t recognize all the ways he was trying to do this before…Though I had set aside food as a numbing agent, the diet soda was the way I numbed myself to pain…and, again, you I couldn’t just numb myself to pain…I ended up numbing myself to everything. I didn’t feel anything quite so much (including pain AND joy…AND the voice of God!).
As my body as been showing me that, left without caffeine to falsify a “revved” metabolism, it needs even LESS food than I was consuming before, I definitely have needed to center my life on God’s grace–just as the quote above says.
I am so thankful that God has been teaching me that my value is NOT in earthly success! I would be flattened, devastated if it were! Instead, he has shown me “in the nick of time” that HE alone defines my worth. During this challenging time where I am feeling betrayed by my body, he has pointed out again and again that this is not about my body at all, but about my heart. (If you have read this blog much, I know that this must be sounding repetitive…but it is a truth I must GET and I pray others will, too! It is so vital!)
This truth that it is about something deeper than my body, instead of that coming across as a rebuke, is actually comforting. I am so THANKFUL that it isn’t about my body!
Also, this notion that my body has “betrayed” me…well, I realized in a fresh way yesterday that it is ME who has betrayed my body…by putting gallons and gallons of chemicals in it for years and years…aspartame and caffeine…I was giving it something that was NOT a good thing at all…in fact, I was leading it to addiction and worse.
I have made an appointment with my doctor. This is a huge step for me. “Dragon Lady” is what I call her. I have decided not to change doctors right now when I need to find out what is going on with me medically that could explain some of the symptoms I have. She knows my history, so that is important. “Dragon Lady” has always had something to say about my weight. She uses shame to try to exact change in her patients. NOT ok.
I go in the week of the 20th to have blood tests so that we can see if a thyroid problem may explain some things. I also hope to be checked for…diabetes. Can you believe it? Oh, my pride is taking a hit in so many ways. I simply have to deal with this.
For years, when people have said, “I eat 0 to 5, but I am not losing weight.” Or “I eat 0 to 5 but I keep *gaining* weight…” I have arrogantly assumed that they were not being honest with themselves. Even yesterday as I spoke with Judy Halliday, I couldn’t wrap my brain around…how can eating 0 to 5 not work, even if there is a medical issue? If my metabolism is thrown off and won’t burn fuel properly, then won’t I not feel hunger as often? She responded “Not necessarily.” HUH? What???? You mean, there MAY be times when a medical issue can get in the way of all I have learned and assumed was always true? That my body’s signals may NOT be reliable???? YIKES!
I guess it is obvious why I must throw myself upon God’s grace again and again. This sort of rocks my world!
I know that I need forgiveness for my arrogant self-righteous attitude toward those who have struggled in the past who may have had a medical issue! :-/
Then there is the side of me that hopes that if I do have a thyroid problem that throwing a pill down my throat will fix everything…EVERYTHING…and get me back into those levis. (I can’t believe I have made Levis into an idol!!!)
But it is about my heart...so even if my body gets back on kilter and is reliable and “trustworthy” again…and even THIN…what about inside of me? Will I have learned anything?
Grace, grace, God’s grace. Oh how I need it!
Throwing myself upon God’s grace…
It is only then that we experience the profound flow of God’s love. It is only then that we can empty ourselves enough to let our silent hunger be filled with all the fullness God desires to grow in us. GTST, p. 132
It is no small wonder that this has been an incredible growing time in my life–a time of changes internally, a time of unmeasured closeness with God. I sense his presence throughout the day and his love just as this quote says. Without the addictions in my life, I NEED and he is there saying “I AM.” He is the constantly flow now…instead of caffeine and aspartame. He is my sweetness and vibrant energy. Better than an artificially stimulated adrenal gland, God’s Spirit pulsates in me…it is a hard process…but filled with fewer extremes as he steadies me on this course. There IS a fullness that I hadn’t experienced before.
When we exchange our weakness for God’s strength, our powerlessness for his power, and pray, “Thy will, not my will, be done,” we find that the healing love of Christ moves in our midst. GTST, p. 132
~ Letting Go of What I have Been and What I Want to Be ~ All my life I dreamed of having horses. When I was 41, I got my dream come true! Four horses just outside my door of my house in the country!
But things haven’t gone so well with living the horse dream.
Yesterday, I decided that I definitely need to make a concrete decision to let go…to let go of one of my horses. As I do that, I realize I am letting go of something I dreamed of being…I dreamed of being “good” with horses. I dreamed of being “enough” to manage any horse…especially Doc. Doc is the horse of the four that we originally bought for me–a horse who was young 6 years ago (only 4 years old)–to “grow old with.” It is time that I admit that this isn’t a match ordained by God conducive to growing old gracefully! (Though, I have more gray hairs now than I did 6 years ago–by a LONG shot! LOL!)
So I have found a place for Doc Tari Zebra to live for a while…hopefully long enough for me to find him a good permanent home. I mean, look at that face! How could I NOT love that face? (Happen to know anyone who wants a grullo horse who is very sweet and cute, too?)
In a very real way, I am making this step to unwrap the grave clothes. See, when I work with Doc–with any of my horses really, but Doc seems to really bring it to the surface–I NEED so much to do this “perfectly.” When Doc gets nervous and really really BIG (he is a large horse anyhow and when a prey animal gets afraid, they get really HUGE!), I find myself shutting down emotionally. I don’t feel fear. I disassociate. I know this is something I learned to do as a kid in an abusive environment. It isn’t a good thing now. Back then, it enabled me to survive. Now it keeps me from being all that Christ wants me to be in Him.
And really? When working with horses, it probably isn’t physically safe either!
So, for that reason and many others, I know that I need to release my grip on this insistence that I “do” the horse thing perfectly. That I release Doc to someone who can help him more effectively. I may love him like crazy…and if a suitable home can’t be found, I am committed to providing for his physical needs for life. But it is high time that I admit that I am NOT what he needs to help him with his fears…and it is ok that I admit that.
My willingness to admit this with my horses, is proof of a deeper work that God is doing in me relative to ALL of my life. I have never worked at something as hard as I have to be “successful” with my horses unless it is my parenting. And I have never felt more like a failure. When you try so hard to do something well and no matter how hard you try, you keep falling short…something has to give. With horses, it can literally be an issue of physical safety.
The purpose of unwrapping our grave clothes is to teach us about our true character. It is here, separated from our accustomed supports and dependencies that we discover how barren our satiated souls really are. Get Thin Stay Thin, p. 130
This thing with the horses is proof of this in my life. All of my accustomed supports are missing. The food is missing, the reliance on sweet diet soda with caffeine is missing…before, I seemed satiated…now that those things are missing, I see afresh that my soul really IS barren. It is a good discovery as now I can go about tapping into living water.
No amount of “success” with “difficult” horses will satisfy. It isn’t worth it to give up who I really am and who God is making me to be to fulfill the dream. I am barren, in need, and you know what? I don’t have what it takes! And that is ok! When our true nature is exposed, we face the emptiness and silence within our wrappings. Our arrogance and pride are defeated, and we learn what humble dependence on God means. Stripped of our resources and our addictions, we see ourselves with new eyes and are led toward a new response to ourselves, to life, and to God. GTST, p. 130
How perfectly these words are stated. Suddenly, I don’t have to desperately grab at food again…I can sit for a bit…and it is ok. God IS in charge. God DOES care. He is here, now. In the heart of my need. Isn’t it something that he says His name is “I AM?” I find that fascinating…no matter what my need, lack or desire…he responds to it with “I AM.”
But I had to be stripped naked and vulnerable to see it. I had to gain some weight to realize that I am STILL out of control…that HE alone is in control and that is ok too…that is, in fact, the way I want it!
Last night I noticed a new response to life as this quote from page 130 of the Get Thin Stay Thin book mentions. I was at worship team practice and while the drummer was setting up microphones I was piddling around, tuning my guitar or trying this or that…and at least three different times I said, “I can’t believe I did that…how stupid!” In that instant, I realized I said something self-deprecating and countered (out loud, if you can believe it!) with “I am NOT stupid!” I did that two more times and the drummer laughed, “I guess you have been struggling with beating yourself up!” I had to laugh. But the truth is, how much do I DO this to myself? How many years have I done this? If what the scriptures say is true (and I believe that it is), then “As a woman thinks in her heart so is she…” well, how about I nip that in the bud now…reject the self-condemning remarks and start speaking TRUTH to myself instead? Start telling myself truths like “I am 100% accepted by and acceptable TO the God of this universe, my only righteous Judge and King!”
Yes, responding to things a bit differently…to myself, to others, to circumstances.
We can then allow God to lead us–we surrender to Him. We allow God to feed us–we depend on him. We allow God to give us security–we trust in Him. We allow God to teach us–we listen to him. We allow God to love us–we find our true selves in Him. GTST, p. 131
Who do you present to the world? Who do you think of yourself as being?
I don’t mean being superficial or fake. But I mean really who do you think you are? And how do you present that to others?
These are questions I have had to ask myself lately. I am like one of those giant inflatable “beings” –called “air dancers,” I guess–that are sometimes seen outside of car dealerships. Huge things, they wave and bounce and attract attention, but when the power is cut and the air isn’t flowing through them, they instantly deflate and become what they really are…empty plastic on the ground, flattened, needing to be filled again. The substance is gone.
How like the “air dancer” I feel! Oh, how I want to be filled up with the Lord! That my “dancing” would continue in substance!
God desires that we be shaped and molded into the image of Christ as whole people, not lacking anything. Yet in our woundedness we often defend ourselves against anything or anyone (including God) we perceive to be attacking the false yet fragile self we have worked so hard to create. GTST, p. 129
During those first two years of “doing Thin Within” I created a false self. It was who I was in front of everyone. I wasn’t “faking” anything. It was my “up front,” “on display” personality. It was dependent on performance and results and kudos–lots of kudos from others. When my physical results shifted–for whatever reason–it was like all the air was sucked out of the balloon. There was no longer substance of any kind to the false self. In its fragility it was wiped out. Exposed, even humiliated.
No wonder I felt like “the wind was sucked out of me” when I gained some weight back!
But this is good…I needed to see it for what it was! Now we can get down to business!
You know, when someone has wonderful outward physical “success,” the world really does pull out the stops to shower accolades. I attempted to give God glory…but these were often minimized by well-meaning celebrants. Many urged me to “give yourself credit.”
That is NOT a biblical view, however.
…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. – Philippians 2:13
It is God who is at work in me. It is His strength and He alone gets the glory. I need to remember this. He IS the substance. It isn’t about me, about my weight, about my food at all. It is about the author and sustainer of all that matters.
God invites us to release this false self and to receive new life, trusting and depending on his loving will. He wants to take our struggle with food, eating, and weight, struggles that have been the “thorns in our flesh,” and use them for our good–to shape and mold our character, to bring us new life and freedom. GTST, p. 129
I know this sounds bizarre, but I am excited about this. I am SO ready for change, for transformation. I met with a friend yesterday and she quoted “When the pain of staying where we are is greater than the pain of change, we will change.” Boy, isn’t that the truth? The pain of staying the same has overcome the pain of change and the adventure is really in hyperdive now.
I choose to release my false self, all right. Take it, Lord!
From Judy Halliday’s heart: God showed me that all my attempts to look good on the outside couldn’t compensate for the flaws and imperfections on the inside. GTST, p. 129
So when the weight was lost, when two national magazines (including Health) did a blurb that gave recognition for my losing 100 pounds, after teaching real-life classes, speaking to groups about how to release emotional, spiritual and physical weight, after cheers from surrounding witnesses, friends, and family members I felt pretty doggone dandy about things. I loved them all for their encouragement and support. Please don’t misunderstand.
But, now the package was wrapped up nicely with a bow and paraded around like a proud peacock.
Having a form of godliness…perhaps… but something was missing.
God wanted to be sure I knew what it was…humility, for starters. An awareness of the remaining flaws and imperfections on the inside. In fact, any time I might start feeling a bit aware of my internal lack, it was so easy to point to the outward physical changes–lost weight–and think, “THAT proves that I am not the same person INSIDE as I used to be!”
That is true…but excuse me…am I in heaven yet? Have I arrived on the other side of the pearly gates? Are my feet still on the dust of this earth? As long as my feet are on this earth, there will be things I need to invite God into the midst of…to FIX, to CHANGE, to HEAL! Pointing at how far I have come is just another way of staying stuck in the past and not relishing THIS present moment! This is a journey. The destination is yet ahead. I am not there yet. 🙂
On a practical note: I have been cutting my portions way back as if I were doing Thin Within for the first time–I need to refine my hunger numbers again. I am getting to know my body all over again. I am filled with optimism and…dare I say it…JOY! It is funny how I feel better physically just by eating a little less food. My jeans (not the Levis…I haven’t tried them on and won’t for a long while) fit better again.
It is also funny that, when I feel this way, the lure of the scale is greater. I want confirmation that I FEEL better? Confirmation that my pants are looser? Does that make sense? I have all the confirmation I need in listening to my body! If in doubt, the Holy Spirit testifies with peace, joy, and confirmation that I am in the heart of God’s will.
Funny how the onlooking crowds can’t see the newest changes or offer accolades, kudos and praises for these changes! These changes are WAY more significant than the 100 pounds being gone!
Again, MY heart knows the truth. My Savior is close and speaks to my soul…”My child…you are doing well.”
This journey has been about so much more than my weight…and it continues to be. Recently, God has shown me that I have continued to allow my perception of myself to be defined by my performance–externals–which, in the eyes of the world now appears to be “poor.” Having gained some of the weight I had lost, I am a “failure” in the eyes of the world (maybe even the Christian world!). I know in my heart that there is more at work here than that.
God is continuing to work a change in my thinking. He is helping me to see just how valuable my choice has been to honor him about the diet soda–and that the struggle I have had since has been worth it. To the world, it may appear that I am another “dieting” failure. But I know that isn’t the case! I know that what I really am is a “laying the idols down” SUCCESS! 🙂
