In speaking with a dear friend last week, I realized afresh that allowing what we *do* to define our value and worth–our identity–isn’t just unique to me, or to “at home” moms. So often, the very hats we wear through life define us. When something changes and that hat is no longer “wearable,” we may not know who we are any longer.
For some of us, it may happen when the kids are all grown up and gone and we suddenly have an “empty nest.” It isn’t the “nest” being empty that bothers us so much, perhaps. It is that we wonder who we are now that they are gone. Or when the economy has caused lay-offs and we no longer have the same routine, the same job, the same function, the same income,…we wonder similarly…”Who am I now?”
I wonder how much of my identity and self-worth have been wrapped up in my “work” and/or my being “successful” at Thin Within. At being thin. I think way too much. (No kidding!)
Working for Judy and Arthur Halliday in 2001 and 2002 and again a few other times since then, as well as being officially an employee of the Thin Within company right now…well, I think I allow myself to feel that I have to get this…and not only get this, but stay getting it.Perfectly. I have to appear like I have it all together, all the time.
That is a lot of pressure to put on myself. Obviously, that isn’t what God has in mind!
But it stands to reason that right now, when I daily come face to face with my failure to keep a hold on this…that I would feel beside myself. My pride is taking hit upon hit. But worse, my identity is shattering. An identity that shouldn’t be based on this at all…but is.
This morning, as I read in chapter 6 of Get Thin Stay Thin, I felt as if the timing couldn’t have been more precise…it was perfect.
I know Judy Halliday’s testimony well, but for some reason, it jumped off the page at me today. On page 127 (and following) she shares about the “failure” of the Thin Within company in the 1980s when the company went bankrupt. (For the record, Thin Within is now doing fine and may be visited online at http://www.thinwithin.org.)
Judy shared her response to the financial crisis in 1982:
Without Thin Within who would I be? What would I do? My sense of identity and self-worth were wrapped up in my work. Something that I considered so worthwhile had, in fact, become my graveclothes. GTST, p. 127
This is precisely how I feel. I feel like I was (am?) getting my identity from getting and staying thin. I even received national recognition (two well-circulating magazines did blurbs featuring yours truly…). Now that I have gained some weight back, I wonder who I am. If my identity was defined by my size before, is it now, too? So what does that make me? (The answers aren’t too flattering, as I am sure you can imagine.)
I must continue to work to shake this sense that I am defined by my size. I don’t want to haul this perception with me wherever I go. For years, I have allowed my size to define me–including before the “success,” so I know that this is a big struggle I face. I didn’t realize I was doing the same thing once I was thin…allowing outward appearance to define me. Yikes!
If we are honest we eventually reach a point in our lives where we must admit we’ve lost control. GTST, p. 128
Ok…this has to be it. This has to be the truth that I am supposed to see:
I have lost control.
Even for the year that I stayed at my “natural God-given size” or close to it, I had this feeling that it was by the skin of my teeth. I had a death grip on it…I clung to it. I got on the scale a lot and got very worried when it nudged a tad upward. I was definitely not walking in freedom no matter how I looked on the outside. I knew it. I knew that I was clinging tightly to what the Hallidays call further on in GTST a “false self.” When I wanted something sweet to eat, I had a diet soda. (Thus, the drinking of them ALL the time.) I never dealt with the heart issue. I was ensnared. My taste buds were one god and another was thinness. I couldn’t stand giving up one to potentially sacrifice the other…
So, yes, it is time for me to admit I have lost control. I don’t have a handle on this any more–if I ever really did.
My body is reacting differently to things. Maybe it’s being more honest now that it isn’t being pumped full of caffeine constantly. Eating indiscretions I got away with before, I can’t any more. Lustful cravings indulged, now are evident on the outside. God is showing me what is really here.
Also, now that I am not numbing out with food *or* diet soda, I am feeling things powerfully. Which explains how I got broadsided out of nowhere about the dad thing.
In 2 Corinthians 12:9, God says to the Apostle Paul:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul’s response is:
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
So here I am…ok, Lord. I am totally 100% weak. Totally in need of you. Depending on you. You have brought me to the end of myself and I am powerless to do anything to solve the need of my heart. I am weak, Lord…I need your power. I need your redemption. I need you.
Blind-sided…hit out of no where. Hit and laid flat.
Yesterday morning dawned and I was feeling chipper, alive, rested, good. I applied myself to doing things that needed getting done, not the least of which was finishing up the house cleaning.
Having made headway on that, I sat down at the laptop to work through a lesson online. I have committed to learning “CSS,” to develop my ability as a website designer. A highly recommended book took me to Amazon.com where, after ordering the book for learning CSS, I saw “Recommended for You” and clicked somewhat mindlessly (distracted, really) on an image of a book. The book image is enlarged on the left…The title is Longing for Daddy: Healing from the Pain of an Absent or Emotionally Distant Father.
Looking at the image cover, pondering the title…and a part of my heart that had been walled off from feeling began to crack…the dike burst. I was hit by a wave of overwhelming sorrow. Yes, I was blind-sided. Absolutely hit out of nowhere! The image on the cover of someone waiting, clearly lonely…and lingering quietly for “Daddy,” — it all resonated with me.
I wish I could say that all of the things I have been learning lately and posting about here at the blog were applied with eagerness in that moment and that the thoughts that came to me were taken captive and surrendered to Christ. I wish I could tell you I was victorious and that I lived out the greater truth than the one that broad-sided me (that of having an emotionally distant father who is now deceased). But nope…I was run over, flattened, wiped out.
In that moment (and all of yesterday, really) the fact that “I am 100% accepted by and acceptable to the God of this universe” sure didn’t seem to matter much. All I knew was the pain of never measuring up to my earthly father’s standards…I wasn’t good enough…I wasn’t pretty enough, thin enough, talented enough…and now he is gone. It is too late.
How did I handle it? By running.
Deep called to deep, but I wasn’t answering. Like Jonah, I hit the road. I had already felt swallowed alive by a bottomless, overwhelming emptiness.
Surely, God wanted me to “be still and know.” To know HIS sufficiency, HIS truth, HIS love. But he also wanted me to sit with the pain I was feeling. To rest in it, to give it a voice, to invite Him into it.
I would have none of it.
So what did I do? I reverted to old behaviors.
I ate.
I plunged myself into computer work.
I napped.
After my nap, I woke up with fat machinery in full throttle and ate some more.
All the while I knew that God–my Heavenly Abba–called. I didn’t answer the phone…I turned a deaf ear. I turned my back. I rejected His plan for this pain.
It is interesting…what happened didn’t surprise God at all. He knew that I would face that link at Amazon.com yesterday morning. He knew…no, he orchestrated it…for my good. Not for my undoing. The undoing part happened when, in my arrogance, I rejected his loving, healing hand.
He has a plan and a purpose for our pain. I know this. In fact, sometimes godly vision comes through pain.
What he wanted was my healing, but all I could think of was how painful the process is. I just couldn’t stand that…well, I am sure I could have. When I put my hand in his and allow him to lead me, choosing to trust him…he makes it possible in His strength–through the pain.
So this morning when my husband left for an early flight to Colorado at 4am and I couldn’t get back to sleep, I knew it was time to answer the call I ignored all day yesterday. I made my way to the living room where a fire glowed a welcome invitation to this place, this time, this divine purpose. Journal and bible in hand, I made my way to the couch and poured out my heart to God over this. I wanted to get angry, wanted to blame–which is a convenient way of steering away from the pain and going down a rabbit trail. I angrily asked God how he could possibly have allowed someone like my earthly father to be a father. He reminded me that this isn’t about whose fault it was. It was about my woundedness. My silent hunger…all the things I have been reading about and learning and more. Somehow, I had insulated myself against the “Dad stuff” until that moment at Amazon.com.
I have never been able to relate to God has Father. It has been almost impossible for me. At times, I get close to maybe being able to call him that…but typically, no. It stands to reason that He would want me to deal with this as it hinders my relating to him in all the ways that he wants me to relate to him.
After crying out in prayer, wiping the tears and throwing my kleenex in the wood-burning stove, I decided to look at what Jesus says to me about the Father in my bible. I turned to the gospel of John and invited Abba to show me Himself as my Heavenly Father.
The portrait that emerged even in the first 11 chapters of the gospel of John warmed my heart. Again, a greater Truth to counter my truth. I have generated a list of things that describe the Father according to Jesus and will continue this study through the rest of the gospel of John and possibly other books of the bible as well.
The thing that has struck me is the tenderness that emerges in this list. There is tenderness, strength, and reliability. I was touched to see that the Father seeks us–seeks me. The Father wants me to belong to Him for eternity. The Father has given me as a gift to Jesus… Gosh…who gives gifts that they don’t value?
The list is amazing and definitely softens my heart to God as my Heavenly Father. I know that this is only the beginning.
When I put this together with the truths of the past couple of months, it really is something that sets me up as if on a mountain top high over any deluge of a bursting levee. I mean, this God, this Father, this One who is working even now, who gives the dead life, who judges no one but who has entrusted judgment to Jesus, this one who give the true bread from heaven, who offers praise to people (imagine that!…just look at John 5:45)…this is the one who accepts me 100% and finds me 100% acceptable.
It is astonishing. I am glad for a new day, new mercies…tender mercies.
Somehow, the feeling of needing to run, to numb out doesn’t seem so great today. I can honestly say that the heartache was compounded yesterday by running from my Heavenly Father instead of sitting at His feet. The pain that I felt in his presence was worth the joy of having him reveal himself to me. I can’t begin to pretend that its over and we are ready to move on from this, but I am optimistic…and willing to relate to God as my Father. That is HUGE.
When it comes to walking this thing out in the dust of the earth…SO WHAT? Great theological truths like:
I have been justified by God. I am reconciled to God. I am 100% accepted by and acceptable TO God right now where I am
…leave one wondering “So what?” “How does this impact my life right now?” “I just want to lose weight!” “I want to be THIN!”
The authors of Get Thin Stay Thin (formerly Thin Again and Silent Hunger) don’t leave us wondering:
When we know that our value is based on our new identity in Christ, we take on a godly sense of self-worth. With this comes a new direction and purpose in our lives: to live in such a way as to honor the one who laid down his life to give us security and significance. Get Thin Stay Thin, page 108
I can honestly say that this is happening with me now. My beliefs are finally making it through to my heart and to my actions. It has been a tremendously slow process, but I see the fruit. My actions really are affected by what I believe. And how we act sometimes reveals what we really believe in spite of what we say!
For so long, my theology and my reality haven’t seemed anything like one another. I guess in many ways, I didn’t really believe what I said I did! It comes back to that old illustration of “If I say I believe the chair will hold me but refuse to sit in it, do I really believe the chair will hold me?” My action, or inaction, shows what I really believe about the chair.
Our beliefs have a very powerful influence on our eating habits and our identity. …we must set aside the false beliefs that determined our old character and actions and enter into our renewed mind. Only then will we experience the renewal of our beliefs, thoughts, and actions and ultimately the transformation of our character. Our goal is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can discard the fat machinery of the past and establish present time eating. GTST, p. 114
Again, fat machinery is those things we believe or do sort of “automatically” that result in eating without engaging the brain. They can be conditioned responses (turn on a video and out comes the popcorn) or responses to trauma or other emotions (we celebrate by having a feast) or even unworkable beliefs (have to eat 3 “square” meals a day to be healthy)…that sort of thing. Many of the things that affect our eating, as we have seen, are based in false beliefs or believing lies. We want to throw out all of those beliefs and allow God to renew our minds, transform our thinking. As we embrace TRUTH and take on new beliefs, our actions will be affected!
A solid sense of your identity and worth is the precursor to your ability to eat and live according to God’s intent and to being the person he designed you to be. GTST, p. 118
Lord, I pray that we might cast aside all the unworkable beliefs and lies that we have knowingly or unwittingly embraced. May we embrace the truth that you have redeemed us, forgiven us, and stand as Almighty Judge of the Universe declaring us NOT GUILTY–we have been reconciled and justified. Amazing, Lord. May this truth affect our actions…May we know when we reach for food outside of godly boundaries that we were created for more than this. Help us to respect ourselves with the esteem with which you have attributed to us. We belong to you. You purchased us. We are yours. May we treat “your property” appropriately, Lord, and allow your truth to establish our sense of value and worth. No matter who may reject, hurt, or fail me, this great truth–that you LOVE and ACCEPT me unconditionally–over-rides that…it is astounding. Thank you, Lord. In Christ’s Name, Amen.
Weeks ago, flight 1549 made a dangerous landing…perfectly executed in the Hudson River, saving the lives of 155 passengers aboard. The credit goes to the pilot who risked everything to attempt the impossible.
Sunday at church, our pastor–Mike Ernst–did a masterful job illustrating the fullness of God’s grace by using a clip from the 60 Minutes TV show that aired a week or so ago. This particular show, filmed a reunion of flight 1549 passengers with the pilot and crew who saved their lives. Here is a short video clip of this reunion:
Imagine any one of those passengers standing up and saying, “I just want you to know that I did MY part to be sure that the landing in the Hudson River was safe.” I mean the idea is preposterous. The passengers did nothing. The rescue was all about the pilot. The passengers were the beneficiaries of his wisdom, his gift, his potential sacrifice. There is NOTHING any of them did to be safe–to be alive to see the next day.
So, too, with us. There is nothing we can do to be acceptable to God. NOTHING. God has attributed Christ’s own righteousness to us. Christ became sin. We became His righteousness. Once we embrace Christ’s gift given for and to us, we are reconciled to God–completely, unconditionally, totally–all based on what HE has done.
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— – Colossians 1:21-22
If you have “blown it” right now, nothing…nothingcan keep you from the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord. He has “piloted” you to safety…out of the danger and potential of ever having to face God’s wrath. In fact, you never can do anything to make him turn his face away from you. You are totally acceptable to Him due to nothing you have done and nothing you do can change that.
You can’t do anything to make your “rescue” complete. To imagine that you could would be every bit as outlandish as if any of those passengers on Flight 1549 claimed any of the credit for saving his/her own life.
–> Do you believe that there is nothing you can do to win God’s acceptance?
How might this belief, embraced fully, affect how you view your struggle with food, eating and your body?
Lord, thank you that you have accepted us through Christ…100%…completely. There is nothing we can do to lose this standing with you and there is nothing we can do to gain it. Thank you for the complete reconciliation you have offered, you have provided for through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Lord, please help me to embrace this TRUTH completely and may it affect my choices day to day, moment by moment. When I find myself struggling with feelings of failure, or pain at my own hand or at the hand of others, I pray that I would be mindful of just how astonishing it is…”The God of the Universe accepts me completely…as I am…” May this truth transform us from the inside out. In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.
You are totally accepted by and acceptable to God…
…right now…right as you are…no strings attached. You are…you are.
How does this TRUTH sit with you?
Does it seem presumptuous? Impossible?
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5: 9-11
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Think about this for a minute…
If we allowed this to affect us, if we believed it as if it were true–and it IS…then, when we face defeat, failure–our own or someone else’s crashing into us–when we can’t believe we have messed up again…think of this…we can couple the pain of our feelings with this mighty truth:
I am totally accepted by and acceptable to the God of the universe!
I don’t know about you, but this seems like a strikingly practical way of being transformed by the renewing of my mind! Rather than letting my sadness, discouragement, or even anger rob me of what God intends in this moment, I can feast on the fact: God has declared that I am of incredible value and worth! No matter what anyone else thinks of me! No matter how anyone else treats me! Why would I need to eat my way through anything ever again? I mean, I am SO above the abuse I heap on my body–and that is just for starters. If I feel down and feel like I want to numb myself to my pain, why not bask for a while in the truth instead? The truth that:
I am totally accepted by and acceptable to the God of the universe!
Doing this won’t just numb me to the reality, but it will over-ride the pain in the reality! It is a BIGGER, GREATER, more ASTOUNDING reality!!!
Maybe you can tell that I am really excited about this. And it does connect with Get Thin Stay Thin chapter 5! How cool is that! 🙂
[The] undeniable, unavoidable longing for a sense of value is a sanctified hunger placed in us by God’s design, but we will never experience inner peace until we face the truth that nothing of this world–our appearance, our performance, others’ opinions of us, or our past experiences–can fulfill our longing for security and significance. GTST, p.101.
Our silent hunger will persist unsatisfied until we can see ourselves not through the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of our loving Lord. GTST, p. 102
Do you see it? Our world says we must act, be, do everything a certain way to win approval and acceptance! We get stuck in that mode and we put ourselves through strict paces…we MUST do this “Thin Within Thing” perfectly or we beat ourselves up. We must have the perfect body, we must love God perfectly…and if we don’t, we drag out that club of condemnation and don’t stop beating ourselves up with it.
What’s worse, we assume that this is God’s way!
This is the enemy’s delight.
It is a lie that the enemy has crafted and that the world has bought into. As with many things, the exact OPPOSITE thing is true…God has done it all. Every single solitary bit of your “acceptability” to God is because of what Jesus had done. ALL of it.
More on that tomorrow!
For now, I challenge you and me…will we believe God? Will we choose to believe that what he says is true? That he accepts us totally now? Without hesitation? Without condition? Without my having to jump through a single hoop?
–> How might believing, embracing, applying this truth affect your life? Affect your eating? Affect how you view your body?
Feel free to share in the comments! I love hearing from you!
This one is bowling me over! It has been radically affecting the way I live!
More thoughts from Chapter 5 of Get Thin Stay Thin, formerly known as Thin Again and Silent Hunger, by Arthur and Judy Halliday… —
I wrote about Chapter 5 a little bit previously, in this blog entry. God has given us a desire to experience intimacy, connection, and worth, but we so often settle for counterfeits. The authors of Get Thin Stay Thin state that one of the reasons this is the case is often rooted in our upbringing. Many of us are quick to blame our current struggles on our pasts. Always “the victim,” we have a blind spot–that of needing to own our choice to sin. We are free in Christ to choose. If we struggle with sin, we do not have the right to blame our choice to sin on our pasts. We may have a predisposition to struggle with a certain sin because of experiences we have had, but in Christ, we are VICTORS, not VICTIMS.
On the other hand, others of us refuse to consider that there may be reasons for what we struggle with now. We minimize that we are a product–at least in part–of our past experiences. We don’t connect our current beliefs with these experiences and, in not making the connection, we can often stay stuck.
As we identify the legitimate reasons we may struggle with a sin, and confess our choice to sin, we find freedom. There is a balance we need to find.
It is my prayer that all of us will seek the TRUTH–God’s truth. What is mine to own, I will own. What is a result of experiences of my past, I will allow God to reveal to me, dismantle and transform my beliefs about myself and about Him by the renewing of my mind.
With these things in mind, I share the following quotes from chapter 5:
…we are born into families where faulty dynamics may deprive us of the intimacy, security and significance God intended…Unable to distinguish between the negative messages sent by family members and our own sense of self-worth, we assume the deficiency lies with us. The result is shame–a feeling we are defective, valueless creatures who do not deserve the good things in life. GTST, p. 99-100
If the enemy and his minions have their way, we will be convinced–believe–this lie! But this is hardly what God’s Word says. The very fact that He gave His Son for us demonstrates that we are far from “defective, valueless creatures.”
–> Do you tend to think of yourself in these terms? Or do you see yourself as treasured, priceless, esteemed by the Ultimate, Almighty, Sovereign God of the Universe? Consider how who you believe yourself to be may affect your behavior. I know it affects mine!
The shame that is rooted in our childhood experiences, leaves us with a prevailing sense of worthlessness and insignificance that can lead to the false belief that we are hopeless and cannot change. Our lives then become a quest to prove our worth and to achieve a sense of security and significance by our own efforts. GTST, p. 100.
Oh, how true I have seen this to be! I go on quest after quest to prove I have value. For a season, it was as a “Graphic Design Queen” (sometimes it still is). For another season it was as “Church Lady”– or Bible Study Coordinator…and it has even been as the “Poster Child for Thin Within!” All of these (and more!) have been attempts to create little kingdoms where I can feel good about myself. It seems as though if I can’t ascend to a throne of an established “kingdom,” I will build my own little empire and declare myself ruler.
What a relief to stop this madness! What a relief to begin to change my beliefs–that God has declared me of great worth!
Those of us who struggle with food, eating, and weight, may spend our lives performing for acceptance because we equate our self-concept with personal appearance. When our reflection in the mirror is less than perfect we may continue our abusive patterns of starving or stuffing. GTST, p. 101
This is why for me, The Search For Significance materials have dovetailed so beautifully with the work I am doing with Get Thin Stay Thin. The two are intricately interwoven and connected. Having “ascended to the throne” of “Queen Thin Within” (said with tongue firmly planted in cheek), I have felt this pressure to keep up the appearance…the appearance…the appearance.I have been consumed with my physical appearance. It is easy for this to happen because over the past couple of years, I have gotten so many accolades and praises for losing the weight or looking the way I do now.
It makes sense that if I feel that my crown is slipping, that I am falling off the throne…that I have physically changed …gotten bigger…even if “only” by ten pounds, that I would feel devastated. My self-concept has been SO connected to my physical appearance!
It doesn’t help that the enemy declares “Ha! Fraud! Impostor! Fake!” as he laughs with glee. He plays on the shame that is rooted in my past…that I am defective and valueless.
So, punishing myself, for a short while, I returned to some of the behaviors of the past.
I am so thankful that I haven’t just thrown in the towel like I have in the past. I haven’t accepted the “crown” of “defeat,” “loser” that the enemy would have me embrace.
No, I stand knowing that I am precious in God’s site, that my performance does not define who I am, or my worth! I have invited the Lord to renew my mind with this belief, this TRUTH. My performance does not define who I am and my value. I do not need to rally to win the approval of others–OR of GOD!!!–in order to press on with my head up!
As I shared in yesterday’s blog entry, he has been doing a new thing and continues to do so…a much deeper, eternal thing. My physical body won’t be going with me to glory! Who I am becoming will.
For some of us, it may happen when the kids are all grown up and gone and we suddenly have an “empty nest.” It isn’t the “nest” being empty that bothers us so much, perhaps. It is that we wonder who we are now that they are gone. Or when the economy has caused lay-offs and we no longer have the same routine, the same job, the same function, the same income,…we wonder similarly…”Who am I now?”
I must continue to work to shake this sense that I am defined by my size. I don’t want to haul this perception with me wherever I go. For years, I have allowed my size to define me–including before the “success,” so I know that this is a big struggle I face. I didn’t realize I was doing the same thing once I was thin…allowing outward appearance to define me. Yikes!
