Yesterday, I heard a song on KLOVE that I don’t like especially well, but a truth shared in it sort of came home to my heart in a fresh way. The Lord calls us–the church, His people–His “Bride,” His Betrothed, His Beloved. Jesus is the Bridegroom.
I wonder…if I related more often to God as Lover and myself as His Beloved, if it might not revolutionize how I approach food, eating, denial of self, and …well, everything?
In my experience, “parent/child” relationships have not been the most positive. I do, of course, hope that I have offered my children a different experience than my parents offered me. If I relate to God as parent and myself as child, given my earthly experience as a child, it is no small wonder that my willingness or desire to surrender, to trust, to choose what He wants instead of what I want chafes, grates, BUGS me.
I have been blessed with a wonderful husband. I can really identify with the Beloved/Lover relationship. In my relationship with my husband, I am chosen out of all the women in the world, cherished, protected, nurtured, provided for. When my husband desires change for me, I have no question that it is with my best good in mind. It is because he honestly longs for me to experience the best God has in mind for me.
With my parents, I wasn’t safe, I wasn’t cherished or chosen. I was an inconvenience and not accepted. I was an extra expense. When they wanted change for me, it was because I annoyed them or worse. (I know that God used my childhood for my spiritual formation and I can actually thank Him for it now!)
I have voluntarily read books about being a better wife. I have attended seminars and workshops, led and attended bible studies on the subject. I have *wanted* to change. My motivation has been because I have no question of my husband’s love and, as such, I want to be my best for him. I want to honor him, esteem him, understand him, respond to him.
In my role as child, I never read a book, attended a bible study or seminar, or even cared about how to be a better child. I had no motivation…not even fear of my parents could motivate me to truly change. If there appeared to be any changes, they were external only. In fact, I might hold it together for a brief while, but rebellion was brewing beneath the surface, read to explode in an opportune moment.
I know my husband delights in time spent with me. We love going to lunch together on Sunday afternoons, or riding the horses together out on the trail. Even just hanging out together on our back deck enjoying the evening and talking. I respond to this kind of relationship. God knows this.
In His Word, God says that He chose me before the foundation of the earth. In love He predestined me to be adopted–to be chosen. He says I am for the pleasure of His will. In Zephaniah, I am told that he delights and rejoices over me with singing. The psalmist tells me that the King is enthralled with my beauty. He calls me to come away to the wilderness with him.
When I resist God’s call to me to let go of food (when I am not hungry) and to allow Him to be enough, I think I am relating to Him as parent and myself as stubborn, unwanted, unapproved of child. My earthly experience sets this up to be something that isn’t positive. I hold it together for a while…the “changes,” though, are external. Then KABLOOEY! I rebel for all I am worth. Sure, those “Kablooey” moments may not be the all out binges like in the past, but I see them as they are…a direct “IN YOUR FACE” to God…something I might do to my earthly parents, but would NEVER feel in my relationship with my husband.
I wonder…might I experience something new in my relationship with the Lord and what He wants to do in my life if I stopped feeling like the child all the time and started relating to Him as Lover? Some might be horribly offended at this thought…saying God IS Your Father. Yes, He is. But I wonder…perhaps I must extend grace to myself. Is it possible that one of the reasons God gives us so many names for Himself or so many characterizations for Him is because He knows that our human experience is bound to blemish any one of them at any given time? He even characterizes himself as a mother nursing her baby…something I can only identify with in the most wonderful way. And as a bird gathering her young beneath her wings…and as a shepherd gently leading the sheep who have young lambs tagging along. Perhaps the Lord, who is ALL of these things, intends that I might adjust my perspective so that I can truly rest in knowing, serving, living in Him in whatever characterization(s) that most speak truth to my heart.
For now, I delight that He has given me a wonderful husband who God has used to bring home to me that God relates to me as His Betrothed, His Beloved…I get that. I follow it. I love it.
Today, when I reached for something when I wasn’t hungry, I heard the familiar self-rebuking “You shouldn’t have that.” It was the child hearing the voice of the parent…which caused me to instantly get my dander up. Fortunately, I was able to take these truths home to my heart that God caused me to write in my journal this morning. I chose to change how I viewed God in that moment…from unapproving (which he isn’t, of course) parent, to loving, passionate, caring Lover. When I thought of my Lover, my Bridegroom, asking me to let HIM satisfy what really was lacking instead of turning to food in that moment, I was able to respond with an open heart and open arms… “Absolutely, Lord. I am yours. Your will be done.”
Just moments ago, I was digging through my hard drive trying to find space for my DisneyWorld videos and photos. I found the following entry from an online journal at a friend’s website. I wrote it five and a half years ago. I wonder if anyone can relate to this? I know I can right now:
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December 20, 2002
Gosh, I hope that those of us who have been battling discouragement don’t quit. I have been in this place. I seem to live in it, in fact.
Recently, however, God is bringing home a new truth to my heart. My life on earth is not about my life on earth. Does that make sense? It is about closeness with the Lord. I am learning that God wants MORE THAN ANYTHING for me to press in to HIM. To cling to Him. To know Him.
Sometimes, I have valued the blessings of THIS life more than I have the value of knowing HIM. So, when (if) I behave myself, I seem to expect him to do his part.
But…I don’t think he will–or he doesn’t *have* to. He is an untamed God–unpredictable. Yes, he is loving and wonderful and compassionate and all the things the bible says, but I can’t make him (compel him to) do things in my life that I want. When I expect that and he doesn’t, I get disappointed, angry, mad and even begin to take on a different view of his character.
So, I let go of my assumption that if I let go of food I will someday be svelte. You know what? I think that has been an idol for me. Even being healthy…that goal has been an idol for me.
I want to know Jesus and him crucified…I want to know the power of sharing in his sufferings. I want to count ALL things as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Him.
I have finally realized that my battle with food, my body, self image and on and on are not about my finally “getting it.” They are about my knowing Christ. I would never have sought him so much if not for this struggle, but because I think he isn’t doing his part (making me lose weight since I am jumping through the right hoops, for instance) I have allowed that to distort my view of His character. No more. Now I will let go of my insistence that I control what HE does by my “obedience” or my behavior.
Instead, I will trust that He is God. He is good. Knowing HIM will satisfy that emptiness…not just now but for eternity. It doesn’t mean I won’t continue to try to eat less, but my goal will be to know Him. To lean into Him, rather than to live a certain way so God will bless my efforts. I don’t believe that is biblical. I have been in error. I find that as I recognize this, confess it, and look to God to reform my life perspective, the pressure IS off.
I have been singing with a CD about Him being more than enough…yet until a few days ago, I was so mad at Him that I couldn’t imagine finding Him satisfying ever again… Letting go of the thought that “If I do this and this and this then God will do this and this and this…” really has taken the pressure off. It has freed me up to see HIM. To draw nearer to Him and in that place I have been finding he IS truly satisfying.
My compulsion for reaching for food has diminished. Now I LOVE him again. When the compulsion rears its head I want to cling to HIM. I want to KNOW Him more than I want the taste of a favorite food in my mouth.
– *Repentant Rebel ~ (working on it in Christ…) Phil 4:13
(* Repentant Rebel was my screen name during that season…)
Hi, everyone. My 14 year old daughter and I have been in Orlando, Florida with a dear friend and her daughter. We got here last Sunday and will arrive home in California tonight. We have had an absolute blast!!! Pictures and video to come. I actually volunteered during the Indiana Jones show to be “an extra!” I got to be a citizen of Cairo! SUCH FUN and definitely not something I would have done a couple of years ago.
The most challenging thing about *that* experience was the person taking volunteers had each one of us state our name, where we are from and then she asked us to imitate a specific Disney character. I have a real “issue” with Minnie Mouse–can’t stand her. LOL!!! Of course, she asked me to giggle like Minnie! I about died since my friend, her daughter, and my daughter all knew that I do NOT like Minnie Mouse! So, in front of 100s of my “closest friends” I actually GIGGLED like Minnie Mouse. Good grief! Ok…that was DEFINITELY out of my comfort zone! LOL! I could just picture my friend cracking up about that one.
My friend is someone who I “met” online about eight years ago in a yahoo group. We developed our friendship as God led us together (she lives in Tulsa) to process the material–of all things–in the Thin Again book. The book encourages us to get assistance in “unwrapping graveclothes” and Jan was the one that God chose to assist me with that process. We have been dear friends ever since and occasionally get to go cool places together. This was the first time that we have done something THIS big and WONDERFUL with our daughters, though!
God is good. This trip has testified to that. My eating has not been stellar, admittedly. I got swept up by my own vulnerability due to being so tired (poor baby–I played TOO hard this week! :-)) but I am back on track today.
We have a seven hour flight ahead of us–no connection. So, we are packing provisions for the trip–you know, those wonderful TEASER foods. EEK! I will be MUCH in need of some serious PROTEIN when we land tonight in Sacramento!
“Talk” to you all later this weekend (if I don’t catch up on sleep instead!)!
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors
and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.
When she heard about Jesus,
she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
Immediately her bleeding stopped
and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered,
“and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ “ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her,
came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear,
told him the whole truth.
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
– Mark 5:25-34
“God’s way is the way of faith and freedom. When we bring our struggles with food, eating, and weight to him in honest surrender, we can be restored. For this to happen we must allow God to lead us to a place where we are:
Free to risk–letting go of the past in order to live unencumbered in the present (1 Peter 5:6,7)
Free to change–being transformed from the inside out by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2)
Free to trust–trusting God and the way he made us (1 Cor. 6:19)
Free to love–loving as Christ loves us (John 13:34)
As we act in faith and surrender to this kind of freedom, we will experience a new relationship with God, with ourselves, and with our bodies.”
——— This idea of being free to risk has really hit me afresh. We talked about this in our Thin Within online support group chat the other night. If we give our coping mechanisms–if we dare to reach for the hem of Jesus’ robe even while we lay hemorraging in the dust–what if he doesn’t choose to heal? What if he doesn’t choose to change me?
The hemorraging woman in Mark 5 believed that just a touch of Jesus’ robe was all she needed. In that act of faith, I wonder if she got more than what she bargained for–God’s power surged through her in a burst of healing. She had risked everything she had left–all her hope, all her dignity (if she had any left)–to weave through the crowd even though the culture had declared her “unclean” for years. She had tried everything else–and had always come up with dashed hopes. She had to be free to risk…this time the last of her hope as well as everything else. With the last bit of daring she could muster she lurched for the hem of his robe–even through the crowd of people, all who hoped to get closer to him…
As she risked it all, dared to put “all her eggs in this basket,” she experienced transformation. But in order to do that, she had to be willing to risk losing it all…again.
When we come to the Lord with our disordered eating, and choose to change the way we cope with anger, with frustration, and with all our other emotions…when we willingly surrender the way we have turned to food in order to cope, we take a huge risk. How will we cope now?
We begin to see the truth–the truth that sets us free–that our issues with food, eating, weight aren’t about food–not really. It is about something so much deeper and thus, it has the power to hurt so much more profoundly. What IF I hope and am disappointed? What if I am left…hungry…I mean with my soul hungering yet?
IS it worth the risk?
I wonder…had the bleeding woman not been healed if she would have regreted the act of lungeing for Jesus’ robe. I wonder if, in spite of disappointment, there would have been something in her that would have rested in resolution. Somehow, I don’t think she would have regreted taking the risk, even if things had turned out differently.
But things didn’t turn out differently. She was healed.
Am I willing to let go of the past in order to live unencumbered in the present? That means letting go of the way food has comforted me, been a companion for me, numbed me to anger and pain…been the focus of my Saturday nights and celebrations. Am I willing to let go of all the “been there done thats” that have come before and believe that God is even now doing a new thing? Am I willing to risk?
Are you?
I challenge you to journal a prayer about your willingness (or lack of). Ask God to meet you where you are just as he met the bleeding woman.
NOTE: I am leaving for DisneyWorld early tomorrow morning. My daughter and I are meeting up with my dear friend, Jan, and her daughter for 5 days in the happiest place on earth! If I don’t have a chance to blog while I am gone, I will see you when I return!
Judy Halliday asked me something a month or two ago that has stuck with me. I guess it has been “fermenting” in my mind and heart.
She knows that the book Thin Again was used powerfully in my life. It is a book (for those of you who don’t know about it) that was released first in 1995 with the title Silent Hunger. Then, it was published a couple of times (same book) as Thin Again. Most recently, it has been published with yet another title: Get Thin Stay Thin.
I haven’t been crazy about the newest title, liking the first title the most. But there is something that has been resonating in me with this latest title…even if I don’t like the title. I think it is the fact that…well, ok, I have gotten thin. But will I stay thin? The title is sort of speaking an answer to that. It sounds weird to say that…
So anyhow…Judy knows that years ago, I was passionate about how this book NEEDS a workbook to help people work through it and to discuss it in a small group setting. At the time we were working on the writing of the Thin Within book, it just wasn’t God’s time, though. Since then, I have brought it up a couple of times as well. It still hasn’t been time.
You can imagine my surprise when Judy mentioned it to me. I still am uncertain that we will move forward with the idea now, but the timing of it intrigues me. Right now, when I am most in need of revisiting some of the deeper issues behind my dysfunctional relationship with food, it does seem intriguing that it might be time now to launch into a writing project…the one I have had a passion for in the past.
Over a year ago, I even tried to reread the Thin Again book. I couldn’t get into it.
Today, I picked it up again. (Thus, the title of this blog entry: Thin Again? Again? LOL!)
Each word is resonating with me just like it did so many years ago. I hope to process some of it here on the blog…and as I do, perhaps some of the ideas for the workbook that we will be working on writing will surface.
If you have the book Silent Hunger, Thin Again, or Get Thin Stay Thin (again, these are all the same book with different titles), PLEASE consider participating in this by posting comments at the end of the blog entries. I would LOVE to get feedback from others and see how God uses our exchange to show me what HE wants in a possible workbook.
Just to whet your appetite, here is from the Introduction…
“Hunger is a universal experience. Television, newspapers, and magazines bring wide-eyed and sunken-cheeked faces from around the world into our homes and our hearts, and we are grieved. yet even those of us fortunate enough to have an abundance of food are hungry. We sit down three times a day to tables laden with food, but our deepest hunger is not satisfied.
“Each of us has a hunger deep within where no one can see. And although it may not be obvious, this hunger is the most universal of all. It is the silent hunger of the starving soul. It is silent because we don’t recognize it or have words to describe it; silent because it has been muted with years of behavior designed to still its voice; silent because the noise of our world prevents it from being heard.
“But this hunger cannot be completely silenced. It cries out to be heard. It is our compelling desire to be loved, protected, and considered precious. It is a God-given hunger for genuine intimacy wherein our deepest needs for security and significance can be substantially met.”
(Get Thin Stay Thin page 11)
—-
I hope you see what I mean. If you don’t have this book you can get it for less than $7.00 in its latest incarnation. 🙂
Gratitude–expressing it–is so life-changing…not just in the long haul, but giving gratitude to God, sometimes even just with an act of my will–can even change my (and ME) NOW!!!
So, given I have been finding myself in an ever descending spiral of frustration this week, I know that expressing gratitude is the way OUT of the pit!
Psalm 22:3 says (KJV): But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
For those of you who, like me, can’t believe that the verse doesn’t actually SAY: “God inhabits the praises of His people,” after hearing it quoted that way for years, I looked up the word from KJV translated “inhabitest” and “enthroned” in other more modern translations.
The Strong’s exhuaustive concordance says this word “inhabitest” means the following:
to dwell, remain, sit, abide 1a) (Qal) 1a1) to sit, sit down 1a2) to be set 1a3) to remain, stay 1a4) to dwell, have one’s abode 1b) (Niphal) to be inhabited 1c) (Piel) to set, place 1d) (Hiphil) 1d1) to cause to sit 1d2) to cause to abide, set 1d3) to cause to dwell 1d4) to cause (cities) to be inhabited 1d5) to marry (give an dwelling to) 1e) (Hophal) 1e1) to be inhabited 1e2) to make to dwell
I have put my objections aside! 🙂
GOD DWELLS in the praises of His people. He remains, he stays, he sits down in…my praises! WHOO HOO! It works for me!
God chooses to live in, dwell amidst, show up in praises of His people.
That is pretty awesome.
So, it stands to reason, that if I am in a pit of discouragement, defeat, loneliness, lies, disobedience, shame, despair, pity…whatever my PIT walls may be made of…well, if I start praising God anyhow, giving gratitude to Him for anything and everything I can think of (no matter how trivial)…then HE MOVES IN. I have this feeling that if he moves in to my praises, it won’t be long that, as my praises lift him up and exalt him, that I will float on up out of my pit with it all! Sounds good to me!
So, I am heading over to my gratitude blog to add some more things (some may be reruns) that I am giving God praise, thanks, and gratitude for. If you want, you can use the comments and join me in giving thanks, adoration, gratitude, and praise to God. Nothing is too small…nothing too trivial.
In faith, I know that this changes me in the long haul, but it also changes me NOW. Focusing not on what I am disgruntled about (a lengthy list, it seems), but on HIM and all HE does…
