Good grief. It’s raining—no, pouring—and it is 80 degrees outside. What I mean is everything is happening at once. Ok, I know that none of this is a surprise to God, of course. (A good little Christian girl is supposed to say that just before having her tantrum…Here comes the tantrum…) Good grief…what is He thinking? (Do you see the pride and arrogance in my comment?…How far the “mighty” have fallen, huh?)
Let’s back up…so the contrast is right here in living color in front of us.
* Between Mid-November and May 1, I released a truckload of bad habits, unworkable beliefs, “issues” and 62 pounds besides.
* I went from a size 22+ down to a size 12 on a good day. (Are you impressed yet? :-/)
* My blood pressure returned to normal without meds any more.
* I no longer “use” caffeine to get through the day or over-the-counter sleeping meds to help me sleep at night.
* My walk with God was on the upswing… he was teaching me so much…and it seemed like there was no way I could ever return to that place of darkness, habitual sin, captivity. I just couldn’t imagine it and though I was somewhat fearful of daring to hope, I did anyhow… “Has God delivered me?”
Today, here it is…as simple as this. I am struggling with:
· Imagining how, after homeschooling my kids most of their lives, where the bazillion dollars for their bourgeois Christian private school will come from for the fall.
· Grieving the close to the season of life I have had with my babies being home with me. Oh, how I will miss them. I really enjoy them so much of the time. There is so much challenge ahead…it is taking everything in me to do this.
· Tomorrow, I have to somehow get my wolfdog rescue into the car to take him to the vet where he will have a battery of tests. I don’t know if he has allergies or cancer…or something in between…like heartworm. But he is 10, does NOT travel well, let alone cope with new situations well…He doesn’t do leashes, he doesn’t do cars, he doesn’t DO vets. How are we going to manage this? Let alone cope with the expense and heartache of whatever is wrong with him.
· Meanwhile, my horse who is away at training is colicking and possibly has stones (enteroliths) in his gut causing impaction…he could die from this and now he will be going to the vet on Weds. to have radiographs. The money needed will be horrific, let alone the fact that while he isn’t feeling well, his training is at a standstill, even though we are paying for him to be there. He could die, or will need surgery to the tune of $3000 to $5000 now and if not now, will we wait until he has a problem and needs emergency surgery for a greater expense? Good grief….
· My daughter has to have 5 teeth pulled and braces and since there isn’t any retirement money for that (the retirement money is going for the kids’ bourgeois Christian private school tuition I guess), I guess we will sell stock options or something from Bob’s work to pay for those…(Maybe we should sell horses…erm…nevermind…)
· My daughter is wigging because she can’t handle seeing ME stressed…
· My son is self-absorbed…(did I say I enjoy my kids now?)
· As I type this, my kids are PICKETING me for “being unfair” in banning a computer game that can no longer be played in our home…(I am not kidding….)
My response to this:
All I can think of is hot fudge sundaes….lots of them. I want to swim in them. I want to guzzle them. Whipped cream dripping…the rich kind…the full fat kind. Slivered or chopped almonds everywhere….and since my stupid stomach can’t handle more than probably 5 bites of the stuff even if I am hungry, somehow, I would need to find a way to keep eating and eating and eating without ever feeling sick to my stomach. Ooooooh, how badly I want that….
What is really ironic is just a few days ago, dear sweet Judy Halliday who has only heard all the GOOD stuff…all the things in the FIRST bulleted list…asked me if I would share my testimony at the TW conference in June. Oh my word. Well, this sure isn’t a good testimony to share. I can share about how shame has jumped on my back again so quickly and easily. Or how the pride that I thought was shaken loose has its claws in me causing me to think *I* know best…better than God. Bruuuuther. What kind of testimony is that?!?!?!!?
So, just after paying the much-larger-than-I-expected and how-will-I-tell-hubby registration fee for the kids’ school at the private school, I suddenly swerved the car to the freeway onramp (I think it was a magnetic pulse in the earth’s field…yeah, yeah…that was it). Resolute, WE were going drive an hour to the old-fashioned ice cream parlor where we used to occasionally go…and haven’t been in forever. My intention was to buy my own humongous HOT FUDGE sundae with EXTRA EVERYTHING (well, no cherry…I don’t like cherries) and the kids could share one, thank you very much (they aren’t cheap after all). Something possessed me to call my husband as we went to tell him about the plans for Harley to go to the vet and one thing led to another. I told him where we were going. Rather than laugh it off, he told me I would regret indulging in the sundae…the nerve of him! I asked him: “Even if it is my dinner?” He told me he knew I would. Nuts…I knew he was right and that shame would get an even tighter hold on me… and I pulled off the highway and back on to an onramp going back the other way…. my kids clearly disappointed from the backseat (they are almost 13 and almost 15, so their disappointment can be loud, obnoxious and extremely convincing). Of course, they begged me to resume the course we had been on before hubby had breathed sense into me. No…no mongo hot fudgers.
Instead, I swung by the home of the golden arches for them to get their fix of ice cream and I abstained—didn’t have a single bite of the oreo McFlurry. All the while my thoughts of how virtuous I was were being squelched by the truth of the matter—I was STILL lusting, coveting, fantasizing BIG time for a delicious hot fudge sundae. My heart was still a million miles from the Lord and HIS way. Nuts. (Chopped almonds please…)
Instead of ice cream (which we know is lawful, but in this case, God said NO WAY), I settled for a caffeine free diet coke…which seemed ok to me. Since getting home, though, I have been hungry and fed the hunger a graham cracker with peanut butter (dipped in milk) and a teaspoon of whipped chocolate frosting. Good grief.
I can’t call any of this a victory. Ok, maybe I can, but only a “comparable victory.” It still demonstrates that I am not normal. Normal people don’t fantasize about swimming in hot fudge sundaes dripping with real rich whipped cream and almonds sprinkled everywhere…and never getting full so they can keep eating and eating.
So much for having a raving testimony to share with conference-goers in June.
Thing is, the struggle isn’t past. My dog still has to get to the vet somehow tomorrow and still may end up dying there and my horse may still die of colic or require a $5000 surgery and my kids will still be ripped out of my home (hard to say it that way when it is the Lord who has insisted and done the “ripping”) and the money still has to be found for that, too, oh..AND the braces and 5 teeth to be extracted…and my husband is sure to go ballistic as he tries to pay for everything which is freaking me out…I can’t handle it when he stresses about money. It just totally freaks me…
I still want hot fudge sundaes. I wish I could say I didn’t.
Some of you might wonder if I have come back from the backslide. LOL! I figure I better share.
Yes, God has a hold on me.
But there are some things I get to cope with.
I stepped on the scale today and while I hate to admit it, somehow, the number was TEN pounds more than my lowest weight on May 1.
My dieting mentality out of the past would send me into a tizzy about this.
Fortunately, though, I don’t buy that for a moment. I happen to know that my weight is always quite a bit higher during certain times of the month. I will weigh again on June 1 and count that for sure.
But I know that in the past, seeing that sort of LEAP upwards almost overnight would cause me to freak out…major panic. Major panic brings with it major discouragement and major rebellion.
But GOD IS DOING A NEW THING (have I said that before? LOL!) and so this time, it just isn’t so. First of all reality…my clothes aren’t fitting like I have gained 10 pounds! So I choose to think the scale is doing a number on me and that Satan is hoping I will cave in.
I also don’t NEED the scale to tell me that my priorities have been out of whack. Even before I got on the scale, apart from any number telling me so, I knew that I have eaten outside of godly parameters lately…but only for a week or so, if that!
So what about the number on the scale? Well, I think I will blow it off. Yes, I will. Why? Because this isn’t about weight even though in my flesh I may want to make it be about my weight. It really isn’t. It is about my walk with the Lord. The scale doesn’t really weigh that at all. The Holy Spirit living in me tells me the truth about that. So that is the *scale* I will heed..the scale of the Spirit who weighs my choices and brings godly conviction.
Yesterday and today I have handed this aspect of my life back to the Lord. No, not perfectly, but I am listening to His voice again and responding in kind. One step at a time is all he asks of me.
I am so glad that God isn’t like me…I lose my patience with myself so easily. God’s long suffering is…well…loooooong…suffering! LOL!
Bo has an appointment early Tuesday morning with a different vet clinic than the one who sent the vet out. I haven’t had a vet I really like for years and he is retired now. So anyhow, we begin again early Tuesday morning. I just need to pray for dear Bo and the wisdom and kindness of the vets and staff.
Bo and I will try to get acquainted with the car this weekend and on Monday and hopefully treats and stuff in it will help him to feel better about it. I just don’t know. I may have to muzzle him because he gets sooooo fearful. I am really concerned about that, too. The vet clinic does not want me to sedate him (we used dramamine when we moved from Rocklin).
From what I understand, Bo will probably have to spend the entire day there for tests to be run. Then, depending on the results, if he has heartworm, they would need to hospitalize him. I just don’t know how this will go. I am very uncertain.
Bo is very connected to my Thin Within journey. He was given to us by God just before the writing of the Thin Within book. In fact, God used him throughout the writing of the book and workbook to remind me of His unconditional love for me, his wandering sheep. Bo was a stray who we chose to shower with love–just because it gives us joy. God has chosen to shower love on each one of us just because it gives him joy to do so. God wants us to rest in this new identity he gives to us. Bo is only now, after all this time (over 6 years), beginning to settle into our home (his issue has been my husband) and to trust in the identity he has been given as our special family dog.
God often uses animals and real life things to remind me of powerful lessons and truths and right now, for me and to remember the timing of Bo’s entrance into our life (as a stray who we later discovered was a resident of a wolf rescue) and all the things that God has shown me through him…well…it is pertinent right now, certainly.
If any of you wouldn’t mind praying for Bo…we would appreciate it. He is 10 years old and is quite skittish. His early days, before we got him, set him up to be very fearful. Just about 9 months ago, God caused my path to cross with a lady who recognized my story about Bo (and his name and age matched). She connected me with the lady who placed him in the wolf rescue and I got to find out about Bo’s early life and his mom and dad. Talk about “amazing.” I know God wanted me to have some of my answers.
Since Samson died in July of 2006, Bo has plunged himself even more deeply into our hearts, connecting to my kids and me in deeper ways. He has also begun to make overtures to my husband who has wanted Bo to trust him all this time. My husband has a soft heart for Bo…(well, that will be tested with the upcoming vet bill!).
So, no sooner do I post that Anatomy of a Backslide than I get news from my vet that my 10 year old wolfdog rescue needs to get to the vet clinic and be hospitalized as his white blood count is up…he is terrified of going anywhere and I have the vets come *here* to vaccinate him or, like yesterday, take his blood. He is the only connection I have to the most wonderful Samson who passed away on July 3 2006…Bo was Sammy’s best friend. I just will not be able to handle leaving Bo at a vet clinic for tests…and overnight! Oh my goodness…
So I got that news on the phone and then ate brownies…
I ignored God’s voice.
I totally turned my back.
So here you have it…it is all unraveling…
All I need to do is fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of my faith. All I need to do is pray, to cling to Him. All I need to do is hide myself in Him as my Rock…and yet that seems beyond me now…
Nothing like a dog returning to her vomit.
Observe and correct. Confess and Repent.
Lord, with an act of my will, I turn to you right now. I know that you want me to cling to you, to reach out to you, to hold on to you. EVERYTHING else is shifting sand. No human can do for me what you can. No animal, no matter how precious…No answers, no thing…only you. You alone have what my heart longs for. I have a God-shaped void within me, planted there by you and oh how great is that void right now, Lord. I confess that I have turned my back, shut my ear to your sweet voice. I confess that I have gone my own way…a way that I know leads to misery. I seek your forgiveness, your restoration, your solution. I want your will, your way in my life. NOTHING will have power over me except your Holy Spirit. I choose you, Lord. I choose only you. I confess that I have walked far afield of your will for me and I want to return. I choose to return to the path of God’s provision instead of my own performance. I know that you forgive. I know that you have promised in your word that you cleanse us of all unrighteousness when we confess our sin to you. I receive that cleansing now, Lord. Thank you for it.
You ARE doing a new thing right now. In the past, this turn back the way I have done this in the past week or so would spell disaster…but it WILL NOT MEAN THAT NOW. You are showing me freedom and I know you are showing me that now…even in the mistakes, even in the times when I choose my own way, you are LORD. You are sovereign. You are king. You are my Savior, my Shepherd. I welcome you to restore me now, Lord. I need that. Thank you. Take me, Lord…I want to be wholly yours. In Christ’s name and for His sake…oh and Lord…would you please heal my Bo-man, too? Please, Jesus. I entrust him to your care. He is so precious to me and I know you placed him in our lives…
A caring friend pointed out to me that even if I am struggling, I need to post here. I had confessed to her that I am really in a yucky place right now and she pointed out that I claimed my blog was a chronicle of my “journey” and journeys are filled with rough spots, diversions (at times), hills and valleys. She is right…
I find it interesting that the last time I posted was my entry about *fear*. I feared that I would regain weight. The past week has found me actually on a path to do that very thing, it seems. I wonder if the fear I had actually fed the behavior. In Thin Within week 3 we learn about how what we believe affects our actions. I think that I have believed that I WOULD regain the weight…that I WOULD fail, if you will. This belief has fueled my actions…actions that seem to justify the fear and it is a vicious cycle.
The changes in my mindset that I have allowed lately have been heading in a direction I never imagined heading ever again. There has been nothing that has precipitated it necessarily. It is very subtle, but swift as well. The more I nudge God out of my life, the more often I make excuses about prayerlessness, the more I allow my quiet times to be intellectual exercises instead of being at the feet of my blessed Lord, the more sin I allow to go unconfessed … the more I invite waywardness into my life–the backslide. ALL of these things make a difference in my walk with God. The weight released from my body is a reflection not of my self-control or ability to “do” Thin Within. It is much deeper than that. It is a product of fostering a walk with Him of listening to and heeding His voice in much deeper ways.
If I stop listening to him and stop heeding his voice…the backslide is under way.
So, when I find my eating becoming more chaotic again, I know it is not about Thin Within. It is about my walk with God. It is a barometer of deeper things. I need not to fixate on the keys to conscious eating…I need to focus on the Lord again. I need to invite him to invade my life afresh. I must sit at his feet. I must be still and know that he is God.
Last night I had carmel corn for dinner. This was a product of chaos allowed in my life. I know that it is permissible to have carmel corn for dinner, though definitely not beneficial. And, yes, it was between 0 and 5. But that wasn’t the point. God wanted me to be deliberate, to go to the store, to buy what we needed to offer myself and my kids (hubby is out of town) a meal that provided flavor, yes, and nutrition. I knew that, but I chose to go my way, to do my thing, to minimize, to justify, to throw all the ingredients for a backlide into a big bowl, mix well, and presto…misery.
God is teaching me in all “areas” of my life that there are no “areas” of my life. It is, simply, my LIFE. In my LIFE he wants me to get on the page where pride is put to death. I found that something that I have invested so much of my heart in, my time, my life, my money in is beyond hard. It has been for the four years I have put so much into it…and yet it remains…hard. Rather than get easier, it seems to be getting harder.
On Monday, I just wanted to quit. In fact, I had a bit of a temper tantrum. I told God I wanted to quit because it was too hard…He quietly told me “You always do.” That surprised me. He further made me realize that I quit when things are so hard for me because of pride. There it is again. “Excuse me, Lord? I thought pride had been dealt with!” (Do you hear the pride in that???)
For instance, any sports that don’t come naturally to me and that I don’t excel at, I quit–I don’t bother trying to learn (this is the way it has always been). Now this…I just want to quit. It will take so much more work for me to be what I need to be in this and God has told me that it is pride that makes me want to quit. I can’t settle for being “bad” at it either, as it will affect lots of things and, potentially, my safety. I have to keep trying not just to be “good enough,” but to “be good” at something that is NOT natural for me. I just want to throw in the towel and cry in a heap on the ground over it.
Anyhow, this has been one more way that God has shown me that pride must die. When pride is allowed to go unchecked in any respect (and it is insidious), it affects EVERYTHING. It literally seeps like dirty oil into other aspects of my life…things that I thought were “safe” are not…like my eating. Before you know it, I am making my own choices again and turning my back on the quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) voice of God.
The anatomy of a “backslide” is definitely rooted in pride and strengthened with justifications. Add a hefty dose of prayerlessness and allow feelings to go unchecked…and presto…you have a backslide.
I was preparing for this evening’s online support group chat meeting and looked at a chat transcript three weeks into the support group that Pam Sneed led that I joined starting in early January. This week talks about beliefs and how what we believe affects our behaviors. In that chat, I had said that there were two beliefs that came to my mind that I believe:
1.) That I would get to my natural God-given size
2.) That once there, I wouldn’t stay there.
#1 is obviously one that is a good belief to have. I have found that believing God was doing a NEW THING in my life and that it would show up in my releasing all the extra weight…well, it really has made a difference. God said it and I believed it and I began to live as if it was true because it was.
#2 comes from years of dieting where once you get to your goal weight you then stop the diet and live in fear (it was a matter of time) that you would gain all the weight back and then some. I remember when I did Weight Watchers and lost 100 pounds. Once I was at my goal I remember writing about it…”NOW what?” It was a very difficult place to be. There had been no positive mindset change. In fact, the new body had been formed and shaped around a heart that was even more attached to food than ever. The “arrival” at “goal” felt empty and hollow. My problems seemed loomed larger than life…in fact, some of the things that I thought would no longer be issues once I lost all my weight were there bigger than ever. It was devastating.
With Thin Within, God has been forming, shaping, and renewing my mind. It continues to be worked on and will be worked on for all of my life. There is no “diet” to be done with, so there is no need for “fear” to kick in. I find that old diet habits die hard, though…as fear is prowling trying to take me captive.
So, what strategies will I embrace for this place in my life to which I have come? How will I not fall prey to fear? How will I be sure that I not regain the weight?
1.) Continue to post gratitudes on my Gratitude Blog. Not just posting, but fostering and nurturing a heart of gratitude that I might never get my eyes on anything other than the Lord, who has done so much for me.
2.) Continue to practice the Keys to Conscious Eating. I am pretty diligent with these as I think it has made a lot of difference for me. I sit down and make a “meal time production” out of any eating occasion–no such thing as a “snack!” I focus on my food and try to remain somewhat prayerful through it, being aware of my body and the signals it sends. I do not read, watch videos, TV or anything like that when I eat. I try to be sure the environment is calm. These and the other keys (obviously waiting for hunger, stopping at satisfied and eating what I feel the Lord says is going to taste good and adequately fuel my body) make a huge difference for me.
3.) I need to commit to building a prayer life of dependence on the Lord. I need to do this NOW. In the beginning of this journey I prayed much more unceasingly…now, I seem to act like it is such a bother or something. What a hard heart. I must continue to practice having a SOFT heart in ALL things…not just in food.
