Thinwithin.org

How to Defeat Shame

by | Oct 11, 2012 | Blog

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; in You I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame… – Psalm 25:1-3a
Photo Courtesy of  iStockPhoto.com
There are moments when I get a big, sudden dose of reality. I am faced with the truth of what it is I am trusting in and it certainly isn’t God! In those moments, I feel shame…it is as if all my “eggs” have been placed in a basket–all that I feel, what I perceive about the world and myself–I have entrusted to a “positive” situation or a person. Circumstances and people aren’t to be looked to for my sense of value, well-being, or confidence. To do so, is to set myself up for a deep wounding or a fall. My soul is to be lifted up to God alone. When I do that, there won’t be shame. He is faithful, loving, and good.

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all the day long. – Psalm 25: 4,5

This is the perfect antidote for the shame, disappointment and heartache I may feel when I have trusted in circumstances or people too much. Fix my eyes on the Lord and he will show me HIS ways. He will teach me HIS paths. He will guide me in HIS truth. He alone is my Savior and worthy of my hope throughout this day!

Lessons Learned From A Nutty Golden Retriever

by | Oct 8, 2012 | Blog

Obsessed with lights, reflections, and shadows, my golden retriever, Daisy, slams herself into the wall as I open the back door. The sun has just risen above the hill in the distance and Daisy is convinced that the prey animals–squirrels, perhaps–scamper a mass exodus on the facing wall, reflections moving in synchronization with the door. She earnestly assaults the wall to stop the invasion.

Never deterred by the obvious pointlessness of her behavior, the beliefs she possesses drive her to pursue the illusive prey.

Sometimes, she tries to “control” her urges. Body still…alert, watching, quivering…yet seemingly resolved to “leave it,” when, suddenly, she flings herself into the wall yet again, overcome by the urge that has ruled her for her seven years of life. Daisy has never successfully captured a reflection. Why she keeps at this behavior, one can only guess.

I wish I could explain that reflections have no substance and thinking differently is necessary in order to be victorious over the impulses she faces. I would expose the fact that believing the lies keeps her stuck in destructive and futile behavior.

Can you identify with Daisy? Do you keep slamming into a wall but feel like you accomplish nothing?

I wonder if you, like Daisy, might benefit from thinking differently.

My focus in the pages I have written here since 2006 has clearly been on the “success” that you will experience (losing weight) if you eat when you are hungry and stop when you are no longer hungry. Whether implied or stated explicitly, I have asserted that you will experience the physical transformation seen in my pictures (down the sidebar and elsewhere on this site)–that you will “release” all your extra weight and keep most, if not all, of it off your body permanently. That if you eat “0 to 5” and go to God for all the other reasons you are tempted to eat, you will be transformed!

This IS true, but this is only PART of the truth! Believing that 0 to 5 eating will physically transform you without incorporating the whole picture can actually perpetuate discouragement and, even, captivity.  Without the context of a renewed mind, changed thinking, and new beliefs, 0 to 5 eating is just another diet.

I know some of you are dealing with this. You have done everything. You feel like Thin Within is a last hope. And some of you have tried TW, “released” weight, regained it, tried it again, lost weight, gained it again…and you find you are on another figurative treadmill…only now feeling more hopeless than before. I really believe this is the same behavior that Daisy’s reflection madness illustrates for us. We could restrain her externally, but true lasting change has to come from some place deeper. Somehow, she needs a new belief about reflections on the wall. Perhaps we need new beliefs about food, our bodies, about weight and about God!

We need to stop slamming into walls chasing something illusive! Maybe what we keep chasing is serving only to distract us from what is really worthy of pursuit.

I propose that we turn a new direction. I hope you will go with me down this new road. Instead of chasing lights on the wall, I want to chase hard after God. I want to pursue a transformed heart and a renewed mind. I don’t want to settle for a change in my body–I don’t want YOU to settle for that! Or for the promise that we think having a smaller body will offer us when SO MUCH MORE is offered by our great and generous God who lavishes grace and mercy on us so freely!

I want nothing less than God very God, breathing his life into me and through me. I want to sense his presence so powerfully, that it is palpable. I want to invite him to expose lies that I believe in a new way…not just if the truth feels  better than the lie I have believed. Sometimes the lie feels good, even more “truthful” than the truth! That is why we grab at it. It is familiar. But nevertheless a lie.

I want to rebuke any lies that somehow whisper comfort and solace to me when I desperately long for it and there seems to be none forth coming. I want to be willing to stand cold, alone, bare before my God and trust him that if I am exposed and left standing it is for very good and perfect reasons.

Let’s stop slamming into the walls, led astray by what we are so convinced is true. Let’s take time to pause and consider together. Over the next weeks and months, I hope to do that here. And you are invited to join me.

Was there anything that I shared in this blog post that resonated or rang true for you? Won’t you share with me what that was/is?

A Season For Truth

by | Oct 2, 2012 | Blog


Image Courtesy of iStockPhoto.com
I heard the call of a Red-Shafted Flicker today.  These beautiful woodpeckers are “Heralds of Fall,” migrating to higher elevations in the summer and returning with the Autumn. The daytime temperatures may still soar in the 90s here at my home in the Sierra Nevada foothills, but night cools into the 50s. The lingering daylight of the summer months is no more.
My life, too, is in a new season. Homeschooled all their lives except for one year in a public school, my children have “migrated” to schools in other states. In June, my elderly mom took her last breath of Earth’s air and flew freely into eternity. With my care-taking responsibilities in the past, God is inviting me forward—to fresh adventure.
Is God calling me to focus more on writing and speaking in the months (years?) ahead? I sat still in His presence last week to listen to what he had to say to me about this. Instead of the sweetness of His presence, I was astounded by the noise in my head. I captured the monolog I spoke over myself:

Lord, is this really what you want? What if I am being arrogant? What if I am promoting self? Then I would be setting myself up for a big fall… you know that I don’t feel like I have much to offer. I just truly want to point out to any who will listen how awesome YOU are. I want to proclaim your praises. What if people think it is too Pollyanna-ish? What if they think my joy is fabricated? What if they think it is old news? What if they minimize just how powerful a transformation praise, gratitude, and forgiveness can cause in a life? What if they shoot the messenger because they don’t want to hear the message? I know many are in places that I can’t fathom. Those who have been hurt beyond belief or who are walking through trials. What about them? Is teaching that a life of praise is transformational…OFFENSIVE? I hate to wound, but I guess what I hate even more, Lord, is not being loved by others. I want them all to be excited by what I share. What if I think you have given me ideas to share…and what if I can’t organize them or finish them? Lord, what if the ideas I have aren’t good enough? What if they are only personal truths…and aren’t really as amazing as I think? What will people think…of me? I seem to be stuck in that rut of what people think a lot. That saturates my thinking. My greatest fear is that I have made up a “calling” to write and speak for selfish reasons. Yet I am not sure I even *like* the idea of writing and speaking and putting myself out there to be rejected! Lord, I am confused! What is YOUR will?
Not the best way to start a new season of life writing and speaking, huh? ☺ (I was due to leave to share at our women’s retreat in just three days’ time!) I just about convinced myself to forget the writing and speaking (the work) and, instead, go after the certification as a professional tennis instructor, teaching tennis (another opportunity that has opened up).
God led me to expose the lies in the monolog I was proclaiming over my life with an eye to what Scripture teaches. This shut down my defeated thinking–immediately!
What do you speak over your life? Are you like me? Do you speak lies over your life? How do you narrate your story? Do you, like me, defeat yourself? Is your loving, Heavenly Father challenging you to expose those lies and to replace them with truth—HIS truth, so that you might walk in what He wants for you?  How about if you try it? Be it a new endeavor—a new hobby, ministry, vocation—or a long-held ambition. Picture yourself giving it a go. What do you have to say about yourself? Capture the noise in your head, the narration or monolog that you speak over your life. See if you are caught up in defeated thinking that God wants to stifle with his trump card of truth! Then speak truth in response!
The LORD your God is with you,
    he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
    he will quiet you with his love,
    he will rejoice over you with singing.
~ Zephaniah 3:17

Good, GOOD Morning!

by | Sep 22, 2012 | Blog

Photo Courtesy of iStockPhoto.com

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, 

for I have put my trust in you. 
Show me the way I should go, 
for to you I lift up my soul. 
– Psalm 143:8

I *enjoy* greeting the Lord first thing each morning. I wonder if he feels likewise! 🙂 When I sit at his feet first thing, opening his Word and talking with him, I experience a very tender “Welcome, Child” into the day. He affirms again for me that He loves me and that his love has no limits. When I allow him to convince me of this yet again each morning, I am reminded that trusting him is the only way to live…what else could I do? What else would I even *want* to do? I lift my soul…the deepest part of who I am to him…he treats it as precious and directs me. Why wouldn’t I want to start my day this way? 🙂 Thank you, Lord.

(For the record, I am convinced that God has placed this desire inside of me…there is nothing about me personally that garners “self discipline” to spend this time with him. He knows that apart from starting my day with him, I would be a moral train wreck…no, worse…Even now, my natural tendencies rise up and fuss against his wonderful authority. I must be intentional throughout the day to take every thought captive!)

Stretch

by | Aug 17, 2012 | Blog

Tears reach as on long sinewy bands, from my eyes down to the floor. Soul extends from my little home in Northern California foothills to the city of Chicago where my second of two spends her first days away from home, ministering in urban areas, spreading wings of fledgling flight. Heart yearns for first of two making his debut in the world in wilderness bible school of Montana. Stretching, reaching, to bring them close again. This moment, though, is ordained of a kind, loving, gracious, sovereign God, that the children would be stretched for this year and momma would be, too. Growth is exhilarating and yet painful.  Lord strengthen me, please.
Note: Five minute Friday is explained here. Join in!

New Class Begins TONIGHT!

by | Jul 5, 2012 | Blog

Hi, everyone. I hope you had a WONDERFUL 4th of July (if you are in the US).

I also hope that, rather than declaring INDEPENDENCE from the Lord, you are very much committed to being unabashedly DEPENDENT on your Heavenly Father in every way. 🙂

If you happen to need support for your desire to give your eating to the Lord, NOW is a great time. Tonight is an orientation for a brand new Thin Within class that is being taught by Rachel Taylor, a lady I have gotten to know online over the past couple of years. Rachel is zealous to share the pathway to freedom and will be leading a group through the Thin Within workbook material.

If you want to join her, tonight she meets with any and all who are interested–it is free and no pre-registration is required. Just show up at 7pm EASTERN Time at http://www.thinwithin.org/chat.php and you will find Rachel sharing some things about Thin Within.

If you can’t make it tonight, you can still get in on the class. This is an “open” format, so Rachel will welcome you any time you can attend on Thursday evenings at 7pm Eastern.

If you live in California or other Pacific Time states, it translates to 4pm. In the Central time zone, it is 6pm.

Why not take the plunge now! Enjoy being in a class with a wonderful, enthusiastic…and SUCCESSFUL…leader!