by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 24, 2008 | Blog
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 is the primary text for this lesson.
The author shows that this passage teaches that two working together can produce spiritual fruit (v. 9), that it can provide spiritual restoration (v. 10), prompt spiritual zeal (v. 11), and provide spiritual protection (v. 12).
He provides compelling arguments that if we are serious about releasing weight and the behaviors and attitudes that have gotten us into trouble we have to have to have to be willing to have an up front, in your face, speaking the truth in love, accountability partner.
Some time back, I posted to my blog about this very thing. You can read that entry here.
Mike Cleveland in The Lord’s Table workbook, points out that when in accountability:
“You agree to openness and honesty. Bondage to overeating brings deception with it; some of us have been deceptive for years. If we want to lose the slavery to sin it starts with honesty, even if it is humbling.” (TLT p. 49)
I have found this to be so true and YES, I DO have an accountability partner. Every winter, I know for a fact I need one, but this time, she landed in my lap as a gift from Heaven to me from God. It is the most amazing story and I would NOT be surviving this time of literal emotional, spiritual, and previously physical withdrawal from my dependence on diet soda (I know that sounds dramatic, but what I have experienced is nothing short of an addict’s withdrawal symptoms!) without this amazing lady.
In September, I heard about a Thin Within group that was at a church not far from where my 83 year old mother lives. I emailed the contact person and said I would be more than eager to offer to support or help the group, sharing my experience and a bit about my testimony including my blog. The amazing thing is…the leader of the group lives in my SMALL TOWN community…and leads that group at that church even though it is about 45 minutes or so away from both of us! We met for breakfast in September and she boldly asked if I would be her accountability partner.
At that time, I was overwhelmed with life and wasn’t sure my husband would feel it wise for me to do that…I had NO idea just how much I WOULD NEED HER! I am grateful that my husband said he thought it would be fine since she was a real life contact and not just an email contact — there is something about seeing one another every so often that makes it more real or something.
This lady has been the real deal. Her honest seeking the Lord and his healing has so touched my heart. I have been blown away by how BADLY she wants this healing and how much she is willing to endure to get it. She is definitely living all the things Beth Moore taught about in the Breaking Free taping…even though she has never seen this material. This lady is willing to go after this and I know she IS breaking free. She WILL live in total freedom.
But in the past few weeks, as I have been trying to get through some emotional hurdles and do it without depending on diet soda, I have been SO blessed by her loving encouragement and her compassionate observations. Gosh, the lady is a therapist…the Lord knew I needed one!!!!
I know that I WILL make it through this difficult time with her support, prayers and counsel. She may have thought this was about HER, but God has used HER so much in my life already…and continues to. What a blessing.
I want that for everyone who wants to be free. I see why Mike Cleveland in this lesson is so adamant that we MUST be in accountability. Without it, we sort of are hedging our bets…we have an out…we can do something in secret…
I asked my husband last night to keep me accountable as well. I need to up the ante right now while I am struggling so much.
I also have decided to start using the hunger graphs again and to keep them on the dining table where the entire family can see them. This is SO humbling to me…I have tried NOT to do that in the past…and been mortified when someone in the family has scrutinized my hunger graph and said something to me about it. I am asking for that accountability now, though. I know I need it. My tendency to deceive has resurfaced (or maybe it was always there…).
I want TRUTH in the inward parts. I want my MIND to be renewed. I don’t want to long for food even inwardly. I want to LONG for God, to pant for HIM, to say with the psalmist with heart-felt genuine honesty:
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:25-26
by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 17, 2007 | Uncategorized
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down, his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
– Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
I promised I would share how to pick an accountability partner. Here are some thoughts about that.
For me, having an accountability partner is invaluabe! In my case, my partner hasn’t asked to be accountable to me…I am only to her. I pray for her, of course, but it isn’t a mutual accountability. You can do it either way, having a relationship where you both are accountable to one another or just you reporting to her.
Here are some things to consider:
1. Pray about this. God may or may not want you to do this at this season of your life. It is a big commitment and some of us can become overly needy of other people. God may want to be the ONLY one we need like that. Additionally, we can become obsessive. We don’t want to use another person to justify the bondage found in obsession! So please prayerfully consider if accountability is something God is calling you to now.
2. Prayerfully decide what “accountability” will look like for you. Are you feeling God leading you to have a daily end-of-the-day report to someone? Someone just to check in with every great once in a while? Weekly? Will it be a blow by blow of your day (time consuming) or a quick summary? Will you use the TW tools and just send them her way or show them to her to see?
I have found both in reporting to others and in being reported *to* daily is a must…that way, if something happens and there is no report, I will be asked “where is the report?” instead of the assumption being made this is just a day I chose not to report. it seems much more effective that way and it doesn’t have to be time consuming.
It is so easy, when we make mistakes, not to ‘fess up to our partner…especially if she isn’t expecting to hear from us daily. So decide in advance what you NEED (God will show you if you ask!) and then write it down. In my case, I specifically knew I needed someone to whom I could daily send my hunger graph. This would provide a visual image of my eating habits for 0 to 5. I didn’t feel a food log would be effective for me (I don’t use that tool). I also knew I needed my partner to be someone who would ask if I didn’t send her a report, ask if I sent her a flaky report, notice any patterns in my eating and be willing to comment on them, pray for me, and, of course, to praise me when I am on track. With all of this in mind, I knew I could prayerfully evaluate who I could ask.
3. Decide what the over-arching purpose in your accountability will be. Will it be “To make it through the holidays being faithful in 0 to 5 eating?” or will it be “To abstain from diet soda?” That will affect what you want your accountability to look like and maybe how long a partnership it will be. You can use your goal or purpose to establish a time frame…2 weeks, a month or “Until chocolate no longer has mastery over me!” 🙂
4. Decide if you want someone you can go through a book or program with at the same time (this is asking more of someone). Some who read the Thin Within book like to be able to walk through the book together with someone else and talk about it or have it as a common reference point each day in their accountability. For some, the accountability partnership described here is part of what they might use for the “unwrapping” of “graveclothes” mentioned in the Thin Again book. Others, just want to shoot an image of their hunger graph to an email bud at the end of the day (that is me) just long enough to get through the holidays and see if they can come out the other side maintaining their weight.
5. Consider if you will ask a “real life” (RL) person or an online person. If it is a RL person, you have the benefit of face to face contact. It is a bit harder to hide. If you are someone who knows you have a tendency to hide when you “fail” (remember, failure isn’t something we have in Thin Within! We allow God to turn our “failures” into learning opportunities instead!), then you probably don’t want an online person to be your partner. You want someone who could stop by, call you on the phone or see you at church. If you know you aren’t the kind that can ignore emails asking you “Where is your hunger graph?” for 5 days in a row, you might be just fine with an online partner. You can combine the approach and turn an online friendship into a RL friendship by sharing phone numbers and actually praying together on the phone or in Yahoo chat or something too if you wanted.
6. Once you have a pretty good idea of if you will be ok with an online friend or need a RL friend for this, then you can start looking specifically for someone that you think would be a good partner. She doesn’t have to be another Thin Within person…not if you don’t mind it being a one way accountability. But she should be godly, prayerful, have a heart for you to follow your convictions (not try to talk you out of things you know God wants for you), someone who can share the Word of God when you need her to, someone who can speak the truth in love, someone who can speak TRUTH and GRACE both…all kinds of qualities. In the RL people you run with, this might be someone at a bible study you attend, an older woman (or mature believer) at church that God just lays on your heart might be someone you can share with. Men, of course, will choose men…women will want to choose women…this is important!
7. If you prefer an online friend, then you can evaluate people you have sort of gotten to know in forums that you are a part of (like at http://www.thinwithin.org/ ) or various Yahoo groups where there has been enough sharing that you feel a sense of what a person is like. Keeping in mind that people can be anything they want online and may not be genuine one little bit, prayerfully bring anyone who comes to mind before the Lord and wait on him to show you.
You will want to ask someone who you feel you can identify with. Someone you kind of admire or relate to. It might be someone who you can tell has similar struggles, but beware of picking someone who is always in the same hole you find yourself in! You don’t want to endorse one another staying in the same pit! Not at all! It is best if you find someone who has walked the road you are on, but maybe just a few steps ahead of you. Or someone who can identify but isn’t in the business of justifying sin–their own OR yours!
8. When you are pretty sure who you want to ask, pray that God will make it really clear to *them* if it is His will for this. Then, when you initially ask them, be specific about what you want. You can share with her how you reached the decision to ask her (referring, even, to the steps above) and DO share with her specifically what you want your partnership to look like referring to your answers to #2 above. Mention the time frame you have in mind…like “I would like to try this for two weeks and then re-evaluate at that time.”
She may want to take time to prayerfully consider your request. Please use this time to pray further about it, too. An accountability relationship that is not from God is not something you want to be a part of. In fact, so-called accountability relationships that aren’t from God can be quite toxic at times, causing one person’s bitterness to be transferred to another, or one person’s sin to be justified by another in the name of “grace.” You don’t want a relationship that will “tickle your ear” and speak what is easy to hear. You want a TRUTH TALKER and GRACE GIVER both!
If the person you approached comes back to you with a decision not to be your accountability partner, then please praise God for her wisdom! You may not understand why, but God is shutting that door! Try your best NOT to take it personally! There are a variety of reasons that people may not feel led to be an accountability partner for another. Not the least of which is they aren’t ready to surrender that area of their lives to the Lord. Even when a person doesn’t enter into a mutual accountability partnership with you, there is vulnerability in just hearing how God is working in *your* life. Not everyone can handle seeing God touch your tender heart without feeling conviction in their own. Some people know this about themselves and carefully guard themselves until God works in their life to make them ready for that.
So, if you are told “No” once you get your courage up to ask someone, just gather your thoughts again and pray about someone else. Maybe God’s purpose in leading you to ask the first person was something else entirely!
Once she says yes, it will be up to you to get things rolling. It isn’t the time to get flaky! 🙂
Once your partnership is under way, BE FAITHFUL! If one or the other of you isn’t living up to what you thought things would be like when you began, you will want to just be honest about it…it isn’t working out…or you had something else in mind. Tell your partner the truth! Don’t just go on as if everything is as you hoped. If the partnership isn’t quite what you had in mind, just pray about it and then let her know. Be specific though…Thank her for her time and let her know you think it would be best to do things differently.
If you began with a set time in mind…like 4 weeks, it is easier if things aren’t going along perky positively, to end it and move on. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. One friend 🙂 asked me if she could report to me. After a few weeks she let me know that she felt she could move on. Our friendship was not threatened by this and I knew that either it wasn’t what she had in mind or she really was ok without reporting any more. No harm done.
Let God be God in this. 😀
I think it is true that as we prayefully consider inviting someone into this inner sanctum of our personal life, we will know in our hearts if someone seems like a good fit to ask. I could be wrong about that, of course. It doesn’t mean that it won’t be scary! The lady who is such a blessing to me right now, letting me report to her daily can really talk truth. But I know and God knows I NEED that! She was concerned that I felt she was a drill sergeant. I explained that, to me, a drill sergeant is someone that *helps* keep a soldier in shape as a matter of routine so that when real life gets intense, the soldier is ready and able to do what it takes. I don’t think of that as a bad thing at all. In fact, I think scripture esteems one who is willing to be that for another. My partner has just the right blend of truth talking with grace giving…she is gentle and kind as well…and I know, with confidence, that she prays!
I hope something here is helpful to you as you seek the Lord Jesus, to become more like Him in all ways. I would love to hear how your accountability partnership works out if you decide to go for it! This is a great time of year to connect with someone at this level!
by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 14, 2007 | Blog
My accountability partner is a godsend.
After about a week of my sending her my hunger graphs each night, she shared these thoughts with me:
Most of the days, you do really well until evening. You get your spiritual feeding in the morning, when you have your time with God. You have your physical feeding throughout the day, as you get physically hungry and eat. Is your spiritual strength wearing thin in the evening, so you falter and stumble, and eat, at night? Is it possible for you to take 10-15 minutes alone of quiet time with God after dinner or even late afternoon, or even 8:00ish? Just some time to strengthen you so you don’t fall into eating because you have grown spiritually weak because you have not fed yourself spiritually since early in the day.
Isn’t this great? She is so right. The Lord showed this to me years ago, in fact…it was at 3:30 each day that I struggled…and so I began having extra time with the Lord about 2:30 and that sure helped. So I will take my accountabilty partner’s advice…I did tonight, in fact.
Another suggestion from my friend:
The other time you have a problem is when you get frustrated or angry and turn to food instead of going to God with the emotion. Can you, IN THAT MOMENT, ask God how you are feeling? If you know how you are feeling, can you tell God how you are feeling about whatever it is, instead of eating? You usually identify the feeling after the fact, but can you, IN THAT MOMENT, determine the feeling and take it to God? I realize I am throwing your words in your face, but that’s where I learned a lot.
What a blessing is someone who is honest in the Lord! She is right. I have used the words “Grab the moment and surrender it to Him” so many times (or words like these). God is faithful to USE a moment upon another moment upon another to build days that honor him…yet I DO tend to let precious moments slip by. My friend has brought up something important. So I plan to capture more of those moments for Him.
by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 23, 2023
The “Scriptural Self-Perception” Workshop Series includes 4 interactive, one-hour classes, designed to foster personal growth and community support. Each session includes a blend of teachings, personal reflection, group discussions, and practical exercises. Workbooks and guided journal prompts reinforce the lessons in homework assignments and provide participants with tools to integrate Biblical truths into their daily lives. A member’s area for ongoing support and a forum for sharing progress will enhance the sense of community and accountability among participants.
We are not making reSolutions this year. We are having a reVolution where we reject the thoughts of the world that we are broken and need fixing. What are God’s thoughts about us, His Beloved? We will be looking at:
Session 1: Rooted in Scripture: Discovering Faith-Filled Self-Worth
Session 2: Planting Seeds of Scripture: Strengthening Faith Identity
Session 3: Cultivating Spiritual Resilience: Overcoming with Scripture
Session 4: Harvesting Faith: Living Authentically in Christ
by castlemedia | Dec 20, 2023
Welcome to a five-month journey to overcoming the challenge that many of us face with compulsive night-time overeating. This is a coaching group opportunity for 8 special women to join Heidi Bylsma-Epperson and Christina Motley.
We meet weekly on Zoom for coaching and strategy sessions each Wednesday at 3:30pm PT, starting January 17th, 2024. This course includes an online curriculum and homework each week, also texting support with our group members for accountability and prayer. Zoom calls are 60-90 minutes each week. While we DO record all of them, we ask that each participant plans to make the class live as much as is possible.
Our curriculum takes us through reasons we might struggle with this particular stronghold. God wants to heal us. We look at patterns that we have that result in overeating and what we can do to have new, positive, “triggers.” This is a safe space for women to heal in the company of other supportive women who love the Lord.
