by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 16, 2008 | Blog
Tomorrow, my family and I leave for 8 days.
Have I ever confessed how I feel about traveling? I hate traveling. I am a homebody! I love being home. In fact, my husband and kids can have a great time without me and I delight in the alone time at home. Sounds sad, doesn’t it?
But God has put it in my heart to actually look forward to this now. My kids–Michaela 13 and Daniel 15–their wonderful Dad and I are heading to the east coast. We live in California, so this isn’t just around the corner. This will be the biggest trip we have ever taken…the farthest, the most “hopping around.” We are going to Washington D.C., Virginia (Richmond and Williamsburg), Maryland to see the Chincoteague “wild” horses, Philadephia to see the Liberty Bell and things like that, and Lancaster County to enjoy the Amish folks and some railroad stuff the boys want to see.
This is a LOT of traveling! YIKES!
I noticed the last two times i have been on a trip that my “Flesh Machinery” would kick in that said “I am on vacation from eating 0 to 5, too!”
So, I am starting this trip planning on having a godly boundary IN TACT. I will remain committed to 0 to 5 except in those instances where the Lord shows me I need to release that to him. I know that happens at times. He has shown me that I can turn 0 to 5 into a law. Like if we have a layover and this is the only chance to eat…well, I will ask the Lord if he wants me to wait or eat with the family. I know that I can go a lot longer without food than in the past…I am not terrified of being hungry any more. But I also know it is OK if He leads me to eat with my family to do so in moderation.
So, I am taking my hunger graphs with me. I have a pocket sized one I can fit in my wallet too. Perfect for keeping honest while I am gone. I may commit to my live Thin Within group tonight that I will SHOW them my hunger graphs from the trip when I return…for added accountability! EEEK!
So, boundaries will be traveling with me. I will focus on drinking a lot of water, as the when I returned from Tulsa, I had bloated a LOT. About 10 pounds worth of bloating! Fortunately, it wasn’t fat weight, but was true water retention. So I know that traveling can do that to me.
Well, that is all the rambling for now. Please pray for us. My son is stressing. He is fearful…and is somewhat claustrophobic…well…a lot, I guess.
Thanks so much!
by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 17, 2008 | Blog
I am sort of logging my activity/exercise at the Thin Within forums in the exercise accountability forum (in the journals section).
My primary goal is to honor the Lord in my heart and to love Him with my heart, soul, mind and strength…not to allow exercise, my body or ANYthing to become the focus–except for the LORD. This is a challenge for me given my dieting/exercise compulsion history.
Some may wonder what I do for activity…did I lose 100 pounds with a regimented exercise program? Is that how I keep it off? NO NO NO! LOL! I just ate when I was hungry and stopped when I wasn’t. (I keep doing this to keep the weight off…) I even continued to eat crazy things like cinnamon sticky buns with extra icing and hot fudge sundaes…It is true! I won’t eat them unless I am hungry, though…same as other food!
Anyhow, here is my “exercise” for this week!
Sun – none – other than typical pony keeping chorese
Mon –
* Trimmed 8 pony feet (this is rigorous and very challenging!) – 1 hour
* Moved 3 bales of hay (100 pounds each) and cleaned out the hay shed… 1 hour
* Spread hay 3x across the hillside forest for the ponies’ breakfast, lunch and dinner 3 x 10 minutes
Tues –
* Trimmed 4 more pony feet – 30 minutes
* Worked with my son and Dodger – 10 minutes of walking (followed by sitting and watching how well they did together without me! )
* Two hour ride on The Harlinator (my horse)…this was a ride of a lifetime…absolutely phenomenal….very active…Not at all “sitting” like some people imagine horseback riding! LOL!
Weds –
* 1 hour ride on The Harlinator…he made me work REALLY hard…stinker pot.
Thurs –
* None other than “typical” pony chores – though I did help an acquaintance with saddling stuff…saddling and resaddling horses, getting on and off..not much, but a bit.
My pony chores are a bit extreme. One of these days I simply MUST do a part 2 of the Busy Horsewoman’s Workout video series! LOL! I did have 8 TONS of gravel delivered. I should be moving it with a wheelbarrow and shovel this weekend…so…that will be my exercise for Saturday!
Fri –
* 1 hour ride on Breezy and his friend, Pete the Percheron (for only a few minutes…). Walked for part of this to be with my friend. Pete the Percheron was NOT into the experience and had to be gently coaxed along…LOL!
Sat –
* 2 hour ride on The Harlinator….and boy, did HE MAKE ME WORK HARD!!!!! That turkey was a piece of work today!!!!!!! I realize that God has “wired” him to be a herd boss…and I realize that he was also a stallion for the first 12 years of his life…and I realize that he has some genetic predisposition for FLIGHT…but GOOD GRIEF!!!!!! I was actually thinking as we headed the last half mile back that maybe I DO need to sell him (or pay someone to take him). I adore this horse, but it feels like a TOXIC relationship and it is only a matter of time before I get hurt…and BADLY. After the ride, we got home and I turned him out. He hung out close to me and I scratched him…and he stayed close. I gathered he didn’t hold against me how “firm” I had to be with him out there….Then I went to the outside of the rail fence and just leaned on it with my husband as we watched our two horses….they rolled and shook, grunted, groaned, wagged their weanies in the wind, had a discussion over the water trough about whether Breezy would have the “honor” of drinking at the same time as Harley, His Royal Highness….Then, surprise of all surprises. From across the corral, Harley turned…looked at us….came over…nuzzled us…and gave me a big wet smooch right on the mouth…GOOD GRIEF!!!! DO YOU SEE WHY I KEEP THIS BIG MANIAC AROUND???? Horses aren’t supposed to BE like this! I am nuts. Someone PLEASE pray for my healing!
* 1 hour of shoveling gravel…I will be sore tomorrow!!!
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There you have it…my “exercise” program for this past week!
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 25, 2008 | Uncategorized
Hmm…I have been SO focused on FOOD in my mind today. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? I know I am tired. I know that I am more vulnerable when I am tired. But this is crazy.
So tonight, when hubby brought home fresh french bread and I hadn’t eaten dinner, but only “shaved my hunger a bit” with a few almonds, I had a bunch of it with real butter. I chased that with some ice cream with graham crackers and Hershey’s syrup. I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t past a 5 even ten minutes later, but I know the truth….It was rebellious eating. My heart wasn’t right. I should have fasted my hunger (or almost hunger) until my heart was in a different place.
All day I thought about food…a LOT…more than EVER in a long while. So, I asked myself what my accountability partner will probably ask me if, in spite of the way my hunger graph reads for today, I ‘fess up and tell her about my struggle with my thoughts and attitude:
“Who do you need to forgive?”
Hmm…I couldn’t think of anyone.
And then there it was. THIS is who I need to forgive:
This sounds pretty pathetic, but the “person” I need to forgive is Harley–the horse in the photograph. Today I had a lesson with my trainer and Harley (and my trainer’s horse, Amadeus). It was really challenging for me. I was anxious before getting there and had to acknowledge my fears.
For five years, I have tried to be something I am not for Harley or to make him be something he is not for me. I think I am only now beginning to realize this. God uses my horses to teach me a lot…and now, tonight, I wonder if the pain of yet another lesson is coming to fruition…I could be on the verge of changing a lot myself (not necessarily a bad thing if it is from the Lord)–in a way which would affect my relationships with people–I believe I can’t separate out who I am with my horses from who I am with people and with God. 
So…right now, I may be either on the verge of “becoming,” which, as “romanticized” a notion as it is is verrry frightening to me, or I must let Harley go to a new home. Most who have never been owned by a horse would think that should be no big deal. Well, I have to tell you…long story short…that neither option feels very good. In fact, either option throws me into an emotional bout with insecurity.
While I “should” be praising God for the blessing of having horses at all, let alone four!!! I am fussing about “becoming”…good grief. The truth is, the way I am isn’t satisfactory. I have to change to experience that for which I have longed. In a way, it touches on my…well…inadequacy…again.
And here it boils down…releasing my unmet needs, my disappointments, my failures, my unmet expectations, even my so-called “rights,” means letting go of a dream (or 10). Does God want me to cling to Harley and what we almost experienced together last summer? If I continue with him it will mean always wondering if we will be safe. It will mean never letting down my guard, but always being ready for filling in to give him what he needs assuming I am even capable of that. It will mean my confidence will be shaken time and again, as it has been these past 5 years, and each time I will try to “pull myself together” to offer again, leadership with calm confidence…yeah, right!
As with all horses, Harley is a prey animal and his instincts are all about flee now and ask questions later. Apart from him developing a tremendous amount of trust in my “leadership,” we will always be riding the wave, ready to crash land. Something I haven’t been able to offer him in all the time we have been together is trusthWORTHY leadership. The fact I have never had a bad accident with Harley is a blessing…but one I am not sure I want to presume upon.
So, why my obsessive thoughts with food today and why the rebellious eating? Well, boiling it down, it appears that I am, again, disappointed with God. After all, I have gone to him every step of the way about this. When we bought Harley…well, I better not “go there” in this blog entry, but let’s just say, from the very beginning…this has been something prayed over and decided and yet so many things have “gone wrong.” Or maybe they have gone according to God’s plan and His ways are not my ways.
Then, too, It could be that Harley just still reminds me of Daniel as he did when Daniel was going through the first stages of puberty…and that is the most difficult thing I have to accept in my life–that God makes some people autistic and God makes some autistic children with mothers who aren’t equipped…who were never nurtured properly themselves…and, well…
It is all connected for me in some really warped package. It is warped and add to that the fact that the very thing which God intended that I receive with thanksgiving, I treat as a “curse” of sorts. He wants me to welcome the trials, the testing, the learning…as opportunity for growth to be Christ-like. Does that mean I welcome Harley and what he challenges me to “become?” Can I give up the cuddly but potentially volatile relationship I have with him in exchange for a no-nonsense business partnership that says, “This is what we are going to do and that is the way it is?” He needs me to be confident and, while he loves to be scratched and is quite solicitous, interprets my doting all over him as weakness. I don’t know why, but he does. Can I offer boundaries and leadership? Solid, reliable leadership? Fair, consistent, calm, confident leadership? Boundaries? When all I really want is to bury my head in his mane, drink in his scent, throw my leg over him bareback and canter (heck, a walk would be fine) across the field? I don’t need him to be perfect. I don’t need him winning ribbons running barrels or working cattle. I don’t even need him to *do* that *much*. Just cart my sorry bum around a few days a week and be relatively ok and calm as we go.
See? Even as I write that, I realize how like my unverbalized thoughts about my son this is…Daniel needs to be accepted for who God has made him to be, just as Harley does. Daniel needs me to provide him with calm, consistent, confident and fair leadership. He needs me to not love the cuddles and giggles more than the gift of providing clear concise boundaries so he knows the standards all the time. Sure, in Harley’s case I can send him packing to a new home…but then am I allowing myself to grow and mature the way God wants me to? And what if becoming what I need to for Harley would make me a better Mom for Daniel (and Michaela too for that matter)?
No wonder this has been a day consumed with thoughts of food and then this evening’s massive inhalation of french bread and dessert…it touches on the deepest places in my heart, where I feel failure the most keenly (in my parenting).
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 2, 2008 | Blog
My accountability partner challenged me when she saw some “small” compromises on my hunger graph last week…could I string together seven consecutive days of eating 0 to 5 or between true physiological hunger and satisfaction?
She threw down the gauntlet. (I am pleased she did.)
Today is day 4 of managing this challenge. PRAISE you, Lord!
A few thoughts of things I am learning:
1. The little foxes spoil the vineyard (Song of Solomon 2:15)–the little compromises can sneak their way into our lives…and erode things. Enough of that! No more minimizing what can cut away at a root of holiness.
2. I have found that when I am committed to this, eating outside of these parameters just isn’t an option…period. How profound this seems to me.
3. The longer I have gone in practicing eating between hunger and satisfaction, the less obsessed my thoughts are with food. This is good news to many of us!
4. There is a brief moment of temptation. (There it is again…that MOMENT thing!) If I can just make a choice to set aside that temptation in the moment, to reject it…I have found that it passes. That choice is then followed by a number of other “brief” moments where the temptation isn’t present…and during those “brief” moments my heart is flooded with joy from the Holy Spirit because I made the choice to take that moment and thought captive and surrender in obedience!
by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 24, 2007 | Uncategorized
In the summer of 2001, I began to work through the material in the Thin Again book. (This is NOT the Thin Within book, as the Christian version of that wasn’t published until 2002.)
I had read through Thin Again, but hadn’t processed the questions at the end of each chapter. I knew God was calling me to take time to allow him to heal me. There were reasons that I struggled with this cycle of eating, gaining, pulling myself up by my bootstraps and dieting, losing a lot of weight, only to start the cycle again. By insisting that it was all about my rebellious choice to sin (something that I felt WDW taught in error), I hadn’t dealt with some root issues.
God used the summer of 2001 to walk me through the valley of the shadow of death. I discovered that at the root of my tendency to overeat was bitterness, anger, lack of forgiveness. Many might not understand how these things could be attached to overeating. Throughout my life, I had experienced abuse and early on I had taken on some coping mechanisms for that. I had to own my responsibility for choosing behaviors that didn’t honor God, yes, but I began to see that there were underlying reasons this was something so challenging for me.
God gently but firmly led me to face into all the wrongs done to me…I journaled each and every occurrence of anything that I could think of that had wounded my heart. From my earliest years to just moments ago. Some might say this is self-indulgent. All I know is that God led me to do this. He led me to journal specifically that I CHOOSE TO FORGIVE EACH AND EVERY ONE. He led me to make this leap of faith…that he would enable me to do it.
In this, there was great healing. Because I chose with every painful memory to journal how each offense made me feel, I cried my way through that summer finding comfort and rest only in the arms of the Lord. Choosing to forgive, however, was like unlocking the shackles that had held me.
God used a Thin Again friend I had made in a Yahoo group to help me to go through this process…something that Thin Again calls “unwrapping grave clothes.” This precious sister was there to pray me through this process, to hold me accountable for pressing on, to spur me on to love now in the present, to continue to choose to forgive, even as I faced into past wrongs.
In all of this, I also had to choose to forgive myself for sins I had committed against others, against myself, against God. I know that 1 John 1:9 says that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of ALL unrighteousness, but somehow, I managed to resent MYSELF. I even resented God! Not only did I need to choose to let God be God (“forgive” him, in a sense), but I had to confess that arrogance to him as well.
As you can see, this is a multi-layered issue…thus the imagery of unwrapping graveclothes like when Lazarus stepped forth from the grave when Jesus raised him from the dead. The Lord was raising ME from the grave of past wrongs, bitterness, lack of forgiveness…and I needed the help of others to unwrap the graveclothes just as Lazarus did before I could experience the life that Jesus intended.
God did an amazing work through this. He established a truth in my life for me that I couldn’t deny. Almost without question, even now 12 years later when I revert to “that which I do not want to do is that which I do” with regards to eating, it almost always indicates that I am feeling wounded and am in need of forgiving someone. During that summer, I learned just how powerful choosing to forgive really is.
Today, if I struggle with rebellious eating, my current accountability partner knows to ask me “Who do you need to forgive?” It is a powerful truth in my life that bitterness, wounding, and lack of forgiveness are directly connected with overeating.
You can probably do the math, however. If I learned that in the summer of 2001, how was I at 250 pounds five years later–in the summer of 2006 when my “before” picture was taken? 🙂
More on that the next time…
Part 3 of Heidi’s TW Testimony is here…
