by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 19, 2008 | Blog
Overeating, in its essential allurement, promises to quench our thirst. In other words, it promises satisfaction. And honestly, it does satisfy–but only for a time. Pretty soon we discover we are “thirsty” again, and as the years go by we find that we are reallly never genuinely satisfied. Right? That is because sin never purely satisfies! It depletes us, not fulfills us. (page 31, The Lord’s Table)
This lesson in TLT, continued the thoughts from Day Nine. Truthfully, this “allurement” is an excellent place to “truth journal” as I mentioned in yesterday’s entry. If I believe that there will be joy in eating outside of godly boundaries, the truth is, that “joy” is fleeting, not complete and abiding which is the nature of the joy that Jesus promises.
As I did this lesson, I was reminded of living in the past…when I would “give myself over” to my gluttony…literally, abandoning myself to it. It resulted in a wall between the Lord and myself (self-imposed, as he was always eager and willing to have me return to him). And I could never get enough food to satisfy. It was as if I was attempting to drink salt water to satisfy a thirst. It got so much worse. The emptiness increased.
…the habitual sin of overeating…can soon become a life-dominating sin. Eating food is good and right, and can be a worshipful experience when done for the glory of God. It is not eating food that is the problem, it is overeating. (Page 34, The Lord’s Table)
Summary of Day 10: The Living Water — Jesus — satisfies. All attempts to fill the emptiness in other ways actually results in greater emptiness. It’s like treating thirst with salt water. God has created me with a need for Him. As I turn to Him to fill that hole, I WILL be satisfied. If I insist on filling that hole with something else–like food–the hole will only get larger and the emptiness deeper. I will choose Him today.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 18, 2008 | Blog
I plan on returning to summaries of The Lord’s Table soon, but today, I could tell I needed to deal with some things. I turned to “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” by Barb Raveling, instead of working on The Lord’s Table.
Yes…this is what I needed. What I need. Present tense.
Yesterday, I struggled a lot with urges to eat and to revert back to drinking soda. I didn’t give in to the soda drinking. (I will write about this another time, as I think diet soda has been a huge stronghold in my past…one I never totally resolved to give up, but have now…hopefully, permanently.)
I was amazed at how drawn to food and soda I felt all day.
My accountability partner asked the right questions of me and prompted me to allow God to help me work through this. My tendency was to just “blow it off” as “Ok, so I am feeling emotional.” But to be honest with you, calling it emotional eating without DEALING with it, isn’t even as good as throwing a band-aid on it. It is like seeing a wound and saying “Yup, it is bleeding” and leaving it at that.
In Barb Raveling’s workbook, “Freedom from Emotional Eating,” the reader is urged to go beyond recognizing there are emotional triggers, to actually doing something about it…to speaking TRUTH into the situation. This is done through “truth journaling.” This is a remarkably simple thing to do, I found, yet profound.
The enemy seeks to take us captive by messing with our heads…the old “You deserve to eat this…” or “You will feel better if you have that…” thing.
Truth journaling happens in a couple of ways. One is to call a lie a lie regarding this notion that food will make me feel better when I am emotional. It doesn’t. Not only does it NOT make me feel better five minutes from now (after I have inhaled it), but it makes things worse. I still have to deal with the emotions, but it is then compounded by the guilt and frustration with myself for trying to numb it with food. Truth journaling exposes this. And it does so very specifically…not generally, as I have just done in my explanation.
For instance, if I am tempted to eat a chocolate muffin when I am not hungry and it is because I just survived my son driving us through the canyon together (he just got his permit), I write down how I am feeling, “I want a chocolate muffin right now. I am not hungry. I want it because it will make me feel better. I deserve it for enduring the stressful drive through the canyon.” I then go back and number the thoughts: 1. I want a muffin. 2. I am not hungry. 3. I think the muffin will make me feel better. 4. I deserve the muffin.
Then, for each, I label if it is a truth or lie and what the corresponding truth is for that lie:
1. True. I want the muffin. 2. True. I am not hungry. 3. LIE. The muffin will NOT make me feel better and will, in fact, make me feel worse because of how I feel when I violate my boundaries of eating only when hungry. 4. LIE. I don’t “deserve” the muffin. The muffin isn’t a “reward.” Knowing that I have hung in there doing what God has called me to is a very great reward and I will praise God for my safety and delight in his joy over us!
Another approach is to deal with the emotions…this goes to the heart of it. I spent some time this morning doing this very thing and I feel better equipped to handle the day.
I am emotional with good reason. 1.) My son is driving now and living where we do, the roads are windy, narrow and everyone on the roads is insane. 🙂 2.) My horse, Breezy, gets seen tomorrow by a specialist for what may be cancer in his eye. 3.) My schedule is so jammed full of things this week that I am overwhelmed. 4.) I have a website I am developing that has taken on a life of its own for a client who I have worked out a “trade” with and now I just want it done.
I have a strong emotional response to each of these things. This morning, as I truth journalled about some of them (and I will go back and do the others), I was able to invite God to expose the lies that are at the heart of some of my emotions about them. Certainly, while worry about Breezy is understandable, it won’t help matters. In fact, Breezy senses my anxiety and it adds to his own, making it more difficult for the vet to treat him. I have anxiety about the money this will cost and, again, worry won’t help this. It is what it is.
See how this works? As I allow God to speak truth into these situations, I am better equipped to pray through them and not to yearn for food which doesn’t help matters anyhow. God is my healer and my helper. He knows all things. He knows right now about Breezy’s eye and what is causing it.
This seems so simple right now as I share it. I almost want to delete this post because I assume people might say “Duh!” But it really IS profound.
The trick is, in the moment when I feel tempted to eat or to guzzle a diet cherry pepsi, I must be willing to stop and evaluate what is TRUTH in the situation? It isn’t likely that drinking or eating something will EVER be the TRUTHful answer to what is going on.
How about you? Can you take stock and see what the truth is about why you are drawn to food? Or, at the very least, evaluate whether having this candybar or that second helping of enchiladas will *really* make you feel better, happier, whatever an hour from now? 🙂
I want to live out my freedom. As Beth Moore said last week, we can’t have our milestones until we can take captive the moment. I see Barb Raveling’s truth journaling idea as being an invaluable way of capturing the moment for the Lord and allowing my mind to be renewed with his truth…
I hope you do, too! 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Jun 24, 2008 | Blog
This week is majorly intense. As I just wrote an email to a friend of mine about my schedule between now and NEXT Thursday, I realized just how STRESSED I am about all of it! GOOD things, but stressful nevertheless!
So, knowing me, I know that it is easy to focus, fixate, OBSESS about things and not be in the present moment with my eating, to allow things to kick into automatic pilot and miss the moment with the Lord, fellowshipping with Him as I sit down at the table to fuel my body with food He provides.
One of the biggest causes of “flesh machinery” for me is travel. Even when it is to the Thin Within retreat I know that I can be in danger! I will choose to be vigilant. Flying across the country may not be a big deal to some folks, but it is to me. Make part of that be a connecting flight at Dallas-Fort Worth airport and I am a nutcase! So…I will just use this as a chance to apply some of the things God has been teaching me through my horsemanship…such as changing my thoughts. Or taking them captive. When I find panic welling up in me, I will choose to give thanks, to practice gratitude. Since God inhabits the praises of His people, I know that praising Him will cause me to sense His presence afresh.
The change of schedule and scheduled eating, like what happens at a retreat, can cause panic, too. I will, again, choose to praise the Lord in those moments…to change my thoughts from ME ME ME and how *I* am feeling and panicking, to the Lord and HIS goodness, HIS provision, HIS power and PRAISE.
With all the things on the schedule the minute I return from the trip and the need to have dinner planned and house clean for a wonderful group of 18 ladies next Tuesday night…I know that I can feel so overwhelmed that I shut down and numb out…I will choose instead to PRAISE God that I have this privilege. It is one I *DO* get excited about! So what if a fur ball rolls across the wood floor at an inopportune time? 🙂 I trust that they will have such a wonderful time fellowshiping with eachother and the Lord that they won’t think about the fur ball the day after our study is done! LOL!
Thursday is my daughter’s 14th birthday and we will be going out for meals and going to the movies and shopping for clothes…all flesh machinery things if I am not VIGILANT! I will choose to maintain GODLY boundaries and surrender my thoughts to the Lord. I will praise Him!
Tomorrow is an all day horsemanship clinic that I am coordinating…my thoughts are “When will I eat?” Goodness…like for everything else, I will pack crackers, peanut butter, almonds and some water. That should hold me just fine!
All is well…I know it is. Now I just need to bring my experience in line with my knowledge. Reality where I live *can* match up with what I KNOW to be true. What I *feel* does NOT dictate truth. GOD does! He is faithful! HE is present! He provides!
Praise You, Lord.
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 11, 2008 | Blog
LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Psalm 16:5-6
Wow…God has ordained that food taste wonderful! Think of all the wonderful foods there are out there. And we have the amazing opportunity to FUEL our bodies with it 2, 3, sometimes even more each day! Isn’t that a blessing!?
God has given us so much. He has done it within certain parameters–certain boundaries.
But how like Eve I can be! God gave to Adam and Eve all the trees of the garden except for one! They could eat of ALL the trees…except one. There was…a boundary! What did they fixate on? What they couldn’t have! Instead of focusing on all they COULD have, they focused on what they couldn’t.
Satan saw this weakness and cast doubt in their minds… “Surely God didn’t say you couldn’t have that yummy fruit…” And when that wasn’t enough to cause Eve to cave in, Satan tried the old “God is holding out on you” ploy! “Just look at all you can’t have!”
I don’t know about you, but it is so easy for me to get sucked into this thinking. Instead of praising God for the bounty from which I get to enjoy fueling my body, instead of praising God for how efficiently he has made my body so that it needs so little food, I become focused on all I want that is outside of godly parameters. I get the “God is holding out on me” attitude going. Especially when I see what others are eating…and some even seem to get away with it!
I want to really focus today on praising and worshiping and thanking God that he has made so many wonderful tasting foods and that he has ordained that I get to fuel my body with this wonderful tasting food. I will praise him that he has made my body able to function so well on so little! It is a testimony to his perfection, his creativity!
Instead of focusing on what I can’t have, today, I will focus on all I can. Indeed, His boundary lines for me have fallen in pleasant places!
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 30, 2008 | Blog
A bundle of mish-mashed thoughts.
First, though…I had a wonderful ride with Harley today. My trainer and I went to a place with cows romping around. The upshot is, this was quite an adventure…and God put His peace upon Harley and in me. We did a little trotting and even moved the cattle gently. Harley seemed at one point to “lock on” to a cow and want to move him. All of this is such a miracle.
I believe that this is a parallel to new things God is doing in me and in my relationship with Daniel, too. You see, to Harley, the cows are like big bombad bad guys. Together, Harley and I can move them. As I provide boundaries and God-dependent leadership to Harley, he found confidence and his fears dissipated…as did mine.
I believe that the same is true for my Daniel and me. Daniel will face a lot of “big bombad bad guys”…a lot of “cows” in life. Right now, as I provide boundaries and God-dependent leadership, Daniel will find confidence and his fears will dissipate, too. Even as Harley’s did.
I know some of you who visit this blog have been praying. THANK YOU. I have found SUCH joy in my son in the past three days. Though having Asperger’s Syndrome, Daniel enjoys being cuddled and held so I have been doing a lot of that and a lot of praising him for as many things as I can. Daniel has just been beaming under this kind of attention. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS.
How does this affect my eating? In a HUGE way it affects me. 
My eating is impacted by my relationship with my son and my fears of Harley both. Facing into these things with delight, and relishing them for whatever God will choose to bring my way…agreeing with Him that I can stretch for what He invites me to become…there is peace and release in that. As I quit striving, the food thing isn’t quite the battle.
I am still not back at “stellar” with regard to 0 to 5 eating. There are yet tiny justifications (not really “tiny” at all). But these two are being offered to God bit by bit.
I will confess, I have thought about deleting some of my posts…the three about autism–accepting it or it being a gift from God or not. The last thing I want my posts to do is create shame in others or something else that the enemy can use. No way. I have felt that I should leave the posts, though. They are an honest chronicling of *my* journey. No one else’s.
My pastor called this evening and shared with me that he feels differently about some of these things. The way he put it resonated with me. There is a Divine Mystery associated with the will of God and what is “allowed” or what is “ordained,” what is “acceptable” and what is “perfect.” In reducing it to words and black and white labels, I have perhaps done myself a disservice.
If I can understand the way God works, if I can fathom “three yet one,” “free will and sovereign choice,” and other lofty mysteries…then I have basically reduced the Almighty down to my intellectual level. That is pretty scary.
So for now, I think He calls me, He perhaps calls you….to accept what has been given to us. To delight ourselves in HIM. Not in any earthly gift or condition or situation, but in HIM. I believe that the Lord wants to be the delight of our hearts. As John Piper says, God is most glorified in me when I am most delighting in Him. That is sufficient for me.
Lord, may I delight utterly, completely and with total abandon in you.
