by Heidi Bylsma | Dec 11, 2009 | Blog
Psalm 131
1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.
When I was a new mom, the nursing “thing” was quite a hurdle for me at first. To start with, I was never a terribly maternal sort of person. Then, some difficulties during delivery caused Daniel to have some nerve damage to his mouth, making nursing that much more challenging.
In spite of these things, however, within the first three weeks, we got things “figured out” and Daniel became “The Nursing Boy.” Before too long, if anyone held him just so, he got pretty agitated. He pumped his leg, shook his head back and forth, looked for something to latch on to and hollered if it didn’t happen like he expected!
It didn’t matter if it was Grandpa, Daddy, or Mom. He knew that when he was in that position, it meant it was time to nurse. His leg would get going and hoooh wee! Would he ever pitch a fit if he had it wrong and the opportunity to nurse wasn’t forthcoming! In fact, folks learned not to hold him in “that” position. If they did, he would make them pay for not providing the goods!
I have been like an agitated nursing child lately. Instead of pumping my leg, though, I have been pumping my fist, it seems. Irritated, frustrated and really … well, NOT fun to be with! Not in the place where the Lord wants me to be. It has been coming to a head for a while now. Yesterday’s blog entry was a product of the “Waterloo” God and I had during my quiet time.
When I awakened yesterday with the realization that I was out of control, I got even MORE worked up. My admission generated agitation rather than peace at first. The wheels in my mind started turning in hyperdrive mode!
What steps would I go through to get things under control? Should I get a new bathroom scale? “This never would have happened if I had the scale to hop on and off,” I reasoned. I realized that I had resorted to one of my other coping mechanisms along the way, hoping for *it* to “save” me, too…that of drinking caffeine again. So I know better than to give in to this one, too.
Like the loving parent that He is, God brought me to Psalm 131.
My heart has been proud. My eyes have been haughty. I have been overly confident. It simply won’t work to continue this same approach now. In fact, I will not concern myself with things too wonderful for me. I “give in.” I choose to let God have HIS way. As I settle here in my weakness, I am prepared more than ever before for His strength to be manifest. He certainly has a lot to work with when I lay my weapons and “tools” down and wait on Him. So that is where I am.
The picture in verse 2 of a weaned child being quiet and still reminds me of Daniel after he had stopped nursing. When he learned to walk (somewhat later than his peers), he had too much to do to keep laying around nursing…so at 13 months of age, he was off and running.
After that time, I could hold him any way I wanted to and he didn’t associate it with nursing. His leg was still, he didn’t fuss or shake his head back and forth. Instead, he was quiet and enjoyed nestling in as I or another loving family member held him close against their chest. It really was quite the contrast.
THIS is how I am to be. Today, I choose to be a weaned child…a child who doesn’t get all hyped up about the promise of a meal or the methods I “need” to get my “act” together. I am quiet and still. Allowing my Abba Father to cuddle me close and to be ALL I need.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Even a weaned child needs his Momma. Even a weaned child is still dependent on the parent, but he can also be less agitated. He can wait. He can be still.
My hope isn’t in me and how well I can pull things together any more. It isn’t in whether or not I can keep up appearances. In fact, yesterday, I went out and bought some new pants. I want to look as good as I can right now and not allow myself to wallow in any self pity. Clothes that fit right and that don’t act as a club of condemnation (when I try to pour myself into them) are an important part of that. I am ok with this. I know that God is yet doing a new thing.
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 21, 2009 | Blog
Yesterday, I posted about the fruit of the Spirit. What happens when I surrender to God’s presence in my life? Characteristics of the Lord Jesus will become evident in me, expressed in my life toward others, toward myself and affecting how I relate to food, eating and my body.
What is the converse of this? It is legalism. It is outward constraints that attempt to cause certain behavior. It is change from withOUT, rather than change from withIN. It is conforming to outward constraints, rather than embracing a heart change that ultimately can be seen outwardly.
Legalism can have a very subtle influence in our lives. It can be in the slight tinge of “fear” we have about not exercising today, which is failing to realize that if we don’t get a chance to exercise, our bodies will probably just call for less food–eating 0 to 5 on any day will continue the process of bringing us to our natural God-given size. It can be seen in the sense of self-righteousness we feel when we make a choice to have grilled chicken instead of fried. Obviously there is nothing wrong with exercising or with grilled chicken, but do these things, in any way, define us? Or do they define how “good” we feel we have been? If so, that should be a red flare.
Can you think of any ways in the past that you have been duped into the legalism trap relative to food and eating? Feel free to share it with us here.
The HEAL book quotes one woman:
Rather than worrying about calories, carbohydrates, or fat grams, I ask myself if it’s something God is leading me to enjoy and if it’s what my body needs at that moment. I’m now living with freedom that equips me to make wise food choices. Smith and Halliday, HEAL, page 95
This is what we are after…freedom. This is not freedom NOT to care, but freedom TO care with godly discernment and wisdom. We look only to Christ for our righteousness. If no option for grilled chicken is available when we visit a friend’s home, we take an appropriate portion of home-made fried chicken and allow ourselves to be grateful to God for tastes, textures, and wonderful friends. We don’t run home in fear and exercise harder or bypass hunger the next morning to make up for it!
Are there any ways in which you currently see legalism seeping into your life? What can you do to change this?
There are no forbidden foods as we continue on this journey. We may say this, but so very often we betray that we don’t really believe this by trying to “atone” for having something that, in our diet days, we didn’t allow ourselves. Or by allowing ourselves to have a certain “diet food” freely because we tend to view it as “ok, because it is ‘healthy.'” These thoughts betray that we are still caught up in legalism.
In HEAL, if you think back to lesson 2, healthy eating is eating when hungry and stopping when not. It is going to God for all the other reasons we tend to be drawn to food. Healthy eating has more to do with why we eat than the what.
That said, there may be times when you sense in your spirit that something has an ungodly hold on you. Having that certain something in the house, you struggle repeatedly with overindulging. Truthfully, this can be anything. Remember, it isn’t the substance that determines our virtue. Bingeing on carrots is every bit as ungodly as bingeing on Dove chocolate. Only you and the Lord can determine if there is something that, for a season, as an expression of love (not to *win* God’s approval or to *prove* your righteousness!), you offer to Him. You can have the freedom not to have it in your home, but at the same time, realize that doing this doesn’t change the heart. The heart is changed by God. Removing the substance that you find trips you up is an offering to God, but invariably, he is likely to offer you another way to be sure to deal with the underlying heart issue.
Jesus laid down His life for us. Is there anything that He calls us to lay down for a season?
In my case, he definitely wanted me to lay down the bathroom scale. When it is in the house, I use it in a way that doesn’t honor him. I also can’t have Oreo cookies and vanilla ice cream in the house at the same time. I can have one or the other, but not both, as I will have an Oreo cookie milkshake with every hunger (and then some!)!!! So, I choose to lay that down. In the past, I have had seasons where I have laid down this or that…anything that the Lord says has begun to own me. Typically, he lets me know when I am free to have that whatever-it-is in my life again. Gosh, in the non-food realm, I have sensed the Lord lead me NOT to go into the Christian bookstore for a season before! LOL!
Obviously, my ultimate goal is to have a heart given over to the Lord so that I can be in a Christian bookstore and not overspend or to have Oreos and vanilla ice cream in the house and not overindulge!
Prayerfully ponder this question. What is the Lord saying to your heart about if there is something you need to give over to Him for a time? Will you? When? Do you have someone to whom you can be accountable about this?
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 19, 2009 | Blog
iets flip the pyramid on its head.
In fact, diets make the entire “pyramid” about food or food and exercise…well, about SELF:
As you can see, this isn’t a very stable image. When the beneficial food choices are what life is all about, life topples easily. That is why we can’t keep it up! But when the pyramid is laid out like the HEAL pyramid is, with God as the foundation, there IS a stability for our entire lives!
Diets tell us what to eat, when, and how much (most of the time). Many of us come to this stage of our life with a wealth of experience with diets. Some of us have lost a truckload of weight. Most of us have gained it right back. The diet doesn’t last forever. For some of us, what does seem to last forever is the obsession that dieting can trigger. Obsession with our appearance, with nutrition content in our food, labels, points, blocks, grams, calories and exercise mania.
For many of us, we have to try to walk far afield of graphs, charts, nutrition information and so forth for a season..maybe even a long season…so that we can truly get our bearings with the Lord’s direction and experience the freedom from obsession that he desires for us.
For me, the most recent chapter of this experience of freedom for me has come by not using a bathroom scale. I can’t pretend that I have this figured out yet, but CAN say that I am feeling a lot more freedom than I have ever known now that the scale doesn’t greet me each time I go into the bathroom…beckoning to me:
“Hop on and see…
…just go ahead and check…
…come on…you want to…
…you know you do…”
Only to have me get on that piece of metal and instantly be puffed up with pride at my “accomplishment” or condemned because of my “failure.” (Really, most bathroom scales are NOT accurate to within 2 pounds, so how can I “celebrate” that as a success or bemoan it as a failure? And what about cyclic fluid retention and a million other reasons that a person can vacillate in their weight even by 5 pounds in a single day? Goodness…the hot fudge sundae I ate the night before, does NOT show up as fat weight overnight! Why do we accept these lies as truths worthy of condemning us?)
All of this to say…as soon as we begin to talk about “Beneficial Food Choices” some might say, “I knew it! I knew this was a diet like any other!”
This isn’t the case. There is a huge difference! Let’s look again at the HEAL pyramid! Open your books to have a look at it.
We are doing this so that, as we hit the fourth level, that of selecting beneficial food choices, we can see that this is NOT a diet. So, let’s review a bit…
First – The pyramid is set up the way it is so that the foundation is God. He is the basis for everything and runs through everything. The other “levels” of the pyramid will fall unless the Lord sustains and flows through the others.
Secondly, the second level of the pyramid deals with the tendency we have of looking to food OR dieting OR eating “healthy” food as a means of feeling better about myself, about life, about anything. If I blame food for my condition, if I “hate” food and resent that I have to eat it (for instance), then I do not yet have a healthy relationship with food. Diets usually blow right past this concern. We are taught to hate certain foods and that other foods are almost capable of imparting “righteousness” and virtue to us if we eat them. In fact, there is even an eating disorder that has been recognized in recent years. It is called orthorexia nervosa and is “health food obsession” in a nutshell. The HEAL book challenges us not to go there…but to allow God’s Spirit to heal and soothe what is the true ache in our hearts. Only God can satisfy our need for heart satisfaction and, by Jesus’ blood, make us righteous. Only the Lord can enable us to forgive ourselves for the many years we have abused our bodies or tormented ourselves…not eaten when we were hungry, forced ourselves to eat tasteless foods that were supposed to be good for us, or thrown food down our throats when we weren’t hungry…and all the motives behind all that we did. The LORD HEALS!
As we invite the Lord to deal with this in us, we begin to test the waters of 0 to 5 eating–eating what we desire between the parameters of physical hunger and satisfaction. That is the third level of the pyramid. I hope we can see why these levels do need to be addressed in this order!
We may experience a broad plethora of emotions as we begin to eat only to satisfy physical need and stop eating for the many reasons we have been previously. This takes us back to level 2…dealing with our relationship with food…and back to level 1…allowing the Lord alone to be for us what we have turned to food to be… (See how these levels are interconnected?).
As these levels begin to be more a part of our lives, we sense the Lord calling us to a greater sense of responsibility for the body he has entrusted to us. We begin to discern that we feel physically better in response to some foods than others. This almost seems like an incidental awareness that may emerge slowly as the obsessions fade. We may feel like garbage when we start the day with a quick bowl of cereal, finding we crash and burn within an hour. Or we may realize just how energized we are for half a morning after having some other foods. This is the insight we carry with us into this fourth level of the HEAL pyramid. We may discover that some of the information we learned during our dieting experiences, can actually be “sanctified”–used by the Lord in a beneficial way. But all the while we remain aware that the heart can be deceived…we can wander back into our obsessions if we aren’t alert!
Over time…and it may take a long time for some…we begin to be able to use nutrition information to begin to select foods that are more beneficial than those we chose when we began this process. Not for righteousness’ sake…as we remain steadfast that only the Lord can truly impart virtue into our lives…but because with discernment and a sense of responsibility, we want to feel better and operate at our best. This is a slow change. We also choose foods that the Lord gives us an appreciation for…including the taste!
I learned from my exposure to the “ZONE Diet” years ago that I really feel much better when I have protein with each eating occasion. When I am at a 0 and eat something without protein, I will experience a lack of energy much sooner than when I am sure to have protein as well.
So, then, level 4 is that place we arrive not where we try to revert back to a diet…no, we continue to allow the other three levels of the HEAL pyramid to undergird this top layer. The fact that this layer is smaller than the others indicates it isn’t supposed to be a focus.
You see, so often, we flip the pyramid on its head…we try to make eating beneficial foods where we start AND where we end. We ignore the rest of the pyramid. That is certainly what diets do!
So…with this all said (sorry that this was so long!), let’s look at our goal for this level. Please remember to give yourself time to get there. This isn’t a “do it today” sort of goal. You may not find yourself emotionally ready to exercise this type of discernment until you have rested in the freedom of the other three levels for a long while (like a year!). All the Lord to lead you.
We move to a spiritually mature approach to nutrition when our spirit of vanity and perfectionism is replaced by a spirit of gratitude and a genuine desire to honor God…this comes only from a heart of change–when we really realize who we are and who we belong to–that our lives, our beauty, our bodies are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). HEAL book, page 47
Level 4: Beneficial Food Choices (Journal your responses if you don’t have the HEAL book…and share them here if you like!)
Goal: _________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Action Steps: ___________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
My goal: To be able and willing to delight in beneficial foods more frequently. Not to consider myself more virtuous for doing so.
Action Steps: To have fresh salsa available all the time (this is one of the few beneficial foods that I enjoy…so I may as well have that as a snack instead of cookies!). To select grilled chicken instead of fried at least sometimes. 🙂
For me, this has to be babysteps!
Tomorrow, I will post the next assignment and some thoughts about it, too. 🙂 Hope you are still hanging in there! 🙂
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 17, 2009 | Blog
Still hanging out in the living room together for our group study! 🙂
Moving on, then, to level 3. We will do level 4 tomorrow. If you want, to, you can move on to lesson three, but I don’t think I will post that assignment until Tuesday. I want to take as long as we need to cover the material. 🙂 This little book offers a lot to think and pray over!
Level 3: Hunger-Fullness Eating I am persnickety about labels. For me, “fullness” is too much food. So I prefer to have my goal be to eat to “physical satisfaction.” This is basically when hunger is no longer present. Since, scientifically speaking, there is a delay of about 10 minutes between the time my stomach is no longer empty and the time my brain registers this fact, I know that once I feel like I am no longer hungry, I am definitely good…filled with fuel for my body. To continue eating past that point will be too much food. In fact, 10 minutes after I stop is the real sensation…and it is definitely a fuller sensation than the one I stop for.
In the HEAL book, the authors have a different hunger scale than in the Thin Within materials. -5 (negative 5) to -1 (negative 1) is undereating. 0 to 5 is healthy eating…from stomach hunger to a comfortable place in the stomach. and 6-10 is overeating.
This stage is about abandoning any tendency to either overeat or undereat while learning to rely on the internal hunger and fullness cues God has given you. (HEAL, page 45)
Many of us don’t know what true physiological hunger feels like. We are so used to ignoring those either because we are on a diet and have had our allotment of points, carbs, or calories for the day (so we have to ignore our body’s legitimate call for more food) or because we want food and don’t care if we are hungry or not and dive in! So waiting for true physiological hunger seems foreign to many of us.
Add to that the fact that we are used to eating the amounts we are told, either by our diets (a half cup of this or a quarter cup of that) or by our “Full Meal Deals” at fast food restaurants or even the nice places we may choose to dine. Everyone seems to want to tell us how much we need to eat.
The truth is, only our bodies can tell us what we need and God has made us fearfully and wonderfully. He will use our physical hunger and satisfaction cues to direct us in our eating if we allow him to do so!
If you have never tried adjusting your eating to eat only between 0 and 5 (phyiscal hunger and satisfaction), this may rock your world! It makes a huge difference in everything. Without obsessing about what you put in your mouth, if you prayerfully seek to learn what your body feels like when it is hungry and what it feels like when it is satisfied physically, and commit to the Lord to allow these boundaries to direct you when you will eat, you will release weight and develop your dependence on the Lord, too.
When we stop eating for all the many reasons that we think we need to (sad, happy, celebrate, stressed, depressed, etc., etc…) we find that a lot of emotions go unanesthetized…and we need the grace of God to help us get through. We find that we have come to rely on food in more ways than we can imagine. But as we persevere and allow the Lord to get us through, not only do we release physical weight, but we experience the healing of our hearts and minds through the only One who can truly satisfy what ails us.
Here is my level 3 goal.
Level 3 Goal: To eat only when at a 0 and to stop at or before a 5.
Action Steps: To slow down, to be aware. To allow myself to take sips of a beverage between bites and put the food or fork down. I have been distracted while eating and I think this has caused my portions sizes to be larger. Also, for now, I will take half of what I have been normally. I will wait 10 minutes before getting another serving to see if I am still really hungry or not.
Your turn! 🙂 For Level 3, write your goal in your journal if you don’t have the HEAL book and/or share it with us here at the blog if you want added accountability.
Goal: ________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Action Steps: _________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
Don’t forget that our relationship with God is the foundation and is to permeate everything else. Once the focus shifts to 0 to 5 eating, some of us may struggle with leaving God out of it. Be aware of this tendency and the tendency to hop on the scale repeatedly through the day. Again, I urge you to toss the bathroom scale out or to, at least, send it to a girlfriend’s house for a couple of months and see if God and you can do this thing without that tool. 🙂
Tomorrow, level 4. Remember that we may not “accomplish” these levels in succession. We definitely will have to continue to work on level 1 all our lives long! 🙂
Have a blessed Lord’s day!
by Heidi Bylsma | Oct 11, 2009 | Blog
NOTE: I posted three different things yesterday. Sorry to bog down the blog, but each seemed of value: 1.) Part 2 of the Group Study from HEAL Lesson 1. Feel free to respond here at the blog even if you don’t have the book! 2.) A post on dieting 3.) a video–If you have a young girl in your life, please share it with her.
On to today’s post (Don’t worry! I won’t be posting more today!…or I guess I should say, I don’t plan to!):
Hi, girls! Even if you are joining us late, feel free to use the blog here to record your responses. Many of us will receive email notifications that someone has posted to the blog and your comment will be read, prayed over, and possibly responded to.
- Continue to memorize Psalm 139, if you have chosen to do so.
- Read and pray over/journal through, respond to 🙂 Lesson 2: The HEAL Basics, on pages 35-48.
- This material describes the “nuts and bolts” of how we are challenged to eat. Begin to apply the principles presented here. Consider, journal, pray over how it feels to let go of dieting rules. Are you willing to truly trust your body and the God who designed your body? 🙂
- As you begin to do this, consider what are ways that you discover a “dieting mentality” rearing its ugly head through the week. For instance, you may try to diligently eat according to your body’s hunger and satisfied signals and feel like you are “failing” and are tempted to “Start over” or to “Quit.” These are thoughts that come from dieting. In the Lord’s economy, every single solitary moment given to him, every tiny little choice and babystep taken in a Godward direction, delights His heart! Continue to ask the Lord to show you when you are giving in to a dieting mentality, even in subtle ways.
I want to encourage us, as I did with the last study I did here, to try to focus on the Lord through this. The more we focus on our bodies, eating and food, the more it can actually drive us nuts and become a wall between us and the Lord! If we take captive constant thoughts about food, eating, and our bodies, and, instead, become intentional about praising God for his character or thanking him for things, we will find our journey transformed–WE will be transformed!
If you have a bathroom scale, I suggest getting rid of it or, at the very least, giving it to a friend to keep for you so you won’t hop on it over and over again “just to check.” I know from experience that jumping on a bathroom scale can actually DEFEAT all that you hope to accomplish. It is a tool that very often harms us, rather than helps. Pray about it, ok?
Have a blessed Lord’s day!
It didn’t matter if it was Grandpa, Daddy, or Mom. He knew that when he was in that position, it meant it was time to nurse. His leg would get going and hoooh wee! Would he ever pitch a fit if he had it wrong and the opportunity to nurse wasn’t forthcoming! In fact, folks learned not to hold him in “that” position. If they did, he would make them pay for not providing the goods!
