by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 7, 2013 | Blog
Beginning the first week of May, we will launch into a study of Healthy Eating & Abundant Living by Allie Marie Smith and Judy Halliday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBkyXzbjEc?rel=0
If you are an email subscriber, please be sure to visit the blog site, as the emails don’t include the videos.
The reasons I chose it for our study:
- The survey said people wanted a deep study of Thin Within. The GOOD news is you can get HEAL for about $10 or so shipped. Check this link. So while this isn’t the Thin Within workbooks, it does teach the same principles or it wouldn’t have Judy Halliday’s name on it.
- HEAL touches on issues that I think are deeply connected to renewing our minds as we have been. I think it will be a great fit.
- Because the book is a 6 week study, we will be done before summer gets rolling!
- Although it is written with a younger audience in mind (college girls), you will find that we definitely identify with the struggles mentioned in this book. We have all been that age and many of us were right there in the trenches. I have talked with enough older women to know that many of our struggles are the same ones we had decades ago! The voice and refreshing approach will encourage you and renew you, as well as challenge you. We will continue to renew our minds as we use this material, too.
This study will be similar to what we have been doing. Each Monday starting May 6, I will post the assignment along with a video. Each Saturday there will be a summary and wrap up of some sort, usually with another video. Like I have been doing now, Sunday – Friday, there will be other material—all to support you on the Thin Within/HEAL journey!
If this sounds good to you, get your book here. Allow plenty of time for shipping so you are ready to start with us May 6th.
We will have about a week off in between Barb’s study and the HEAL study. I hope you will dive in and join us!
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 5, 2013 | Blog
This week’s winner for either the Thin Within book, Hunger Within book, or free week of coaching goes to Christina!
CONGRATULATIONS!
Also, don’t forget to vote for what study will be next. Click this link to go straight to the poll if you haven’t voted yet!
I have been including less content this week at the blog because I know that many of you are joining the Weight Loss Bible Study a bit late or feel like you are “behind.”
But today’s question is significant, so I hope you will give it some prayer and thought.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,
but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philiippians 3:12-14
I want to focus on a little statement in the middle of this passage: “But one thing I do.”
Sometimes, as we look at the BIG picture of our weight, our issues with the way we think or the HUGE task ahead of us, we go on tilt. If you are anything like me, this can cause you to…well…simply…just SHUT DOWN.
We have to get away from looking at that big picture. The big picture of our holiness is God’s burden. He wants me to conquer this moment for Him.
So I want to issue a challenge and I would love your feedback today!
What ONE THING will you do today?
What is one thing that you can do–TODAY–that will help propel you forward? One thing that hard, perhaps, but that you know you can do today? One thing that you know you need Christ’s strength to do because you know you are too weak to manage it?
Will it be to have one less cup of coffee? (I know that may not sound tough to some of us, but to others of us, we are convinced we need it!)
Will it be to take 15 minutes to truth journal?
Will it be to open the bible and be still for a few minutes?
Will it be to confess?
Will it be to say no to a particular food that you know has mastery over you?
What one thing…TODAY. I am not asking you to commit to this for a week or a month or longer, but just TODAY. What one thing will you do TODAY that is different than all the other days and times when you wanted to be free in the area of eating and body image?
Tell us in the comments what it is…AND be entered into next week’s drawing by doing so.
Let us know what ONE THING you will do TODAY and we can pray for one another as we read the comments!
by Heidi Bylsma | Apr 1, 2013 | Blog
What a great week we have ahead of us! I am thrilled to see so many of you participating and continuing to post. This is an awesome experience for me.
And I do so hope you had an amazing Resurrection Day pondering the awesomeness of our Jesus’ victory over the grave!
If you are just joining us and have landed on this page, I encourage you to go back to Week 1 and do Day 1 of the study. Then come back here and join us right where we are. The bible studies are each stand-alone, though it is best to lay a foundation with the first one.
(If you are subscribed with email, please come to the blog to view the video.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2cVPlDZbQ?rel=0
Assignment:
- Read and do Barb’s material for Day 9 – Evaluation at her blog. Share with us here how your evaluation goes and what changes God prompts you to make. I showed you mine, so you have to show me yours! LOL!
- Read and do Barb’s Day 10 – Emotional Eating study at her blog as well.
- Keep up with your renewing of your mind goal. Do you need to adjust it at all? If so, do so and then be sure to renew your mind numerous times each day.
- Consider creating your own audio file–you can download the files I have at Sound Cloud if you want and put them on your iPod or a CD or record your own voice! Use it to help you to renew your mind when you are driving someplace… after work on the way home, going to pick up the kids at school, on your way to a board meeting. Whatever works, use it!
- Have you tried truth journaling yet? Is this week a week to try it? Here is the link to the blog post that tells about it.
- Continue to post here and participate in community. Remember, each time you comment here OR AT BARB’s blog about this study, we enter your name into the drawing for Friday!
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 25, 2013 | Blog
And so we begin Week 4 of our Weight Loss Bible Study. You have made it about half way. Don’t worry if you are going at a different pace or are joining us late. What matters is that you persevere. That may look different for each of us. Some may be going along right as I post, doing the studies each week. Others may do one a week or one of the studies every other week. Please know there is NO condemnation for you. I celebrate that you are here, asking God to have his way in this aspect of our lives!
Think back to Barb’s great insight from the Appearance Eating study that if we make this be all about our weight, we WILL be tempted to throw in the towel. But if we realize that this is about so much more than that, we will be more likely to persevere. God is merely using our struggles with food, eating, our size to remind us of how much we need him. It is a training ground for all things godly. For sanctification which will be a process we endure our whole lives long! Let us not grow weary in doing good. Let us keep at it!
With that in mind, have you been continuing to work on your renewing of your mind goal? If not, might I urge you to recommit to that? Back in week 1 of our study, Barb Raveling encouraged us to set a renewing of the mind goal. We can adjust this, tweek it, modify it, but we don’t want to bail on it! It is the heart of change. The core of growth! God says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, so let’s renew our thinking about what failure really is, shall we?
Here are some thoughts I have as we look ahead this week at our study:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h0glt0NtZA?rel=0&w=480&h=360
This week we will be focusing on Day 7, Failure Eating, and Day 8, Holiday and Vacation Eating, of Barb’s Weight Loss Bible Study.
Assignment:
1. Complete Barb’s Day 7 and Day 8 materials.
2. Continue with your Renewing of the Mind goal or “tweek” it and continue to renew your mind at the times set you set. This is the heart of what we are doing if we are going to act differently! 🙂
3. Remember to post here this week to have your name entered into the drawing late Thursday night. I announce the winners on Friday. You can win a Thin Within book, a Hunger Within book, or a week of coaching.
What do you think about the thoughts shared in the video?
by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 23, 2013 | Blog
When I create the audios and the videos, God speaks truth into MY life through the process. It reminds me of what is true and how great my God is. He uses my rambling on to you to remind me yet again of what is true and what He wants from me.
I hope that when I create the audios and the videos that you will have yet another modality for learning the stuff that God may want you to know. I hope that he uses it to breathe over you an enveloping peace, a saturating sense of his love, and a call to press on–to pursue holiness and excellence.
You may not agree with everything I say, but I do so hope that you will sense his invitation to intimacy with him and that he wants to use this struggle with food and eating as a forum in your life for a wonderful adventure of dependence on him.
This week, God has used my video and audio creating time to really minister to me. Does that sound just so selfish? As I speak the truth that he has given to me, then as I listen and evaluate, delete, re-record–whatever the process may be–he again and again bathes my mind with the truth. I hope it works that way for you as you listen or watch.
And if it is helpful to you to download the files and put them on your iPod to play, go right ahead and do that. I sure hope that doesn’t sound self-aggrandizing. I don’t mean it that way at all. I just know that, at least for me, every way possible that I can to create a way to bathe my mind with truth, is another step toward renewing my mind and experiencing the transformation promised in Romans 12:2.
This week, we looked at the premium we place on our appearance or weight loss in this journey. Barb has really gotten to the heart of a very important issue. I have an audio here talking about some thoughts I have about this aspect of our journeys. Just so you know, I am experimenting with a plug-in microphone, so I apologize for the fuzziness…the microphone was TOO close to my mouth for part of the recordings…I will improve on that in the future.
Appearance Eating
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84544358″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Entitlement is a poison that can taint our pursuit of godly character. It affects not only my eating, but my relationships as well. In this audio, I share some of the things that God laid on my heart about entitlement. I have found that this is a perfect example of how God uses this journey about food, eating and my body to show me character qualities he wants to build into my life generally and I invite you to consider that may be the very purpose he has us on this course.
Entitlement Eating
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84470916″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
How about you? What connection do you see between what God is doing in the realm of eating, weight, how you view food and your body and growing you into Christlike character on a broader scale? What is God showing you about this connection?
