Appearances Aren’t What They Seem

by Heidi Bylsma | Mar 16, 2009 | Blog

This journey has been about so much more than my weight…and it continues to be. Recently, God has shown me that I have continued to allow my perception of myself to be defined by my performance–externals–which, in the eyes of the world now appears to be “poor.” Having gained some of the weight I had lost, I am a “failure” in the eyes of the world (maybe even the Christian world!). I know in my heart that there is more at work here than that.

My eating, for instance, has been mostly within godly parameters during the past 2 – 3 months. The same parameters within which I operated to lose the 100 pounds and keep it off for a year. So, go figure. Bottom line… I know that I have God’s seal of approval! 🙂

As I have shared previously, I think my body has reacted to my choice to obey God about laying down the constant intake of caffeine (probably about the equivalent of 120 ounces of diet coke each day or more…). I think doing that has pretty well kept me at this “new” weight. (Again, God delights that I choose to obey him!)

I am realizing slowly and accepting even *more* slowly that THIS may be my “natural God-given” size and the previous lower weight may have been my “UNnatural, caffeine-given” size. It is a tough thing to swallow and shows me just how much I think like the world in this regard! I will continue to invite God to renew my mind and to transform my thinking. He is faithful.

When I began to read in The Search for Significance about shame, I realized that God has some lessons for me here. It is as if I have renewed a relationship with an old, familiar… …”acquaintance.” Shame seems to accompany me again… or it sure is trying to do so!

Shame often engulfs us when a flaw in our performance is so important, so over-powering, or so disappointing to us that it creates a permanently negative opinion about our self-worth. Others may not know about our failure, but we do. We may only imagine their rejection, but real or imagined, the pain resulting from it cripples our confidence and hope. The Search for Significance, McGee, page 101

With weight…everyone sees the “failure” or the “flaw in our performance.” It is a bummer!

I have made this “failure” so important and overpowering and disappointing…

But here is the deal. Having seen this, and been reminded of it again and again over the past few months, I WILL NOT allow it to define me! NO NO NO! 😀

Just as the quote above says, I have imagined people rejecting me over this and it has crippled my confidence and my hope! That is NO way to live.

God is continuing to work a change in my thinking. He is helping me to see just how valuable my choice has been to honor him about the diet soda–and that the struggle I have had since has been worth it. To the world, it may appear that I am another “dieting” failure. But I know that isn’t the case! I know that what I really am is a “laying the idols down” SUCCESS! 🙂

Going even deeper, though, I know what matters most is NOT my performance, but what Christ has done for me. He alone defines my worth and value. He is showing me more and more each day what that means…theoretically and practically speaking how it applies to my life when the rubber hits the road.

Worth Not Shame Part 5 – SO WHAT? :-)

by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 25, 2009 | Blog

When it comes to walking this thing out in the dust of the earth…SO WHAT? Great theological truths like:

I have been justified by God.
I am reconciled to God.
I am 100% accepted by and acceptable TO God right now where I am

…leave one wondering “So what?” “How does this impact my life right now?” “I just want to lose weight!” “I want to be THIN!”

The authors of Get Thin Stay Thin (formerly Thin Again and Silent Hunger) don’t leave us wondering:

When we know that our value is based on our new identity in Christ, we take on a godly sense of self-worth. With this comes a new direction and purpose in our lives: to live in such a way as to honor the one who laid down his life to give us security and significance. Get Thin Stay Thin, page 108

I can honestly say that this is happening with me now. My beliefs are finally making it through to my heart and to my actions. It has been a tremendously slow process, but I see the fruit. My actions really are affected by what I believe. And how we act sometimes reveals what we really believe in spite of what we say!

For so long, my theology and my reality haven’t seemed anything like one another. I guess in many ways, I didn’t really believe what I said I did! It comes back to that old illustration of “If I say I believe the chair will hold me but refuse to sit in it, do I really believe the chair will hold me?” My action, or inaction, shows what I really believe about the chair.

Our beliefs have a very powerful influence on our eating habits and our identity. …we must set aside the false beliefs that determined our old character and actions and enter into our renewed mind. Only then will we experience the renewal of our beliefs, thoughts, and actions and ultimately the transformation of our character. Our goal is to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can discard the fat machinery of the past and establish present time eating. GTST, p. 114

Again, fat machinery is those things we believe or do sort of “automatically” that result in eating without engaging the brain. They can be conditioned responses (turn on a video and out comes the popcorn) or responses to trauma or other emotions (we celebrate by having a feast) or even unworkable beliefs (have to eat 3 “square” meals a day to be healthy)…that sort of thing. Many of the things that affect our eating, as we have seen, are based in false beliefs or believing lies. We want to throw out all of those beliefs and allow God to renew our minds, transform our thinking. As we embrace TRUTH and take on new beliefs, our actions will be affected!

A solid sense of your identity and worth is the precursor to your ability to eat and live according to God’s intent and to being the person he designed you to be. GTST, p. 118

Lord, I pray that we might cast aside all the unworkable beliefs and lies that we have knowingly or unwittingly embraced. May we embrace the truth that you have redeemed us, forgiven us, and stand as Almighty Judge of the Universe declaring us NOT GUILTY–we have been reconciled and justified. Amazing, Lord. May this truth affect our actions…May we know when we reach for food outside of godly boundaries that we were created for more than this. Help us to respect ourselves with the esteem with which you have attributed to us. We belong to you. You purchased us. We are yours. May we treat “your property” appropriately, Lord, and allow your truth to establish our sense of value and worth. No matter who may reject, hurt, or fail me, this great truth–that you LOVE and ACCEPT me unconditionally–over-rides that…it is astounding. Thank you, Lord. In Christ’s Name, Amen.

Worth Not Shame Part 3

by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 23, 2009 | Blog

…right now…right as you are…no strings attached. You are…you are.

How does this TRUTH sit with you?

Does it seem presumptuous? Impossible?

Think about this for a minute…

If we allowed this to affect us, if we believed it as if it were true–and it IS…then, when we face defeat, failure–our own or someone else’s crashing into us–when we can’t believe we have messed up again…think of this…we can couple the pain of our feelings with this mighty truth:

Doing this won’t just numb me to the reality, but it will over-ride the pain in the reality! It is a BIGGER, GREATER, more ASTOUNDING reality!!!

Maybe you can tell that I am really excited about this. And it does connect with Get Thin Stay Thin chapter 5! How cool is that! 🙂

[The] undeniable, unavoidable longing for a sense of value is a sanctified hunger placed in us by God’s design, but we will never experience inner peace until we face the truth that nothing of this world–our appearance, our performance, others’ opinions of us, or our past experiences–can fulfill our longing for security and significance. GTST, p.101.

Our silent hunger will persist unsatisfied until we can see ourselves not through the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of our loving Lord. GTST, p. 102

Do you see it? Our world says we must act, be, do everything a certain way to win approval and acceptance! We get stuck in that mode and we put ourselves through strict paces…we MUST do this “Thin Within Thing” perfectly or we beat ourselves up. We must have the perfect body, we must love God perfectly…and if we don’t, we drag out that club of condemnation and don’t stop beating ourselves up with it.

What’s worse, we assume that this is God’s way!

This is the enemy’s delight.

It is a lie that the enemy has crafted and that the world has bought into. As with many things, the exact OPPOSITE thing is true…God has done it all. Every single solitary bit of your “acceptability” to God is because of what Jesus had done. ALL of it.

More on that tomorrow!

For now, I challenge you and me…will we believe God? Will we choose to believe that what he says is true? That he accepts us totally now? Without hesitation? Without condition? Without my having to jump through a single hoop?

–> How might believing, embracing, applying this truth affect your life? Affect your eating? Affect how you view your body?

Feel free to share in the comments! I love hearing from you!

This one is bowling me over! It has been radically affecting the way I live!

WHOO HOO! 🙂

Worth Not Shame Part 2

by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 22, 2009 | Blog

More thoughts from Chapter 5 of Get Thin Stay Thin, formerly known as Thin Again and Silent Hunger, by Arthur and Judy Halliday…
—

I wrote about Chapter 5 a little bit previously, in this blog entry. God has given us a desire to experience intimacy, connection, and worth, but we so often settle for counterfeits. The authors of Get Thin Stay Thin state that one of the reasons this is the case is often rooted in our upbringing. Many of us are quick to blame our current struggles on our pasts. Always “the victim,” we have a blind spot–that of needing to own our choice to sin. We are free in Christ to choose. If we struggle with sin, we do not have the right to blame our choice to sin on our pasts. We may have a predisposition to struggle with a certain sin because of experiences we have had, but in Christ, we are VICTORS, not VICTIMS.

On the other hand, others of us refuse to consider that there may be reasons for what we struggle with now. We minimize that we are a product–at least in part–of our past experiences. We don’t connect our current beliefs with these experiences and, in not making the connection, we can often stay stuck.

As we identify the legitimate reasons we may struggle with a sin, and confess our choice to sin, we find freedom. There is a balance we need to find.

It is my prayer that all of us will seek the TRUTH–God’s truth. What is mine to own, I will own. What is a result of experiences of my past, I will allow God to reveal to me, dismantle and transform my beliefs about myself and about Him by the renewing of my mind.

With these things in mind, I share the following quotes from chapter 5:

…we are born into families where faulty dynamics may deprive us of the intimacy, security and significance God intended…Unable to distinguish between the negative messages sent by family members and our own sense of self-worth, we assume the deficiency lies with us. The result is shame–a feeling we are defective, valueless creatures who do not deserve the good things in life. GTST, p. 99-100

If the enemy and his minions have their way, we will be convinced–believe–this lie! But this is hardly what God’s Word says. The very fact that He gave His Son for us demonstrates that we are far from “defective, valueless creatures.”

–> Do you tend to think of yourself in these terms? Or do you see yourself as treasured, priceless, esteemed by the Ultimate, Almighty, Sovereign God of the Universe? Consider how who you believe yourself to be may affect your behavior. I know it affects mine!

The shame that is rooted in our childhood experiences, leaves us with a prevailing sense of worthlessness and insignificance that can lead to the false belief that we are hopeless and cannot change. Our lives then become a quest to prove our worth and to achieve a sense of security and significance by our own efforts. GTST, p. 100.

Oh, how true I have seen this to be! I go on quest after quest to prove I have value. For a season, it was as a “Graphic Design Queen” (sometimes it still is). For another season it was as “Church Lady”– or Bible Study Coordinator…and it has even been as the “Poster Child for Thin Within!” All of these (and more!) have been attempts to create little kingdoms where I can feel good about myself. It seems as though if I can’t ascend to a throne of an established “kingdom,” I will build my own little empire and declare myself ruler.

What a relief to stop this madness! What a relief to begin to change my beliefs–that God has declared me of great worth!

Those of us who struggle with food, eating, and weight, may spend our lives performing for acceptance because we equate our self-concept with personal appearance. When our reflection in the mirror is less than perfect we may continue our abusive patterns of starving or stuffing. GTST, p. 101

This is why for me, The Search For Significance materials have dovetailed so beautifully with the work I am doing with Get Thin Stay Thin. The two are intricately interwoven and connected. Having “ascended to the throne” of “Queen Thin Within” (said with tongue firmly planted in cheek), I have felt this pressure to keep up the appearance…the appearance…the appearance. I have been consumed with my physical appearance. It is easy for this to happen because over the past couple of years, I have gotten so many accolades and praises for losing the weight or looking the way I do now.

It makes sense that if I feel that my crown is slipping, that I am falling off the throne…that I have physically changed …gotten bigger…even if “only” by ten pounds, that I would feel devastated. My self-concept has been SO connected to my physical appearance!

It doesn’t help that the enemy declares “Ha! Fraud! Impostor! Fake!” as he laughs with glee. He plays on the shame that is rooted in my past…that I am defective and valueless.

So, punishing myself, for a short while, I returned to some of the behaviors of the past.

I am so thankful that I haven’t just thrown in the towel like I have in the past. I haven’t accepted the “crown” of “defeat,” “loser” that the enemy would have me embrace.

No, I stand knowing that I am precious in God’s site, that my performance does not define who I am, or my worth! I have invited the Lord to renew my mind with this belief, this TRUTH. My performance does not define who I am and my value. I do not need to rally to win the approval of others–OR of GOD!!!–in order to press on with my head up!

As I shared in yesterday’s blog entry, he has been doing a new thing and continues to do so…a much deeper, eternal thing. My physical body won’t be going with me to glory! Who I am becoming will.

Worth Not Shame Part 1

by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 18, 2009 | Blog

Think for a minute about a counterfeit…counterfeit money or counterfeit jewelry or a counterfeit of a great work of art. Designed to look, act, seem to be the real thing, there is one small problem with a counterfeit–it isn’t the real thing. It doesn’t cut it. On the surface, sure–all appears in place. But not once you get deeper. Just as it would be appalling to welcome an impostor disguised as someone you know and love into your home, it misses the mark when we welcome counterfeit means of meeting deep needs of our hearts with fakes, counterfeits, “impostors.”

God declares you worthy of love, connection, and intimacy as His precious children for whom he sacrificed his only son. Your security, significance and self-worth are firmly established in this truth. As his children, your need to be valued, cared for, appreciated, and connected to another is rooted and grounded in God’s love. Get Thin Stay Thin, p. 99

It is a God-given need to experience intimacy, connection, and worth…God has gifted us with this desire and its proper fulfillment… GTST, p. 99

If I think about this for a minute it really isn’t where I live. This need for these things. Well, it seems like a curse more often than a gift. Left unfulfilled, it results in pain…and that is why I turn to things to not feel.

The key is proper fulfillment.

What is “proper fulfillment?”

If I can discover that, I know the drive to “numb out” wouldn’t be there! The counterfeits wouldn’t be so appealing as the real thing would more than suffice!

The authors of Get Thin Stay Thin point out that in our families of origin, these needs were not only often left unmet, but we received messages that actually countered God’s truths. Most of us were in dysfunctional families…people did their best, perhaps, but nevertheless, they sent us messages that we interpreted as devaluing. We began to believe we were deficient, valueless…and shame may have begun to grow very early. We may believe we don’t “deserve” the good things in life as a result.

Last night, when I was meeting with my accountability partner, God revealed that he had shown us both the same thing…there is a core belief operating that comes (for me at least) out of my dysfunctional upbringing. It is a belief that flies in the face of GOD’S TRUTH.

The false belief (lie) that:

I do NOT deserve to be thin, healthy, and happy.

I used to discount this notion… the notion that I embraced this false belief. It sounded like so much psycho-babble, frankly.

But working through the Get Thin Stay Thin book (what used to be Thin Again and Silent Hunger), I realize it IS true. The messages communicated to me growing up were that I was a mistake, a bother, a lot of trouble and unwanted. Somehow, I have taken a hold of that and turned it into a definition of my value or worth now…and if I have little value or worth, I definitely don’t deserve a happy life…or a rich, blessed life…a joy-filled life and anything “good.”

As a result, I have been desperately trying to sabotage all that God has been trying to work in me and through me. I lost the weight that I did probably by sheer determination–a “Just Do It” mentality–but I have been battling keeping the weight off, sabotaging everything…so now God is showing me the truth behind the following words in the Get Thin Stay Thin book:

God calls us, through the most basic function of our daily life, to look deeply into ourselves, to look beyond a simple change in our size or outer appearance: He wants to transform us from the inside out for eternity. GTST, p. 117.

This is about so much more than losing weight and keeping it off!

There is no condemnation (Romans 8:1). God sent His son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him (John 3:16-17).

But I keep condemning myself!

If we believe at all that we aren’t *worthy* of having a healthy physical body, or of enjoying being thin or something related..we may very well continue to sabotage our own efforts.

For me this comes back to allowing the Lord to renew my mind with HIS truth. Replacing those lies I embrace with HIS truth. Rejecting my old unworkable beliefs. He says I am worth dying for. Certainly HE defines my worth as being that beyond anything I could fathom given the price he paid to redeem me…It is stunning to consider.

I am working on changing what I believe as I know that beliefs affect my actions…the very actions that I don’t understand about myself…derailing my efforts to honor God with my eating and drinking. To grab at the counterfeits when I know they are impostors masquerading as satisfaction.

Lord, please help us to embrace truth about our value and worth in your sight. I pray that we might reject the lies of the enemy that keep us wallowing in a place from which you have set us free. We think we don’t deserve to leave our prison cells. So, even though the chains have fallen and the doors are open, we stay in our cells, frittering away our lives, beating ourselves up, convinced we deserve that or less. Oh, Lord, we must reject these things. Help us to allow you to lift our eyes…to see the doors are wide open, you have set us, the captives, free! You have chosen to attribute to us Christ’s righteousness. We aren’t just forgiven. We have been given the righteousness of Christ. Because of your declaration and all you have accomplished, we “deserve” all the blessings that go along with the inheritance of your precious son! Oh, what a great amazing gift this is! May we walk in the splendor of the calling we have received! May we reject lies and embrace YOUR truth…step into the freedom you have for us. Help us to believe the truth, Lord. In the Name of Jesus and for His Sake, Amen.