On Mondayand Tuesday, I posted parts 1 and 2in this series. Today is the final installment. Evening eating is one of the things that many of us struggle with–it is that “bewitching hour” between dinner and bed-time. Often the kids head off to bed and we want the reward for a day well done! Or conversely, we are lonely and want to comfort ourselves. Whatever the primary reason is for giving in to eating in the evening when we aren’t hungry, we can FIGHT the lies we believe with truth. I have been sharing my truth cards with you this week. I hope it is helpful. I would love to know what other truths you use to fight the lies that lead to night-time eating. What you share may help one of the people who visits this blog! 🙂
My enjoyment of my family/husband is NOT dependent on my eating with them when I am not hungry.
If my husband or kids start munching on something in the evening, there is nothing that says I have to join them. I can relish their company even more when I focus on them instead of the food. I wonder what it is that has created the lie that fellowship is equated with eating in our minds? It certainly doesn’t need to be that way. I can absolutely enjoy my family members without eating!
My enjoyment of movies, games, etc., in the evening does not hinge on eating too!
This is another lie that I tend to believe…that if we watch Netflix or play a game together that it is made all the better by eating. Truthfully, I feel like my conscience kicking into overdrive and the physical misery I end up in diminishes the enjoyment of the food AND the movie or game that I might be enjoying (AND the company of my husband and kids!).
I can RELISH the precious hours before bed and TOTALLY enjoy them—ALL THE MORE when I don’t blast through my boundaries and eat outside of 0 and 5.
This gets back to yesterday’s truths as well…that it FEELS SO WONDERFUL to be tender hearted to my boundaries. Don’t you think? Those hours before bed when I am not hungry are made so much more rich…so much more of a blessing when I don’t defy my conscience!
How About You?
Do these truths sound like they might work for you? How might you amend them to be more applicable? When do you use your truth cards for the most victory?
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down,
and
the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no
ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf
of those who wait for him.
-Isaiah 64:3 ,4

Our God is unpredictable. Unchanging, yes, but tamed, no. He is wild and 
wonderful. The path we are on is filled with adventure. He does that which we 
don’t expect. His power is beyond imagining. From the very beginning, He 
has not “behaved” according to the expectations of man. Does it really 
surprise me so much that now as I seek to honor Him with my body, heart,
mind, soul, and spirit that He would do that which is so much different 
than what I might expect?? 

As I wait on Him for physiological hunger and allow Him to meet the
 hungering of my heart and mind, this powerful, awesome, wild and untamed hero will act on my behalf. His desire for me is beyond my ability to fathom. His willingness to come to my rescue rivals any of the best fairy tales–except for the one wonderful Truth. THIS fairy tale is TRUE. He will act on my behalf as I wait on Him.
I eagerly wait, knowing that I will see the face of my Lord.
Lord, thank you that while you may not be predictable, you are reliable. You come to my rescue. I look to you for your rescue today. Your ways are so beyond my ways. Thank you! Amen.
Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
– Jeremiah 17:14
In Mark chapter 5, Jesus is surrounded by a mob of people. In the midst of the crowd is a woman “who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years” (verse 25). She had tried just about everything and everyone.
In Mark 5:26 we see “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”
In her ailment, she had looked for healing everywhere that she could think of. She had spent all of her money and yet, ironically, she had suffered more and actually gotten worse.
Have you ever felt this way? The more you sought help and freedom from overweight and overeating, the more diets you experienced, and the more you knew, maybe even the more doctors you went to about this, the more found yourself actually in bondage to food, the thoughts of food, the lust for food and the inhaling of food when you weren’t hungry?
I have. After a year in the 1990s with a popular weight loss program, losing 100 pounds with a very strict diet and obsessive exercise, training for three marathons, studying to become a certified personal exercise trainer, I found myself with a worsened “heart condition.” Like the bleeding woman, I had looked to anyone and everything for healing *other* than the One who could truly offer it. My heart was attached to—obsessed with—food.
The incredible thing is, God can take these “failures” and our desperation and actually use it all. This bleeding woman had become so convinced that the only source for healing left for her was Jesus, that she knew that if she just *touched* his clothing, she could be healed! Now that is faith! Jesus sought her out. He wanted to see this woman face to face—not because he didn’t know who she was. He knew. He was God, after all. But he wanted to speak to her personally. In Mark 5:34, we are told what he says to this woman after she was healed: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
What marvelous words. These words He longs to speak to us! This very healing he longs to impart to us. Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! – Isaiah 30:18
But who are we looking to for our healing from this tendency to eat more than we need to sustain our bodies? Are we looking to Him? Truly? Are we seeking His healing? Or are we seeking the healing through any number of other methods? Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. – Ps. 107:19-20
If He heals us, it isn’t at the expense of our souls. When the Lord saves us, we truly are saved. Let us turn to Him, focus on Him, praise Him with our lives. In that place we, too, will experience the rush of power into our lives that sets us free from our suffering!
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. – Hebrews 12:2
Lord, I choose to come to you today for the healing I need. I need to be healed of my tendency to turn to food to process my emotions. Conversely, I know sometimes I replace overeating with restricting and I turn to dieting to “save” me—as a functional Messiah of sorts. I choose to reject this tendency, Lord. Instead of either unhealthy approach, I want to view food as fuel and be set free from extra weight and over-eating. I want to be set free from needless restricting. I know you alone can work these changes in me. I come to you, Jesus. Amen.
Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:
Forget your people and your father’s house.Â
 The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.Â
Do you feel like you enthrall the King of Kings with your beauty? He speaks this truth on the pages of His eternal Word—but do you, like many of us, have difficulty believing it?
Many of us have come to Thin Within or to this blog because of something external we want to change—our eating habits, our weight due to our eating habits, or something similar. We may not feel beautiful at all.
Some of us may be visiting this website because we have heard that Thin Within isn’t merely about externals–and that there is some new content and you want to experience the newness, freshness and freedom! You may even be fed up with focusing on externals and long for something that will encourage your *heart*.
Maybe you are just sick of the dieting treadmill!
Let me be frank. My goal at this blog and in my coaching ministry isn’t that you be a gorgeous, thin, creature that commands the attention and envy of every man and woman on the planet! It isn’t even that you be physically healthy, though that is a wonderful goal.
Frankly, my goal is to support you as you continue to grow in beauty from the inside out. I love seeing a life turned upside down with the power of praising our God and I KNOW that this has a direct impact on how we view food, our bodies and our eating!
No matter why you are here or what your expectations may be, you can rest assured that our God and King is a God of surprises—he can meet you and far exceed your hopes and dreams. The story he desires to live out with you can be a glorious testimony of this fact.
You may have your sights set on something extremely concrete or a very tangible goal, “I must gain enough weight to be 110 pounds,” or “I simply have to weigh less than 200 pounds!” or “I need to fit into that size 7 dress by my 20 year high-school reunion!” We have all kinds of folks that visit this blog.
You may know that at the heart of your struggle is an addiction that has its coils wrapped around you like a snake constricting its prey prior to devouring it. You may feel devoured…constricted, captured and snared. (Please know that a #1 truth is that Jesus has paid for our freedom. He HAS done it. He HAS won it. We get to walk it out!)
Regardless of your thoughts about where you currently find yourself, there is One who comes to rescue you from the dominion of darkness. He may lead you on a more circuitous route than what you have in mind. You can trust that He will only lead you where you need to go. Nothing will be wasted. His ways are beyond fathoming. He has in mind much discovery for you as you get to know Him better, get to know yourself better, and participate as the tale is penned, as the dance commences, as the journey unfolds.
You can rest assured this will be exactly what you need—no more, no less.
You may feel like you have been in this position before. If you have had enough of Mondays, “fresh starts,” new beginnings, and “this-time-it-will-be-different”s, then you are right where you need to be!
What About You?
Can you take an inventory? What do you DREAM of? What do you hope to become? Dare you write it on a page? Dare you bring it before the King of Kings, the Creator of the Universe, who gives birth to our dreams? While it is true that he sometimes allows a dream to die even as he ignites a new dream within us—HIS dream in us—we are safe with Him, sharing with Him what we long for.
Why not take some time today and write down what you long for? Hope for? Dream of? No one needs to see it.
Once you do this, sit with the Lord with the page open before Him and offer it to him. Invite him to see your dreams. Welcome him to either make them come true or replace them with his wonderful desire for you so that you can dare to dream God-shaped dreams for your future.
If you would like, you can share with us here how you feel about this exercise.
…for we have made a lie our refuge     and falsehood our hiding place.
Isaiah 28:15b
At the heart of almost all of our eating “failures” — our choices to eat outside of our God-given boundaries of physical hunger and satisfaction — is belief in a lie. In fact, this lie is likely the #1 reason we keep “failing” at releasing weight or at sustaining 0 to 5 eating.
The belief we hold is this:
Obeying God is not as rewarding as eating will be.
“OUCH!,” right?
Is this a lie that is operative in your life? It is in mine (I hate to admit). In the moment, when the ice cream calls your name from the ice box or the GF muffin (when you aren’t hungry) insists that you peel back the paper and sink your teeth into it, what are you believing? This is going to taste soooOOooo good…and be more rewarding than heeding the Lord and living within the boundary that He has graciously given me.
Ok, so maybe this isn’t what you are intentionally thinking, but somehow, this thought is there, influencing your actions. It may have happened by accident.
How can we break this cycle? How can we stop the lies from affecting us accidentally? We can dismantle and, even, destroy this stronghold by being proactive. Each day when we wake up we can read, speak, listen to TRUTH. Even saying a true statement out loud can help set the tone for our day:
Lord, I know that obeying you is an honor and privilege
No food will taste so good that it will be worth disobeying you.
This is what it means to renew our minds with truth. I can use my truth cards to help me with this, taking just moments each morning before my feet hit the floor to practice what I want to think for the rest of the day!
We want to take a lie that has been causing us to act in ways that run counter to our godly goals (like eating within 0 to 5 eating boundaries) and reject it outright. We then replace that belief (rooted in a lie) with TRUTH–God’s thoughts after him.
As we do this more and more, we will experience transformation.
Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. We want to expose the lies where they exist and welcome the truth into our lives. As we do this consistently, we will find that we actually like the freedom from the tyranny of the lie! We will find that we like the freedom from having to eat outside of our boundaries!
What About You?
1. What are some examples of truths that you can tell yourself each morning (and maybe throughout the day) so that when you are faced with an opportunity to eat outside of your boundaries, you have a truth at the ready…right there at the front of your mind…to refute the lie?
2. What is one practical way you will do this…today?
