Welcome to our launch day for our study of the Healthy Eating and Abundant Living book by Allie Marie Smith and Judy Halliday (the founder of Thin Within).
If you haven’t yet gotten the book, check it out here.
First, a video to talk about where we are going (email subscribers may want to visit the blog site so that you can see the video if it doesn’t show up in your email):
Three things that I hope you will allow God to really bring home to your life through your study:
You are fearfullyand wonderfullymade. (See Psalm 139:14) You might want to renew your mind about this. Use this passage to think differently about YOU!
For six weeks, consider committing to this path. Just a month and a half. That means you won’t quit. You won’t give up–even if you don’t do it “perfectly.” Just hang in there and keep on doing your lessons and showing up and sharing your thoughts here at the blog. Post here to encourage others. For six weeks…will you? 🙂 Pretty please? (Yes, I am shamelessly pleading!)
Step into the light…no longer hiding anything from the Lord. To learn the truth about yourself. He is gentle, kind and loving. We don’t need to run from truth (which we sometimes tend to do). Invite him to shine his light on your heart and life.
Assignment this week:
Can you get an accountability partner? 🙂 Prayerfully consider it.
Look over the HEAL principles on pages 9 and 10 (and if you haven’t read the introductory material yet in the book, you might want to do that).
Consider starting a GOD List (more details to come). You can find an explanation here.
Adopt the primary boundary of eating 0 to 5 — waiting for physical hunger (in Thin Within we call that “0”) and selecting any food you desire (no dieting rules, good food/bad food lists). Stop eating when you approach “5” — physical satisfaction. If you aren’t sure about when that is, serve yourself about half as much food and eat twice as slow as you typically do. 🙂 It will feel like you are eating just as much.
Complete the personal study and group study for Lesson 1–this is through page 29 of my version of the book (second edition) or up to the place where it says TWO: The HEAL Basics.
Complete the WHERE I AM evaluation included in those pages.
Renew your mind. Replace lies with truth in a practical way…with scripture memory cards, with Barb’s app, with a list you prepare ahead of time. We will be talking more about that in the next 6 weeks.
How this will work – Each Monday, I will post the new assignment and also a video to preview what we have ahead. On Fridays, I will post about the material we have studied…even though some of you may not have finished the week’s material…that’s ok. Please don’t feel like you have to quit because you aren’t at the same place. TRULY, it is NOT a problem. I know some don’t check the blog on Saturday and so want to have it available for those who do on Friday. If you don’t get to it until Saturday, that’s fine. Remember to go at whatever pace God leads YOU.
Even if you aren’t going through the study with us, it is my intention to make the content here at the blog relevant to both those who are doing the study AND those who aren’t. So please keep on visiting!
So, how do you feel about this new leg of the journey? What is God impressing upon your heart even now? How can we be praying for you?
I love that you all are engaging in community! Isn’t that awesome!? It really encourages my heart. THANK YOU for making this study what it is. It really touches me.
I am praying right now as I reach in to get someone’s name out of my “hat.”
Lord, would you cause my hand to land on the name of the person who needs the resource that we have to give away? Thank you for Joe and Pam Donaldson and Arthur and Judy Halliday and their generosity in giving books to this study here at the blog. Use this generosity, Lord, for your glory and the good of some special person this week! Bless all of the participants of this study and Barb Raveling, too, I pray! Thank you for the joy of community, too, Lord. In Jesus’ matchless Name I pray, Amen.
This week’s winner is Natalia! I will be connecting with her in email to find out what she has chosen for her prize.
Lord, thank you for giving a gift to Natalia! I pray that you would encourage ALL our hearts today with the gift of your presence in our lives! Thank you!
Thank you ALL for participating!
What can you do to experience the support and encouragement of community in your life, face to face with others? Is God possibly leading you to do this?
I am LOVING the community that has been growing on these pages. Thank you SO much for your participation! This week’s drawing will have a bunch of slips of paper in the hat! It isn’t too late to dive on it, be counted, contribute, comment on a post or on someone else’s post.
It has been really touching to see just how much you all are encouraging one another…and thank you for all your encouragement to me, as well.
Thanks SO much!
So, a few more hours are left to get your name in this week’s drawing for a copy of Thin Within, or Hunger Within or a week of free coaching. 🙂
By the time I did the drawing late last night, I had 53 different slips of paper to draw from! Thank you for participating this week. YOU all make this blog a supportive community. You have been a very REAL encouragement to me this week.
We now start fresh with our drawing entrants. Any new comments from this time forward on any of the posts will go into next Friday’s drawing. If you want to be in the drawing next Friday, please keep up the great work. Remember, you can comment on a post directly, or on another person’s comment to encourage them! Each time you comment, I add your name (yet again) to the drawing. Multiple entries are welcome!
Without further “ado” the winner of this week’s prize is Lisa Meyer. CONGRATULATIONS! I will be emailing Lisa to find out which of the three options she will choose:
Free copy of Thin Within — all donated by Joe and Pam Donaldson from the Thin Within ministry.
Free copy of Hunger Within – all donated by Judy and Arthur Halliday, the authors of the books and programs.
An hour of Skype or phone-call coaching with me broken up into increments that suit you.
As a bonus for reading through this post :-), I want to share with you a song that has meant so much to me on this journey. In fact, this song, sung by Hillsong in this rendering, God used SPECIFICALLY when I was driving through our canyon one day in late Fall of 2006 to call me out of my rebellion and back into fellowship with him, offering my eating and my body (and MIND!) to Him. I hope it encourages you:
