Sun rises on a new day, but I’m still a creature of habit. I roll out of bed and head for the scales which draws me like a Siren.
Surely there’s a mistake. I wiggle my feet on the scale’s cold glass, but the digital numbers remain the same.
So I drag myself to the kitchen for my next habit—coffee. While it’s brewing, I open the refrigerator to get Half and Half. The carton sits on the second shelf next to last night’s leftovers.
“What should I make for dinner?”
My husband hates that question at 7 a.m., but I have to plan ahead. Thaw the meat; buy the ingredients. Meals don’t just happen. If I was the only one in the household, I could eat a bowl of cereal. Pop some popcorn. Have an apple, but I’ve others to consider.
After I’ve been caffeinated and studied the scriptures mentioned in my Thin Within Workbook, I drive to the grocery store. My irritable stomach grumbles. Are you nuts? How dare you take me here when I’m a zero. Look at all this food. You’re killing me.
I pat my belly. Behave yourself. You can have some peas and carrots when we get home.
I weave the shopping cart among the vegetables and fruit. Avoid the ice cream aisle. I came for fresh produce, eggs, and chicken breasts, but a bag of Fritos sneaks into my cart.
I frown, but then I’m reminded: “Just because You’re losing weight doesn’t mean Hubby stopped eating snacks.”
Good point. I head for the check out line…before I’m tempted to visit the cookies…and set my groceries on the counter’s conveyer belt.
While the female clerk rings up the food, I notice I’m conveniently hemmed in by two metal racks. Candy on my right. Magazines on my left.
One offers worthless calories and a quick sugar high. The other offers me recipes and a fast pass to lose weight. I study the headlines which are designed to bait my vanity.
“New Water Cure—Drop 8 lbs in 7 days”
“Lose 10,20,30 Pounds—in Just Weeks!”
I’d buy these magazines in a heartbeat if I thought losing weight were that easy. Only, I know better. The female models on the magazine covers are string-bean thin and half my age. I suck in my gut. I can lose weight, but I’ll never look that good.
Time for a Truth Card. “God doesn’t look at my outer appearance, but on the heart.”
The clerk pauses. “Anything else?”
I glance at the candy bars in their brightly-colored wrappers. My stomach begs me like a spoiled child sitting in a grocery cart, “Can I have one? Pretty please with a cherry on top?”
I remember 1 Corinthians 6:12 from Thin Within’s introduction.
“Everything is permissible for me – but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me – but I will not be mastered by anything.”
“No, thank you.”
My stomach sinks. It’s not used to hearing me say, “NO.”
I pay for the food and escape the store waving my receipt like a victory banner. Who knew? Renewing my mind with God’s Word really works!
But my smile fades fast because my belly’s turning somersaults, and it won’t give up. “Yippee. Let’s eat something to celebrate! Got any Fritos?”
This week we are hitting “Night-Time Eating” head on by creating truth cards that will help us fight the lies we believe that cause us to give in to temptation after dinner with TRUTH.
Today, I want to share with you page two in my truth card deck!
This “habit” (of eating at night) is the single BIGGEST hindrance to my confidence that I am currently at my God-given size.
After I obsessed and went nuts and dropped all the weight I did, it was clear that I had gone too far. So I am not at that LOOOOOW a weight right now. I am good with that. But what I *don’t* know is if I am where I should be. I don’t think the number matters at all. But night-time eating is sort of a bug-a-boo for me. I haven’t conquered it at all. I know that many evenings, I do “desire” eating. If I were to be obedient during this trouble time, I know that I would have confidence that no matter what my size or number or whatever, I am right where God intends for me to be.
I need to CHOOSE to surrender my “desire eating” in the evening to God. Will I?
It really boils down to WILL I OBEY GOD? Or my desires?
Will I call “foul” to God when he asks me to give evening eating over to him?
Is this one of those areas where I retain *my* (supposed) rights? Or am I truly surrendered…”Not my will, but thine be done?” No food tastes as good as obedience feels!
Is giving up food after dinner (when I am not hungry) worth what I get in return?
There truly is no sweeter sensation–no tantalizing taste-bud thrill–than loving God with my choices. The peace that I experience when I submit to his authority is just SO wonderful!
HOW ABOUT YOU?
Are these truths that you can add to your truth card deck? How is it going for you using your truth cards? What truths can you add to these that I have posted?
Do you struggle with eating after dinner? I know that many do. We aren’t typically hungry for the few hours that follow dinner time, yet we nevertheless end up eating. I have three truth cards for that as well. It helps me to read these truth cards out loud just before dinner time. It also helps me to read them out loud just after dinnertime, too. If I find I am tempted, I like to launch Barb Raveling’s “I Deserve a Donut” app (she has an I Deserve a Donut book now too for those without iPhones!) and use some of her questions to illuminate what is going on.
In any event, here are THREE truths that I can say out loud that help me to NIP EVENING EATING in the bud!
Unless I eat an early dinner (or light dinner, stopping before I reach a “5” on the hunger scale), I simply WILL NOT BE HUNGRY before bed!
Have you experienced this? Where you know that you ate plenty at dinner time, but you know you are planning…actually planning to eat anyhow? Do we want to BE CURED of this overeating and extra weight stuff? Do we really WANT to be obedient to the Lord in eating only what we need for fuel? Then the truth is, unless we eat a very early dinner or an extremely light dinner, it isn’t likely we will be hungry before bed!
I sleep better when I don’t overeat at bed-time or just before.
Have you ever had a food-fest in the evening while watching TV or a movie or playing games with the family? Or perhaps that is your computer or reading time and you just munch most of the evening? Has it affected how soundly you sleep? It does for many of us who struggle with this. When we use food for fuel, we are able to sleep peacefully!
When I don’t overeat at night, I wake up hungry for breakfast which is a good thing!
A lot of people assume that they need to eat in the morning when they wake up. Honestly, when I overeat the night before, I am not hungry until 10am or sometimes even 11am! Is this true for you?
How About You?
Do you struggle with night-time eating? Might speaking these truths out loud each morning and again in the evening before you eat after dinner actually help you? What are your strategies for emerging victorious over the temptations to eat in the evening “just because?”
Stay tuned for part 2 of night-time eating Truth Cards!
Image courtesy of Mister GC at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
My Thin Within journey hasn’t been so much about the physical weight, but more about the mental “weight”. The weight of worrying about my body image, obsessing about food, fighting the diet mentality and temptation of going back to a diet, and bowing down to the skinny idol. I’ve had people ask me why I’m so interested in this subject. Like, why do I feel compelled to encourage others in their journey toward freedom when I *look* fine? And my response is this: We all deal with the same lies, whether you are overweight, underweight, or even at your ideal weight. The enemy is right there saying that you are too much or not enough. So my journey has been more about releasing the”weight” of my thoughts and surrendering the obsession. If I could weigh my thoughts, obsessions, struggles, and lies I have dealt with over the years, they would be considerably very heavy.
I did, at one time, have physical weight to release. I’ve been 25-30 pounds overweight. I’ve dealt with emotional eating. I’ve dieted and then sought freedom from counting, weighing, measuring. I’ve dealt with fears about food. I know what it feels like to never feel good enough and to keep on reaching toward those temptations. I know what it’s like to eat when I’m not hungry and then to keep on eating because of guilt and shame. And I know what it’s like to have God’s peace in this journey, to taste the freedom He has offered. I know what it’s like to be free from worrying about food and to no longer overeat.
But I still struggle. I still find myself tempted to research about diets. I still think I need to be a certain size and look a certain way. I still worry about the unknown. I compare past success on a diet program with success while eating 0-5. I want the guarantee that this works. And I compare myself with others.
Sometimes, for encouragement, I will skim through parts of Hunger Within. Recently, I found myself in Chapter 6: Dependence Not Addiction. And even though it’s a hard truth to swallow, I realize I have been dealing with addiction in this. As stated in the chapter, addiction means to “give assent–to give up or to give over”. Somewhere along the line, I had surrendered myself to body image worries, to comparison, the researching diets, etc.
If we give ourselves over to food, performance, relationships, or other compulsive behaviors, we may experience initial relief, so then we cling to them, making them the objects of our desire.
I have done that. And it’s crazy to think I have found “relief” in researching and obsessing over my body, but I have.
As these objects grow in importance, our behavior becomes habitual and we can no longer satisfy or relieve our needs in healthy ways. Even if we want to break free, we find ourselves enslaved. Herein lies the greatest risk to our relationship with God: the addiction itself, rather than God, becomes the driving force or focus of our life.
That statement right there is an eye-opener to me. I have looked to something outside of the Lord to try to satisfy my needs. Some of us do this with food: we eat outside of our physical hunger because there is a need–but only God can reach that need. Wow! I really want to redirect myself (change my habits) so that I’m not reaching toward the avenues of addiction, but instead, I’m reaching toward my Lord and Savior and His Word!
The objects of our addictions become our false gods. These are what we attend to, where we give our time and energy, instead of love. Addiction, then, displaces and supplants God’s love as the source and object of our deepest true desire. (Gerald May, as quoted in Hunger Within)
I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired of going back to the same old behavior. It’s that old rut of thinking. But God wants us to get on His path of righteousness. His WORD is a light unto our path! He wants to pull us out of that old rut and onto His path of life. I want to release this “weight” over to the Lord so I can be free! And I know that will happen as I continue to press into Him and seek His truth. HE is the one Who will change me from the inside out. I want to press into HIM, not into the diet books and lies that I’ve believed for so long. I want to go to Him instead of putting hope in something false. I know it starts in my mind. That’s why it’s so important to renew my mind. That’s where the change starts.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 2 Cor 10:4-5
I cannot tell you how many hours I’ve prayed or how many journals I’ve filled (at least a few), asking the Lord for help, digging into His Word, seeking His truth as He dissolved lies. But I do know this–GOD is the One Who will change you. Your part is to go to Him, and HE does the transformation work! I cannot emphasize that enough. Renewing your mind is a vital part of this journey! Take those lies to Him. Lay them before Him and trust that He will reveal truth! Don’t give up! He will change you and one day you will realize that you aren’t struggling with certain things anymore. You will release “weight” and the physical weight. He will change you from within and it will not only be evident on the outside, but we will think and live changed. Praise God!
My journey isn’t over yet, in fact, recently it’s turned a corner and I’m so excited to share about that…but you will have to wait until next week. Stay tuned!
I’ve been reading a book called Parenting the Wholehearted Child by Jeannie Cunnion (excellent book by the way) and she talked about how we know we are loved and accepted when we know who we are in Christ. So that got me thinking about how I have spent so many years not feeling accepted because of my body or thinking that I needed to conform to a certain pattern or image of this world. I have learned that there are more issues if I don’t accept my body where it’s at; like I’m accepting defeat. So I started thinking, what would happen if I knew (really knew) and declared who I am in Christ? Because in Christ I AM accepted!
“Those of us who struggle with food, eating, body image, and weight may spend excessive energy performing for acceptance because we equate our self-concept with our outward appearance. When our reflection in the mirror is less than perfect, we may continue to try to improve ourselves and an abusive pattern of starving or stuffing ourselves may persist” (Hunger Within, Chapter 5: Worth Not Shame).
Heidi Bylsma shared an amazing file with me with many truths about who we are in Christ. Today I sat down, with the printed list, and picked out the ones I felt that were most applicable to me in the moment (of course all of them are). And then I wrote down (with some fun colored pencils) on a sheet of paper. I will keep this paper on my bathroom vanity to read each day and confess. These are truths I can renew my mind with. And I know as I renew my mind, God will transform me (Hebrews 12:1-2). As I declare these truths, I will believe them more and more.
You see, it’s not what I do that makes me who I am. It’s not my outside appearance that makes me special. It’s not how well I perform or go about my work. I am who I am because of who I am in Christ–because of what He has done for me. I am accepted because Christ accepts me.
You and I are accepted by Christ no matter what. This list tells us who you are in Christ. So when you look in the mirror, you can lift that chin up and be confident in the Lord despite what you see or wish you could see. You are His beloved! You are accepted!
“This 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 past or present performance, possessions, or the opinions of other–can fulfill our longing for security and significance…Our hunger within will persist unsatisfied until we can see ourselves not through the eyes of the world but through the eyes of our loving Lord” (Hunger Within, Chapter 5: Worth Not Shame).
When you know who you are in Christ and you know you can accept your body as is, you will start to relax and be thankful for your body. It’s not quitting or giving up. It’s not saying you will never release another pound. It’s being confident that the Lord loves you and accepts you right where you are at and that He will complete the work He has started in you. I really think this is a vital part of the journey toward freedom in this area of our lives, especially if you have been worshiping the skinny idol.
“When we accept ourselves for what we are, we decrease our hunger for power or the acceptance of others because our self-intimacy reinforces our inner sense of security” (Hunger Within, Chapter 5: Worth Not Shame).
When you know who you are in Christ and this journey becomes about what’s within, you focus on your heart relationship with Christ and not the number on a scale. If you are first starting your journey this may feel hard to imagine or accept because you just want the added weight gone. And I can encourage you that you will release weight in conjunction with the Lord working on your inner man as well. It’s pretty amazing!
Would you like to renew your mind with some truths about who you are in Christ? Here are some truths to get you started:
Who I Am In Christ
I am God’s child for I am born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God which lives and abides forever 1 Pet. 1:23
I am forgiven all my sins and washed in the blood Eph. 1:7
I am a new creature II Cor. 5:17
I am the temple of the Holy Spirit I Cor. 6:19
I am delivered from the power of darkness and transformed into God’s kingdom Col. 1:13
I am redeemed from the curse of the law Gal. 3:13
I am strong in the Lord Eph.6:10
I am holy and without blame before Him Eph. 1:4
I am accepted in Christ Eph. 1:6
I am blessed Deut. 28:1-14
I am a saint Rom. 1:7
I am qualified to share in His inheritance Col. 1:12
I am the head and not the tail.
I am above only and not beneath Deut. 28:13
I am victorious Rev. 21:7
I am dead to sin Rom.6: 2, 11
I am elect Col. 3:12
I am loved with an everlasting love Jer. 31:3
I am established to the end I Cor. 1:8
I am set free Jn. 8:31-33
I am circumcised with the circumcision made without hands Col. 2:11
I am crucified with Christ Gal. 2:20
I am alive with Christ Eph. 2:5
I am raised up with Christ and seated in heavenly places Col. 2:12
I am His faithful follower Eph. 5:1
I am the light of the world Matt. 5:14
I am the salt of the earth Matt. 5:13
I am called of God II Tim. 1:9
I am brought near by the blood of Christ Eph. 2:13
I am more than a conqueror Rom. 8:37
I am in Christ Jesus by His doing I Cor. 1:30
I am an ambassador for Christ II Cor. 5:20
I am beloved of God I Thess. 1:4
I am the first fruits among His creation James 1:18
I am born of God and the evil one does not touch me I Jn. 5:18
I am a king and a priest unto God Rev. 1:6
I am a joint heir with Christ Rom. 8:17
I am reconciled to God II Cor. 5:18
I am overtaken with blessings Deut. 28:2
I am healed by the wounds of Jesus I Pet. 2:24
I am in the world as He is in heaven I Jn. 4:17
I am a fellow citizen with the saints of the household of God Eph. 2:19
I am sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit Eph. 1:13
I am complete in Christ Col. 2:10
I am the apple of my Father’s eye Ps. 17:8
I am free from condemnation Rom. 8:1
I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ II Cor. 5:21
I am chosen I Thess. 1:4
I am firmly rooted, built up, strengthened in the faith and overflowing with thankfulness Col. 2:7
I am a disciple of Christ because
I have love for others Jn. 13:34-35
I am built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone Eph. 2:20
I am a partaker of His divine nature II Pet. 1:4
I am God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works Eph. 2:10
I am being changed into His image Phil. 1:6
I am one in Christ! Hallelujah! Jn. 17:21-23
I have all my needs met by God according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus Phil. 4:19
I have the mind of Christ I Cor. 2:16
I have everlasting life Jn. 6:47
I have a guaranteed inheritance Eph. 1:14
I have abundant life Jn. 10:10
I have overcome the world 1 Jn. 5:4
I have the peace of God which passes understanding Phil. 4:7
I have access to the Father by one Spirit Eph. 2:18
I can do all things through Jesus Christ Phil. 4:13
I walk in Christ Jesus Col. 2:6
I press toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God Phil. 3:14
I live by the law of the Holy Spirit Rom. 8:2
I know God’s voice Jn. 10:14
I show forth His praise I Pet. 2:9
I always triumph in Christ II Cor. 2:14
P.S. I created a Sound Cloud recording reading these truths. Enjoy!
