80% of the women who struggle with overeating and overweight have been molested or raped at some point in their life.
That is my best guess.
The reason I guess that the statistic is that high is because so very many of the women I have come to know over the past 13 years have experienced this. I have asked others who teach Thin Within classes and it seems to be a consensus that 8 out of 10 of the participants may have been sexually abused in some way.
Mandisa shares in the video below. If you see yourself as one of the 8, I hope you can be encouraged by knowing that you aren’t alone. Mandisa shares what she has done about it, too.
Do you have challenges, trials, trauma in your past that God may be calling you to bring to the cross to invite his healing? Won’t you consider getting in touch with a godly Christian therapist to help you to do so? While this is one of the most difficult things to do, it is also worth what it costs.
Yesterday, I felt like while I could still work myself up into a lather when a loving friend, having read yesterday’s blog entry (you know who you are!), asked me about how I was doing…In spite of that, I nevertheless, know that I *have* released much of this to the Lord. Much of the bitterness and anger has ebbed back into the original feeling…pain. God has taught me that I can feel that and let HIM comfort me. His comfort is much more effective than food, too!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives,
so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
– 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
As I do that, I am able to ask him “Lord, what am I to do and be in response to these things?” “What would you have me to learn about myself and about you through this misunderstanding?” “Is there any way in which the way I was misunderstood so often through this trial …well…is that a mirror as to what *you* actually see in me, Lord?” “What do I need to change?”
Yesterday, I felt a willingness to give my eating to the Lord. It wasn’t perfect, no. But I made positive God-honoring choices most of the day. I rejoice in that. Not because of the eating, food and so on, but because of what it means is happening in my heart again.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking,
but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit…
Romans 14:17
I am so thankful that he doesn’t judge me or condemn me based on my eating. He nudges me, he comforts me, he convicts my heart, but because Jesus alone is sufficient for my salvation, my outward acts are simply an expression in response to so great a salvation!
I am thankful that Ephesians 1:3-5 is true – even before I was born and cared a wit for God!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in the heavenly realms
with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world
to be holy and blameless in his sight.
In love he predestined us to be adopted
as his sons through Jesus Christ,
in accordance with his pleasure and will—
And isn’t it amazing that it gave HIM pleasure to choose us? That is an amazing thought. I love Ephesians 1. I can’t condemn myself or remain in shame when I read that chapter of the bible and God gently asks: “Yes, child, but do you BELIEVE me? Do you BELIEVE what I say about YOU is true?”
During the week or two or three that I had my tantrum, I not only gained physical weight, but I took on a truckload of shame and self-condemnation. Satan stood laughing and accusing, “See! I TOLD you you wouldn’t keep it off! What kind of teacher are you, teaching the women one thing in your Thin Within class and doing another! HA! By the time YOU get to the Thin Within retreat in June, you will be 30 pounds heavier! HA! Some ‘testimony’ YOU will be!”
And the Lord gently reminds me of all these things that scripture says. It isn’t about the food. It is about righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is about the fact that YES, he IS doing a new thing–EVEN NOW! I have NEVER been at this place before and He is yet at work! I praise you, Lord!
Today…all His mercies are new again. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? I am so thankful that he doesn’t carry my mistakes and failings forward. He wipes the slate clean with his grace.
A note about this multiple-part testimony: It seems so self-indulgent to me to share here on the blog all of this “All About Me” journey thing. My hope is that you will be encouraged! No matter how much “wandering” you think you have done, I am willing to bet I have done more! No matter how long you feel it has taken you to “get it” with regard to Thin Within principles, I am willing to bet it has taken me longer. No matter how many poor choices you feel you have made, I hope you can see I have made more! And *I* had a set up for “success” years ago!
So…that is why I have chosen to take the time (and space) and share this lengthy testimony with you. I truly hope that you can be encouraged. I have been the queen of failures, the master of flaky “commitments,” the expert of “good intentions!”
But God can and will turn any of it around. ALL of it matters! Rather than think it proves that I am a failure or flake, I choose to believe that it proves that God has deposited into my life investments that are now finally “maturing” (even if I am not! LOL!). Truthfully, if He can finally get through to me given all the chances I have had, then He can definitely transform ANYONE! So BE encouraged! And forgive me for going on and on with my testimony…
Letting Shame Win
Continuing from part 3…
The book project merged into another writing project through the holidays of 2001—what has now become the 12-week Thin Within Foundations Program material. As with the birthing of any work of value, there were many challenges. Looking back now, I can say it was all wonderfully worth it!
But at the time, facing the impossible tasks of writing constantly for short deadlines while trying to keep my home and homeschooling my then 8 and 10 year olds…emotionally, I was a basket case. What could have been an opportunity for growth—well, I allowed it to send me back to familiar coping mechanisms instead…plunging myself head long into overeating! Can you believe it!?
Do you find yourself gravitating toward that which is familiar–even when it is destructive? I know I do if I am not vigilant and guard against this tendency! That period was proof of that!
My journal entries at the time I was writing with Judy read like one struggling with two extremes (or what TW calls the pendulum swing). Resolved to demonstrate the freedom in practice that I knew Jesus had paid for me “in theory,” I repeatedly confessed my struggle with overeating to God and begged for His rescue. I lamented that even during my partnership with Judy Halliday—a wonderful mentor—still I hadn’t begun to live out the freedom that Jesus paid to provide for me. The feelings of defeat were, at times, absolutely overwhelming. More than ever before, I began to understand these words of the Apostle Paul:
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:18-24)
The problem was, I continued to leave out verse 25 and chapter 8 verses 1 and 2 which reads:
Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!…Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
I continued to write for the Thin Within company through the first part of 2002. The book came out in Spring of 2002. We filmed the earliest videos for the company about that same time. But how was I supposed to testify about the effectiveness of the Thin Within approach when my body didn’t reflect that truth? I knew it *was* effective, but I wasn’t choosing to live according to what I knew. What kind of testimony is that? (More shame piled on…)
It is still difficult for me to see or hear that people have viewed those early TW videos…but I know God can use even a cracked pot to contain his glory!
Nevertheless, the “truth” I lived at the time wasn’t the truth I knew in my head. Shame began to return to my life more quickly than any weight I had formerly lost (which is saying a lot as the weight had returned QUICKLY).
Shame is dangerous. It causes us to isolate, to hide, and furthers our sin/shame patterns. have you found that to be true? I know now that if I have been hiding out at home and not getting out to see people as often, to evaluate my life…what is going on. Am I caught again in a shame cycle?
This, too, is written about in the Thin Again book. So much of what I had learned remained only in my head, however. The more I knew and didn’t apply, the greater my shame.
At some point, I supposed I couldn’t “handle” continuing to connect with my friends and mentors in Thin Within if I wasn’t going to change. Slowly, I drifted away from my association with the Hallidays and the Thin Within company.
In fact, I was ashamed that my name had been placed not only in the acknowledgements of the TW book, but also inside on the front page! God’s call was irrefutable. Yet I continued to resist.
Oh, dear reader…my heart is heavy as I share these details with you. I do so in the hopes that you will know that no matter how rebellious or sinful you may feel you have been or even are…I have you beat! My own rebellion is far greater!
When it comes to giving my heart and eating to the Lord, no greater love could have been given…and yet I continued to resist. So many chances. So many opportunities. Yet I began to feel as if I didn’t want my name to be associated with Thin Within or the Hallidays. I felt I would reflect poorly on the Hallidays, on Thin Within and on the Lord. I wasn’t yet living the truth that I knew was contained within the pages of the book. Shame is so deadly.
