by Heidi Bylsma | Feb 1, 2007 | Blog
“I am only human.”
This concept has been on my heart for a while. Basically, when I use the phrase “I am only human,” it is to *excuse* a behavior, attitude, or something I said.
Sure, it is a fact about my existence…I mess up…But….I want to find a way NOT to *admit* that I messed up…or find a way to justify that messing up is…well…*normal*…so I glibbly say “I am ONLY human!” (Usually with a bit of a defeated attitude, too….and for me…rebellion is there too when I say this….)
The truth is…I am NOT “only” human. I am human, yes….and that has some major drawbacks, to be sure. In fact, my human-ness seems to get in the way quite often!
However, because of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for me (and for you), I am not ONLY human! I have His Spirit resident in me. (Romans 8:15; 1 Corinthians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 6:19) In fact, scripture teaches that I have been made totally new in His sight!!! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Scripture teaches that I have been given EVERYTHING I need for life and godliness. (2 Peter 1:3) So, what is with my blaming my choice to sin on being “only human!”?
It is like I want to do what Flip Wilson used to do (a comedian from the 70s) “The Devil made me do it.” Am I really trying to claim that I had no choice in the matter, but my “human-ness made me do it?” Ridiculous, isn’t it?
The truth is, I no longer have to give in to my human-ness. I now have the freedom, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to CHOOSE to give in to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, who is resident in me. I have the ability and the responsibility. (See Romans 8)
Will I fail? Sure, but that doesn’t mean I am to use my humanity as an excuse for failure.
In fact, the Lord tells us “Be holy as I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16) Woah. How holy is God, any how? Completely!
If I am supposed to be holy *as* He is holy, it basically is a biblical mandate for me to keep on keeping on, or as Paul says in Philippians to press on to reach the goal…nothing is worth keeping me from the goal. Holiness IS the goal–becoming Christ-like. It isn’t like I am human and should accept that I will live like a “mere mortal” with the occasional instance of doing something good or holy! Nope. Instead, I am called holy by God and now I am to live in accordance with the identity that HE gives to me. I will live making holy choices with *occasional* struggles with human-ness. NOT the other way around!
Before you think that I am a believer in achieving perfection on this earth….nope. I am not. The scriptures, while telling us God says we are to BE HOLY, also indicate that we won’t achieve that until the day of Christ Jesus–Phil 1:6– (or, as my dear Mother in Law often said…”When we get to glory!).
So why belabor this point???? Well, I have found that what I believe about my identity will radically affect how I behave. If I think of myself as “only human,” I am likely to live as “only human.” When someone says “I am only human” it usually comes with a defeated tone of voice, downcast, dejected. That AIN’T NO WAY TO LIVE!!!! I don’t want to live a defeated “only human” kind of life, do you? Not when the Lord Jesus Christ has paid the price for the glory of God…a treasure beyond fathoming…to be resident within me. No thank you!
Instead, I can believe and KNOW…”I am superhuman!” Believing God about what He says He has done in me, is the key, here. Believe what GOD says…He says His Spirit is in me. He says that He has empowered me for life and godliness…So, if I believe it, I will have a totally different expectation and approach to life! And definitely to my eating!!!!
If I keep eating when I am not hungry, or continue eating when I am already satisfied and blame it on being “only human” that is totally BOGUS. As one dear friend says, Jesus laid down His life for me. Will I not lay down a little food? Especially when I consider that He has sent His Spirit to empower me to do great things? Will I really insist that setting down food is beyond His ability to cope with? Do I think I am beyond the grasp of the Holy Spirit’s reach? Wow…I mean, this is GOD we are talking about! The one who causes the blind to see, stones to be rolled away and gives life to the dead! the one Who created the Heavens and the earth!!!
If I believe that the Spirit lives in me, then I will expect the Lord to empower me to LIVE in step with the Spirit with all of the fruit of the Spirit ripe and ready in my life! (Erm….this includes self-control!) So for me, I am done with excusing myself or my SIN as being all because (whine whine) “I am only human.”
That “ain’t no way to live!!!”
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 25, 2007 | Blog
Hi, everyone. Something soooooo interesting to me has occurred to me, so I simply must share.
Prior to being involved with Thin Within, I had a year of involvement with a popular weightloss program and then another one…and lost 110 pounds and with all the compulsive working out I did, including training for marathons and intense strength training, my bodyfat percent got to 14.5% which is pretty low for a lady my age at the time with two kids. I was thrilled, but I was in such intense captivity from eating that way and working out…and any time I didn’t work out, I feared that I would gain. I truly exercised to lose weight. My husband calls those days my “bulimic” period as I would eat and then “purge” by exercising all the more. Some days, even when I wasn’t doing a long training run (which could be 18 miles long or longer, as Ellie and others probably know), I would still workout two times or for 3 or 4 hours! Captivity!
In November a few months ago, I began to try to add intentional exercise back into my life. Mind you, it has been over 10 years now since I have done the marathon thing and the body building (which was really what I was doing, if I can be honest…). Recently, a thought occurred to me…it was like God shone His light on a thought that may have been there since November that I just didn’t identify as NOT being from Christ! It was FEAR that “Oh no! If I don’t have time for my workout, I will gain weight!”
It hit me like a lightening bolt that I had this thought that was totally, 100% a lie!
I was able to say to God, “What IS this? What do I DO with it?”
I have been carving into my life time for exercise now because I am enjoying it so much. I never want to return to compulsively exercising again. I have always loved being active–even when I did all of that 10 years ago, but I distinctly remember that it had begun to be motivated by fear…
Anyhow, God’s Holy Spirit quietly but definitively told me, “Don’t worry, Child. If you don’t have time to exercise, your body will just cue you that you need less food less often.”
Well, DUH! When I exercise, I find 0 much more frequently! When I don’t, the only difference for me in the day really is that I won’t get to zero as fast! So just don’t eat…until…zero! DUH! LOL!
0 to 5 eating works!
Days when I am inactive for other reasons (rain or injury or sickness…) it stands to reason…eat when I am at 0 and my body will get what it needs when it needs it. Stop when no longer hungry and presto…
It makes me think of when I was eating 0 to 5 in the year 2000. I had released weight (as I always do with this approach…why I ever walk away from it is beyond me…) and had a NASTY roller blading accident where I dislocated my ankle and broke my leg. I was laid up BUT GOOD for months…truly. I continued to release weight even though I was inactive. All because God made my body reliable and He continued to tell me when to eat and when to stop and enabled me to Just Do it!
Anyhow, I had to share with you all that I was SO relieved to realize this again in a VERY REAL way….what relief came over me! I don’t *have* to worry that my life has grown dependent on exercise like I allowed it to before. YAY!
Heidi
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 13, 2007 | Blog
Another hurdle that I have had to (and have to) overcome is a sense that I can eat three meals a day. In the past, when I ate listening to my body’s hunger/satisfied mechanism, I had a higher metabolism and got hungry many many times in a day. I could literally eat 4, 5 or 6 times between the 0-5 parameters and release weight.
This time around, I get hungry much less frequently. In fact…so infrequently, that I feel like the three meals “I am owed” in a day to enjoy food…well…even that often isn’t necessarily legitimate. I am far from sedentary, but a lot of the muscle I once carried isn’t there any more. This may change over time, of course…certain seasons I work much harder physically than others because of the horses and caring for them, the fences, throwing around hay bales and the like. But right now, today, I know that often, my body just doesn’t need food as often as I *want* it to need food.
(Have you ever LUSTED for hunger? LOL!)
Here is the way it might happen for me… I wait wait wait for 0 in the morning when I get up. 11am rolls around and I am “not sure” if I am at a 0 yet. I “know” that my not being hungry for breakfast is ridiculous.
“Of course I am hungry!! I am ALWAYS hungry in the morning!”
I might even rationalize that even if I don’t feel the definite cues of stomach hunger that I have learned are legitimate 0, that since it has been SO long since I have eaten I better eat or else I will get dizzy or a terrible headache. “After all…”, I rationalize, “…I have virtually skipped breakfast.” (For some people, the concern about dizziness and headaches may be legitimate…for ME it rarely is!)
I might use this train of thinking to go ahead and eat.
This ignores what my body is saying. If I eat at this point, how do I know when to quit, for instance? It all becomes a guessing game. (The diet mentality sneaks in here and says “About that much should be the ‘right’ amount.” Once again, I have ignored my hunger mechanism.
Not only that, but I have claimed my right to do with my body as I please. God has convicted me that this is my pride again…I want to do what I want when I want…period:
“Lord! I should be able to enjoy at *least* three meals a day! They *are* small meals, after all! Will you take them away from me too?” (I can almost hear the serpent as with Eve in the garden, whispering to me about how God is holding out on me and how “mean” he is to deny me my rights….bleah)
When I really analyze this, I realize I feel this way for one reason, simply:
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I do NOT want to give up food.
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“Normal people…” (I again rationalize) “…eat three meals a day. My meals are so small. Of course I can still eat three meals a day!”
Truth is, if I really want to grow in my walk with the Lord, listening and responding to what He tells me is the key. Some days he may tell me I don’t need breakfast (or dinner…whatever!).
And please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am not saying that if I am hungry and I KNOW I am hungry I should bypass hunger and skip a meal to release weight. Nope. God has convicted me that, unless He lays a spiritual concern on my heart to fast and pray over, skipping hunger for any other reason is dishonoring him as well (until he tells me otherwise).
But I know I have said it and I have heard others say it…that we assume we will eat three meals a day…plain and simple. We seem to think of it as a part of being human or something–like taxes, brushing our teeth and other “necessities”…or at least I have in the past and I hope to get over this. I almost think of it as a “divine right.” In fact, a part of me looks at God cross-eyed and says, “Don’t be messing with my three meals a day, Lord!”
When I am most active, I might legitimately need to eat a bit more frequently. My body is reliable, though, and will signal the need for nourishment. Generally, though, I seem to be in the habit of thinking that if I rule out all snacking then that means I have been “good.” But my attitude is such that I act like three meals is something I am entitled to.
This sidelines listening to the Lord and to my hunger/satisfied mechanism.
I want to be done with this sort of thinking…
by Heidi Bylsma | Jan 2, 2007 | Blog
This is long!
I suppose it is more for me than for anyone to really read! LOL! I hope that saying it here will build in some accountability. I have an accountability partner. I will forward this to her as well.
2006 was a challenging year for me in many ways. I spent most of it wallowing in my sin…Truthfully, I worried myself almost sick about my health, having gained a bunch of weight…That is until a lady who owned a christian horsewomen’s list invited me to join her list and then discovered my involvement with Thin Within in the past (by looking at my websites)…She asked me to lead her group through a study of the TW material! None of them had ever been exposed to Thin Within or any other hunger/satisfied program. It was a wonderful month with those ladies, as they were always discovering new things…just God revealing stuff to them! It was so refreshing and sure was motivating! Our paths had to part all too soon.
God sure used that lady to jumpstart me! 😀
To reinforce what He was planning to do…to make sure I didn’t MISS it (as I am prone to do), the Lord lovingly, but very pointedly asked me what I felt really was the difference between MY family torn apart by MY death due to health complications (due to rebellious, willful obesity and the indulging of MY flesh) and some “normal American” family torn apart by a husband and father’s addiction to pornography and HIS indulgence of HIS flesh. YIKES! That comparison by the Spirit of God really penetrated my hard heart.
So the last 6 weeks of 2006, God removed just over 20 pounds from my body and revealed so many things to me–Wow….He walked with me in intimacy and showed me, once again, that His grace knows no bounds, that His mercies are new every morning…no…every MOMENT. He showed me that pride has GOT TO BE PUT TO DEATH and that it is insidious in my life…and it rears its ugly, self-protecting head at almost every turn! BLEAH!
I came out of 2006 understanding that God is God and I am not– even if my son is autistic, my youngest horse is permanently lame, and my mother is driving me nuts. 🙂 This is progress in a big way. It isn’t measurable by most peoples’ standards, but I shout Hallelujah! God has brought me far! Thank you Lord….I bow before you.
Ladies, I don’t have the freedom like many of you do to graph, chart, log and journal. In 1995 and 1996 I counted everything and logged everything and charted it, too. I did it on paper and on the computer. I put signs on the wall and on the fridge. I counted fat grams, protein grams, carbohydrate grams, made sure they were in a specific proportion for every meal percentage-wise. I graphed my intake and my weight and compared the relationship between the two. (I even graphed that!) I was always looking for new ways of graphing and charting!
I logged strength training repetitions, sets, and weights, fat percentages in my body when hydrostatically weighed. I logged my run miles/locations/type of workouts/races and other carido workouts, making sure I often did two a day to compensate for some of the secrets I tried to keep from myself and my logs. I compared calorie intake with projected calorie expenditure.
I came out of those years thinner and fitter than I had ever been in my entire life…and…more totally chained to food and in bondage to compulsive exercise than ever before, as well. I was obsessed. In my case, I missed the idol I had erected. Although my eating was disordered before, it was WAY disordered by then. Food was still an enemy…I was NOT at peace with my body, even though it was fit! I found a way to control the food…and control my exercise….presto.
When I went to my first Weigh Down meeting in spring of 1997, the ladies there scoffed at my presence there…I was thin…looked pretty good for a mom with two young kids. They didn’t get it…it was my heart. My heart was suffocating with the idol that lived there…and my thoughts, my plans, my family’s life totally revolved around it.
That wasn’t freedom! I was NOT free! I looked it on the outside, but the idol threw back its head and laughed at my presumption!
So……all that to say…I can’t even use the Thin Within graphs and charts. They are too much like the chains of my past. So I don’t. God has asked me not to return to that. Most people probably don’t have a problem like that. I have always been a slow student! LOL! I think it is great that many can journal and graph and log. He has shown me that, for me…and only for me…to do so wouldn’t help His cause in my life. I guess this is my disclaimer! LOL! My goals sound nebulous and UNmeasurable. But God will show me when it works. He certainly did during these past months.
I have to tell you, I have to resist the logs and charts for all I am worth. I found an old “Penguin Brigade” log book that I had never used…saved it…and I put it on my dresser, thinking I would begin to log again. YIKES! I can’t! I still can’t! I can feel the weakness….I am SOOOO tempted!
So….
For 2007, here are my nebulous goals. LOL!
I desire to see myself get to my God-given size and stay there so that by next January, I can be a group leader for TW. If God calls me to it sooner, great. I am willing. But I feel this strong leading right now that after all my practice at unfaithfulness, He would like to give me an opportunity to practice listening to his voice in each moment for a good solid year. 🙂 It has to do with credibility. When we moved up here and started attending a church here, I was humiliated and ashamed when someone approached me and said, “Hey, your name….I have seen your name in a book I have been reading…haven’t I?” They were reading Thin Within and I wanted to hide under the furniture! I felt like I was such a blight on His name and on the good name of Thin Within!….I know that God isn’t about shame…that is why I have shared these things here, but as for leading a TW group at my church…I feel that I must have credibility with the ladies who know me and who might choose to be a part. So that is one goal.
Additionally, I would like to reach my God-given size by May. This is a HUGE God-sized goal. I would like to release another 30 or so pounds…if God says more is needed or less is fine, then I am ok with that. Selfishly, perhaps, my reason for wanting to get there that soon is because I want my horses to carry less weight when things dry out enough to ride them this late spring or early summer. When I am too heavy, I worry about how they feel. Then I get fearful that if they hurt at all when they carry me that they may object (this can result in bucking! LOL!) (To see my tales visit http://rocklinheidi.bravejournal.com) …and I may get hurt! So it all works together to help me be less fearful and them happier about things. Specifically, I want to ride Dodger, my mustang, by late spring early summer. He is built like a small tank, but he is my smallest horse at about 13.3 hands and 800 pounds (he needs to “release” weight, too!).
(Please visit his special video with my autistic son at http://bylsma.spiritofequus.com/vid/dodgerdaniel.wmv They were in the Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover’s Soul Volume 2 and also are featured at the BLM website if you are interested! I am a proud mamma of my two redheads–though the video has footage about 3 years old in it! LOL! And you can see in the video that I needed to release weight even then…and I gained even MORE weight after that!)
Anyhow, Harley will be going to a trainer this spring. I am concerned about being too heavy for him. He is quite athletic, but hasn’t had practice carrying a heavy load since his first training. He has carried me some, but always been troubled about it. I hope that the trainer will prepare him for at least the weight I will be then. I know this all probably sounds silly.
I hope to also be fit enough that my core body strength enables me to be a *good* rider. It requires a lot of a person to be a *good* rider. I only hope to trailride, but I still want to gel with the movement of my horses so they are comfortable (and I will be, as well). This requires fitness. Some folks think that if you ride horses you don’t have to be fit! Well, the horses know the difference! LOL!
Another goal for this year is to fully investigate agility with my new dog. I have to be able to run and move for this. We start our first pre-agility class next week. I have watched handlers with their dogs and those folks do have to sprint around quite a bit. I hope to be able to do that. I would like to go far enough with her to try one competition. This relates to my weight-releasing and fitness goals!
While it isn’t a goal, I am toying with the idea of running a bit, too…For now, I will continue to do my “Dance Praise.” I am having a blast and being edified while getting an awesome workout. I hope to continue to do that 4 or more times each week for an hour or so each time. It is just too much fun!
This time next year (January 1, 2008), I hope to have walked with God more faithfully in 2007 and grown in knowing Him more intimately. I hope to be involved in a ministry again that I know is of God…I recently bailed out of all ministry. I would love it if I could do TW and/or a horsewomen’s biblestudy group. I miss leading a bible study…
Another thing that I really think the Lord wants me to do is to develop three of my friendships. I have three friends in mind and things have gone by the wayside a bit…busy-ness of life. I think, too, my shame caused me to hide out a lot more…hard to get to know folks when you are hiding!
Ok…all from me for now.
Blessed New Year, All!
by Heidi Bylsma | Nov 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
WARNING: This post contains mature content. Please read this only if the Holy Spirit directs you to do so. Stop if you feel a check in your spirit along the way.
Additionally, as you read, please know this…there is HOPE.
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Regarding the comment about being afraid to being thin…it touched off some thoughts…
Many of us do have subconscious fears of being thin. As crazy as it sounds!
The Halliday’s “Thin Again” book (note the difference in title…it is not Thin WITHIN, but Thin AGAIN) addresses deeper issues we may have as we proceed on this journey. An earlier copy can be had from many libraries. It was also originally released as “Silent Hunger.”
What I am about to share is rated R (well, not due to language, but definitely “mature content”). Maybe no one can relate to this. But a lot of women can from what statistics say!
Someone I know struggled and struggled with losing weight–100 pounds by the time she decided to do something drastic about it. She was a mom of young children. And decided to do whatever it would take to be rid of the weight. As she worked hard to lose the weight through many different ways, she realized that she hoped that maybe if she lost the weight her husband would be more interested in her…she realized that she assumed that his disinterest in intimacy in the bedroom with her had to be associated with her being overweight…. She finally allowed herself to hope that her marriage would be “perfect” in every way, if only she lost all her weight….it seemed to be 99.9% perfect at the time except for his disinterest in the bedroom. Given she was a lady who enjoyed this aspect of married life, this was a devastating thing for her. (I know many of us can’t relate!)
Over the course of a year, she lost the weight and got extremely fit. She worked out with weights, worked on becoming a certified fitness trainer and aerobics instructor. To tell it now, she says she actually became quite obsessive. Her heart got taken captive to the entire diet and exercise thing.
BUT…men began to pay attention.
That is…every man except her husband.
There she was, thin now, but with the devastating realization that the one thing she assumed was the reason for his disinterest in her…well, it wasn’t apparently the reason, after all. What could possibly BE the explanation? If her weight wasn’t what bothered him enough not to want intimacy in the bedroom…what could be the real reason?
She shared that she journaled some strange things in the subsequent months…about how there were things that she just felt her husband must be hiding. It was an impression she said she had…nothing she could really nail down. She said she had this distinct impression that he had been dishonest. She had recurrent nightmares about him being unfaithful. Yet when they were together, he never looked at another woman! They openly spoke about these things. Here was a man who was an elder in the church, everyone’s idea of a wonderful man and husband (including her own! she thought he was the best possible husband!)…She and her husband led marriage bible studies together! Yet she felt there was some deep dark secret lurking.
She had blamed herself –her weight for their problems…and now that it was no longer a viable reason it became obvious that something else was, apparently, the problem. This, in effect, caused her eyes to begin to be open…to look outward a bit.
It was then that her husband’s secret came to the forefront. He had a double life. In one, he was superman…In the other, he was engaging in inappropriate sexual experiences apart from his marriage bed. No, this wasn’t because she was heavy. He had lived this way since he was fourteen years old. She didn’t enter his life until he was 21. He was a sex addict and had been for the better part of 20 years.
Obviously she was devastated.
In speaking about this later, she related that she thinks she knew intuitively somewhere in her own mind that “their problem” didn’t have anything to do with her at all…but that she could blame it on herself as long as she remained overweight. She felt in retrospect that all of the indicators were there, but she was in denial to see it. After all, they loved the Lord, led marriage groups and so on. If their marriage had *any* trouble spots, it *had* to be her fault! She looked back and realized that being heavy was safer than the place she found herself once she was thin and attractive.
She realized when she was thin after working to get 100 pounds off, just how exposed she was. The problems remained…and the fog of denial lifted. She saw it….
So, yes…some of us may, in fact, subconsciously be afraid to be thin.
Others of us were violated as children and young adults. We found that boys and young men might stay away from us if we were chubbier. Our fat became our safety wall. 🙁
This isn’t everyone’s experience, of course. It might not be anyone’s here on this list (though statistics indicate that out of every 6 of us on this list at least 1 of us has been the victim of sexual abuse).
But, YES, there are some very REAL reasons we might have developed a real emotional attachment to being heavier than we hope to be….sometimes it is the best defense mechanism we have for a truth we may not feel ready to come to grips with.
But Jesus did say, it is the truth that sets us free. He waits to walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
In the book Thin Again, the authors invite us to peel away the layers of what they call the graveclothes. They invite us into what can be a very painful process, in fact. But as these graveclothes are peeled away, the new man that has been given life from the dead, may step forth. As Jesus said, “Lazarus, come forth!” He says that to each of us. Yet it is a process…..
Peeling the layers away may include the sort of stuff I have shared here or something totally different.
But we all have many reasons we struggle with releasing weight. And God wants to meet it all with his cleansing grace.
Hugs,
Heidi
