by Heidi Bylsma | Jun 6, 2013 | Blog
I was bee-bopping along…like always. Somewhat carefree, though only as carefree as I could be with many significant life changes happening in such a short period.
Eager to help as many people as possible to experience the freedom that Jesus has purchased for them, I am trying to build the ministry of “God is Doing a New Thing,” responding to emails and texts, phone calls and blog comments.
A common theme in these written and spoken conversations is the way life throws us a curve and so often these curves upset the applecart (sorry to mix the metaphors there!). The person was going along, getting her bearings with 0 to 5 eating, experiencing some element of joy and peace and freedom when all of a sudden out of nowhere, sickness hits or a trial or a massive temptation or…whatever it may be.
This is life in a Genesis 3 world (something I learned about from my pastor). Things don’t always happen the way we anticipate. The best way to grow and move through these challenges and do so without a major setback in our godly eating boundaries is to take stock of what happened, get back on the horse, and get going again, making a plan for the next time things go wonky. If we are proactive we don’t need to let a “failure” or misstep define what happens next. Yes, I have passed this advice out quite readily.
Easy to say and quite another to do.
I should have seen it coming, perhaps. Nothing new and major in at least 36 seconds, after all. 😉
At 3:30 in the morning one day last week, my life took a strong left turn. I want desperately to describe what happened, but it would be imprudent to do so. There is nothing that compares to this. It was extremely dramatic. I had no idea just how much it had thrown me until I surveyed the damage I was doing in the kitchen following the event and the subsequent response of other people involved.
I had reverted to old old old old…ancient… “I-thought-this-was-dead-and-buried” … behaviors. I had eaten my way through anything and everything. Not only was I not getting hungry first, but I was stuffed all day long.
Just to be clear, friends. This was last week! NOT 5 years ago! ME! I am supposed to have this WIRED! After all, I quickly encourage others how to navigate the murky waters (boy, I am filled with metaphors today) of unexpected challenges.
When I asked myself, “What is going on here?” I gave myself a flippant response… “It’s temporary…”
Hold everything…
I finally (after four days) came up for air.
I see now that what happened in our home triggered some flashbacks from my childhood. Nothing had ever done that like this event. I thought I was past having things triggered like that. But I was able to see it with such clarity.
As a child, I remember numerous times when my mom would overdose on sleeping pills, no doubt prescribed by my M.D. dad. (Weird, huh?)
In the dark of night the sirens and lights of an ambulance or Sheriff’s car came blasting down our tiny dead-end street. My unconscious mom would be wheeled out on a gurney. They would load her up and send her on to the hospital. I wondered if she would be dead when I saw her next or if she would come back the next day. My aunt and uncle would come and take me to their house to spend the night.
No one ever talked about what happened. Ever. No one ever asked me if I was ok or how I felt or…well, anything.
I am pretty sure that it was during these “events” that I learned to comfort myself with food. My aunt and uncle didn’t have children and didn’t know how to be around children so, while they could provide basic care, they didn’t have a clue how to play with me and didn’t really have any intention of doing so. I remember my uncle taking me to the “Food Circus,” an amazing place where we could go in and there was something for everyone! (It was sort of like the food courts in the mall or airports these days…we didn’t have food courts back then!) Almost all of my memories of staying with my Aunt and Uncle during these events, are of eating with them. I wonder if it was because they didn’t know what else to do with me other than feed me.
I played with their black lab, too, and prowled around in the wild jungle that was their backyard. At the time, the event with my mom overdosing and attempting to end her life never seemed to exist. I learned to live in a world where what I saw I didn’t see, what I heard, I didn’t hear, what I felt, I didn’t feel. Period. Move on.
So, when last Wednesday something traumatic happened…something that triggered these memories…and there was no ability to talk about it within my home for various reasons, I guess it is no small wonder that I turned to old coping mechanisms. It wasn’t conscious, certainly…but now that I know, I need to STOP it all. Deal with the pain and heartache. Forgive where it needs to happen. Draw close to my heavenly Abba.
I believe that is what this is about. This eating thing isn’t about us “getting it” and “getting thin” or “getting healthy.” It is about “getting” HIM. In all His fullness. This is what He desires. It is about getting dependent on our God. It is about seeing him as sufficient for my need. He is my portion.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Psalm 73:25-26
Have you been thrown for a loop recently? If not, you will probably be soon. Life may throw you a curve as it often does. What can you do to plan for success, to guard your boundaries, to emerge celebrating a great victory?
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
