Are they different? What is the active part of submission? I’m struggling right now with being me. I am stubborn. I am difficult to move.
I would like to change that.
I’ve taken a different approach to my physical health by taking action in my exercise. That’s something that I can just push myself to do. But submitting my excess food? That’s a trickier thing. I want to take action.
So, is there an active aspect of submitting one’s will to God? Or is it just a spiritual “time-out”?
There’s a lot going in my head today. Super introspective, which is nothing new, but some of the things I’m reading and meditating on, are resonating strongly within me.
Heidi wrote, in Part 4 of her testimony on her blog:
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?
From Part 5:
In my arrogance and pride, I refused to see what God was saying. I even tried participating in online support groups, but these experiences, too, were cold–devoid of heart for me. My heart was rock solid—frozen…HARD. I wanted God to snap me out of it, but He was calling me to live according to the truth that He had already revealed to me. He had done so much for me…and yet I continued to insist that He do more. I was not yet willing to make the hard choices.
I don’t think I could write what I’ve been going through for the past couple of months any better than this:
Yes, welcome to Lundie’s life. **sigh**
The good news is – God can take me exactly where I am, exactly as I am and make some good. He just needs my cooperation…my permission…my willingness.
Ok, I’m still in the game, but really am starting over (yes, after two whole weeks!). Christmas plus hormones = really bad combination. Catch you next week!
The ticker will change – but for today it says 80 lbs to go.
One of the things that I am doing as part Thin Within is practicing what they call “Observation and Correction”. I have written about this before. I have read it many times. I have tried to think the way I *should* about things. Mostly, it didn’t work for me much in the past.
I think part of the reason for this is that my observations were hasty “yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I’m totally wrong and bad and I *promise* I will do better next time” sort of observations. Defensive, guilty, embarrassed, humiliated, wanting to move on kind of observations.
This time I want to try to do some detached, practical, “let’s see what we can do different” kind of observations.
Over the past two or three days, I can see that several of my overeating behaviors are directly tied to work, and to TV. It seems that if I am going to do either of these things, I feed the overwhelming urge to eat. And even more recently, I have started watching TV episodes on my second monitor while I work…which is a double whammy!!
Now, I could try to just say, “I’m going to go cold turkey” and not watch TV, and not work (LOL!) but that doesn’t seem to be the right thought. I can’t just stop doing things that put me in eating moods or I would never visit my relatives again either!! So, correction. What needs to be corrected? Are there any plans or approaches that can rewire my brain when it comes to food and stressful or recreational situations?
Hm.
At the end of the Believing God book, by Beth Moore, we’re to imagine that our name goes at the end of the “By Faith…” chapter in Hebrews.
So, what have I done today by faith? I resisted the urge to eat something…anything…during my work time this evening. That has become one of my “usual” things to do. I think I do it so I don’t feel sorry for myself that I’m working late in the evening. It’s like a special “pamper me” thing that does me no good whatsoever.
As a Daughter of God, it’s my place to trust God and to serve others. As I wash out my son’s sippy cups for the 27th time this week, and pick up toys that seem to migrate back to their locations all over the floor moments from my cleaning up, I have been reminding myself that this is the work that God has given me. It’s the work of a mother. It is what I have wanted. I just didn’t realize that it can cause such mental wear and tear.
I have been a semi-regular reader of Ann V. of The Holy Experience of Listening. She has been an inspiration to me on how routine, everyday tasks are truly a form of worship. I have so much to learn. I have been crabby and ungrateful and I feel awful about it.
I am blessed to have a job that I can work at any hour of the day or night. It’s time for me to start seeing all of the “issues” that have cropped up lately as challenges for my mind. I forget that I am still capable of setting my own boundaries and these issues do not always necessitate losing sleep.
I am extremely blessed to have a loving, hardworking, super-smart husband who makes it possible for me to be our son’s primary caregiver, rather than a stranger. I have a son who has the purest heart and is the sunshine in our days.
It’s past time for me to live in gratitude and praise, and in living, moment-to-moment faith that God has indeed blessed me and has placed me exactly where I am for His own purposes. Instead of focusing on any little stressor, I need to view my day as it comes, seeing instead, the hand of my Father, holding me and molding me – just as I do my son.
Well, this post sort of wandered, but I want to come back to my point. I would like to live my day so that at the end of it, it can be said of me, “By faith, Lundie….”
I was reading another chapter in “Believing God” this morning. The chapter on “I can do all things through Christ”.
I have been floundering about what God’s plan for my life is. I keep getting lost in the hazy mist of imagined missions and huge new projects and church organizations. I think that has been satan’s way of scaring me off. I keep trying to see the God’s eye view of my life and ministry and it has had me pretty demoralized. I try to cast “vision” (which I don’t believe I’m gifted in) for myself and end up getting overwhelmed.
I began to question whether my struggle with my weight was even on his radar. I started to become discouraged that my desire to be set free from my fat and my food idol was selfish. That even though it was the biggest desire of my heart, that God had other “higher” plans for me and that I would just be stuck with fighting the food battle on my own.
After I finished my chapter, I just felt the need to read something scriptural. I needed to hear a biblical answer. I needed to hear God.
And this is what He told me:
And so, dear Christian friends, I [Paul] plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice — the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Rom. 12:1 (NLT)
I have been so focused on the huge big overwhelming picture that I have been denying the one thing I CAN do. Right now. Give my BODY to him. My whole physical body. The tangible representation of me. He wants it. And that means I am to give it to him and follow what I know to be the “right” methods of caring for it.
He wants me to lose this weight. He wants me to eat when I am hungry, and to abstain from any food when I am not. I don’t think it can be more simple and clear-cut than that. That’s what I have been asking for. To know the path he wants me to walk. This is the path he has chosen for me right now. I just need to WALK IT!!
For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. Phil 4:13
Ok, I’m a sucker for new sites to track and blog and stuff. I do have a MySpace page. I’m not a friend-a-holic there. I only add people that I have some sort of pre-established relationship with.
A couple of days ago I found BuddySlim.com. I was looking for a better ticker to put on this site as the TickerCentral site doesn’t seem to be very stable lately. Not only did I find a ticker, but a site much like MySpace that has mail, a blog, but it also comes with weight tickers, food logs, exercise logs, BMI calculators and all the fun.
I realize that the Thin Within mindset is very different that the forumlaic “calories in – calories used = weight loss” that you will find offered here. HOWEVER – what I DO like about the site is the opportunity to have a place to blog repeatedly about my eating without boring any readers to tears. I also like having a weight loss ticker and a food log. I am not paying any real attention to the “math” that the log does for me. What I am finding useful is just seeing what I’m eating. Entering it into this log is really opening my eyes at the quality of food that I have been eating. And it’s not pretty. My quantity and quality have been horrendous.
So, for a season I plan to journal about each meal on my BuddySlim blog with blunt honesty (Thank you Heidi & Pam for the nudge in that direction!) about my plans for the next meal, for the emotions that are bound to show up along the way. Some active “observation and correction” will be happening there!
If you set up a page for yourself – please “friend me”!
I’m down 4 lbs. in the 3 days I’ve been doing Thin Within. It is so easy for me to try to dismiss this as simple fluctuations in my weight, but I think it’s more.
The first two days of the book are really inspiring to me. I read this book before, back in August 2004. I wrote in my book back then. I can see some real differences in what I’m noting and underlining. This time, it’s more about what I can learn about God from this process, and less about what *I* need to do.
I had a lightbulb moment this morning. It’s about God and me. And even more clearly, it’s about Him. About how awesome He is. And I mean awesome in the “totally cool wow” sense – not just the church language sense. I am feeling a sense of relief in this process. Like I am actually resting in Him for a time. I know I’m going to try to pick back up and control things – it’s just a matter of time before that part of me tries to reassert itself, but I hope to recognize it and stop it.
I have yet to read Day 3 – my morning just sort of flew by before I realized it was time to work. But I’ll get there. And I am excited about what I am going to learn.
I’m trying Thin Within again. No pun intended…
Today is Day 1 and already I can tell it’s working. You know how? I’m irritable and cold. One of the weird things that happens to my body when I stop overfeeding it is I get really, really cold in the evening. And that kicks off the cravings for Hot Cocoa – when I’m not hungry. Of course, hot tea just doesn’t sound good (but would serve the same warming purpose).
So, hot bath it was instead. And it’s time to head for bed. Sometimes, the best way to win the fight for the day is to end the day. 😉