ENCOURAGED IN HEART

My weekly weigh-in revealed an exact one pound gain – ugh, and double ugh.  It was not a big surprise.  My daily accountability weigh-ins were telling me the week’s extra snacks were certainly adding up, despite my work outs!   As the third week of interrupted sleep, work and school missed and challenging days are prayerfully coming to a close, I’m back in full-swing action! My hubby’s all better and I believe the boys and I are now purged of the buggery, coughing, pink eye, sore throat viruses!

One pound may not sound like a big deal to you, but I’m so close to the last of my goals (set five years ago), it is a “deal” to me…I just want to get done!   Am I irritated? Absolutely.  I’m so close to the finish line!  Am I throwing in the towel? Absolutely not!  (I have a $100 outlet shopping spree waiting on me to get the last five pounds melted off! And I’m psyched about that one!)

I am a Type A type of gal and love checking items off my perpetually flowing “To Do” list! Get to my last weight loss goal is eagerly waiting to be checked off!

I am glad to report that I am struck down but not destroyed!  This leads me to the nugget God dropped into my heart.  Sunday, when I stepped off our scale, Lucy (yes, we named our scale…since she’s no longer the enemy,
Lucifer, we decided Lucy is the more appropriate name).

I started humming this song, specifically one verse – “struck down but not destroyed”.

Trading My Sorrows by Darrell Evans

I’m trading my sorrow
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying it down for the joy of the Lord

I’m trading my sickness
I’m trading my pain
I’m laying it down for the joy of the Lord
Chorus:
And we say yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord Amen

I’m pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I’m blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure
And his joy’s gonna be my strength

Though the sorrow may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning

Since I am so close to the last of my long range goals, I do feel disappointed in a weekly gain.  But God wouldn’t let me rest on that thought.  Just minutes later, in my private time chair, I read this inspirational statement:

“Our ultimate aim in life is not to be healthy, wealthy, prosperous, or problem free.  Our ultimate aim in life is to bring glory to God.” Anne Graham Lotz (Fun tidbit: Anne is one of Billy and Ruth Graham’s five children.)

Am I more focused on getting healthy than bringing glory to God?

I sure hope not!  It is my heart that through this journey and transformation, others see God and He is glorified!

I pray no matter where you are in your current journey, you realize that you and I are on this journey for one purpose only.  To bring glory to God…not to ourself, but to God!  That was Jesus’ mission on the earth.

In John 8:54, ”Jesus replied, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.’”

If you feel struck down and destroyed today, will you quit? Or will you trust God to work it out and turn it into His Glory?  The choice is yours. And may the glory be His!

This week’s weigh-in revealed a thirteen ounce loss (look, a baker’s dozen of ounces…never mind, bad attempt at humor!)  FOUR POUNDS TO GO until I hit my goal weight of 70 pounds gone forever!  This coming July will mark SIX YEARS that I began this lifestyle change, not a diet!

I’d lie if I said I’m delighted with the typed words, SIX YEARS. Those two all capitalized words that are screaming at your eyes, also scream within my heart.  But, I’d also lie if I said I wasn’t delighted that my BMI is in “normal” range!  I got an “atta-girl” from my doctor two weeks ago at my annual physical!

My weekly nugget arrived through the perpetual optimist, Pastor Joel Osteen.  I just can’t be sad when he’s preaching!

Pastor Joel said this past week that the difficulties don’t happen to me but rather for me. I love that he’s so gifted in making any negative into a positive!

Difficulties don’t happen to me, but rather for me.

Now that’s a pretty big morsel to swallow all in one sitting, even with my big mouth!

After taking five days to chew on his powerful words; I get it – it’s a power packed mental and spiritual stance to take, to apply, (not just think about) for a power-packed life!  True, there are still some life equations that the thought of, for me, feels, well…like I’d prefer an electric current flowing through my body, but I don’t want to go there!

And I’m thinking, to me or for me?

To me makes me feel justified (and stuck) in my active pity party mode.  Some days, pity parties just feel sooooooooooo good!  My pity parties usually involve lots of delicious food!

I’m learning to feel the emotions, just not act on them.  That means, don’t binge or self implode!

Feel emotions; just don’t act on them.

Safer options include: cry, journal, pray, hug a friend.  I’ve exercised all of these just this week!  I thought babies cried and were weak. Wow, was I ever wrong!  The strong cry, the strong admit when they are weak because they know WHO is strong!

For me makes me feel like more than a conqueror!  And on those days, my Mr. T-ness pops out and I do “pity the fool” cause I’m going forward if it’s kills me (or who or whatever stands in my way!)

(What a great picture…totally cracks me up!)

Since I cannot find “pity party” in my concordance but I can find “more than a conqueror”  (Romans 8:35-57); I guess that leads me to just one choice!

The bottom line in perspective to my eating addiction recovery is this: the past five years I had to relearn my relationship with food (and believe me, I have still not arrived yet, food still has power over me).  On the road of this journey, God has gently revealed much about my deficit character and about His sufficient Grace.  Grace…which is definitely for me! And for you!

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.   2 Corinthians 12:9 (The Message)

Do you believe difficulties happen  to you or for you?  Do you believe His Grace is enough?  If you’re not sure, print out the above Corinthians scripture, and carry it around to encourage you until you know the answer first-hand!

My weekly weigh-in revealed a whopping one ounce loss! That negative is a positive as I keep telling myself (I’m near convinced!) “slow and steady…keep on – we’ll get to that goal weight!”

The closer I get to my weight goal – the S-L-O-W-E-R it appears to be taking! So I will try not to passive aggressively thank God for the patience He continues to perfect in me!

In a week that has been goobed up with various and assorted eye gunk (my preschool Jake, home with pink eye…and he doesn’t even like the color pink which complicates matters more!) and flying green buggers just this morning (I’ll spare you any further details), my God inspired nugget arrived today during my ten minute elliptical workout (yes, every minute of movement counts – you don’t have to be in a gym logging 2.5 miles on the treadmill to “count” as I read,

“that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” Romans 1:12 (NIV)

I don’t want to sound irreverent, but, Paul (the one who penned this portion of God’s word) in my opinion, is THE MAN.  Paul wrote encouragement letters from a physical prison (yet he was spiritually free!) to people he loved, the very same people that at times, punked him!

The above verse is so inspiring to me.  Paul, THE MAN OF ENCOURAGMENT, humbly submitted, let’s encourage one another!

We are not meant to do life alone.  All over God’s word He says so!  No matter what the challenge or the obstacle, we’re not meant to do it alone!

I have found such deep joy in knowing it’s really not that big of a deal to admit I snarfed (my spell checker is not digging this word!) food down.  You know what happened after the “big reveal”? I received SO much comfort in other’s stating the same struggle!  (Honestly, our nation is at an all time high for obesity, so why I thought I was alone is kinda crazy, huh?!?) The difference is though, what am I going to do about it, in my corner of the world?

God has surrounded me with women that are in hot pursuit of real life, a life that is not covered up by coating feelings with large quantities of food, but rather, experiencing all of life.

Once God allowed me to overcome the shame of my eating addiction, the shame had less power over me.  Share and heal, heal and share – go hand in hand.

I’m not alone in this fight (and it is a fight for true life!).

So, my precious gifts have just come down from their nap/quiet time, I close this blog entry with the question, do you feel mutally encouraged?

Alright, I just set my boys up with Playdough in the backyard, as I double check my grammar and looked over my shoulder (had to grab the camera…memories like this help during the long days!), look what I see…

(melt my heart…..) gotta run, I have some Playdough to get under my fingernails!