ENCOURAGED IN HEART

Taking the edge off…it’s looked different, in different stages of my life.

As a little girl, I took the edge off with temper tantrums…and made my family pay for my unhappiness by bouncing my pigtails up and down in the same pattern as my stomped  foot, with the best “Humph!” I had in me.

As a college student, I took the edge off with obscene quantites of poor quality beer, many times from a community  plastic cup. It’s no wonder I have germ “issues” today…

As a woman, I took the edge off with cigarettes, nasty cigarettes that helped claim my mother’s life and I smoked em’ anyway.

As a cop, I took the edge off with gallons of coffee, diet coke and attitude…oh, the attitude, I had it in spades.  Well, typing “had” seems a bit extreme!

As a post-military veteran, who no longer had a weight requirement to meet, my edge cutter was food, food and more food.  I would have never been found offending a buffet line by visiting it just once.

Today, I’m a woman that is no longer in hot pursuit of growing up, or obtaining a degree or catching the next criminal…no, I’m in hot pursuit of God.  That may sound like a cheesy Christian type of thing to type, but it’s the truth. I’ve tried many versions of doing life my way…and I’ve ended up frustrated.

Well, I’ve been frustrated again because food still has a powerful pull on me.

Unlike many times in my past, I stepped outside of me and got help.  Many of you know that I joined Weight Watchers.  I’m in my fourth week and so far have lost a little over five pounds.  As I limited my food portions to meet Weight Watcher requirements, I’ve been edgier.  Like PMS-marries-Sybil-and-have-demonic-offspring-type-edgy.

I’m feeling a lot more feelings these days and I won’t “medicate” with anything but God, God’s people and the Truth.  I’ve tried the substitutes and only want the real thing. God.

God takes the edge off.

As you’ve seen played out in my life, the enemy always offers a substitute, but the effects are destructive.  God takes the edge off.

Sound too simple?

Well, let me ask, “WHY make it more complicated?”

Will you today, consider opening an area of your life that you’ve allowed a substitute in?  Will you invite God in?

I’m very happy to report that my Weight Watchers progress is rocking and headed in the correct direction, down!

Lucy’s been cheering me on as well as the Lucy wanna-be’s at the Weight Watchers meetings. My calorie burnin’ temper tantrums and points counting have both proven effective methods for weight loss, and I will report more on this in later posts. But today, I want to share with you something that’s really on my heart.

It’s a new project.

And, I need help. If that’s not the understatement of the decade, I don’t know what is!

No, not just with which bridesmaid dress…

Many of you know that the EIH blog was birthed from my emotional eating addiction. On the right side of this blog, you’ll see a drop down box titled “Categories”. When you click on it, scroll to the bottom and you’ll see “Weekly Weigh-In”. For one year, I blogged about where I was at in the pluses or the minuses in recovery…and I’m not just talking about my weight.

The help I’m asking for is this…would you please let me know which “Weekly Weigh-In” post (by title), if any, spoke to your heart and encouraged you. I’m going to pick 30 of the 52 and place them in a book that I’m working on, currently titled, “Lessons I Learned While My Head Was Stuck in the Fridge” (My journey out of the fridge and into the real world).

I’m asking you, my precious friends and subscribers, would you please pray for me and this project. The eating addiction is the most subtle and socially acceptable addiction. I want women to come out of their “wilderness” (slavery to food) and into their “Promised Land” (freedom) and in the end, know God more intimately!

I hate that it’s been soooooo l-o-n-g since my last post.

I’ve been busy. Busy with basically just two things.

1. Temper tantruming.
2. Counting my points.

As if #2 doesn’t take enough time, you just wouldn’t believe how much time it’s taking me to accomplish #1. And it’s all because of #2.

Gheesh.

The above two things have resulted from a series of events and two statements:

1. “The right choice is almost never the easy choice.” Finkster circa February 2010.
2. “Every Yes Involves a No” a Proverbs 31 Ministries Daily Devotion by Glynnis Whitwer.

For me, the next right choice was to that I joined Weight Watchers last week. Not an easy choice, but the right choice.

The past 7 years I’ve slowly lost 70 pounds but only maintained 60. I feel good now, but felt great 10 pounds ago. I’m saying, “No” to food and, “Yes” to God. When anything controls me more than the Lord, the statement is reversed…and that’s no good.

I want to have a great relationship to and with food, but even more importantly, to God. So I’m going to humble my flesh (again) at the plate, in order to fill more up on God.

Counting points is obnoxious. I hate doing it but figure the temper tantrums will subside and my good ol’ Type A self will kick in and embrace the anal retentitveness of counting my points.

As for the temper tantruming, well, it burns calories (aka: activity points in Weight Watcher jargon), so can it really be that bad?