Lucy and I have been talking quite a bit this past week. She’s a good friend despite our many ups and downs and her allowing me to step all over here…(he, he!). Lucy tells me the truth.
This morning she confirmed that I’m smack dab in the middle of plateau land….still…ack, ick, ugh. NO KIDDING LUCY. (As if it’s her fault or something…)
While it feels cricket….cricket… like cricket….cricket… I’m walking alone in the desert at night cricket….cricket… without hope that I’ll ever arrive into my personal promised land, my goal weighted land that’s flowing with milk and honey,(I do have a flare for dramatics, no?!?), the truth of the matter is, I’m a free woman.
Huh? 
The truth is that even in plateau land, where there seems to be just crickets and flat-lined progress…I’m still a free woman.
God opened my eyes that the Israelites were free in the desert. They just moaned and griped a lot…a condition I call the manna moans. They too were brought out of the slavery that once entangled, but they were wandering and moaning in the wilderness. They weren’t making much progress, but they were free.
Me too.
I still feel weird, typing that I’m free from the bondage of food. Perhaps because this recovery process has been much more work…wow, has it been conscience and intentional work. In getting “free” I still think about the thing, food, that once kept me in bondage, less and less, but still have so much to negotiate still. I thought it all would be so much easier now. But it is so not.
Freedom is a big gift and responsibility.
I’m free to eat treats, I’m free not to eat treats. I’m free to turn to God for comfort, I’m free to turn sugary treats for comfort. The choices…they’re all mine.
And in those choices, I’ve relapsed…many times. But the reality is this…
Freedom is not a place or a number but rather a mind set….a choice to make each day.
Some days I’ve chosen God and His way (freedom) and other days well, I’ve relapsed into falling into the arms of sugary treats rather than the arms of our loving Lord. I knew just what I could get away with, to maintain the weight I’m at…to break even. And then I get the manna-moans about plateau-land, my own personal wilderness.
I’m no longer seeing the dazzling and dramatic pounds dropping…and it does get me down. I think a lot about Paul. Paul was in prison yet wrote like a free man. The man wasn’t smacked with the crazy stick. Oh no, he was saturated in truth. And it’s again, at that point I wonder, why do I choose the false comforters when I’m down and thinking all doomsday-ishy? 
It is the truth is what sets you free….it’s not a number or a location, it’s God. And day by day, He’s gently guiding this manna-moaning momma into the promised land. 
How are you walking today? Is there anyone else out there in plateau land?!?
