It's 9:54 on a Monday night. Why do I suddenly feel so inspired to blog?
Maybe it's because I'm home by myself tonight.
Maybe it's because I just ate a big bowl of ice cream.
Too many of my posts include ice cream. Geez.
Ben went out to play games with the guys. I think it's really great because his opportunities to fellowship with other men seem to be fewer than mine. I am glad he can do that. The only problem is the when he is going to be gone I'm like, "Yes! I'll have some ice cream! And a big bowl of it. And no one will be there to raise any eyebrows!" ... Actually, Ben would probably be fine with me having a big ole bowl of ice cream. We might watch a television show together and eat it.
But these thoughts bring me back to my old days.
[I used to look forward to being alone so that I could just eat whatever and however much I wanted to eat. The sad part is that I didn't need to eat those things. I thought they would make me happy, but they didn't.]
It makes me wonder if I'm healed and free and whole in that area.
Will I ever be healed and free on this earth? Maybe not.
I had to go in and comfort Aria a few minutes ago and as I did I was thinking about my body. Thinking about how I might never be satisfied with it. I was thinking about how once I feel like I've lost enough weight I'll probably get pregnant again and then as you get older your metabolism gets worse and ... before I reach panic mode I just want to remind myself that it's not important. What I look like is not important.
Whether or not people see me and say, "You look so great!" doesn't matter. Lord, help me with that, I get so caught up in what I look like and how I appear to others, I forget that You are more concerned with my heart.
As I was sitting there with Aria I thought about how in different moments throughout the day (depending on how I feel and what mood I'm in) I will resolve to starve myself skinny, no matter what. At other parts of the day I will think, who the heck cares?? I will just eat and be happy. I was thinking about how my heart is so fickle. I can be so easily swayed.
The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The wise man built his house on the rock.
Lord, help me to flee from the sands of this world. You are my rock and my fortress. Help me to see the things that matter. Help me not to pursue the things that don't.
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2012
Thursday, February 17, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part twelve
There's so much that I want to write about and share. Again, I reserve the right to jump around in my story. I think sometimes it's better to cover things by topic, so this post will be about: Exercise.
Learning to exercise the body I was given.
I am not naturally athletic and coordinated. Whatever I do, it is from hard work and practice. I had the privilege of being in sports since a young age because of my older brother. He wanted to play baseball and my parents found it was good to have all three of us in sports. My little brother and I weren't that expensive because we were just added on.
When I was younger I did gymnastics and took a year of dance. I loved it but it was SO expensive, so I had to quit by the time I was about 10 or 11... I think. I played little kid softball and was terrible. My soccer team won absolutely NO games. We tied twice.
Moving up into middle school and high school I began to play basketball. Again, at the influence of my amazingly athletically gifted older brother. We were home schooled, so we pretty much had to start our own sports teams so we could play the other schools. I will take pride in the fact that it's now a whole athletic association. Back then it was just my brother's junior high team. I was put on the girls team. I played basketball for four years and absolutely loved it. Those were my best memories in home schooling. That was my one real regret about going to public school, missing out on the home school sports. The last year or two I also played volleyball and fell in love with that even more. If I had a choice today I would play volleyball over basketball, but I still love them both.
So exercise was sort of naturally a part of my life. When I went on that first diet I mentioned in this post exercise became very easy for me. Running was easier, I was quicker as an athlete, things were looking up. And then with the beginning of public school all of that changed. My eating definitely was what caused me to gain weight, but with no exercise there was nothing to stop my weight from piling on. I remember doing the Atkins Diet for a while in November of that year. I decided I would run early in the morning and do the diet during the day. I was exhausted. I hated running because it was like I had picked up an extra 30 pounds and had to carry that with me. Try it, it's hard. Running has also caused me shinsplints throughout the years. So I would be fighting that off, running through the pain or trying to rest them and struggling throughout the day. The all protein diet didn't work for me because of the constipation. It was ridiculous, and painful. The lack of any kind of carbohydrate would cause me not to be able to function. That was when I realized that God gave us all the food groups for a reason. He provided this wide range of foods that we were meant to partake in. They are good foods with varying tastes, everything in moderation.
Everything in moderation. That has been a difficult phrase for me. I am not a naturally moderate person. I am an extreme person. If I'm going to do something I will do it all the way, if I feel like I can't do something, I give up completely and run the other way. Absolutely run.
I had to learn to be moderate in my exercise. Okay, I am not knocking the marathon runner, triathlete, or whatever. This is simply what I have learned about my body through the years. I abused it for years and now I am learning to respect the creation that God has given to me.
I mentioned earlier that in college I would overeat and then over exercise. I would often spend an hour on the elliptical and then sometimes go over to the stair-master for another 30 minutes. Sometimes I would do stuff for three hours. This was me just trying to lose weight quickly. I remember sitting in a piano lesson and thinking, why are my fingers not working right? They can play this song. Later, I realized that I had been gripping the elliptical machine for an hour and a half and these poor tiny muscles in my hands were fatigued. I would always pour sweat too. I'm a heavy sweater. So as far as water retention, I don't even know. I would try to drink at least 12 glasses of water a day. Sometimes I would drink more like 16 or 20. It was ridiculous. All this, to try to lose weight quickly.
Apparently I didn't learn the lesson of the tortoise and the hair. Slow and steady. Now I know that is the only way to lose weight. It has to be practically unnoticeable. I think that's the struggle with dieters, especially perpetual dieters, we want to see results of these difficult efforts and we want to see them now. I am queen of the perpetual dieting. By the end of the day, two days, maybe even a week, if I haven't lost weight I might as well eat a couple of bowls of ice cream and watch some movies where a skinny girl gets the guy. I'll try it again on Monday.
This is why I threw away my scale.
The scale was killing me. I was defining myself by a number on a machine. I would hope and pray each morning that the number would fall. Most of the time it stayed the same. If I had just eaten something it would go up, duh. If I hadn't eaten anything for a few days it would often go down or stay the same. Duh. Over time it would win either way. If the number went up I would give up on my diet and binge. If the number went down I would "reward" myself, I was okay because I had just lost a pound or two.
I decided that God was the one who knew my weight. It didn't matter what the number was, I wasn't going to live in denial and I wasn't going to be a slave to this little bathroom machine. I would simply listen to Him and ask Him if He was okay with my weight. With no scale to tell me if I was succeeding or not, it required me to live in a place of FAITH. Faith that His way of eating was best for me. Faith that I wouldn't gain massive amounts of weight if I didn't have a little thing in the bathroom pointing out my imperfections. And let me tell you, that faith has led to freedom. I don't care what I weigh anymore. Yes, I have stepped on scales at my parent's house in a moment of weakness, but honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a part of who I am. The last time I did step on a scale I was shocked because I haven't weighed this little in at least nine years. ... This is the redemption of my body. A process, PROCESS of faith. Which leads to freedom.
This was a lot longer post than I thought it would be. I'll have more to say about exercise and scales and things later. :) Thank you for reading.
Learning to exercise the body I was given.
I am not naturally athletic and coordinated. Whatever I do, it is from hard work and practice. I had the privilege of being in sports since a young age because of my older brother. He wanted to play baseball and my parents found it was good to have all three of us in sports. My little brother and I weren't that expensive because we were just added on.
When I was younger I did gymnastics and took a year of dance. I loved it but it was SO expensive, so I had to quit by the time I was about 10 or 11... I think. I played little kid softball and was terrible. My soccer team won absolutely NO games. We tied twice.
Moving up into middle school and high school I began to play basketball. Again, at the influence of my amazingly athletically gifted older brother. We were home schooled, so we pretty much had to start our own sports teams so we could play the other schools. I will take pride in the fact that it's now a whole athletic association. Back then it was just my brother's junior high team. I was put on the girls team. I played basketball for four years and absolutely loved it. Those were my best memories in home schooling. That was my one real regret about going to public school, missing out on the home school sports. The last year or two I also played volleyball and fell in love with that even more. If I had a choice today I would play volleyball over basketball, but I still love them both.
So exercise was sort of naturally a part of my life. When I went on that first diet I mentioned in this post exercise became very easy for me. Running was easier, I was quicker as an athlete, things were looking up. And then with the beginning of public school all of that changed. My eating definitely was what caused me to gain weight, but with no exercise there was nothing to stop my weight from piling on. I remember doing the Atkins Diet for a while in November of that year. I decided I would run early in the morning and do the diet during the day. I was exhausted. I hated running because it was like I had picked up an extra 30 pounds and had to carry that with me. Try it, it's hard. Running has also caused me shinsplints throughout the years. So I would be fighting that off, running through the pain or trying to rest them and struggling throughout the day. The all protein diet didn't work for me because of the constipation. It was ridiculous, and painful. The lack of any kind of carbohydrate would cause me not to be able to function. That was when I realized that God gave us all the food groups for a reason. He provided this wide range of foods that we were meant to partake in. They are good foods with varying tastes, everything in moderation.
Everything in moderation. That has been a difficult phrase for me. I am not a naturally moderate person. I am an extreme person. If I'm going to do something I will do it all the way, if I feel like I can't do something, I give up completely and run the other way. Absolutely run.
I had to learn to be moderate in my exercise. Okay, I am not knocking the marathon runner, triathlete, or whatever. This is simply what I have learned about my body through the years. I abused it for years and now I am learning to respect the creation that God has given to me.
I mentioned earlier that in college I would overeat and then over exercise. I would often spend an hour on the elliptical and then sometimes go over to the stair-master for another 30 minutes. Sometimes I would do stuff for three hours. This was me just trying to lose weight quickly. I remember sitting in a piano lesson and thinking, why are my fingers not working right? They can play this song. Later, I realized that I had been gripping the elliptical machine for an hour and a half and these poor tiny muscles in my hands were fatigued. I would always pour sweat too. I'm a heavy sweater. So as far as water retention, I don't even know. I would try to drink at least 12 glasses of water a day. Sometimes I would drink more like 16 or 20. It was ridiculous. All this, to try to lose weight quickly.
Apparently I didn't learn the lesson of the tortoise and the hair. Slow and steady. Now I know that is the only way to lose weight. It has to be practically unnoticeable. I think that's the struggle with dieters, especially perpetual dieters, we want to see results of these difficult efforts and we want to see them now. I am queen of the perpetual dieting. By the end of the day, two days, maybe even a week, if I haven't lost weight I might as well eat a couple of bowls of ice cream and watch some movies where a skinny girl gets the guy. I'll try it again on Monday.
This is why I threw away my scale.
The scale was killing me. I was defining myself by a number on a machine. I would hope and pray each morning that the number would fall. Most of the time it stayed the same. If I had just eaten something it would go up, duh. If I hadn't eaten anything for a few days it would often go down or stay the same. Duh. Over time it would win either way. If the number went up I would give up on my diet and binge. If the number went down I would "reward" myself, I was okay because I had just lost a pound or two.
I decided that God was the one who knew my weight. It didn't matter what the number was, I wasn't going to live in denial and I wasn't going to be a slave to this little bathroom machine. I would simply listen to Him and ask Him if He was okay with my weight. With no scale to tell me if I was succeeding or not, it required me to live in a place of FAITH. Faith that His way of eating was best for me. Faith that I wouldn't gain massive amounts of weight if I didn't have a little thing in the bathroom pointing out my imperfections. And let me tell you, that faith has led to freedom. I don't care what I weigh anymore. Yes, I have stepped on scales at my parent's house in a moment of weakness, but honestly, it doesn't matter anymore. It's not a part of who I am. The last time I did step on a scale I was shocked because I haven't weighed this little in at least nine years. ... This is the redemption of my body. A process, PROCESS of faith. Which leads to freedom.
This was a lot longer post than I thought it would be. I'll have more to say about exercise and scales and things later. :) Thank you for reading.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part five
One of my favorite books is by a woman named Anne Lamott, it's called Traveling Mercies. In the prelude she talks about her "lily pads of faith" where God kind of brought her around bit by bit, kind of from one shaky, wobbly place to the next, that she wouldn't have been able to get there if it had all been in one leap, but it was this growing process. I love that analogy. I'll take it.
So I feel like my journey has been a series of lily pads, learning to trust God, to walk in faith and be led by him.
In high school I didn't think he wanted to have anything to do with this struggle. Those first years in college I began to cry out to him, going back and forth from trust to distrust. I kept just taking it out of his hands and trying to do it my own way, always ending in failure, of course.
My sophomore year I was living with some girls I didn't know very well, I had gone potluck and ended up with a wonderful Vietnamese roommate, another Christian girl and a girl who hated the sight of me. I felt very alone that first semester. I remember biking back to my apartment after being a part of an amazing worship service with dear friends, getting to play piano under one of the most passionate worship leaders I have ever met and just being overwhelmed by a sense of being alone.
You all are totally gonna think I'm crazy, but I'll just share this. I believe I was under some sort of spiritual attack/oppression. I would wake up and feel like I was hitting a brick wall. I wanted to study and to practice my singing, I wanted to exercise, but I couldn't. Many practice sessions would end up in tears, it was almost this physical thing beating me down. It was like my mind was under attack. Some might say that was just depression, my own thoughts... and to some degree I'm sure I helped it. But there were times when I literally could not do what I wanted to do. I ate a lot, slept a lot and watched a lot of TV instead. This of course did not help.
During this time our campus pastor had it laid on his heart to start a 24/7 prayer room. He called us as the leadership to step in and pray, at all hours of the day and night, to fill time slots and make sacrifices to pray. In the prayer room I felt a freedom that I could feel almost nowhere else, except maybe on Monday nights during worship. It was like a relief came over me when I entered. Again, I believe that it was spiritual attack/oppression. Some kind of demonic force or something.
One night in small group, my leader was sharing about seeing a friend of hers freed from spiritual oppression. What? I had never heard of this thing before, but it was like she was describing my life. So in tears I shared what I had been going through and my confusion about my situation and feelings. So they all gathered around me and prayed. I mean prayed! It was like a battlefield of crying out. My friends just lifting me up. I will tell you that I felt the presence leave. I don't mean to be spooky, I'm just speaking from my experience. I got up and I was free.
For the first time in months, maybe years, I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel afraid as I once was. I was free.
It was as though I needed to be lifted up by others. I was trying to do it on my own with just me and God and he was like, "No Jody, you need community, you need others around you." My life was changed from that point on. I had new eyes for the spiritual that was going on around me.
Another answer to prayer is that my roommate who hated me moved out. We sort of reconciled about a month beforehand, but it was just a relief not to have to deal with her anymore. The other Christian girl had moved out and I spent that next semester having an awesome time with my Vietnamese roommate and her amazing friends. I look back with much fondness on that time.
I guess I shared this story because I feel like there were things that had to be freed in my spirit first before my physical body would reap the consequences. I am just sharing my life on here. I realized the other day that I'm not really sure of how I got to where I am, so I am sort of discovering along with you as I look back. Thank you for sharing with me.
So I feel like my journey has been a series of lily pads, learning to trust God, to walk in faith and be led by him.
In high school I didn't think he wanted to have anything to do with this struggle. Those first years in college I began to cry out to him, going back and forth from trust to distrust. I kept just taking it out of his hands and trying to do it my own way, always ending in failure, of course.
My sophomore year I was living with some girls I didn't know very well, I had gone potluck and ended up with a wonderful Vietnamese roommate, another Christian girl and a girl who hated the sight of me. I felt very alone that first semester. I remember biking back to my apartment after being a part of an amazing worship service with dear friends, getting to play piano under one of the most passionate worship leaders I have ever met and just being overwhelmed by a sense of being alone.
You all are totally gonna think I'm crazy, but I'll just share this. I believe I was under some sort of spiritual attack/oppression. I would wake up and feel like I was hitting a brick wall. I wanted to study and to practice my singing, I wanted to exercise, but I couldn't. Many practice sessions would end up in tears, it was almost this physical thing beating me down. It was like my mind was under attack. Some might say that was just depression, my own thoughts... and to some degree I'm sure I helped it. But there were times when I literally could not do what I wanted to do. I ate a lot, slept a lot and watched a lot of TV instead. This of course did not help.
During this time our campus pastor had it laid on his heart to start a 24/7 prayer room. He called us as the leadership to step in and pray, at all hours of the day and night, to fill time slots and make sacrifices to pray. In the prayer room I felt a freedom that I could feel almost nowhere else, except maybe on Monday nights during worship. It was like a relief came over me when I entered. Again, I believe that it was spiritual attack/oppression. Some kind of demonic force or something.
One night in small group, my leader was sharing about seeing a friend of hers freed from spiritual oppression. What? I had never heard of this thing before, but it was like she was describing my life. So in tears I shared what I had been going through and my confusion about my situation and feelings. So they all gathered around me and prayed. I mean prayed! It was like a battlefield of crying out. My friends just lifting me up. I will tell you that I felt the presence leave. I don't mean to be spooky, I'm just speaking from my experience. I got up and I was free.
For the first time in months, maybe years, I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel afraid as I once was. I was free.
It was as though I needed to be lifted up by others. I was trying to do it on my own with just me and God and he was like, "No Jody, you need community, you need others around you." My life was changed from that point on. I had new eyes for the spiritual that was going on around me.
Another answer to prayer is that my roommate who hated me moved out. We sort of reconciled about a month beforehand, but it was just a relief not to have to deal with her anymore. The other Christian girl had moved out and I spent that next semester having an awesome time with my Vietnamese roommate and her amazing friends. I look back with much fondness on that time.
I guess I shared this story because I feel like there were things that had to be freed in my spirit first before my physical body would reap the consequences. I am just sharing my life on here. I realized the other day that I'm not really sure of how I got to where I am, so I am sort of discovering along with you as I look back. Thank you for sharing with me.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Redemption of My Physical Body: part one
I've been wanting to write about this for a while. The story of God's grace and sovereignty in my life in spite of my perpetuating sin.
I guess I've struggled with my body image, weight and overeating for ... maybe about ten years. Maybe longer. I can remember back to when I was fifteen and went on my first "diet" I had gained a bit of weight, but not too much, mom asked if I wanted to do a diet with her. I know now that she regrets this decision, but I feel like I would have done something even without her suggestion, so I don't feel as though she needs to take blame. Anyways, it was 1000 calories a day (far too little for a teenage girl who is still developing) and I lost about 20 pounds in a few months. It was extremely restrictive, so when I went off it was as though I could taste all these forbidden foods anew, and they were SO GOOD. I laugh about it now, but it wasn't really that funny. That next year I think I gained about 40 pounds, well above my previous weight. It was a big life-changing year of going to public school for the first time, changes in my body, my self-esteem plummeting and feeling like everyone was looking at my differently.
Probably the biggest thing my young heart noticed was that boys saw me differently. They treated me differently with my weight loss and then my weight gain. Partially it might have been my own self-esteem, but it made a difference. This convinced me that I would never be fit for a relationship unless I lost all that weight. I would never be acceptable until I was the "right size" I had this distorted image of myself that I was just a little bit above the level of dirt. I was fat and that equaled ugly. If I could lose weight, then I would be beautiful and acceptable. Then all my dreams would come true, then that guy in my English class would like me.
This struggle continued throughout high school and into college. Along the way God was showing me that I could control nothing apart from Him. I would try and try to have self-control, it sounds so silly now, but when I was stressed I literally could not think of anything else except where to get some food to binge on. I would binge if I was sad or bored as well. Many nights and weekends were spent in front of the TV with something, it didn't really matter what, as long as it filled me to the brink. Okay, so I'm putting this on the internet and maybe it's personal, but I write this so that others who have struggled with this won't feel as lonely as I felt. Alone in my sin. I was just this weird person who couldn't have a healthy view of food. The biggest part is that it was a secret. I might hint at it sometimes, probably my roommates had the clearest picture of what was going on, large portions of food being missing, they would sometimes come home and there I would be... but I tried the best I could to hide it. I think about that sometimes to this day and wish I could ask them, it is still humiliating in my mind.
In all of this, I still had a relationship with the Lord. This habitual sin that I would ask for freedom from, I would ask God to help me lose weight, to have self-control. I don't know where the break down happened, but somewhere in there I would lose touch, I would take the controls again, and then drive myself into a ditch. I was reading my journals recently and they are FILLED with pleas to help me to stop. I think throughout all of it I felt that He still had a deep, abiding love for me. Maybe it was the thorn in my flesh, I don't know. It definitely kept me humble. Often I would go the other way and feel as though I was worthless. I will also tell you, I know what addiction is like. If anything, I have a faint picture of what drug addicts and alcoholics experience. I don't know what kind of comparison there is there, but I know what it is to be drawn like a magnet to substance. And I will testify that it is possible to get out. By the Spirit of the Lord, the chain-breaking of Jesus and His death on the cross, it is possible to get out, to be freed. I can say this because I am freed today.
There is more to this story, but I just heard Levi wake up, so I will go now.
I will write again soon.
I guess I've struggled with my body image, weight and overeating for ... maybe about ten years. Maybe longer. I can remember back to when I was fifteen and went on my first "diet" I had gained a bit of weight, but not too much, mom asked if I wanted to do a diet with her. I know now that she regrets this decision, but I feel like I would have done something even without her suggestion, so I don't feel as though she needs to take blame. Anyways, it was 1000 calories a day (far too little for a teenage girl who is still developing) and I lost about 20 pounds in a few months. It was extremely restrictive, so when I went off it was as though I could taste all these forbidden foods anew, and they were SO GOOD. I laugh about it now, but it wasn't really that funny. That next year I think I gained about 40 pounds, well above my previous weight. It was a big life-changing year of going to public school for the first time, changes in my body, my self-esteem plummeting and feeling like everyone was looking at my differently.
Probably the biggest thing my young heart noticed was that boys saw me differently. They treated me differently with my weight loss and then my weight gain. Partially it might have been my own self-esteem, but it made a difference. This convinced me that I would never be fit for a relationship unless I lost all that weight. I would never be acceptable until I was the "right size" I had this distorted image of myself that I was just a little bit above the level of dirt. I was fat and that equaled ugly. If I could lose weight, then I would be beautiful and acceptable. Then all my dreams would come true, then that guy in my English class would like me.
This struggle continued throughout high school and into college. Along the way God was showing me that I could control nothing apart from Him. I would try and try to have self-control, it sounds so silly now, but when I was stressed I literally could not think of anything else except where to get some food to binge on. I would binge if I was sad or bored as well. Many nights and weekends were spent in front of the TV with something, it didn't really matter what, as long as it filled me to the brink. Okay, so I'm putting this on the internet and maybe it's personal, but I write this so that others who have struggled with this won't feel as lonely as I felt. Alone in my sin. I was just this weird person who couldn't have a healthy view of food. The biggest part is that it was a secret. I might hint at it sometimes, probably my roommates had the clearest picture of what was going on, large portions of food being missing, they would sometimes come home and there I would be... but I tried the best I could to hide it. I think about that sometimes to this day and wish I could ask them, it is still humiliating in my mind.
In all of this, I still had a relationship with the Lord. This habitual sin that I would ask for freedom from, I would ask God to help me lose weight, to have self-control. I don't know where the break down happened, but somewhere in there I would lose touch, I would take the controls again, and then drive myself into a ditch. I was reading my journals recently and they are FILLED with pleas to help me to stop. I think throughout all of it I felt that He still had a deep, abiding love for me. Maybe it was the thorn in my flesh, I don't know. It definitely kept me humble. Often I would go the other way and feel as though I was worthless. I will also tell you, I know what addiction is like. If anything, I have a faint picture of what drug addicts and alcoholics experience. I don't know what kind of comparison there is there, but I know what it is to be drawn like a magnet to substance. And I will testify that it is possible to get out. By the Spirit of the Lord, the chain-breaking of Jesus and His death on the cross, it is possible to get out, to be freed. I can say this because I am freed today.
There is more to this story, but I just heard Levi wake up, so I will go now.
I will write again soon.
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