I told you I was [slowly] reading this book. Some more thoughts ...
My entire life has been plagued with thoughts about my weight, what size I wear, how tight my pants are, or my shirt is, or how I've grown, or shrunk, or gotten skinny, or gained weight. My whole life.
To say that I have some type of eating disorder is the understatement of the year. Food is my best friend, it's my comfort and my joy, my stress-reliever, my anxiety medicine, my goal, my portion. (It's hard for me to be this revealing and honest here, but I am determined.) It is my idol and my god. It's THE thing that comes between me and the MOST HIGH GOD.
I've dieted and not dieted. I've worked out and not worked out. I rather enjoy being active, actually, and thrive on going to the gym. But it never seems to make much of a difference in my weight.
I've tried to lose weight for appearance's sake, for my health, for a boy, for my mother, and for any other reason you might think of, but obviously those reasons are not the answer. They've never worked for me.
Last night I got to page 83 where the author says, quite frankly:
I believe that God's method for your sanctification (change) is summed up in these four basic steps:
1. Become convinced that your present method of eating is sinful and cease from it;
2. Become convinced that God's methods for disciplined eating are right and begin practicing them;
3. Seek diligently to change your mind and become conformed to God's thinking, especially in the are of your eating habits;
4. Continue to practice these new thoughts and behaviors even when the struggle gets hard.
Wow, what an epiphany. It's like any other sin, and needs to be treated as such. For so long I have believed that my eating habits were outside of God's realm of care or concern. Why would He care if I ate a bowl of ice cream to relieve the stress from my hard day at work? Why would He care if I ate a chocolate bar because I've been going through an emotionally hard time and I 'deserve' it. These are lies that I have been believing for my entire life.
It's the same as lying or stealing or cheating. I don't do those things because I know they are wrong. I might think they would make my life easier, but I do what's right because God has told me that it's right. But I've never thought of food this way.
And it finally made sense to me why diets don't work. Working out for the purpose of being skinny to bring attention to myself doesn't work. When I'm going back and forth between a craving for a greasy hamburger or the desire to be thin, both of those are my fleshly desires. And it doesn't take long before my undisciplined flesh gives in to the more pleasureful desire. But when my craving for a greasy hamburger is pitted again the Word of God and His might power, there is only one winner. And I know that God will change the way I think and will begin to conform me in this area of my life.
