God's Doing

      When I met with my friend on October 16th I had pretty much given up my battle with food. I was not going to let my self worth be dependant on my clothes size. But I was just done. It was not worth my mental health to stress about how much I weighed or how much I was eating. I had too many other things I was stressing about already. My belly was hanging over my pants though and I did not like that.

      I had had what I thought was a recent victory - I got chocolate chips out into a bowl to eat and I did not go back to get more. I told her this and she challenged me - why did you get the chocolate chips? "I wanted dessert." Were you hungry? "No...."

     She asked me a lot of challenging questions, and gave me tools, including Scripture. She also challenged me to not eat until I was hungry. It really seemed like a crazy concept to me. To sit at the table and NOT EAT while my husband and daughter were eating. I had had oodles of noodles at lunch at 12:30, and then around 3:30 at her house I had coffee with some sugar and half and half. So, I sat at dinner and did not eat. I explained that I was not hungry. I never did get hungry that night.

She had reminded me that, "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). I had been living in gluttony. That night I confessed my sins of overeating to God. I confessed that I had worshipped food, and turned to it when I needed to have turned to Him. I asked God to forgive me in Jesus name, and purify me from all unrighteousness.

     I was not hungry in the morning. At that point I realized that because of the medication I am taking I was not going to get hunger pains. But, I COULD tell that my body felt empty (which it had not felt in a looong time). So I did eat breakfast, looking freshly at the food on my plate in view of my stomach's condition.

     My friend had also shared with me, 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit', says the Lord Almighty" (Zechariah 4:6). She gave me a piece of paper with faces on it representing all different sorts of emotions and suggested I put it up somewhere and look at it to see what emotions I would feel when going to eat (at a time different from a meal). I put it on the inside of a cabinet door that held a 2 pound bag of chocolate chips.

     A week went by and I did not binge. I had takeout food the following weekend in company of friends and ate more than I needed. I was not at all paying attention to how my stomach felt. So, the next morning when we went to Waffle House for chocolate chip pancakes for my daughter I had no desire at all to eat anything, and my stomach was still full. So, I just got some orange juice. And, I did not run out of energy and little by little my stomach started to feel confortable again. I don't remember what we had for lunch, but for dinner I got something just right for the amount of space I figured I had in my stomach. And, it was exactly what I wanted and I was very satisfied.

     I had lost normal enjoyment of eating food when I ate regardless of the condition of my stomach. Food tastes better when you are eating it for its intended purposes of nourishing and providing energy for your body.

     I had a delicious church dinner and one dessert with it and was content. Then I mistakenly took another dessert and was in process of eating it when I realized my error. I promptly stopped eating it and threw it in the trash, which was definitely NOT something in my former food behaviors. It felt very freeing.

     I have on occasion still eaten a bit more than needed, and have eaten some of the chocolate chips. But as I was taking a shower the other evening for some reason I envisioned a large bowl of icecream. For me 5 scoops with sprinkles and chocolate syrup and whip cream would have been my total limit for one evening, often eaten in two stints. As I envisioned it in its massiveness it held no appeal for me. If fact it grossed me out to think of stuffing my stomach with all of that. Wow.

God has given me a gift. When I reached the end of my efforts and had decided to give up, He did it in His faithfulness, by His Spirit. Even as He was in process of doing this, I was confused about other issues, and feeling like I needed to SEE that He was active and real. His power was right under my nose, but I was so busy I had not taken time to consider what He had been doing in my life.

     God's timing is amazing. My mental health was beginning to deteriorate during this time because I was busier than I ever need to be. In the past I would have just binged more, and then felt disgusted with myself on top of being highly stressed and emotionally unstable. God didn't allow me to do this this time - to try to numb myself with food. Thus my emotions were seeping out from undercover and forcing me to pay attention to them. Praise be to God that I could listen to my emotions and start asking for help. I still have not fully grasped what God has done and is doing. I am still in process of trying to slow down so that I can experience life more fully rather than just existing and surviving.