Eating for God--One month!

Okay, so I wrapped up a full month of eating for God. On a side note, I refuse to call what I am doing dieting. Refuse. When we diet, the goal is to lose weight.... In my case, that is not my goal (but a sweet blessing!), my desire is to honor and worship God by how and what I eat.

I will just tell you that this has been an amazing experience for me. The ravenous cravings are gone, and lack of control is healing. God is doing a miraculous work in me, and I cannot help but think of a Psalms that David wrote:


“O Lord,” I prayed, “have mercy on me. Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” Psalm 41:4

I know I have mentioned before, but allow me to reiterate one beautiful fact that sings in my heart everyday: The way that I desired food, the way I used food as comfort, the way I placed the importance of food in my life over Christ, I ignored the fact that I made food a trinket-god before the Holy One. (hello, first commandment, anyone?!) I confessed this to my Father, and amazingly, the One who created life--the One who commands the universe, the One who is to be greatly praised--not only forgave me, but is tenderly helping me overcome this struggle so I can honor Him. And not only is He helping me overcome this battle with food, but he blesses me in the process! I am so undeserving! It makes me laugh with pure astonishment when I see the pounds falling off! It is almost like a physical way to show a small portion of what He is doing in my heart.

So are you ready to hear the total weight lost these past 4-weeks?

24-pounds! (Little editor's note here: I so wanted to type 25 here...but I can't push myself to lose weight, because then I am focusing on the weight loss, and just replacing that as a trinket-god. I am really trying to guard against that!)

Whenever I start to even try to grasp this blessing, or even the fact that I am worthy of a blessing in this situation, I just CAN'T! But I love how God is a God of GOOD...and He desires good for us.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." --Psalm 37:4

Now, of course, don't get me wrong... I will honestly tell you that I have had two incidences where I stumbled. One was not so much what I ate...but how I ate it. I did not eat in a way that honored God at all. Which makes me go back to my point that I made at the beginning of this blog...if I were dieting...I would have not done a thing wrong! I was fine with my caloric intake, it was very healthy (tuna and half and avocado), but I knew that my heart was not in the right spot while I was eating the food. I was eating almost in a state of panic because I was hungry and was afraid that I would end up bingeing. But do you see the two emotions that I was feeding and running from? Panic and Fear. Neither of those emotions show a confidence that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." What I did in that moment is I did not put these emotions before the Lord...I tried to handle it myself. I took the hope that I have in Christ to help me in that situation, and tried to put a humanly fix on what only God can heal.

"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. Selah" --Psalm 62:8-10

I am so humbled by God's care for me in this journey. What an amazing God we serve!

"If you wake me each morning with the sound of Your loving voice, I'll go to sleep each night trusting in You. Point out the road I must travel; I'm all ears, all eyes before You. Save me from my enemies, God— You're my only hope! Teach me how to live to please You, because You're my God. Lead me by Your blessed Spirit..."
--Psalm 143:8-10 (The Message)

Leaving My Egypt--Day 10!

Oh my goodness...what a crazy 10 days it has been!

I have lost (drumroll please!) 14 pounds! What so funny about it, is weight loss has not even my focus...I am really just trying to worship God in every area of my life--even in my eating...or in my case, worship Him in what I am NOT eating! I have already felt closer to Christ, my prayer life is growing (which I LOVE), and I just feel like God is just SO close. It's incredible. The transformation in my heart has been surreal. I am so calm around food, and I feel so in control. I mean, I know that I am not in control (hate to state the obvious there!), it is totally Christ's strength. It takes Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" ring so true in my life. It has always been so easy for me to "sneak or cheat" on a diet, but now that I am dealing with the root of my problem (which is sin, not my eating OR my weight)...it makes it much harder to justify sneaking or cheating on God!

It is crazy that I struggle this much with eating!

It's hard to talk about sometimes because it is embarrassing, but the more and more I talk about it, the more people are coming up to me or calling me saying that this is them too. I must have spoken to at least 10 different women this week alone about this problem (food before God, body image, etc). I feel like it just, again, proves that this is a subject that so many women struggle with, but yet, no one wants to talk about because of the shame, embarrassment, feeling like they are the only one. So I figure I am going to talk about it! Now, please understand before I go any further, I am NOT saying that anyone who is overweight or struggles with body image issues is a sinner, NOT AT ALL... I am just sharing how this became a sin for me. In fact, I had an interesting conversation with a sweet friend this week, and she said that she had never thought about food being a sin. I had to explain it's not that FOOD is a sin...it became a sin FOR ME because it was replacing God's priority in my life. I was focusing WAY too much on what I would eat, when I would eat...and then I would counter with focusing on my weight issues, whatever diet I was on, or just being angry at myself for how I look: THAT's when it became a sin for me. And because I was not dealing with the root of my sin (or my problem, as I called it before I realized the correlation it had in my walk with Christ) I was always looking for a fix, or a solution...and then those "solutions" (like crazy diets) would then become my priority and obsession...which, honestly, just replaced the object of my sin with something else. Whatever we place before God is not right...even if it is something we think is perfectly innocent. The innocence in lost when we place it at a higher priority than Christ in our lives. The only obsession I want is a crazy-obsession for Christ...and only Christ.

For the most part this has been the easiest time in my life I have ever had not eating food. I have had moment these past few days where I have thought I wanted to just EAT... whatever I want, however much I want. Eat in an ugly way that would put my love for food over my love for God. I desperately do not ever, ever want to do that again. Especially since I have confessed and come to grips with the fact that I have placed food over God...that my sweet, precious Savior, the One who I have let down is not letting me down. He has not only forgiven me for putting something as stupid as food over Him, but in His Great Compassion, He HELPS ME to stop. It makes me want to weep every time I think about it. Through prayer and submission in those crazy-momentary anxieties, He helps me through! I am also SO, SO blessed to have amazing friends that I can text and beg for prayer in those tough moments. They don't ever trivialize it, or ever let me feel I am being dramatic over a silly bag of chips, or the fact that I cannot stop thinking about macaroni and cheese... Instead, they pray. I feel their prayers. I feel His peace.

God is SO great... He doesn't beat me down for my failures...but He sets me up for success through His grace and mercy. He is my Savior, and I am blessed.