Enabler

Lord, you have been giving me a more profound sense of peace, but in that I am becoming more and more in touch with my grief, which is a great paradox to me. Grief, grief, grief. I guess I'm in the grieving phase huh? You think? That peppers every blog I write lately. Today I was out driving and I realized that my innermost circle of friends have all gone their separate ways, and I felt very alone...like I had no place to turn. A spontaneous visit to anyone I know was/is out of the question. We are all so very busy, Lord, building our lives. I said, "Well, I guess it's just you and me, Lord." Then, you encouraged me to go by my church. I attended yesterday evening, but I was in need of some ministry, so I went today because church was just letting out, hoping for prayer, and I got it. Not until after you used me like a wrung out rag in prayer for others who were hurting though. Nothing like being an instrument to take your mind off your own pain. I also got to have a well-earned lunch with someone who is a mentor in my life, and I am thankful for that. I needed to be with someone who could talk about the depths of you Lord, without the distractions of my family. I mean, I love my family, but when I'm going through something, sometimes I just need some breathing room, and some wisdom and insight from another who pursues you who isn't caught up in the same responsibilities I am. Sometimes it is nice to just sit at someone else's feet and hear their perspective.

Right now my neighbors on either side of me are separated, and we have inherited their children since they have no stability at home. A ministry opportunity. But Lord, as I walk with my neighbors and listen to their struggles and the ways in which they are choosing to handle them, you are showing me the contrasts in my own life. My girlfriend who lives next door is going through similar issues because she has lost a lot of weight, and now she is getting a lot of attention as well, but she is choosing to follow it, rather than stay in her marriage. Lord you are showing me how things break down without you. You are showing me how people can behave when they've been seriously neglected, moving to the next person and then the next, looking for worth, thinking they can actually sweep the pile of broken relationships under the carpet and move on, unscathed. Oh, the enemy is such a deceiver. I mean, for me, it has been a real grief process to receive attention from all fronts for the first time in 20+ years, and to die to following after it, rather than walk head-long into the lure of it. It has also been a real challenge to stop pretending that everything is okay in my own life, and just sit in my feelings and not make excuses for myself or the people I love. Good stuff but painful stuff. The stuff that grownups are made of. You are bringing me to a place where I can evaluate the damage in my life and be at peace (peace isn't necessarily devoid of pain), waiting for you to intervene and turn ashes to beauty. How insane that must seem to the world, that we as believers, would willingly stay in a situation less than satisfying, to wait on you. "To whom would we turn Lord, if not for you?" I keep coming back to that scripture again and again.

Lord, you have been showing me what an enabler I was when I was fat. A pretender. Pretending that everything was okay was killing me. Lord, as you knock down this house of cards that I would call my life, I ask that you would rebuild with your master-craftsmanship. I thank you Lord, that you are tearing down the sick things that I built with my own hands (out of my own will and agenda), so that you might reconstruct my circumstances according to your will and purpose. Lord, give me strength to continue to sit in my feelings and stand firm in the resolve to make no attempts to protect those I love from the consequences of their choices. Enable me Lord, not to be an enabler any more.

Two Little Words

Yesterday was a stellar day in so many ways Lord, because of you. All good things come from you...but I'm always astounded afresh at what you can do. I took a test yesterday that will determine some things about the outcome of my future, and I was so jacked up about it, that I was sick. And yet, just prior to the test I connected with some of your own who prayed with me that I would do well and I did! All the time these days I see you answering little and big requests in ways that I could've anticipated--because I know how you are...but the creativity with which you accomplish your purposes--isn't something one can foresee. "Your ways are not our ways"--"who can know them?" I think a big reason I am able to recognize your hand at this time in my life, is because my sense of you isn't so dulled by food anymore. It's not that you weren't doing wonders all around me before--it's that I can actually see them because I'm not so distracted by "food worship" and the sedation of overindulging, and also because I'm risking new things that demand a deeper dependency on you, out of survival! While I am stressed because I walk in new challenges, it is sweet to see and experience your hand in all that goes on. I also had confirmation yesterday that you have in fact, created another seriously blessed friendship for me. I've posted here before about how valuable friends are in the scheme of life, and you have deposited another treasure into my stable of near and dear relationships. My suspicions about this person have been confirmed, in that they are, and want to be, all that I'd hoped they'd be in you, and I am very delighted to have had that revealed to me yesterday. I sit back and look upon the work you've done in that relationship over the past few months and say, "It is good." The quickness with which you developed this "safe place" to turn, is a testiment to the maturity in you this person possesses, and also, the rapid changes you're doing in me as a result of all that has happened this past 6 months. 6 months. Has it really only been that long since the radical, long overdue transformation of my life began? Since I jumped onto the accelerated expressway of change?

Lord, I thank you so much, so often. Do you ever tire of those words, "thank you?" Those two little words seem so trite and inadequate to express what you deserve to hear--because you are so big and complicated, God. You delight in giving good gifts and orchestrating the outcomes of the many different facets of our existence. The fact that you are determined and actually able to get all the glory for everything about us...that alone is a task that is too intricate for me to get my mind around--and yet my mind is more and more aware just how neatly I sit tucked right into the palm of your capable hand. So I thank you once again Lord, that despite the fact that I often stumble and fumble my way around...that I get overwhelmed and undone at times...you continue to steer things to your end, and your plans and purposes are fulfilling to my soul. The word says, that your joy is my strength. The delight you take in orchestrating my life, gives me the ability to trust you more and more, and this creates strength of spirit in me. You find such joy in proving yourself. To you be the glory, Lord.

Tossed and Blown

Tonight, the 3 key pastors at our church resigned. I am heartbroken. For many years before the senior pastor came to my church, I prayed for someone like him to be in that role. I sat through years of polluted teaching, waiting for you Lord, praying for you to fix it. When this man came to our church, I was astounded and grateful, because he teaches grace and we are so needy for your grace, Lord, instead of legalism. Tonight I went up to him after church and wept bitterly in his arms, because I am devastated. He looked at me and said, "Oh (my name). I saw your face when I was making my announcement and thought, she's going to take this hard. I am so very sorry." I told him I was heartbroken and disappointed, but not disappointed with him. Lord, I knew before I got there tonight that he was leaving, and in my spirit I knew why. I knew that it had to do with not being respected enough to be allowed to lead. Lord, I am so angry with the elders right now, that they would sabotage this situation...and yet, I know by the things our pastors said that you've revealed to them all individually, that you are in this shift. Lord, it is so apparent to me once again, that when you change something, a good deal of the time it isn't pretty. We would like to think that when you're in it God, that it comes together nicely and without difficulty, but often that is not the case. You are not afraid to let us suffer in order to accomplish your purposes. But Lord, these three men of such high integrity...I can't believe our church blew it and lost them. On the other hand, I also know that all of them are destined for more greatness in you than this church. I will look for them on the horizon, and expect you to do things through them on a more global scale, for the things that they represent in you are not reserved just for our small segment of the body. So, I know you will show off, as you always do. I just wonder if our body will be raked over the coals in order to show our eldership that they need to bend a bit more than they are willing to do at this time. The fact that they allowed these men to stand before us and admit that they couldn't get into agreement with the governmental system of our church...that they were weary and beaten up...that they were all three disappointed and this is not how they would've had things play out...what guts! Our eldership knew they would say these things and yet they allowed it. That says a lot about the elders' integrity.

Lord, please carry our church through. To lose three senior pastors in a 10-year period almost seems more than we can bear. And now we've also lost our associate pastor, our executive pastor, and at least one elder that I know of so far has resigned. The people of this church are weary, Lord. We've been buffeted around by what seems to be a huge storm for so long, and I don't know how well we'll weather this latest development. Lord, help me to not remain bitter at the loss of this fine teacher. I was so fed by you through him, and I do love his heart and the way he interprets the word, Lord. Help me to find my place in the body. I don't know if I want to be at this church any more. But if it's your will, I will stay. In Jesus' name, amen.

Revisiting the Past and My Last Post

In the last post I mentioned that I feel as if I have gone back to a point in my younger years in drive and mindset: a few thoughts on that... I was recruited in high school to attend a local university on a full ride music scholarship: with one contingency--I was given the ultimatum by the instructor that made the award, that I must lose my excess weight to keep my ride--I was about 20 pounds overweight when I went to college, b/c I had lost a lot of my weight my junior year in high school. Today, that ultimatum would be considered discrimination. But back then, teachers weren't as policed as they are now, and I came from an abusive home, so I didn't know any better--I was used to being mistreated, so I didn't question him. Up to that point in my life, my obesity hadn't kept me from being a performer. I still got the lead in the senior play, etc. I was able to hold my own because my musical talent superseded my appearance, so up to that point in my life it had carried me in social situations a lot. High school kids are cruel, but if you have something valuable to offer and it benefits them to claim you as a peer, they will. The irony is, when I look back at my high school photos, I was small! But because I carried the bulk of my extra weight in my thighs, I was considered "fat" by my peers. Anything in high school beyond boney back then, was considered a liability. Today if I was built like that, I'd be considered a light-weight--I think I weighed 140 when I went to college. But that just goes to prove the enemy has an assignment against our lives, and is no respecter of time-frame or truth. Anyway, when this choir director gave me this challenge, an impending sense of dread set in, and I began to overeat to combat the anxiety. Go figure. I mean, I wasn't able to control how I was viewed by others through playing on my talent anymore. So, by my 3rd year in college, I weighed 200 pounds and was stressed to the max, not doing well in course work, and my peers all held me in contempt. I was in the elite vocal group at school, and one of the director's tactics to manipulate me into losing weight was to influence the group to dislike me so I would "shape up". Things just went from bad to worse, and then my "best friend" in the group framed me to take the fall for something I didn't do because she was jealous (I stole the show on stage when we performed, and she didn't like sharing the attention--but I was too gullible to realize it until it was too late). I was asked to leave the group. At that point, I dropped out of college. But, the point of recounting this whole sob story is to say that the Lord is showing me that this is the point in my life where I gave up on myself. I think it began around my 3rd year in college. It took awhile for me to get fat enough that I began to hate myself so much that I didn't have will to continue on in my pursuits. For my 1st and 2nd year I dated, partied, was a little sister for a fraternity, and had a couple of serious boyfriends. A semester before things came to a head with my choir director, I went through a bad break-up as well, so my eating really kicked in then because I was grieving. But prior to this experience, I still was riding the idea that I had the world by the tail. I was having fun. Glory days. Kind of like now...lots of attention on all fronts, popularity, and lots of prospects for the future. But when I dropped out of school, I think I gave up on myself and the idea of having any kind of significant life, and decided I was going to have to settle. And I did exactly that. I mean, I come from a long line of controllers, so I still had some measure of success in my life because I wasn't about to settle for minimum wage jobs, etc. But, I surely did not reach my fullest potential. I took the "safe" road with minimal risks and have been doing that ever since. Now, here I am daring to consider that I could shoot higher, and it seems I'm picking up emotionally where things left off when I gave up. Arrested emotional development. Riding the wave of my new-found freedom, just like I did when I went away to college. A ministry that has helped me a lot has a mantra: "You have to feel, to heal." Apparently, I need to start where I derailed emotionally, to gain some healing and concepts that I missed by checking out on myself so long ago. I wonder sometimes Lord, if you are going to take me backward, starting with the most recent thing first? Will you go all the way back through my past, even to the womb experience? I mean, the enemy doesn't even respect the womb. Will you redeem it all, Lord?

Lord, I ask that you would be gentle with me, as you teach me how to navigate my emotions in the adult world. Give me wisdom and continue to keep me alert. I have for so long now Lord, denied myself permission to feel and to hope. I ask that you would restore my hope to a healthy place, Lord. I'm so "all or nothing" Lord (which speaks to perfectionism and we can visit that terrifying place another day), and I want to be balanced. I want to be able to navigate my own fumbling attempts to find my place in this world--without giving up on myself due to shame and rejection issues. Please create balance in my expectations of self and others, Lord. I ask that if it's possible, despite my mistakes, that the enemy not be allowed to come in like a flood and ruin the reality checks you are giving me. I know you don't reject me when I make mistakes Lord, but please help me not to reject myself. In Jesus' name, amen.

Roller Coaster Ride

I am trying to make peace with where I am right now. One of the horrible things about obesity (which I've mentioned before here) is that overeating is a way of medicating or avoiding one's feelings. Well, now I feel like I'm revisiting my late adolescence a lot lately, and the temptation to stuff that as well, is very strong. I don't like that about me (feeling adolescent), but seem to have very little control over it. So, I'm trying to make peace with the fact that this is just where I am and trying to go around it isn't going to make it go away. It's as if I'm picking up right where I was before my 1st college experience went awry. I want to dance, sing, stay out late with friends, play dress-up, and enjoy the attention I'm getting. God is showing me that one very important component of recovery from my addiction to food is to embrace the youth inside myself, instead of condemning her to silence. He has been faithful to restore some harmony with the friend that I mentioned in my last post that I thought I'd lost, but I still find myself wrestling with the desire to try to gain too much attention. I hear that Sheryl Crow song in my head all the time, "All I wanna do, is have some fun..." When the enemy comes to shame me over it, I am learning to rebuke him and tell him to get lost. There is no way I'm going to learn to navigate this new appearance or new-found confidence, if I don't move through the issues that arise, rather than trying to do an end-run around them. I have so many responsibilities right now, with all that I am undertaking, and it is so tempting to medicate with "play time". All of the experts say that it is good for the soul to take breaks and let your hair down, and I find a need for that more and more, since most of my time is booked with commitments that are critical. I am applying to several medical programs to try to go back to school and in hindsight, it probably would have been prudent to wait a year, just to have some time to adjust to my new life. However, I'm soon to be 43 years old, and time is marching on. Also, there are a lot of things I would like to do financially, and I'm tired of being broke all the time. Debts to be paid off, etc. I would like to have plastic surgery at some point, and doing that when I finish the program I attend would be good timing, before I start a job in earnest. So...a lot of pressure to move forward and make some good money, while I still have several productive years left.

Lord, give me wisdom to know what to do with this young girl that resides inside me. Help me to love her and be patient with her, instead of banishing her in chains to the dungeon again. Help me to know how to walk with her in healthy ways. Lord, give me grace for this period of weight loss, where chemical changes are constant, and hormone levels are all over the map. Lord, help me to give my body and soul what it needs, without jeopardizing the health of either. Give me wisdom to navigate my relationships with others. Give me grace and mercy to get through my next class with an A. You did it last time, and I know you can do it through me again. Help me not to get caught up in the dread of studying, and give me grace to keep a good attitude throughout this semester. I ask that I would be accepted into the program you would have me attend, and that you would provide the funds for it. I also ask that you would provide the funds and the opportunity for me to have plastic surgery. I really don't want to incur a bunch more debt, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

Blinders Coming Off

There has been some profound revelation and discovery as a result of all the turmoil inside me lately. I can see that the real work around my weight loss is just beginning. Those who have gone before me in this process can probably identify with what I'm about to say: I'm realizing with clarity--maybe realistically for the first time in my life--that I'm not as stable as I want to believe I am. Now, most who know me well might read that statement and say, "Well, duh!" and I say that too (I mean, how stable can someone who weighed 300+ pounds really be?)...however, to intellectually be aware that I still have work to do, and to emotionally embrace the ramifications of that are two very different and separate dynamics. I am beginning to realize how sabotaging I can be in my relationships, how much grief I have inside that has been dormant for decades, and how much work is yet to be done. I have decided to pursue counseling. I am coming to grips with how obsessive I can be (which is scary) and I want to heal. I don't know if it's "only child syndrome" or if it's something more profound in my family of origin issues, or something else altogether--but it is being revealed to me how unrealistic my expectations can be when I become attached to anyone. I get so demanding and try to suck the life out of any new relationship that means anything to me. I am grieving because I have sabotaged a new friendship that was a joy and benefit to have, and it's all because I don't know when to quit demanding of others. This loss is painful enough in itself, but has proven the catalyst for exposing what may prove to be a small piece of my sickness. More boundary issues. When it comes to my own neediness, I seem to be a bottomless pit--and once the tiger is let out of the pit, it is a ravenous, manipulative, controlling beast. It's time to get to the bottom of this, because it's proving debilitating in my interpersonal connections--and more importantly, it's eating me alive. It is another testament to your power and patience, Lord, that I have the deep friendships I've been able to retain in my life. It's a wonder anyone has had the fortitude to stick by me, considering how relentless I am in my drive to pursue what I've convinced myself to be "depth" in my relationships. My God, I am so demanding, and when I am enjoying any kind of intellectual or emotional validation, I can't ever get enough. I used to stroke myself about my ability to be so good with people one on one, and now I am seeing the other side of that--I initially try to consume anyone who sees the least bit of value in me. I have cried so much that I shouldn't have any eyelashes or tears left. I know a good deal of that is pride dying b/c it is very difficult to admit that I am so damaged...but a good deal of it is also shame and regret. I'm realizing that one of the things I had been keeping prisoner inside my obesity, was knowing myself. Apparently that is so intimidating that I am overwhelmed, and if I am intimidated by it, I can only imagine what it looks like to others at times, this personality that I carry. I am realizing that one of my stratagies in my friendships has always been to bide my time and build a solid foundation with the intent of achieving intimacy that is pervasive. Now, that might sound appealing, or insidious, depending on one's desire to be transparent, or to be guarded. But the bottom line is, that I have held that kind of deep knowing of one another as idolatry in my life--a substitute for knowing and being known by you, Lord--and just as profound: a substitute for knowing and understanding the wounded parts of myself. A distraction. I'm realizing how much that kind of pressure can damage and/or even sever some relationships. Maybe it's even a type of living vicariously through knowing others because I am afraid to know myself on some primal level. Wow, that's heavy. Pursuit of that is like a drug, medicating the deep loneliness and pain that I harbor inside my heart--which is now leaking out at the drop of a hat, it seems. The big "fence" that I've had around myself is coming down and all kinds of "beasts" seem to have been hiding within. In the past I have always dismissed people that I pursued if they "weren't up to the challenge" of going to the depths I wanted to achieve, labeling them as cowards--but now I realize that was arrogance and denial on my part, lying to myself about my own bent for trying to press the other person. So...pain is the order of the day right now, and I am very very messy.

Lord, I need... I need. I need so much. I need you. Please heal me.

Broken Down, Busted

God, you've had me in the wringer today. I feel like I have been broken to pieces and then it washes over me again in a more profound way over and over, hour by hour. Wretched am I. Weeping doesn't even cover it. I have allowed myself to be seduced by the enemy and my heart is broken because of my infidelity to you, oh God. My betrayal was to think more highly of myself and my agenda, than of you. To allow myself to be wooed into thinking that I actually have dominion over my own life, and then to add insult to injury, to allow the enemy to convince me that I have the aptitude to handle fire and not get burnt. HA! I have ignored you, Lord. To quote an appropriate song, "I have made you too small in my eyes. Oh Lord, forgive me. I have believed in a lie. Oh Lord, have mercy." As the realization of my own folly unfolds in my mind, the enemy whispers such biting messages of shame and recrimination in my ears, that I can hardly live with myself. Can hardly stand up straight for the pain of it. Wave after wave of shame and embarrassment wash over me as I contemplate the messages he plants in my mind with his vile tongue. "You are stupid, stupid, stupid!" he says with contempt. "You know better!" he says. "What were you thinking?" he says. One rejection message right after another. An all too familiar passage makes more sense to me today than ever before: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." I see that in such technicolor right now. My flesh or "sinful nature" is a slave to sin even though my mind knows better. But I have made the mistake of allowing the enemy to seduce me into believing that I'm above that. Pride. Lord, when I start thinking that way, help me to remember how much pain I allowed the enemy to lure me into this afternoon. A warning that reminds me of my own weakness--my inability to be righteous in my own strength--so that your strength may be made perfect Lord. I realize with more illumination that if I don't reconcile myself to my own weakness, I am unable to draw from your perfect strength, even if it's right there waiting for me--and disaster awaits. How often do we ignore the little voice that says, "You're straying off the path...beware." Denial isn't just pretending that things are better than they are--it is denying you, oh Lord. I repent for taking matters into my own hands. I ask that you would restore me and even if it hurts like hell, please keep me humble. I can't believe I'm praying that because I know what it can mean. Peter nailed it though, "if not for you Lord, where would we turn?"