Diet & Wisdom Appetizers

I talked by phone with an old friend of mine yesterday. We live a couple of states apart and we rarely see one another, but we try to catch up via telephone or email on a regular basis.

I love my friend but she’s one of those spacey kinds of girls that have always got a get rich quick scheme in the works. Basically, she’s in to shortcuts – especially when it comes to dieting and weight loss.

Being many years older than me, she’s a veteran of the weight loss wars. She’s experienced a modicum of success in the past, but as with most of us of a certain age, she’s been flirting with menopause for quite some time now and she’s packed on an extra 40 pounds.

For as long as I’ve known her she’s called me regularly to gush about her latest sure-fire plan to lose weight. Yesterday’s conversation was no different. This month she’s into some sort of diet pill that she got from a very expensive weight loss clinic, protein drinks and working out in the gym again.

It’s not that I don’t want to be supportive of her weight loss schemes, but for as long as I’ve known her she’s never experienced any long lasting success with weight loss. Like most people, she loses 20 or 30 pounds only to go off the diet and regain all her weight plus extra, so I kind of tend to get that eyes rolled back in the head, glazed over look of cynicism with regards to her weight loss efforts because I’ve heard it all before.

As much as I love my friend, she’s one of those people who consider herself to be very spiritual but she doesn’t have what I would call a relationship with God or Jesus Christ. Not wanting to sound overly judgmental (but I’m sure I’ll come off as exactly that) she has a tendency to only turn to God in times of crisis when she’s in desperate need.

I’ve tried to share with her the difference Christ has made in my weight loss journey, but she files me in the category of bible thumper and mentally shuts down when I insist on sharing. I’ve filed her in my friends who are difficult to witness to category, but I continually pray for her and trust that at some point God will get a hold of her and she’ll come around.

Most of us know diet pills and restrictive diets don’t work long term. The only way to achieve long lasting lifetime success is by making long lasting life style changes in our eating, our habits and our attitudes.

Having a relationship with Jesus Christ is no guarantee that you will be successful at losing weight, but having Him along to help me when I am weak, to lift me when I am down and to rejoice with when I have success, means I’ve got a friend on my journey who gets me and who supports me when no one else does.

Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles. ~Walter Cronkite

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. Joshua 1:8 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for the gift of friendship. I pray you will grant me wisdom and patience when sharing the love of Christ with friends. I do ask that you would touch my friend and help me be able to share with her without her shutting down. Give me a boldness to tell of the goodness in my life when I share the Gospel. Thank you for success and the many blessings I am experiencing by your grace. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

While I was on vacation this past weekend we were staying in a hotel that offered free continental breakfast every morning. Being married to a man who is the embodiment of the “If it’s free it’s for me,” philosophy of life, you can bet your bottom dollar that we take full advantage of free anything – especially meals.

If I haven’t gone on record as saying that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day – let me say it now – breakfast absolutely is my favorite meal of the day. Unfortunately it’s also one of the toughest meals of the day to keep low calorie and healthy, especially when dining out. And when it’s free and continental that usually implies pastries, muffins and bread of every variety; all of which are my very own special Achilles heel foods.

While my travelling companions loaded their plates with piles of eggs, bacon and/or sausages, biscuits and gravy, I was contemplating filling the extra compartments of my purse with blueberry muffins and cinnamon rolls. I know free and continental implies you eat it there – but I’m given to the notion that I can only eat so much in one sitting and I’m sure I’ll need that muffin later in the morning.

In my defense, I really did do my best to avoid the breakfast meats and breads, opting for eggs, one piece of whole wheat toast and fruit. But there’s something so inherently wrong with the very idea of passing up fresh cinnamon rolls when the smell alone is enough to fell even the most stalwart of health conscious individuals. But resist I did.

Over the course of four mornings and four free breakfasts, I did swipe two muffins that I did consume at a later point throughout my day. I’m not gonna lie to you – I did nibble on a small piece of a cinnamon roll, but I made allowances by eating lighter the rest of the day. I refuse to exchange one type of bondage for another. I have been liberated from the guilt I once felt with regards to food.

I am making progress and eating better and this trip showed me that I can go on vacation without making everything about my next meal. I carefully selected healthier choices and split everything I ate at each meal with someone else, so I consumed half of what I normally would eat. I balanced smaller meals with activity and exercise; although with my knee limitations, I wasn’t able to walk as much as I would have liked to.

Progress is progress no matter how small. As long as I’m moving forward rather than backwards, I see this as a successful vacation in the fact that I didn’t gain 7 – 10 pounds which is the average for the typical vacationer. Those are numbers I’m no longer willing to live with. I’m happy to report I maintained my weight loss with no gain during this vacation and that’s a statistic I’m great with! God is so very good!

Vacation used to be a luxury, but in today’s world it has become a necessity. ~Author Unknown

1 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. 2 Corinthians 5:1-3 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to get away to rest and restore my mind, my body and my spirit. I thank you for the pleasure of spending time with people I love who refresh me and make me laugh. Thank you for the victory of not over-indulging while I was away. Thank you for all that I’ve learned about myself and my food addictions in the last few months. Help me continue to move forward and make progress and put into practice all that you are teaching me. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

In the last many months God has been doing a tremendous housecleaning job with my heart and my attitude. Nothing has been left untouched. God has very meticulously opened every hidden closet in my heart and mind and swept everything clean; no more cobwebs in the basement or the attic. I feel as though He’s thrown open every window and door and flooded my house with light; exposing everything I’d worked decades to keep hidden in the dark.

I’ve had a giant emotional yard sale and eliminated a lot of the useless clutter stockpiling in my head and my heart and I’m ready to set up house in a brand new space and start fresh. I feel pounds lighter by having eliminated a lot of those old worn out attitudes.

Now that my head and my heart have been de-cluttered and I’m going to start redecorating at some point, I need to make sure that I’m filling the spaces with only things that are pure, honorable and lovely and true (Philippians 4:8).

After spending some quiet time in God’s presence and His Word this morning I’m awestruck by how I’m interpreting every scripture that I read so differently now. Because I feel so differently about myself I’m finally at a place where I no longer despise who I am, the words of Scripture are healing my spirit like a soothing balm.

As I read Psalm 139 this morning I was tickled to finally grasp the knowledge that there is nothing that God doesn’t know about me. The mere fact that He saw me before I was born and He loved me even knowing that I would be messed up in the head for most of my life with regards to my self-esteem – He still chose to love me.

For all of the years that I felt unloved and unworthy God loved me faithfully even though I was too stupid to grasp that concept. This freedom is like being born-again again. I’ve read the Bible through year after year for the last dozen years and I know what the Scriptures say, but yet I’d somehow let the enemy convince me that the words of Scripture were for everyone but me.

I am my Father’s chosen, loved and precious daughter. Those parts of my personality that I have despised are characteristics that He specifically gave to me to make me unique. If we are believers in Christ we are the offspring of God (Acts 17:28). We’ve got parts of His DNA.

He gives to each of us a little part of himself so that all of us together make up the Body of Christ. He purposely created us to be individuals but yet so many of us try to be like somebody else because we don’t like who we are.

Trying to dress like someone else, cut our hair like someone else, emulating someone’s mannerisms or any of the other things we do to be like someone we wish we were is a waste of time. We need to dare to be ourselves and make no excuses for the things we don’t like about ourselves. If we are doing something that is displeasing to God; trust that He will let us know about it and then give us the grace to change. Otherwise, we need to be who God created us to be – simply, uniquely us.

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. ~Raymond Hull

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord, I thank you that I’m finally free to be me and I no longer have to live under a mantle of shame and guilt and self-loathing. I pray that each day you give me what I need to be who you designed me to be. Stretch me and mold me and help me to walk in confidence rather than living in fear. Thank you for knitting me together just as I am and for loving me. Help me to accept that I cannot be perfect, but you only expect me to be the person that I can be according to the design You have for me. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

My husband and I spent a few days out of town celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary. (Trying to post my blog from a hotel lobby and their free internet access was somewhat challenging, but I say kudos to me for posting anything at all!)

I’ve been blessed to be married to a man who has loved me for the last 23 years in spite of the fact that I’m a very moody, emotionally, hormonally charged woman. Loving me hasn’t always been fun or easy for him for all of that time, but I’d wager it’s been entertaining on more than one occasion.

One of the best things about my husband is that during our 23 years (plus one extra for dating) he’s seen my weight fluctuate from an all time low on our wedding day of 128 pounds up to nearly 200 pounds during pregnancy and menopause.

In all that time he’s NEVER been unkind or unloving towards me with regards to my weight. In fact he’s insisted that he’s more in love with me today than when we married all those years ago when I was at my thinnest.

For him love is not based on the external. He’s never seen me as anything less than the most beautiful woman in the world, to quote him. When I married him I’d been out of a previous marriage for a couple of years and barely had any self-esteem to speak of. And what I did have was so low; I slunk around with my chin practically dragging on the ground.

The fact that he saw beyond that and could love me when I had zero self-esteem, no self-confidence and was so completely introverted is a testament to a faithful man of God following after the Lord. He loved me when I was so completely unlovable and that proved difficult and challenging for me. I was certain there was something wrong with him because I thought I wasn’t worth loving. I was sure he was one of those weird chubby chaser guys (a man who loves fat women).

Even though I wasn’t anywhere near fat when we met and married I carried that ugly little fat girl image of myself and thought my husband was a man not to be trusted. The idea of him loving someone as unattractive as me was so ridiculous and preposterous to me. I was sure he’d turn out to be an abusive and controlling sicko and wind up on America’s Most Wanted. Boy did I ever have issues!

Sometimes I marvel at my husband’s commitment to me and our marriage. He has never wavered in his love for me even though I spent quite a few years pushing him away to simply prove that I’d been right about him all along.

I’m so grateful that he’s stuck with me in spite of my weirdness and my idiosyncrasies. Were it not for his deep relationship with Christ, I’m certain I would have driven him off in the first five years of our marriage. It’s only because he made a covenant with Christ to love me as Christ loved the church that he’s been able to love me unconditionally.

He was always supportive of my decision to be a stay-at-home mother for all these years. He is by far my greatest supporter and cheerleader with regards to my writing career. He has loved me thin and he has loved me fat; he has loved me sane and he has loved me crazy. He has loved me at my worst, my ugliest and everything in between and I am blessed beyond measure.

My husband Bob is the best man I know and one of the most Godly people I’ve ever met. I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve to be loved by a man such as him. Through the love of my husband, God has shown me the complete all-consuming love of Christ.

I lived the first 30 years of my life convinced I was as unlovable as one human being could possibly be. In the last 23 years God has shown me the love of a Heavenly Father, the love of His Son, Jesus Christ and the love of an amazing man of God. God has restored to me what the enemy tried to steal from me and I am loved beyond measure. It doesn’t get much better than that!

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. ~Ruth Bell Graham

31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. 33 So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:31-33 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Lord thank you for the gift of such a wonderful, loving husband. I pray that you will grant us many happy years to come. Help me to love him as unconditionally and thoroughly as he has loved me. Help us to continue to keep You at the center of our great union. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Oy … it’s been an extraordinarily long day and my intestinal track has now been pushed beyond the bounds of human decency -not to mention I’ve been hanging out with children all day! Not actual children, mind you but a bunch of grownups who behave like children and seem to find humor in bodily functions and fart noises.

On the bright side, I spent an amazing day outside, communing with nature enjoying the weather, the sights, smells and sounds of lovely scenery. Too much walking however has pushed me beyond my recuperative abilities and I’m enjoying a brief respite off my feet, soaking up some silence.

I’d mentioned a couple days ago that for years I had such low self-esteem that wherever I’d go I’d size up the crowd to determine if I was the fattest or ugliest girl present. I’ve been healed by the power of God from the self-esteem issues, but now I find myself sizing up the crowd to see if anyone is as handicapped as I am.

It has totally sucked not being able to walk like a normal person the last few weeks. Babies can walk for crying out loud, but I currently seem to be unable to walk without regular pain. My knee surgery recovery is not going as well as I’d hoped or expected and I’m starting to wander over to the dark side of despair.

It’s so easy to take for granted normal every day activities like eating, walking, sleeping, etc. but if for some reason you are prohibited from doing any of these “normal” activities because of health issues - you start to have a greater appreciation for the simple, “normal” things of life – like walking!

At some point during the day I had to stop and sit down because my knee literally gave out. I took a break to sit on a bench in the middle of a beautiful meadow filled with wildflowers of every imaginable color. I listened to the wind blowing through the pine trees and hearing the sounds of birds calling and I was reminded of how great our God is. The colors in His nature palette are so brilliant and spectacular; the varieties of birds, plants, trees and animals so amazing I instantly felt the comfort of my Heavenly Father.

Yes, I’m frustrated because my knee isn’t back to normal after three weeks and I have pain when walking - BUT I serve an awesome God who takes the time to create such unique beauty and cares about even the tiniest of His creatures - how can I think for a moment that He isn’t part of my recovery and purposely slowing me down because the body that HE designed needs sufficient time to heal.

How can I think that a God who created the sun, the moon, the Grand Canyon, the oceans, magnificent animals and oh yes - ME, how can I doubt His power to heal me and also teach me life lessons along the journey.

Yes, my God is good and I’m grateful when He takes the time to remind me of the futility of worrying about how long my recovery will take. It will take as long as it takes because He is always in control!

Look at the ravens. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than any birds! Can all your worries add a single moment to our life? Of course not! And if worry can’t do little things like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things? Luke 12:24-26 (NLT)

PRAYER FOR TODAY: Thank you Lord for daily reminders that you are ALWAYS in control and I need to chill out and trust you and stop worrying about things I have no control over. I love you and thank you for life’s many blessings. I ask all these things in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.