I take a break from my non-posting in this blog to….blog!
I’ve been off work this week. It should have been a more positive experience than it has been, but because I let food (or my desire for it) dictate how I feel, it’s been a little on the lonely side. Even though it has been days that the Lord made, they have been a little gray and overcast, and my mood became the same way.
Eating didn’t help…it made things worse. Shopping didn’t help…I don’t normally spend money I don’t have, so I didn’t buy anything. Calling a friend didn’t help…not everyone is off this week.
So, I prayed.
I had a good long conversation with God, and He reminded me that I’m a princess, a daughter of the Most High God, and not a slave imprisoned by the cares of this world. I was feeling pretty misplaced…not lost, but misplaced…and as I left my prayer closet, I was feeling a little better.
I went to see my mother, who’s been feeling rather poorly these last few days, and I shared with her my confusion, disappointment, and feelings of defeat over my food obsession. (That’s a nice way to treat my ailing mother, isn’t it?) She talked to me about independence…that is, not living my life with a dependency on my urges to eat, but to live independent of those desires of the flesh, and to live in dependency on God. She also reminded me that I do have a choice, sympathized with me that I felt my problems were much deeper than just a choice, and reminded me again that I need to practice self-control.
She then said something else profound…we really don’t have much more time to get the word out to a dying and lost world. There is freedom. God said so, that settles it. She told me that as long as I was living under bondage like I am, how would I be going about the Father’s business? He has a work for me to do, but I’m so wrapped up in my obsession, that I only....obsess.
As I was leaving, she said,
“It’s time for you to stand up to the plate!”
And she didn’t just mean for me to get ready to bat the ball out of the ballpark. It’s time for me to stand up to the plate and say, “No!” every now and again. Exhibit some self-control. Gain some independence. Be about my Father’s business.
Thanks, Mom.
You know, Margaret, the same message about the shortness of days has been on my mind--and on my blog.
ReplyDeleteBut here's my take on that it is not my fatness that is hindering me from "getting the word out."
It is not. What hinders me is my obsession about my fatness, my obssession that I need to be not eating this and eating that, my self-consciousness about how I look and how much I weigh, etc.
IT IS NOT THE WEIGHT. It is the bondage that has taken place about the food/weight thing.
We have too little time left to spend it focusing on eating or not eating or a number on the scale or the width of our hips..
Yes. We need to eat better. Yes, we need to turn to God instead of to food. I get that. BUT the obsession with the whole issue is what is stealing our days. The extra fat may cut them short, but the focus on that fat is what's obscuring the days we have.
And I, sadly, know whereof I speak. When I weighed much more than I do now, I was very much about the Father's business. I did it feeling totally self-conscious about my size (250+) and often refused some opportunities because of that size, but I was still very focused on ministry.
Now. Well, now I weigh much less. Even at my current 196, I'm normal enough to no longer be the fattest woman in the room. (Yes, I still check.) But I do much less inistry now. My mind is much less on the Father. You know why?
Not because I am embarrassed by how fat I am--it is because I am completely demoralized by my failure to stick on my diet and lose those last 40 pounds. (Ha! or at this point to stop gaining back what I've lost.)
I am totally and completely focused and overrun by this whole food/weight/food/foood/food thing.
Ah, well. I'll stop this post/comment now. but you get the idea.
Hugs, Margarert. The Father loves us enough to get our thinking right. And He'll do it because He knows that's what we want--to serve Him wholeheartedly.
Deb
Your mother is a very wise godly woman. She truly is a blessing to you all I am sure. She always seems to give such great wise advice when you come to her. She has something there about getting the message out about God and his kingdom. I sense an urgency too, that's why I'm praying on how I can be used to do so within my limited scope of things.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to take the advice she gave you and "engrave" it upon your heart in the days ahead.
and I won't tell you it was sunny and 80 degrees today here.
but I was working......