Strange sense of calm

Peace that passes all understanding... That is what comes to mind when I reflect on this day. Though my schedule remains chaotic, I am peaceful through it all. It is like I am watching everything, evaluating, and separating what I need to be involved in and what I do not. Praise God. So very different than being emotionally involved in all of it and not really responding, but reacting. I am overjoyed that I began this journey. My time in the scripture is so sweet. My time out of it remains sweet. 

Busyness has begun...

School starts tomorrow.  The teachers returned two weeks ago and life returned to a crazy pace all leading up to Orientation. The day before Orientation, I was headed back to my old ways of rushing around, being annoyed with interruptions. Then, something happened. Suddenly, mid-day, something changed inside of me. Everything that "had" to be done became crystal clear. Everything that could wait faded into the background. It was still there, I just didn't feel the pressure to get there. When new requests came, I could easily see where their priority lie and respond correctly. Praise God. It has to be Him. The same clarity and precision are still with me. No anxiety. No irritation. No disappointment in my inability to meet every need. Just a quiet, peaceful knowledge that everything will work out perfectly.

7 pounds...

I am below 200. I started this journey at 246 and I weighed in at 198 today. It feels good. I really wasn't expecting expecting much this week because of high stress levels and I had two great weeks in a row. Praise God. He has taught me so much thus far I can't wait to see what He has in store. This has been so worth it so far. Very hard, but worth it. I am praying right now that I am able to overcome my habit of binging when I finally do taste food again. God is all powerful and all strong, but I have to obey... My past track record is not great, but I believe He will bring me through it. Through Him I have overcome clinical depression, codependency, anxiety, abuse, and am overcoming food addiction. On my own I can do nothing. Through Him I can do all things.

God, Health, Family, Friends, Work

I have learned so much during this journey. I am so grateful to God. 

My Priorities

God - this is my relationship with Him. Though it involves fellowship, it is not centered on church activities. It is centered on Bible reading and prayer. It is centered on the shaping of my life to mirror the image of Christ.

Health - without health, my relationship with God falls short and everything falling in priority after this suffers. 

Family - my family comes next. My daughter tops this list and whatever isn't included in growing my relationship with God, and maintaining or improving my health falls below her. This also includes my sons and grandchildren, and the people that God has given me as family. 

Friends - friends come next. This includes my neighbor and my commission. 

Work - work cannot at anytime trump the others. Life becomes unbalanced at this point. 

I am going to take time each month, week, and day to make sure my priorities are lining up. It needs to be fixed immediately when they are not or life becomes unbalanced and everything I value suffers. 

Planning

God has taught me a lot about planning over the last few years. I started out planning my week. Then my days. Our God is a God of order. He taught me how to order my finances. He taught me how to order my grocery shopping and to plan two weeks of menus at a time. He taught me to order my household, my housework. Most times I am 15 minutes away from a visitable house. 

If I look at the worst time in my life, it was always during these that I lost my sense of order. A long time ago I had no order to begin with. When I am over-hungry, overtired, holding anger, overstressed, lonely, or hurting; I tend to let all order go out the window. I start on bad habits that are still lingering. All logical thought flies out the window. This is when I binge on food. So I do a HEART check several times a day to see where I am at mentally. 

Hurting?

Exhausted?

Angry?

Resentful?

Tense?

If I am. I step back, look inside, and figure out how I am feeling. If one of these is off, then I look back at my day to see where I went off track. Go to a quiet place, read some scripture, talk to God about it, and start again. It worked okay yesterday. Today it worked wonderfully well. Yesterday, I got stressed, missed 3 total hours between my 84 calorie Optifast drinks, said things I regretted. Walked away, did my check and was able to return, apologize, and moved on.  Today, I stuck to my schedule, nourished my body and brain on time, and was able to give Glory to God in all I said and did. 

Hopefully another lesson learned. 

So close to just overweight...

I have been in the obese range for more than 2 years. I spent a lot of that time beating myself up for gaining back all of the weight I lost, after my husband of 22 years left. My motivation for initially losing the weight was saving my marriage. It was desperately falling apart for 3 years. I was willing to do anything to save it. I prayed, oh how i prayed. I studied everything in the Bible about marriage. I wrote papers on every biblical reference I found. And I lost weight. When I reached my goal weight, he left. So I spiraled into a deep depression and binged often. Then I would beat myself up and try to "do better". Then I would fail, and binge.  Bad bad cycle. I was so ashamed of myself. But I couldn't fix it. Then, God showed me how much better life was without the constant negative attitude my husband had. The biting, sarcastic comments that stole all of my joy. Hurt me to the core. The manipulation was over. The tightrope act was done. And I got well enough to know that I needed to get my antidepressants adjusted. Then I got well enough to start enjoying life again. Then I got well enough to know who I was created to be. Then I got well enough to lose this weight and improve my health. God is the orchestrator of it all. And I love Him more than anything in my life. 

God is Great

God goes before me into all places. God also comes behind me watching my back. 

I have been a little worried about teacher in service, it started today. Stress causes a build up of cortisol which is one of the factors that causes fat to form especially around the mid section. God has been working with me all summer on trusting Him in every situation. Not to let the stress build up in the first place. 

-God has planned my days from before I was born. He knows every circumstance I will come to.

-God cannot be multitasked. I can not keep my full focus on God and put other things at the same level He is in my life. He has to come first and foremost. I may not have time for other things, but i HAVE to keep my appointments with Him. 

-God sees and knows all. He cares about each detail of my life. His timing is perfect - my schedule is flawed. 

-I have to put my spiritual, mental, and physical health right below God. That is the only way that I can keep my focus on Him and serve (love) others. 

Today ended up being a great day. Time spent worrying was wasted. 

Your Childhood Shapes You

My childhood has shaped some of the ways that I have related with food and other things. I was the oldest of three until my late teens. Then the oldest of four. At the age of 7 my daddy died. I remember him before his death. I would go to the bowling alley with him. He treated me as his son. I went fishing. I rode on his shoulders. He also scared me. He was an alcoholic and he and my mom would have terrible fights. He left for a few days at least once. 

I woke to my mom screaming and my dad lying on the floor next to his bed. The ambulance came. They took him away. He died of a massive coronary. It would be years before I could hear a siren with out having anxiety attacks. Mom changed. She was distant and out of control. I know of at least twice that she gathered us up and took us on wild rides looking for my dad in the stars. And ran from Satan. After a short while mom left for a hospital and us kids went to foster care. My grandparents fought for us and my sister and I ended up with my aunt and uncle. My brother was 3 and lived with my mom and grandparents. My sister was 4 and suffered terribly during this time. She was punished for things beyond her four year old control. I would try to protect her to no avail. It was during this time that I began a pattern of teasing her to try and get her to quit crying. I found hat she would either laugh or get angry. At least she was beyond punishment. In later years this teasing became a habit of both my brother and myself. It would leave her with shame and myself with guilt that I later realized followed her into adulthood. 

From the years following, I continued to pattern my behaviors in ways that attempted to control my surroundings. I figured out how people ticked and tried to keep behaviors even.  No outburst of any emotion was comfortable for me. I became depressed early in my teenage years and attempted to self medicate with drugs, alcohol, and food. Anything would do. Anything to stop the internal pain I felt. Pain I didn't know how to handle. I escaped home at 17 to marry a young, angry, irresponsible husband. I was young, depressed, and irresponsible. Not a good combination. 

As I grew older, I continued to self medicate and try and "help" people that didn't want help. I could see potential in people I was with and became obsessed with helping them. Their inability to get better caused more pain. I had quit drugs, but continued to drink and eat to excess to shut the feelings of. To shut off the voice of suicide in my head.  Even as early as 10 I remember praying to God that He would just take me. As my children grew and I struggled to control severe depression and anxiety, I quit drinking after several scary episodes. I continued to reward myself with comfort foods. The autoimmune disease that I have began to rear it's ugly head and I became very sick. 

I entered into another codependent relationship that was damaging to both my children and myself. I gained a lot of weight sneaking treats baking and binging when my emotions were out of control. 

It has only been in the past 6 years that God has healed me from years of fear, anger, mistrust, and seemingly irreparable damage. Making Jesus Lord over my life and then trusting my life to His control has removed most traces of fear. Making my amends has brought relief from anger and guilt. Mistrust has melted. The damage has scarred over and only serves as a reminder of how not to live. 

I do not need to cope through food anymore. When I am not feeling well or am under stress I am learning not to run to the comfort foods and binge. I am releasing old unhealthy coping mechanisms in favor of healthy new ones. I needed this time away from food to see this clearly. I praise God loudly for this. He has healed me of yet another painful time in my life. 

6 pounds

6 more down. Yay!

I am still sick, but I can feel myself healing, so that is good.

We looked a lot at the roles we have played in our childhood. Some played "the hero" taking care of a dysfunctional parent or siblings. Some played "the star" either academically or through a talent or sports. Some were "the scapegoat". Either taking that role upon themselves to provide distraction for painful family situations, or because the family chose them to blame or pick on. Some were "the responsible one" trying to take control of uncontrollable situations. I have to meditate a little more on what role I played in my childhood. What role that has had on my eating problems. 

One of the reasons that this all matters is that many of us are still living out those roles and they don't work for us any more. They don't provide comfort or protection. They work against us. 

I have really psychoanalyzed this pretty thoroughly, but what I need to do is to rethink it in light of God's Word. I have spend literally hundreds of hours in all different kinds of counseling. Some good, some bad. I know all of the reasons that psychology uses to explain my behavior. I really need to follow it further biblically. Then I will divulge. 

God is my all in all. 

Sick....

Funny what a little cold can do when you are on immunosuppressants and 420 calories a day. Drinking lots of water and resting. Going on 10 days.  God is awesome. It is good just to curl up in warm blankies and rest in Him.  

Happy Birthday to Me

For many years I left my birthday in the hands of my family wand sat and waited for them to make a plan and celebrate my birthday with me. For many years I ended up severely disappointed when at the last minute off the day I was asked "where do you want to go for dinner..." More than a few years it was "go pick out your birthday gift." 

As I grew healthier in my thoughts, about 5 years ago, I decided to plan my own birthday. I would let everyone know what I was doing in advance and let them know they were welcome to join me. If they weren't ready, I went by myself. It was never anything extravagant, but it was mine. It felt good. The last two years my mom and dad came down and we went to Del Mar for the horse races. It is so fun. I make a trip to my favorite make up store, buy a magazine that I would never buy for myself, and enjoy myself. Yesterday I was very proud as I went to a restaurant with my parents and as they ate, I sipped my birthday hot tea. The food didn't even bother me. Yay! I am glad God is maturing me...