Category: Weight

That Friend

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Do you know that friend that always has a major crisis going on in his or her life? Every time you talk, their ongoing struggles consume the conversation? And all you want to say is “Get over yourself. You have made it through worse situations and frankly, there are people with even more difficult struggles”. Well, what happens when “that friend” is you?

What happens when you are the one that feels like you are a burden to the people around you? You feel like a Debbie Downer because every time you talk to them or send them a text, it’s about yet another thing you are going through? Right now, I am “that friend”.

Since last June, I have been working with a Counselor on multiple traumas I have experienced throughout my life and although the work done and the Counselor himself are extraordinary, it is completely overwhelming and exhausting.  I get so lost in, not in reliving the trauma, but the years it has stolen from me. Years of anger, depression, oppression, bad decisions that have kept me from the truth and the promises I have been afraid to pursue.

There are mornings that the healing pushes me to pursue God’s truth and His promises for me; and then, there are mornings—like this morning—when it takes everything in me not to call out of work. When I finally willed myself out of bed, instead of putting on my face of fortitude, I didn’t have the energy to put anything on my face at all.  I wanted so bad to reach out to my friends to ask them to pray for me because the weight was too much to bear. I started typing the text, but quickly deleted it as I remembered that just a couple of days earlier I had requested prayer for another crisis that was weighing me down.

Instead of reaching out to my friends as I wanted to, I chose to turn on the Christian radio station to tune out the chatter in my head. As soon as I heard the first song come on, I knew the Lord had taken over the song selection and was my very own DJ. Song after song, I felt the burden that was weighing me down lift right off of me. Song after song, I was reminded that I was not alone.

I was reminded that instead of keeping me from God’s truth and His promises for me, anger and all of the emotions I have felt for 30 years were protecting me from even darker roads than the ones I had travelled. That when I fixed my eyes on Him, I had finally found everything I needed. He lifted my soul and opened up my eyes. He is rewriting my story and nothing could be better.

This healing journey I am on is a difficult one and I know there will be tons more of good and not so good days ahead. But as I listened to the playlist on the radio, I realized that my angst not to text my friends was not because they wouldn’t be encouraging; the angst was the Lord prompting me to reach out to Him. In my fear of being “that friend”, I was reminded that Jesus was the only friend I needed.

Oppressive

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This week I am reading Psalm 73. Every morning this week, I intend to read the entire chapter and study one verse in the context of the entire chapter. Today it was 2 verses; 16 and 17.

“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God…”

From this verse, I chose to study the one word that stood out to me; oppressive. As a person of color, one definition of oppressive resonates with me; unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate group. Still, as I read the subsequent meanings, another meaning stood out and I believe it is the one most pertinent to today’s passage—weighing heavily on the mind or spirits; causing depression or discomfort.

Psalm 73 talks towards the unfairness of the world. How the wicked prosper and never seem to face any difficulties; and, those “who are pure in heart” tend to get the raw end of the deal everytime. Just the thought of this, causes the psalmist to feel discomfort and heavy weight on his mind and spirit, to feel oppressed.

Can you relate? Is there something in your life that is weighing heavy on your mind or spirit, so much so that it causes you to be depressed? If nothing else, I believe at one time or another we are able to relate with the psalmist. We work hard and try to do everything by the book and someone who tends to skate by, gets all the glory, while we just get to keep working hard. It’s simply unfair. Yet, there is hope!

In our darkest times, if we chose to enter in the presence of God, hope is restored. We are reminded of the fate that awaits those who do not follow Jesus and chose evil. We are reminded of the beauty and wonder of a Sovereign God who is always with us, how He “leads us by the right hand” (v. 23), and how He is always ready to take away that which weighs us down. When we enter His presence, our oppression turns into freedom and like anything good that happens, we cannot help but share of His goodness towards us (v. 28).

His Image

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So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:27

So many of us have read this verse and have skipped over the meaning of being created in “his own image”. In the image of God. We. Were. Created. I don’t know if I have ever thought of this before. Or if I have, why haven’t I lived it out?

The world has an image of what we all should look like. For females, we should be voluptuous with sexy everything (body, hair, face, clothes, shoes). Men should be tall, chiseled. There is this standard that we (I) all strive for. We seek to look like the image the world desires when we are already made in the Perfect image of God.

Of course, maintaining the image of God requires work and sacrifice. We must maintain the standard of His image. But what does created in His image mean? Let’s take a look at a couple of characteristics of His image: health and strength.

Health. Does this mean thin? I don’t think so. I am thin, but I am far from healthy. I don’t eat or exercise as I should. I know people, both lighter and heavier, that are much more healthy than I am. But being healthy isn’t only about our physical bodies. Healthy can also refer to our emotional and spiritual self. If we are exercising and maintaining a healthy weight, but are continuously filling our hearts and minds with junk, there is no value in our working out our physical bodies. Jesus kept up His physical body (He walked everywhere. I am quite certain He was physically healthy.). He also kept up with His emotional and spiritual self (Scripture after Scripture refers to Him praying and seeking God.).

Strength. With health comes strength. We are in a battle. Whether a believer or not. Everyday is a battle. We fight for our happiness, our families, and, too often, our sanity. Everyday we make life altering choices which determine who and what we are fighting for. Some of these battles require physical strength, but more so, our hearts and minds need to be strong. Jesus was a perfect example of this multi-level strength. His physical strength allowed Him to walk all over the region. His physical strength also helped Him carry the cross to Calvary. However, if His heart and mind were not as strong, His body could not have made it through such torture.

We were created in His image. In the image of a Healthy and Strong God.

Created in the image of God means we were given bodies and minds that are in His likeness. When He sees us, He sees Himself; He sees Perfection. However, this Perfection isn’t self-maintaining. As Jesus taught us, we must choose everyday to maintain such health and strength. Unlike Jesus who knew what was ahead for Him and why He needed to maintain, we have no idea what today or tomorrow will bring. We, therefore as Jesus did, need to be prepared to reveal His image when we win and when we are bloodied and bruised.

Wake Up Call

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Crying in a dressing room because you hate the size that you have to wear. Overly sensitive and often defensive at the topic of weight (especially your own). Taking a laxative to minimize the size of your stomach. Some people may consider these things only a heavier person would experience, but I want to assure you that thin people also struggle with these things. How do I know? Because this thin person struggles with those things.

I have been fighting a secret battle for almost a year now…so secret, in fact, I didn’t even know about it until this morning. I have been, for a while now, getting really upset at people when they say something about how thin I am. The comments are irritating to me because people do not understand that just because I’m skinny, it doesn’t mean I don’t have issues with my weight.

About a month ago, I was in an Old Navy dressing room crying. When I tried on the size I normally wore, they were too big. So, I tried on the next size down and they fit. To some people, needing to try on a smaller size would be exciting, but when you aren’t trying to lose weight and the size you fit into is a zero, it starts to become a problem….to some. I was upset, but not enough to do anything about it, yet.

For the past week, I have been feeling bloated; my stomach was the size of a woman in her 3rd month of pregnancy. I figured it was just that time of the month, but when that “time” passed and my belly was still large, I was bothered. I, by no means, think I am overweight, but my stomach sticking out like that was really bothering me. So, last night, I thought my stomach just needed a little help, so I took a laxative. This morning, a bad headache, cramps, nausea, everything except for what I wanted to happen, were my wake up call. I know…TMI (Too Much Information), but there’s a point, I promise!!

As I laid in bed feeling like absolute crud, I knew what I had done was stupid! I knew I had fallen into a pit and it wasn’t a pit that came out of nowhere; it was a pit that was in plain sight and I had let it (possibly even helped it) get deeper. I realized that the defensive attitude, the crying spell in the dressing room, and the weight loss were all signs of my unhealthiness. I started to see how easily I could fall into an eating disorder that could, even if it didn’t kill me, make me extremely miserable.

Now, I know plenty of people might be reading this, creating their own opinion, coming up with their own diagnosis of the situation, or thinking “I told her so”, but the truth of the matter is all of this has allowed me to realize that this is just another area in my life, that I desperately need a Savior. I cannot do this on my own and although I have a great “corp counsel” of ladies that are always available, I know that only through Christ and the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I will be able to make a change for the better. After all, He was the one who gave me a wake up call this morning…one that I has still haven’t fully recovered from.