Shedding the Weight

I remember when I began my journey to weight loss. I was 225 lbs. I was 25 years old, a wife, and a mother to 3 beautiful children. Looking back on those days I distinctly remember the start point, and it was all about loosing the weight. I wanted to look better, and be smaller, because somewhere along the line I had tied my worth to the size on the tag within my clothes.

It took me almost 12 years to loose 100 lbs. The weight would slink off from some NEW diet I was trying, along with an intense work-out regimen. Yet it was never enough, I would start to think things that were not true and sure enough the scale would begin to climb back up. The number would fluctuate almost by the very same rhythm that my thoughts were marching too. I somehow kept finding the weight that I so desperately was trying to lose. I often wondered if I would ever be at a normal/healthy weight and just be able to simply BE. I mean after all I had been at this same game for years, like a yo-yo in a five year old hand, let out and in once and then unraveling, until the little fingers could wind the thin rope and try again.

Thoughts of failure, self-shame, hatred and envy were ruling not only my thoughts, but had high-jacked my soul, and sucked the joy right out of me. I had become so self-absorbed, so self-focused, overwhelmed, and spiritually malnourished. I think back and wish I only knew what I know now...

I NEVER wanted to loose the weight! After all I had no intentions of finding it again. In reality, I wanted to SHED the weight. I had no clue that the shedding needed to start on the inside. I had been running from things in my past instead of meeting them head on and combating them with truth of who I am in Christ. I had allowed what I thought was the perfect me to hinder, stifle and rob me of my greatest treasure, my identity of who I am in Jesus.

The years pass by so quickly. It is no wonder that we are told to redeem the time.

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."

(Ephesians 5:15-16)

I held on to tightly to the control I thought I had over my life, this journey and the process. All the while God was doing a great work within my very soul. He was gently calling me back to Himself, back to the LOVE He has for me, the PEACE that He gives, and the pure JOY that can only be found when I surrender my entire life to HIM and HIS control!

The weight HAD to be shed! But it was a weight within me that needed to be lifted and released. I had to come to terms with the very woman that I really never knew, myself. I had hidden her away, wrapped her in a pretty deliverable package, covered by the cloak of religiosity, instead of enveloped in my JESUS. I needed so much more than a food list, and a work-out plan. I desperately needed an all out overhaul. I needed to return to truth! And that's just what I did.

I began to take back my time, seek God's help, and allowed others to speak truth into my life. I started to become very transparent about who I am, and who I am not. I started to change my thinking, and started crying out to Christ to show me more of Himself. I wanted nothing more than to know my Savior on a very real and intimate level. I knew that if real changes were going to become a way of life then they had to come from Him. The FIRST PLACE that I had to make my biggest changes, were in my mind. I had to start claiming who I was, a child of God. I needed to see that the thinking I had was still the thinking of the teenage girl within, who had suffered from an intense eating disorder. (All I did was turn it around and re-package it with the promotion of health and fitness.) I started to learn how to combat the lies within my thoughts with the word of God, with His truths, realizing I could never create my own PEACE.

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful."

(Colossians 3:15)

LET! I learned how to LET the peace of Christ rule and reign in my mind, because as long as I could remember there had truly been NO peace. The journey has NOT been perfect by any means. At times it has been absolutely painful, and scary. (Hello TYPE A here) Yet God is so much greater that I could ever be. His ways are better than my ways and the process is beautiful, filled with lots of sticky, bumpy and jagged patches. BUT I AM THANKFUL.

Along the way God brought me to a place of quiet rest. A place that I fight for daily, amongst the barrage of voices that tell me I am NOT enough, I am a failure, there is HIS voice telling me a different story. He is telling me I am complete, renewed, set free, forgiven and redeemed. I am ENOUGH because of Christ! It is the voice of Truth calmly speaking to me, telling me, I don't live in the place of darkness anymore, I have been called to walk in the light.

Yes, I have lost 100 lbs, of course I had to make healthy dietary changes, but the real changes I made started when I saw myself for who I am and simply stopped trying. My perspective changed and it was like I had been given a new reality. After all our perception does become our reality as we become easily moved from truth. When I saw clearly that God truly does LOVE me just as I am, but He loves me way to much to leave me here, I could move forward in my wellness journey. I was no longer bound by the number, the scale or any other form of measurement. I was held by His hand and He would refine and redefine me in His time.

All I had to do was walk in obedience and the weight was shed physically, mentally and ultimately spiritually!

Shalom,

Brittany

Galatians 2:20