I'm going to need to insert a little history for you here. Like a lot of women, I have struggled with my weight all my life. It has been a battle that I have not ever had success in without GOD. In the past, I have hated myself and felt robbed of years and confidence. As a teenager and young adult, I spent a lot of time hiding. Over the last few years God has really restored my confidence and made me into a person that actually believes that she is beautiful...no matter what the scale says. A little over a year ago, when Rowan was nearly 1, and after struggling for months to get my eating under control, I decided to give Suzanne Sommer's program a try. It's nothing radical, but you do have to change the way you eat. I cut out sugar completely and followed the guidelines in her books. With God's help (although it seemed so easy) I stuck to it and the scale started to move down. I felt amazing and loved to be able to shop in normal stores again. But the biggest thing was the freedom I experienced from the compulsion to eat. It was a blessing to be free of the battle. This way of eating seemed to be the answer for me and I felt like it was something that I could do for life.
Then around Christmas time last year I started to slip and I have never quite managed to get the same freedom back for longer than a few months and lately I haven't even managed to make it more than a week or two. Last week, in an attempt to refocus me on the battle, my husband said something without thinking that pretty much took all the remaining fight out of me. I have been feeling discouraged to say the least. I guess this is just a little elaboration on what I had to say yesterday.
So this morning as I sat and asked for God to help me, this verse came to mind... literally popped into my head... "for the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, SELF CONTROL". I knew that I needed that, I just didn't exactly know how to get it. So I flipped open my bible... not deliberately to any particular page. I just opened it up and this is what I saw in Galatians 5. A heading that read WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. What? IS it really possible that God cares enough to speak so clearly? I read on and it said..."I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do what you wish."(NO KIDDING! that is the battle within me) At some point my own strength for the battle wears thin and I give in again to the desire to binge. " Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, IDOLATRY, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ...etc. etc....BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE, JOY, PEACE, LONG SUFFERING, KINDNESS, GOODNESS, FAITHFULNESS, GENTLENESS AND SELF CONTROL" Ok, so at this point I am convinced that God did hear me and is speaking to me!!! He answered my question and as I scanned the page, He even addressed my fear of losing the freedom that I have experienced this past year. As I went back to the beginning of Galatians 5 I read..."Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." God wants me to be free as much as I want to be free!
I am convinced that this is God's word for me in my battle. He wants me to gain strength for the battle in relationship with Him. To be fed by His word and filled by Him instead of filling myself with something that leaves me empty, guilty, and discouraged. Because I lack discipline in my life, I am committing (in writing) to another 30 days... although I know that I will need to go beyond that and into the rest of my life.
At first glance this might have seemed like a little detour from the marriage battle, but look at the "fleshy" list again. We battle all of that in our marriages and we desperatly need the fruit of the Spirit. God's strength to fight and win the battle in our marriage to be loving, joyful, peaceful, long suffering, kind, good, gentle and self controlled.
If you feel the need to commit to this with me in your area of struggle, please do. And share with me along the journey. I will be blogging.
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