Whiney Christianity

So, I admit it, I'm a bit of whiner.  If something goes differently from how I imagined it or, better yet, planned it to be, my default reaction is pure, unadulterated whine.

     This happened just the other day actually (and who am I kidding, it happens every day, but this particular instance is a better case-in-point) when we were offered a night to ourselves with FREE babysitting (a.k.a. grandparents were in town!).  Of course, all I have to hear is "night to ourselves" before my mind begins preemptive planning that includes hours out of the house, a quiet, un-rushed eating experience, purposeless window shopping, and maybe even a once-in-a-blue-moon detour into the cinema (gasp! was that ever a habitual part of life?).  My husband calls me overly enthusiastic; I call myself strategic.  Unpaid hours of babysitting must be fully capitalized upon.  I want to squeeze out every. last. minute.

     Needless to say, my euphoria over this unexpected blessing grew rapidly as each new idea sprung into my head, and I called my husband to include him in on this veritable second honeymoon.  When his enthusiasm barely registered on the Richter scale, I knew something was up.

     "Uhm, honey?"

     Uh-oh.

     "I know I'm usually off at 5, but they've scheduled an unexpected training session right after I'm done.  It'll probably be 7:15 or so before I can..."

    And he kept talking.  Something about needing to go to bed on time since it was a weeknight.  And something about fetal heart monitoring.  And something about being really sorry.  But I wasn't listening at this point.  I was inwardly wallowing.

     I know I've addressed my issue with wallowing in previous posts, so I won't bore you with vain repetition.  However, the wallowing was great and the disappointment even greater.  And, of course, being pregnant and the dramatic, feel-everything-to-its-extreme kind of person I am, I could not help but cry.

     Like an upset two-year-old I know.  Where does she get it??

     Anyway, my dear and loving husband felt horrendous, of course, but residency is residency (a.k.a. they have the right to your firstborn), so nothing could be done.  (And I'm only kidding about the residency thing.  Sort of.)

     Anyway, this particular wallowing session lasted for a good two days.  Every time I thought about it, especially what was to have been, I just got more and more upset.  The evening before our much-reduced-in-awesomeness date night, Andrew was trying his darn-hardest to still make it special (bless his heart), and I was doing my darn-hardest to be completely unmoved by any suggestion.  

    I knew I was having a bad attitude.  I knew it was ridiculous.   And petty.  And childish.  But that's the Flesh for you: it makes it so gratifying to give in...at least for the moment.

   Ok, so that was last night.  This morning, I get up early to have my time with the Lord.  Heh.  Didn't exactly go into it without knowing exactly what we were going to be dealing with.  And I could've laughed at the first words of Jesus Calling this morning: "Thankfulness opens the door to My Presence."  

     Wow.  I wasn't even getting a "hello" until I did the whole "give thanks in all circumstances thing."  I can't say I was immediately moved by the Spirit (remember the whole two-day wallowing thing?).  But then I read the corresponding Scripture and couldn't help but extend my reading to the entirety of Psalm 100.   And here's the verse that literally leapt from the page:

     "Know that the LORD Himself is God;

      It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

      We are His people and the sheep of His pasture."  (v. 3)

     These would be the verses that precede the very popular "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise" (v. 4).  And then it became very clear to me.  God is, has always been, and always will be a God of relationship.  This is no performance command to give thanks in deed only.  We give thanks from an attitude of submission.

     We are ungrateful when we forget that the LORD is God.

     We whine when we forget that we are Made and not Makers.

     We wallow in self-pity when we forget that we are His people.  In His Kingdom.  Where He's in charge.

     See, David had to reconcile proper ownership before he could offer genuine thanksgiving that results in joy.  Likewise, when we attempt to control, God will inevitably allow our carefully-formulated plans to unravel--not to arbitrarily make us miserable (though it may feel that way at times), but to save us from ourselves and deliver us into the joy-filled, peace-enclosed pastures of His Presence and Person.

     And it is there, led by the still waters, guided by His own Hands, that we can genuinely "come before Him with joyful singing" (v. 2).

     I was so humbled this morning.  The fact that I'm a neurotic control-freak was no surprise, but the connection between my controlling nature and my view of God shocked me.  What low thoughts of Him my attempts to control reveal.  I had forgotten that He. Is. God.  God.

     What joy that such a One would call me "His people!"  As my Maker, He can have any date night He chooses.  And it's my part to trust that what He asks of me will only be returned in greater, more abundant measure.

    I don't think Psalm 100, or this post, could end in a more fitting way:

 

     "For the Lord is good;

      His lovingkindness is everlasting

      And His faithfulness to all generations."

(emphasis mine)

I Glory in the Stretch Marks

     Almost as soon as I became pregnant this go round (see previous posts for that unexpectedly trying journey), people began asking me if I was going to "eat differently" as a result.  This amused me, since I didn't realize I was "eating differently" to begin with.

     I suppose they were referring to what I have posted about twice regarding the new approach to food the Lord has graciously cultivated in me (see post just before this).  And these comments, which I've received a lot over the last seven-and-a-half months, show me that we, as a culture, are still fixated with diets and image--not that we need look much past the TV screen for generous proof of this.

     So to address the questions I've received, as well as compile a little "pregnancy treatise" for all my pregger friends out there, I wanted to put together a little post to reinforce not only healthy, non-dieting lifestyles, but also pregnancy in general.

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     As most of you know, I lost 50 pounds a year-and-a-half ago by responding to the Spirit's prompting and becoming in tune with my body's cues for hunger and fullness.  I ate when I was hungry.  Whatever I wanted.  And then stopped when I was full.  Stopped.  Seriously.  Even if food was still on the plate.  Revolutionary and almost radical for a previously compulsive over-eater like me.

    This past January, exactly a year after beginning this incredibly freeing journey of walking in the Spirit and the fruit of His self-control, God miraculously granted the gift of life within me.  I could not have been more thrilled, and, until the first appointment, was practically euphoric.  So many months of waiting, riding the agonizing waves of anxiety and fear, now culminated in life.  Life.

    But it didn't take long after my first appointment, my first peek at a fluttering heart and tiny limbs, that my euphoria began to recede into my old foe--except this time he had morphed into a new fixation: fear of gaining weight.

     Now I'm going to be real honest with you here (and what else have you come to expect from me?), in my rational, sensible brain, I knew women are supposed to gain weight in pregnancy.  But after a year of losing weight gradually, I had unknowingly become a little attached to the weight bracket in which I had landed...and I was terrified to see the numbers return to the higher stratosphere.

     And being who I am, fear took hold in the form of a barrage of questions.  What if it doesn't come back off?  What if you fall back into over-eating?  What if pregnancy and breastfeeding somehow take over your body like some outside force acting against your will?  Looking back, I can see that hormones definitely played a role in these fears, but I truly believe most of them are the natural anxieties of anyone who loses weight and then finds themselves in a situation where weight gain is either probable or inevitable.  It's monumental to re-train one's mind to temporarily view weight gain as a good thing.

    Not just monumental.  Supernatural.

    I spent my whole first trimester weighing myself every single day.  Every. Day.  Ridiculous, I know, but I did it.  And I share this detail to show the extent of my fixation.  I was so scared to look pregnant.  

   And now that we're here, we may as well sit on this awhile.  I am so disturbed by our culture's bent to conceal or even avoid signs of inevitable life stages: puberty, pregnancy, age, illness, etc.  I feel women are especially victimized in this frenzy to stagnate our bodies in the svelte, fit, tidy package of a twenty-something, no matter how old, pregnant, or ill we become.  We attempt to plastinate perfection, to be living-yet-unchangeable beings.

    Just listen to the women who are praised on TV, magazines, and even in our own social circles: women who have had several children, keep an immaculate home, are successful employees, and also somehow manage to find time to volunteer...all in high heels.  And a size 4 pencil skirt.

    How does she do it?

    And while we secretly despise this woman, we also stand in wonder of her apparent immunity to wrinkles, stretch marks, and spider veins.

    And while I clearly disdain holding this impossible, and even undesirable, standard of perfection up for all women to attain, I was subconsciously falling into the never-aging, never-changing image trap just a few short months ago in my absolute terror to gain a pound, to gain an inch, to alter in any way for this new miracle.  This new life.

     I think it's time that we as women mutiny against this trend.  Motherhood is a life of great personal sacrifice, and it starts with pregnancy.  There are things that occur to our bodies during pregnancy that will never "go back" to how they were before.  But instead of celebrating the signs of pregnancy, we pine for the days when we weren't bloated, our pelvises weren't stretched to their limit, and our bellies didn't look like they'd been mauled by a tiger...otherwise known as stretch marks.

     We all respond differently to these undesirable changes--some of us find our inner-Olympian and work out to an insane level to make sure our weight gain is "all belly."  Others, who only run if they're being chased (like me), simply give up in despair, eating away their woes in sugar binges and salty sprees.

     But no matter how we respond, the root attitude is still the same: we are despising the natural processes of our God-knit bodies to grow and sustain life.  Life.  God-ordained life.  In the face of life, we should be awed into complete surrender of any personal pain, discomfort, or defect in order to be the sacred vessels of it.  I mean, is there anything much holier than the womb?  It's where our Savior was first rocked and nurtured, where many great world-changers were knit together, where the greatest miracle we experience, that science still ceases to fully comprehend, begins.

     And we despise it.  Both by giving into unhealthy eating and unhealthy dieting and exercise.  By hastening to lose all signs of it as soon as the baby is born.

     I so long that we become a culture that celebrates the pregnant and the mothers.  We may or may not be in the physical prime of our twenties, but our stretch marks, saggy bellies, expanded pelvic bones, and thicker thighs are the channel through which God works to raise up the next generation.  Isn't that worth a little sacrifice?

    And so that's where I found myself going into my second trimester.  At a crossroads of sorts.  Either I give in to my anxiety about weight gain, or I continue to eat and exercise in a healthy manner and leave the weight gain to God and pregnancy, trusting (because isn't the opposite of fear always trust?) that healthful habits will pay out in the end.

     I chose trust.  And kept eating the same way.  Except, because I was in the habit of listening to my body's cues, I noticed my appetite had definitely increased and I needed to eat with greater frequency.  We're talking every two hours people.  At least.  I'm eating something.  And now the Holy Spirit's role is not only to keep me controlled but to empower me to trust that eating this much is exactly what I need to do and not fear the possible results.

    And I have gained weight--and you know what?  After the first few weight gains, I felt a new peace washing over me.  Each pound is a sign of a developing life within me.  Each added number on the scale is one more assurance of a healthy, growing little girl who I pray--pray so diligently!--will grow up to embrace her body in a world that will seek to stagnate it.  I pray that she will "set [her] face like flint" and "know that [she] will not be put to shame" (Isaiah 50:7).

    The Apostle Paul, the man with his own "thorn in the flesh," said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). Think about that.  He gloried in one of the most excruciating, gruesome, and terrifying experiences ever devised by mankind.  The Cross is a place of the most extreme personal sacrifice: death.  Death to self.  Death to the flesh.  Death to our selfish desires.  So instead of disdaining the stretch marks and weight gain, let's glory in them, knowing that, just like the Cross, they lead to miraculous life.  Life.

****

    Let's be healthy.  If you're pregnant, move, eat, and take your prenatals.  Don't over-eat, but don't over-compensate with extreme exercise.  Let's stop pursuing futile paths and focus more on reasonable healthfulness and preparing to mother.  And the latter should take up far more of our pregnant days than hours at the gym.  Let's usher in this next generation secure in our bodies, secure in Christ, secure in the shadow of the Cross.

Manifesto of a Hungry Woman

To my great surprise, I have received multiple requests to re-post my weight-loss article that appeared on my blog months ago.  I had to remove it momentarily because, and I was hesitant to publicly share this, it was accepted for publication in the January 2012 edition of HomeLife magazine, published by LifeWay.  Hence, they owned the rights to it for the three months following publication.

Now my rights are back, and I'm re-posting it as a way of resurrecting my blog since my long absence from moving (and no internet) and as a segue into a few posts on weight and pregnancy (stay tuned for those in a couple of days).

So here it is, in the more full version I originally wrote (the article in HomeLife was understandably copyfitted for space concerns...editing terminology for "your article is unbelievably long!").  I do want to preface briefly that since writing this and receiving lots of wonderful feedback, I am amazed at how DIFFERENT we all are in our respective journeys.  So please keep this in mind as you read: this is NOT a prescription; it is a testimony.  It is my personal account of learning to walk in the Spirit in the area of food.  And because the Spirit uniquely leads each of us, allow Him room to lead you differently than He did me.

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Manifesto of a Hungry Woman

Manifesto: a proposal.

     Like many women, my relationship with Food has been an emotional pendulum swinging from friend to foe.  I have spent 25 long years either guiltily indulging in, or painstakingly abstaining from, Food.  With the grit of a soldier I have cut out food groups, adhered to strict exercise regimens, and drank my weight in water, all to shed those twenty pounds that always seemed to creep back on like a river threatening the brim of its levy—that being the waistband of my favorite jeans.  As soon as I began to brim over their edge, sucking in every extra inch in order to button them, and lumbering around as if my knee joints no longer existed, I resolved to fight the flood once more with all the urgency of a natural disaster.

     And so I attacked my mid-line, as if it were my enemy--- and believe me here, I have won every time.  Losing weight has never been a problem for me.  A few months of abstinence and tremendous displays of willpower usually provide those few inches required to comfortably slide back into my pants.  No, losing weight is not the issue here.  It’s keeping it off. 

     Like most dieters, after dieting, I would spend about a month or so obediently maintaining the restrictions.  But then, gradually, the relationship would sour in the face of sweet treats and carbs.  Alas, seduction would win out in the end, and before I knew it, pounds were slipping back on again, the waters were rising, threatening to brim my carefully-built levy, that perfect size I had arbitrarily decided was “ideal.”

     But then the day came when the levy broke.  And I was drowning.

     I still remember it distinctly.  It was the New Year of 2011 and my first-born, a beautiful girl, was turning one-year-old soon.  I had resorted to digging out my maternity jeans once more because I couldn’t bear the thought of purchasing a larger size (it was over the “limit” of my mental size restrictions).  I couldn’t comfortably fit into my “big” jeans, much less my “skinny” ones, but I couldn’t bear the shame of that ghastly next-size-up, as if it was a label on my forehead instead of the inside flap of my jeans.

     And you know we do it.  We women walk around with our dress size next to our names and list of accomplishments—or failures.  You know you’ve walked around in that size 8 dress feeling like a million bucks, a smile plastered on your face, and confidence exuding from your every word.  And then the next day you mope around in those size 12 pants (because, of course, there’s some unspoken law that clothing designers adhere to that says pants must always fit tighter than dresses) feeling frumpy, insecure, and resentful.  Why?  Because you know that size 8 means “beautiful” and size 12…well, it just doesn’t.

     Our dress size defines us.  If only we could just rip those pathetic little tags off, I’m confident our self-esteem would skyrocket.  How much power we give those tiny, printed squares of fabric!  They attempt to command us, determine our mood, and shape our outlook—and we allow it without even so much as a fight.

Well, let’s just say that that tiny square of fabric with the embroidered “12” was becoming an oppressive tyrant New Year’s Day, and I was getting fed up with it.  It’s like I finally saw the situation for what it was: me, completely enslaved to an inanimate label—and something else far less innocuous.

     I was addicted to overeating.

     For years, I blamed my weight gain on body type, heredity, environment, low self-esteem, emotional eating, and the ever-convenient “I’m eating for two” pregnancy excuse.

     But now I was staring the thing straight into its ugly face: and my own face met me in the mirror.  It was me.  It was my fault.  I had no, and I mean zero, restraint.  I was overweight because I had totally lost, or perhaps never possessed, the ability to say “no” when my flesh cried out for that second piece of cake, to say “wait” when my eyes were bigger than my stomach in the buffet line, to say “enough” when I’m more than full but still compulsively cleaning my plate. 

     And that was a sad, disturbing thing to stare in the face.  I didn’t like to confront that ugly part of myself that actually wants, and I mean strongly desires, to do what is “bad.”  And as soon as I recognized it in this area of eating, its ugly influence suddenly asserted itself in so many other areas as well.

     I had no self-control.  Plain and simple.

     And then the second paralyzing thought hit me.  Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.  By this point a barrage of thoughts began to assault my mind like a long line of mental dominoes.  If I don’t have self-control, then I’m not living in the Spirit.  If I’m not living in the Spirit, I don’t have access to His power.  And if I’m not drawing on His power, then there is no way I can ever permanently win any personal and/or spiritual battles.

     Up until this point, all of my battling had been with the weapon of Self: Self-will, Self-determination, Self-esteem, Self-denial, Self-reproach, Self, Self, Self.  And Self is a successful method.  For a little while.  But it doesn’t stand the test of time because Self and the Flesh are intimately connected.  They’re like corrupt business partners.  Self is the flattering PR parading innocently around, promising us with litanies of comfort, esteem, and convenience; Flesh is the force behind the PR, the uglier--but deadly--side of the duo that drives those ghastly urges, compulsions, drives, and cravings to the forefront of our minds.  Flesh is hard to ignore, especially when we we’re only seeing Self.  We mistake that extra cookie for happiness, that mercy-eating of a bad brownie as appreciation, and that plate of pasta as a well-deserved reward.

     But, as a believer, I am not bound to the Flesh.  It has been crucified with Christ—its power is gone.  So why am I so obeisant to its demands?  Because I choose to be.  Every time I obey Flesh’s impulses instead of walking in the Spirit’s power, I pick its lifeless form off the ground and slip it back on, obeying “the former lusts” to which I used to be enslaved.

     So there I was in January of 2011 realizing two things about myself: 1) I was not walking in the Spirit, and 2) as a result, I was overeating.  And then God worked to equip me with the tools I needed to move forward in this.  First, He brought a nutritionist friend across my path who confirmed my suspicion that dieting was not the answer.  She encouraged me to “intuitively” eat.  And that’s really just fancy nutritionist terminology for “eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied.”  Hardly rocket science.  And yet so few of us do it.

The second thing God did was lead me on a still-continuing journey on what it means to walk in the Spirit.  And it soon became clear that it would take all of the Spirit’s resources to do this very simple approach to Food. 

     So here was my new approach: 1) pray for the Spirit’s control as part of blessing my food, 2) eat whenever I was hungry, 3) eat whatever I was craving, and 4) stop at the very moment I felt satisfied, even if that meant (gasp) food would still be on the plate.

     At first I thought that just paying attention to my body’s cues would be easy.  The prospect of no food restrictions, no dietary lists, and no endless, sweaty hours in the gym was exhilarating.  But I soon realized how completely disconnected I had become from my body’s cues.  It felt nearly impossible to distinguish true hunger pangs from my habitual reaction to the clock telling me it was time to eat.  Bored, emotional, and sight eating also paraded as “hunger,” and I really had to rely on the Spirit’s guidance to reveal those urges for what they truly were.

     Gradually, my body and I became more and more in sync.  For the first time in my life, I was listening to my body in the way God had designed.  As soon as I felt hungry, I asked myself, “What sounds good right now?”  Then I would dole out a reasonable portion and slowly eat it, savoring the flavor and texture, truly enjoying it as God intended instead of mindlessly inhaling it.  As a result of slower eating, I could actually feel my stomach gradually become sated.  And as soon as the hunger subsided, I would stop and put the excess food out of my sight, telling myself that I could always eat more of it later when my hunger returned.

     I stopped eating every meal as if it were my last.   I stopped dreading eating out and just ordered whatever I wanted on the menu.  I stopped ignoring hunger pangs and skipping meals.  I stopped mindless eating or eating foods that I didn’t even like.

     And the results?

     

     My diet completely and naturally changed.  I found a new pattern emerging: I was hungry about every 3 hours for protein- and vegetable-rich meals (not snacks, mind you: meals).  That surprised me.  I felt like I was eating all the time!  It worried me.  How in the world could I lose weight when I was eating so much?

But here’s the second thing that naturally emerged: my portion sizes were half, and often a quarter, of the size that they had been.  I was shocked, just floored, at how little food was required to satiate my hunger.  I felt like this out-of-control, raging beast inside had been tamed and come out a playful and loving kitten.  Meals were now something I enjoyed.  Food became something I controlled with the Spirit’s power, not something that controlled me.  And food and guilt never associated again.  If I truly craved a brownie, I would happily begin eating one.  But then I would stop as soon as that craving was met, which was usually only about half the usual serving size.

     Change number three was equally as surprising.  I didn’t go out of my way at first to eat “good” foods.  I tried to shed my old labels of “good” and “bad” foods.  I became convinced that no food is “bad,” it’s just our behavior toward it that is reprehensible.  We have amazing control around vegetables, restraining our portion sizes and leaving that extra bit of spinach on our plates, but then we turn into mindless predators around cake, pasta, and potatoes.  The food isn’t the problem: we are.

     But through shedding the traditional food labels, I found that I was paying closer attention to how certain foods made me feel after consuming them.  I discovered myself rejecting the piece of fried chicken for chicken salad not because a dietary plan told me to or because “fried” equals evil.  I made that choice because my body reminded me of how gross I felt the last time I ate a piece of fried chicken.  Vegetables and fruit became almost constant cravings, as well as lean sources of protein.  Our bodies know what they need; we just don’t listen.

     And finally, if only in this one area of my life, the Spirit was in control.  It wasn’t my willpower, my striving, my everlasting trying and struggling and crawling toward perfection.  It was God.  I just kind of sat back and let Him do what He does best: empower me to do what the Spirit tells me I should.  It was so freeing.  At last I was trading the rocky mountain climbs of trying and river rapids of desire for His faithfully-promised green pastures and still waters.

     Oh, and I lost over fifty pounds.

     But really, that was just icing on the cake.  To finally approach food with enjoyment, restraint, and calm was everything.  And to unlock the Spirit’s control in at least one area of my life was even better.  I can’t believe I’ve spent 25 years largely depending on Self.  What a precious waste of time and energy.

     But no more.

     A lot of people have asked me, “So you’ve lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?  Care to share your secret?”  I just laugh and say, “Do you have about an hour?”  It’s not an easy answer or single-method secret.  It’s a journey.  A far more spiritual one than I had anticipated.  But an exhilarating, liberating journey that reconnected me with God, my body, and Food, the way I was supposed to be.

     And this is my Manifesto:

     Everyone’s different.  God might lead you down a different path or “method.”  But the method isn’t my point.  God is.  Include Him in the equation.  Consult Him on the method.  And rely on His Power in its implementation.  He wants you to be healthy more than you do.  As Your Creator, He’s kind of…invested.  So just stop.  Pause from the diet, guilt, and striving long enough to see if it’s even something He’s led you to do.  Because He is the point, not losing weight, fitting into a size 4, or looking great.  The moment we lose sight of Him is the moment Self re-enters as the Controller.

     So I’m not dogging dieting, exercise, or healthy eating by any means.  I’m only emphasizing the fact that our spiritual selves are at the root of everything and ignoring that fact is like picking spoiled fruit off of a tree: the root is still present and unchanged so that bad fruit will just keep reappearing.  Let’s start digging roots instead of picking fruits.  And I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised that the pounds are quick to follow.