The Wall

Happiness used to be a number. It was a number I equated with all things good and wonderful: health, nice clothes, activity and freedom. Attaining it would be hard work; keeping it would be easy. That number would cure any and all misery.

Turns out that’s all a myth. (Shocking, right?)

I’ve long bought into the notion that losing weight would bring happiness. Fat girls are encouraged in this belief by almost everyone… the media, friends, family, diet fads. Right now I’m fat and miserable; that must necessarily mean that being thin holds the guarantee of happiness. After all, there are no miserable thin people in the world. Cough.

Someone very wise told me years ago that I had an addiction issue with food. I was pretty sure he was crazy. How can you be addicted to something you need to survive? But it didn’t take long or much research to realize he was right. The realization of it uncovered a new level of misery and I sought my comfort in food.

There are those who will read this and scoff at the notion of food addiction. These are the people that have never faced it, or watched someone they love fight against the compulsion to medicate themselves with food. Some will say that I need greater will power, better self control. And some (who are still fighting their own truth) will tell me I’m crazy.

And maybe I am. Maybe it’s silly of me to find comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in my food addiction. Maybe I’m a complete fool to post something like this on a blog… the maybes are endless.

But I know truth. There is no other way to explain what it means to be halfway through the first real weight loss journey of my life where I believe it can actually stick only to slam up against The Wall that keeps reminding me that Thin doesn’t guarantee Happy.

That number will not miraculously cure me of my issues with food. Sounds so grim, doesn’t it? And yet it’s not, really. It’s a hard truth. I’ve been slamming up against The Wall with a fierce denial for the past several weeks because I don’t want it to be true. I want the motivation of nicely fitting clothes and a healthy body to be enough of a cure but it’s not. More than anything, I want to be free.

It’s so amazing to me how the Lord surrounds us with the people we need. He’s been showing me that more people struggle with what I struggle with; even thin people who have never been obese. It's a rare thing when you talk about your emotional responses to food (eating in secret, having stashes of food you don't want to share, getting angry when someone chooses that bigger slice of cake you had your eye on) and see a shocked glimmer of recognition in their eyes. The Lord knows our needs. And then a friend introduced me to Lysa TerKeurst’s blog:

I have tried to lose weight so many times. When my only goal was to get thinner, it was very easy to give into temptation and justify myself right into a chips and brownies oblivion.

Getting thin wears thin as a motivational factor. I even used my faith as an excuse. When getting thin was my only motivation, I felt good in saying, "You know, it's really kind-of vain to even care what my body looks like. I think it's more Christian to care about the inside not the outside."And while on some levels this is true, I knew my issues went way beyond just how much I weighed.

My weight was an outside indication of an internal struggle. On a spiritual level, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my lack of control. I would say with my mouth- With God all things are possible! But, I would secretly think, All things except my issues with food.

I was addicted to sugar. I was turning to food more than I was turning to God. I walked around feeling completely defeated. And to some extent, I doubted God could help me with this. Yes, my issues were definitely affecting me even on a spiritual level.

Sweet sisters, God made us to consume food. He did not make food to consume us.

Like Deuteronomy 2:3 says, “You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north."In order for me to get out of the ruts of defeat with this issue, I had to start filling in the old lies and go to scripts in my mind with truth. Like the article I mentioned above said, I had to tie my weight loss issues to something deeper than physical reasons.

So I guess I’m ‘outing’ myself. I’ve carried this truth for a long time, and I have to admit I’ve always thought was Lysa thought, “With God all things are possible… all things except my food issues.”

Maybe instead I should realize that the truth is, “With God all things are possible, but sometimes He needs you to deal with some of the peripheral hard stuff before you’re able to deal with the truly hard stuff.” I’ve learned a lot in the past two years; because of that, I feel like maybe I (in God’s strength) have enough of a foundation to get real about this food addiction.

Being thin won’t cure my issues with food. No number will guarantee happiness. With God, all things are possible… but do I really believe that?

I want to. Thanks to His overwhelming love for me one day I will. In His strength I will learn to turn to Him for comfort more often than I turn to food. In His strength I will replace the old lies with new truths. I will stumble and fall sometimes, but my God will pick me back up because He cares for me more than I care for myself.

Take that, Wall.