Good Morning Girls!  I went out to lunch yesterday with my dear friend and mentor (well actually I am the only one who ate because she was a stinkbutt and ate earlier so she just had coffee.  The only reason I am including this detail is because I know she will read this and I smile at the fact that at this very moment when she reads this she will start pleading her case and defending herself all over again.....and it makes me laugh to think that she will be doing it at a computer rather than me!) 

We sit down at the table and as I pick up my fork to start eating she says "So do you want to pray or are you going to be a pagan?"    We both laugh as I set my fork down and she prays over my lunch, her coffee (and cookie sample that she sweet talked the lady out of), and our time together.

While she was praying I was thinking "Shoot.....I had even reminded myself to pray when we sat down.  How could I have forgotten so quickly?"

Now you may wonder why a thankful Jesus loving Christian woman would have to remind herself to pray before lunch.  I admit it does sound silly, but the truth is it is one of the things I am working on.

For me, food has terrorized my life for as long as I can remember.  Food is not just food.  Food has had power over me for many years.  It has the power to bring comfort.  The power to bring loathing.  The power to bring entertainment.  The power to bring destruction.  The power to determine whether I am good or bad based on whether I am eating good or bad foods.  And that is a lot of power to give something!

And though I am in fact thankful for Gods daily provision for me and my family, I cannot honestly say that I am thankful for food.  I have often daydreamed of living with the cartoon family The Jetsons where I simply take a handful of pills in the morning and don't think about food at all.  I dream of a life where everything I eat does not come with a feeling or implication on my very existence.

I read once in a Christian diet book that you should thank God for every single thing before you eat it.  It serves a few purposes.  First of all, it is good to give thanks for each provision of the Lord.  However, in addition to that it supposedly helps you take a minute to see if that is what you should truly eat.  If that is what your body needs right now.  By taking the time to sit down and give thanks to God, you give the Holy Spirit time to speak to your heart.

It made perfect sense to me so I thought I would give it a try.  Surely I could follow this simple step towards healthy eating.  But I couldn't.  I couldn't because it is hard to reverse 30+ years of dieting and food rules.  I do not trust my own body and mind right now.  I know that the Holy Spirit will guide me in all truths but it is not as easy as it sounds.

You see, when a serial dieter feels fat they do not feel as though they deserve ANY food.  Even if they are hungry.  Even if the food is healthy.  When I sat down to ask "Is this what my body really wants and needs right now?" the only answers I would hear were "You shouldn't have anything right now.  Once you start eating you won't stop.  Who are you kidding?  You can eat intuitively!  You need a set of rules to follow!  If you don't have rules you will be out of control and you will get fat!"

That is why us fat thinkers find comfort in diets.  We don't trust ourselves so we rely on the rules given to us by others.  Without a diet we are lost.  We are loose cannons that may detonate in the form of a 3 day binge eating anything and everything in sight.

But diets.....diets tell us what to eat to be "good" and "worthy".  When we stick to the rules we are good.  We have earned the right to eat.....as long as it is on the "list".  However, the threat of being bad is ever present as all our minds can think about are the things we cannot have!

And that is the vicious cycle.  We try to be good, but we are already convinced that we are bad and it is just a matter of time before it shows.  We eventually get so afraid of this certain fall from grace that we decide to get it over with.  We eat anything and everything on the no-no list just to prove to ourselves that we will never truly be good......or even good enough.

And so it may seem like the silliest thing to you- the fact that I have to force myself to give thanks for my food before I eat it, but that is where I am at.  I am thankful for the provision.  I am thankful for everything in my life. But I am still not to the point where I can sit and enjoy my meal without wondering what it is doing to my body and what type of activity I need to do to undo whatever it did to my body.  The days I walk away from a meal without any guilt or fear are few and far between. 

But I thank and Praise the Lord that he is perfecting that which concerns me!  I praise the Lord that despite my fear that rises everyday and wants to run to the comfort of a diet, I know as I know that if I take this journey with the Lord however long it may be, in the end we will have Set the Fat Girl Free!

And the very thought of being Set Free brings fresh tears of thanksgiving down my face!

1 Corinthians 10:30 If I can thank God for the food and enjoy it, why should I be condemned for eating it?

Love, grace, and a pagan free lunch to you all-
Jen