Shackles

Day Four

It seems like every where I look, every book I read, every commercial on TV is about home and family. With my father's resent death, I have been crying a great deal. My sister called this evening after nine and got me thinking about family again. I am blessed to have an older sister who is wise and kind. She was one of the only people in my past that really held me. She would sing me to sleep and had the kindest heart. I am thankful for those good memories. As a military child, home was wherever we lived at the moment. I have lived in over 54 different "homes" or apartments, houses, trailers, etc. One scripture came to mind tonight and was helpful:

Psalm 68:6 "God sets the desolate in a homeland, He leads forth prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land." We have been blessed with almost two weeks of rain in the Dallas area. Now we are back to our typical August heat of 100 degrees or higher. In this journey toward health and healing, I must remember that God is the one that will set things right and provide a home for me. The chains of fear and the memories that have held me captive for so long need to be viewed with the light of love and forgiveness. Without God's help and grace, I know that I will be lost in a world of anger and frustration. The hatred builds with every memory uncovered of my abuse - with every hurtful word said about my young body and my weight. These searing words form my body image - an image that I find hard to look at and I have been unable to change for over 50 years. If I am to change at all - I must have help! I have tried to do this on my own. I have tried therapy alone. I need more to be free of my past, my memories, ~ free from these chains of pain that hold me down and keep me from living and breathing.

Isaiah 42:6,7 "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from dungeon those who sit in darkness." This scripture is about Jesus coming and leading all souls from the darkness of sin into the light of forgiveness and freedom.

Jeremiah 31:13 "...women will dance with joy, and the men - old and young - will join in the celebration. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing."

The song below is one of my favorite songs. With two knees replaced, a hip replacement and a broken femur ~ I haven't walked much in the last few years ~ let alone dance. For right now, I will be happy with my spirit being set free from fears and the chains or shackles of dark memories falling off my spiritual legs so that I can move forward. That is my prayer.

Lord, help me to be free of sin and it's burden on my soul and life. I can't do this on my own because every time I think of my past - I become lost in anger and depression. Bring me into the light of Your salvation through Your Son's sacrifice and gift of love. Lord until the day when I can spend eternity singing Your praise, help me to sing your praise here on earth ~ weightless, free, and unchained. In my Savior's name I pray ~ Amen

Inside Out

Day Three

It's all about the image, right? Body image is a huge hurdle for me. When I look back at pictures of myself when I was younger, I am surprised because I was told I was fat all my life. Size 10 is not fat! Now I am size 5X or size 24 to 32 (depending on the fit of the cloths and if I have to sit down or not). Well, a scripture caught my eye late last night:

I Sam 16:7 "The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." I have to keep reminding myself of this fact over and over again. If my heart and soul is purified by God's forgiveness, then the rest will follow.

Today is a good day when it comes to eating. When I feel overwhelmed, I try to remember that I am not alone in this quest for healing and becoming healthy in body, mind, and soul.

"Never will I leave you or forsake you" ~ God

Lord I rejoice that you look on the inside and not the outside! I can't wait until I exchange this earthly body for life eternal with You! Until that time comes Lord, help me look at my world and myself through Your eyes. Purify me daily ~ I pray this prayer in Christ's name.

Amen

Broken Pieces

Day Two

My search for the solution to loosing weight has led me again to how broken and abnormal I am. I am so tired of this mental and emotional war. Time and time again I thought that I had made it to a peaceful place but I found that it was one more battle won - not the end of the war! ................. ........ In this blog I am going to be honest so here it goes: I am scared - to my very core! I am scared that if I loose weight I will be abused again. No one protected me before. No one! How can I get past this? The six year old begging God to make it stop but no answer came. How can I get past this? A pathetic, whimpering twelve year old laying on the bathroom floor crying out, "I'll be good Mommy, please Mommy stop, I'll be good". How can I get past this? A thirty seven year old women that was just seeing daylight and had lost sixty five pounds but instead of saving a twenty year marraige ~ forced to watch as life shatters again and a covenant is broken.

I try to make emotional plans to deal with loosing weight. I tell myself that I won't face the scales when I weigh and no one is going to tell me or congratulate me when I loose weight ~ maybe that will work. Or maybe I will shave my head, wear a scarf or bad wig, put dark circles under my eyes with make-up ~ then as I loose weight people will think that I have cancer and they won't complement me. Good idea, right? Well, no ~ it is just me running away from the truth. I truely believe that if I am bigger than my abusers, I can't get hurt. If I am huge then I can keep a barrier between myself and being hurt again. I know I am not alone in feeling this way. Others out there are living the same kind of life. The only way I am going to get through this is with therapy and with God's help. I know that He was with me through the years. He provided me with a mind that was inventive enough to "leave" when the abuse was at its worse. Disassociation and creating personas became my way of dealing with my life. I would walk through my life like a little doll and then as I grew older a version of the "Barbie" doll. Acting the part on the outside but the real me was hidden. A puppet being dangled and jerked about by my abuser. I think children of acoholics and children of abusers learn to stay on their guard and then do something, anything to survive. The problem with disassoicating yourself from life is that it is hard to reconnect to the normal world when you want to walk the path back to normality. It is hard to tell the truth from the lies ~ the real from the unreal. You feel like a ghost walking through your childhood and marriage ~ there but not really there. Throughout my life the thought was always there: If they knew the real me, the broken,dirty, evil person that the abusers thought needed to be cleansed and punished ~ they would turn away and run. As early as eight years old, I could not stand to look in the mirror. So I painted on the face of normality but underneath I was screaming and wanting everything to end. Every time I thought that I would end my life, at the right time someone or something came into my life. That lifeline helped me take another breath, another step. It could be a song on the radio, a TV show, a person calling me to say hello. I have made it through so much but this battle ahead is going to be one of the hardest. Loosing weight means that I must deal with the body image issue and let the ghost come out into the light.

Over twenty years ago, when I had been in therapy for about a six months, my therapist shared an analogy about my mental process toward healing. He compared me to a house. This house was very neat on the outside, cute with a wide porch, flower boxes in the windows and surrounded by a lush, green lawn and a picket fence. Emotionally, I lived mostly on the porch, watering the flowers, rocking in the rocking chair but not spending a great deal of time inside. Just enough time inside to eat, sleep, and dress. Also I did not leave the porch to go out to the street and into the neighborhood. Every time I stepped out onto the lawn to leave or make contact with anyone in the real world just beyond the picket fence, the lawn turned into a mine field and each mine that exploded was a horrific memory from my past. The only way to lead a normal life was to dig up all the mines, defuse them, let them do their worse, and just learn to deal with the pain, horror, anger, and hatred that came with them. With my therapists help (Al Behel) we proceeded to do just that. It took years and there were some memories, some realizations that set me back. I finally reached a point where I was living a more normal life and then my husband decided that he could not take it any more. Our marraige ended and I put much of the emotional work that still needed to be done, on hold. Surviving in the real world, on my own became my priority and I have proven that I can do that successfully. God has been my guide and refuge through the worst times. I know that it was He who sent the lifelines along the way.

So why am I having such a hard time when it comes to starting this part of my life? Starting to diet again? I think it is because I am still so broken. I have a path that was forged during therapy that leads out to the real world and I feel comfortable using it but my house and life are still in the nightmare. Most of the lush green lawn around the symbolic, therapy house - still holds a "mind" field that I have not defused. Also, now that I am thinking about opening all the doors and windows and letting the light of truth shine into the house, I find myself very afraid. I can't imagine ever being comfortable in certain rooms in any physical home that I live in because they remind me of abuse and pain. I just go in them and get right out. I am still "real" as I deal with the inside of my house and my body but I still disassociate a little. When it comes to dealing with body image and all that comes with eating and dieting ~ well - that is why the Medifast diet appeals to me. I don't have to think about preparing meals, shopping, etc. I just don't go to the store or out to eat. Of course if I loose weight and stop the program I will have to deal with learning how to eat in any room, on any given day, with all the temptations that are all around me. But I am not ready to have surgery and something drastic needs to happen for my health. So I will probably go with the Medifast program. I am diabetic, with major circulation problems in my legs. If I do not loose the weight this year, I could loose my life. So I will go forward, broken and abnormal as I am and pray that the healing will come. I write in this blog to help with the healing and to share with my therapist my thoughts and emotions. I have recently decided to open this blog up to others who might be going through a similuar battle from broken to whole. No matter what I say in this blog - the only healing, joy, or love that I might accomplish - comes from the Lord. If I make it out of this ordeal alive - it will be only a life lived with God in control, Christ as my mirror, and the Spirit interceding for me. I hope that I do not offend anyone but it is, after all, my journey of truth being reported. My goal is to write an honest account of my daily thoughts, concerns, battles, and victories. Until complete healing comes - I will try to hold on for dear life....

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Revelation 21:6 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life."

Isaiah 32:2 "Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thristy land." God provided me with a mental shelter as I went through life, a way to block the full emotional experience of abuse. Now it is time for me to face all the broken places in my life ~ the ones caused by others and the ones that I caused myself.... I am so broken... but Christ was broken for me so that I could be healed. I will hold on to that thought.

Lord, I plead for your healing hand again. I realize that healing sometimes comes in waves. I am so broken and only you can help me put the pieces of my life together and learn to live without falling back on the numbing power of food. Thank you for your mercy and love. In Christ's name I pray this prayer, Amen.

The Search Begins

Day One

The search began for the right plan for loosing weight. At one time I weighed 365 pounds! For a 5 foot 4 inch female that was a tremendous burden. In 1987 I used the Medifast weight loss plan given through a hospital. It was fasting using liquid shakes only. I lost 75 pounds and have kept below 300 every since. This has been through a divorce, putting myself through college, the death of my mother, two layoffs, a ten year career as a 5th grade teacher, four major surgeries, and taking care of my elderly father for four years. Through all of this I managed to hold on and not gain weight. The last 4 months have been extremely difficult and I am beginning to gain weight again. I was forced to go on permanent disability after shattering my left femur in a fall, my father had two major strokes and passed away after 20 days of hospice, and the caregiver that was taking care of me stole over $4,000 from my bank accounts.

I went to Medifast today and listened to the facts and costs of the program. Now I am praying for the guidance that I need. I cannot endure bariatric surgery, staples or rubber bands in my body. Some might think Medifast is drastic but it worked for me in the past. My doctor approves and said he would monitor me and my therapist will help me through the emotional part of loosing the weight.

With so many ads, products, and promotions for loosing weight ~ I turn to God and His word:

Psalm 63:1 "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

I know He will guide me.

Lord, I come before you now longing for guidance. Help me to not be afraid. Give me boldness and self-control when it comes to dieting. Lord I thirst for your love and I want to be healed by your hand. In Christ's name I pray, Amen.