Leaving My Egypt-Month 2!

"But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."--Galatians 5:21-23


I wish there were a way that you could step into my life for a moment and experience the incredible change that continues to rock my world. As God works to refine this area of my life, He has opened my eyes to how crushing this sin was to me. I really had no idea how suffocating the box I had put myself into because I was not living as God intended. Looking back even to my first post about my struggle, I am amazed at the freedom I experience now...the peace...and the joy! I am reminded of one of my favorite verses that totally embodies what I wish describe what God has done in my heart:

"...We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that He has already thrown open His door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise."--Romans 5:1 (MSG)

Doesn't that verse just paint a beautiful picture of freedom? It stands in such a stark contrast to the verse that I identified with as I began this journey...and as I reread it, I am just overwhelmed with gratitude that Jesus is leading me further and further away from these burdens I could not stand under:

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: ...a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; ...paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on..." --Galatians 5:19-20

I know you must be thinking that I am being a bit dramatic about over-eating, right? But, do you see that it wasn't the food that was the sin, which led to the life described in Galatian 5:19...it was the fact that I had put food before Christ in my life. That, of course, is the sin! So, being dramatic about food--no. Being serious about sin--YES!

"...Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it's the only way you'll get on your feet." --James 4:7 (MSG)

And true to His promises, Jesus is helping me "get on my feet!" People keep asking me what program I am following, or what my plan is...truthfully, I am praying every morning that God will just continue to help me make the right choices, and to honor Him above everything in my life. And He is! I am so excited to tell you that as of today I have lost (through God's grace!):

41 pounds!


I have never been able to lose this much before on any quest to lose weight. I have never lasted on a "diet" this long. I think it just affirms God's work in my life, and like what Galatians 5:21-23 promises God is giving to me as a gift: exuberance about life, serenity...a willingness to stick with things...a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people...loyal commitments, not needing to force this way of eating, able to marshal and direct my energies wisely.

I'm thankful.



"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it..." --Romans 12:1-2

Be Still and Know...God's Word is true, His promises are true, and in His Freedom we LIVE, precious friends.

Leaving My Egypt-Week 6!

"This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I, the Lord, have spoken!"
--Jeremiah 9:23-24


I am wrapping up 6 weeks of battling an ugly sin that reared it's head in my life. If you are interested (or really bored!) in reading the whole story, you can start here
and then continue to read how God continues to refine and heal me as I get serious about sin here and here.

At the risk of sounding repetitive (okay, I am!), God continues to blow my mind every time I step on the scale and see the numbers decreasing. It is crazy-hard to try and wrap my brain around the fact that I put food in place of my Savior, and not only does He forgive me, and comes to my rescue in this battle...but he blesses me on top of everything! Every time I step on the scale, I truly feel incredibly humbled and undeserving...and mostly overwhelmed with gratitude that God loves me even in my betrayal to Him and His place in my life.

One of the biggest things I have learned over these past few weeks as God draws me closer to Him, is that I chose this sin. I liked it....loved it, in fact. But Satan takes these little "cherished" sins that we maintain (choose to keep, or not acknowledge) in our life...sins that we think that we can control...sins that we think we can choose to "stop anytime we want"...the fact for me is that I realized I was not in control of it at all. It controlled me! I was, in fact, a slave to this sin. Praise the Lord, no kidding, that He is leading me out of this grip that sin has on my life! I love Deuteronomy 7:7-9 and how it speaks into my life (my inserts):


"God wasn't attracted to [me] and didn't choose [me] because [I was] big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to [me]. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to [me]... God stepped in and mightily bought [me] back out of that world of slavery, freed [me] from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: God, [my] God, is God indeed, a God [I] can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments..."


Just even typing that verse encourages my heart! And I am excited to share that as of this morning, I have lost 29 pounds! (Editors note: In my mind, I picture confetti and balloons falling from the ceiling!). I am excited about what God is doing in my life! I will tell you it is ALL God's workmanship. As the weight continues to come off, there have been some sweet friends that have noticed the subtle changes...and truthfully, I love to hear the encouragement! But I also have to stand guard that I do not, for one moment, boast on my own accord--because then I am not honoring God. I am working to honor God with my eating...and what I am not eating...but I also have to ensure that I honor God and give Him all of His glory.

"We have heard of Moab's pride—
her overweening pride and conceit,
her pride and her insolence—
but her boasts are empty."
--Isaiah 16:6-7


"My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice."--Psalm 34:2

Be Still and Know...even when we choose to seek anything other than the Lord first in our lives, He STILL seeks and redeems us.

Leaving My Egypt-Month 1!

Okay, so I wrapped up a full month of eating for God. On a side note, I refuse to call what I am doing dieting. Refuse. When we diet, the goal is to lose weight.... In my case, that is not my goal (but a sweet blessing!), my desire is to honor and worship God by how and what I eat.

I will just tell you that this has been an amazing experience for me. The ravenous cravings are gone, and lack of control is healing. God is doing a miraculous work in me, and I cannot help but think of a Psalms that David wrote:


“O Lord,” I prayed, “have mercy on me. Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” Psalm 41:4

I know I have mentioned before, but allow me to reiterate one beautiful fact that sings in my heart everyday: The way that I desired food, the way I used food as comfort, the way I placed the importance of food in my life over Christ, I ignored the fact that I made food a trinket-god before the Holy One. (hello, first commandment, anyone?!) I confessed this to my Father, and amazingly, the One who created life--the One who commands the universe, the One who is to be greatly praised--not only forgave me, but is tenderly helping me overcome this struggle so I can honor Him. And not only is He helping me overcome this battle with food, but he blesses me in the process! I am so undeserving! It makes me laugh with pure astonishment when I see the pounds falling off! It is almost like a physical way to show a small portion of what He is doing in my heart.

So are you ready to hear the total weight lost these past 4-weeks?

24-pounds! (Little editor's note here: I so wanted to type 25 here...but I can't push myself to lose weight, because then I am focusing on the weight loss, and just replacing that as a trinket-god. I am really trying to guard against that!)

Whenever I start to even try to grasp this blessing, or even the fact that I am worthy of a blessing in this situation, I just CAN'T! But I love how God is a God of GOOD...and He desires good for us.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." --Psalm 37:4

Now, of course, don't get me wrong... I will honestly tell you that I have had two incidences where I stumbled. One was not so much what I ate...but how I ate it. I did not eat in a way that honored God at all. Which makes me go back to my point that I made at the beginning of this blog...if I were dieting...I would have not done a thing wrong! I was fine with my caloric intake, it was very healthy (tuna and half and avocado), but I knew that my heart was not in the right spot while I was eating the food. I was eating almost in a state of panic because I was hungry and was afraid that I would end up bingeing. But do you see the two emotions that I was feeding and running from? Panic and Fear. Neither of those emotions show a confidence that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." What I did in that moment is I did not put these emotions before the Lord...I tried to handle it myself. I took the hope that I have in Christ to help me in that situation, and tried to put a humanly fix on what only God can heal.

"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. Selah" --Psalm 62:8-10

I am so humbled by God's care for me in this journey. What an amazing God we serve!

"If you wake me each morning with the sound of Your loving voice, I'll go to sleep each night trusting in You. Point out the road I must travel; I'm all ears, all eyes before You. Save me from my enemies, God— You're my only hope! Teach me how to live to please You, because You're my God. Lead me by Your blessed Spirit..."
--Psalm 143:8-10 (The Message)


Be Still and Know...although we try, we can never fix what only God can heal.

Leaving My Egypt--Day 10!

Oh my goodness...what a crazy 10 days it has been!

I have lost (drumroll please!) 14 pounds! What so funny about it, is weight loss has not even my focus...I am really just trying to worship God in every area of my life--even in my eating...or in my case, worship Him in what I am NOT eating! I have already felt closer to Christ, my prayer life is growing (which I LOVE), and I just feel like God is just SO close. It's incredible. The transformation in my heart has been surreal. I am so calm around food, and I feel so in control. I mean, I know that I am not in control (hate to state the obvious there!), it is totally Christ's strength. It takes Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" ring so true in my life. It has always been so easy for me to "sneak or cheat" on a diet, but now that I am dealing with the root of my problem (which is sin, not my eating OR my weight)...it makes it much harder to justify sneaking or cheating on God!

It is crazy that I struggle this much with eating!

It's hard to talk about sometimes because it is embarrassing, but the more and more I talk about it, the more people are coming up to me or calling me saying that this is them too. I must have spoken to at least 10 different women this week alone about this problem (food before God, body image, etc). I feel like it just, again, proves that this is a subject that so many women struggle with, but yet, no one wants to talk about because of the shame, embarrassment, feeling like they are the only one. So I figure I am going to talk about it! Now, please understand before I go any further, I am NOT saying that anyone who is overweight or struggles with body image issues is a sinner, NOT AT ALL... I am just sharing how this became a sin for me. In fact, I had an interesting conversation with a sweet friend this week, and she said that she had never thought about food being a sin. I had to explain it's not that FOOD is a sin...it became a sin FOR ME because it was replacing God's priority in my life. I was focusing WAY too much on what I would eat, when I would eat...and then I would counter with focusing on my weight issues, whatever diet I was on, or just being angry at myself for how I look: THAT's when it became a sin for me. And because I was not dealing with the root of my sin (or my problem, as I called it before I realized the correlation it had in my walk with Christ) I was always looking for a fix, or a solution...and then those "solutions" (like crazy diets) would then become my priority and obsession...which, honestly, just replaced the object of my sin with something else. Whatever we place before God is not right...even if it is something we think is perfectly innocent. The innocence in lost when we place it at a higher priority than Christ in our lives. The only obsession I want is a crazy-obsession for Christ...and only Christ.

For the most part this has been the easiest time in my life I have ever had not eating food. I have had moment these past few days where I have thought I wanted to just EAT... whatever I want, however much I want. Eat in an ugly way that would put my love for food over my love for God. I desperately do not ever, ever want to do that again. Especially since I have confessed and come to grips with the fact that I have placed food over God...that my sweet, precious Savior, the One who I have let down is not letting me down. He has not only forgiven me for putting something as stupid as food over Him, but in His Great Compassion, He HELPS ME to stop. It makes me want to weep every time I think about it. Through prayer and submission in those crazy-momentary anxieties, He helps me through! I am also SO, SO blessed to have amazing friends that I can text and beg for prayer in those tough moments. They don't ever trivialize it, or ever let me feel I am being dramatic over a silly bag of chips, or the fact that I cannot stop thinking about macaroni and cheese... Instead, they pray. I feel their prayers. I feel His peace.

I am blessed.


Be Still and Know...it is not the nature of God to beat us down for our failures, but instead he postures us for success and freedom though His Grace and Mercy.

Leaving My Egypt-My Ugly Truth

"So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he'll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it's the only way you'll get on your feet." James 4:10

Whew. This is a tough one to even begin to type. It was hard to even say out loud and confess this to friends today. I have allowed myself to keep an ugly sin in my heart. In fact, I would even say that I cherish this sin--I don't really want to let go of it.

I love to eat. And I eat all the time. When I am happy, sad, lonely, tired, stressed, you name the main course of emotion, and I will tell you the food that I will have on the side.

I have gotten to the point that I run to food first before I even contemplate taking an issue to God. Or I will be heavy in prayer with something, while I feed my emotions with food without even giving God that chance. It is incredibly humbling to admit this...because it is just ugly.

Actually today, I had to confess that this is actually a major sin in my life. And it was really hard to verbalize those words out loud. I would even venture to say that if I analyzed this issue with a doctor or psychiatrist, they would probably say that I have an (over)eating disorder--but in God's grace to me--I know He showed me that FOR ME this is a heart disorder. This is an area in my life that I cherish the sin. To be honest, for years, I have made the choice to harden my heart to Christ in that area of my life.

I am in a mode of life that when I feel ANY sort of emotion-whether is be good, bad, tired, or overwhelmed--whatever!--I eat. And I totally eat in secret, alone and very rarely in front of people. (this is me being Eve trying to cover my sin with a fig leaf--as IF that is going to really cover anything at all!) I run to food FIRST versus running to Christ first. And a hard truth I had to confess this morning, and I don't even honestly want to type, is that in my relationship with Christ, I desire to boldly to say, "I love Jesus more than anything." But it is a lie because the ugliness of it all is I love food more than I love Jesus right now. That totally kills me to see that written out! So that is my bottom, as James 4:10 talks about: that sentence I just typed. I am sad and disappointed that I have not given my whole life over to Christ.

Galatians 5:19-23 screamed at my heart this week:

"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage (ME!); frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness (ME!); trinket gods (FOOD FOR ME!); magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness (ME WHEN I REFUSE TO EAT IN FRONT OF OTHERS); cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants (FOOD!); a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved (MY INSECURITIES WITH MY WEIGHT/LOOKS); divided homes and divided lives (I GIVE MY LIFE TO CHRIST, AND YET ALSO AM LOYAL TO MY FOOD ISSUES); small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions (HELLO--ME AGAIN!); ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom."

(AND HERE IS MY HOPE:)

"BUT what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."

Whew. Talk about being brutally honest. So my heart prayer is now that I have confessed this...that God will breakdown this area in my life and let me fully surrender to Him. My heart is to serve Him everyday, but I need to stop feeding this sin in my life first.

My desire is not to lose weight (great if happens) or to fit into certain jeans, or even, honestly, for my physical heart to be healthy. My desire is that my heart (in terms of my relationship with my Savior) will be healthy, strong, and trimmed of unneeded fat (which is sin). I am praying that God will just honor that. I am at the point of having to pray before every meal, pray with every bite I take that God will help me stop when I need to stop...and not start when I need to turn to Him.

So I totally just laid all of this out there! I know there is probably this question of "why bare my soul and sin?" Here is why:

"Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. Elijah, for instance, human just like us, prayed hard that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't—not a drop for three and a half years. Then he prayed that it would rain, and it did. The showers came and everything started growing again." James 5:16

I have confessed to Christ...and now I am publicly confessing, so I can have the honor of your prayers through this battle of sin in my heart. It seems silly to ask for prayers to stop eating--but really my prayer is the God will be my priority on everything I do--including my eating. That I will NOT continue to allow anything to be a barrier to what Christ can do in my life and in my heart. I want to serve God, I want to lead others to Him, I want to live passionately in Christ, and a life above reproach. And just like James 4 says...I am getting serious, really serious...by putting this all "out there" I am also humbling myself so I can be held accountable.

Be Still and Know...confessing our sins is never an act of shame when it is led by the Spirit...instead it is the first step of FREEDOM,