I am working on my nephews blanket today, so I thought I would play dumb movies in the background to entertain me. I turned this on because it look like it would be really dumb and I would not have to pay attention to it. Background noise really.

Because of a curse many generations ago, Penelope was born with a pigs nose. The only way to break the curse was to marry royalty. Some dude who thought he was disgusting agreed to marry her but at the altar she ran. Her mom was really upset, but Penelope said she didn’t care about breaking the curse, she loved herself, just as she was.

The curse was then broken. She had the power to break the curse the whole time. Her mom apologized “if only I could have loved you as you were!”

A great movie about learning to love and accept yourself. You’re the only one with that power!

“It’s not the curse, it’s the power you give the curse.”

I lived my whole childhood and young adult life believing that because of genetics, because of family history, that I was destined to a life of obesity. Because of that fear, I was a little bit batty just like the mom in this movie. I tried anorexia, bulimia, compulsive exercising… And literally every stupid diet trick in the book.

In the end, I needed to learn to love myself. I needed to learn to accept myself fully. I also needed to learn that processed foods caused an addictive reaction in my body but even with the right foods, the wrong attitude sabotages all my efforts.

Great movie in my opinion. It’s on Netflix if you wanna check it out.

I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before, but either way, it’s on my mind now. So prior to my month of silence this past January, I was VERY skilled at quickly dismissing negative emotions partially because I didn’t want to feel them and partially because I felt like that made me a better follower of Christ. You know, more forgiving, patient, loving etc. I was SUPER good at burying those feeling so deep that I even believed myself when I said something didn’t bother me.

I distracted myself from them like you distract a baby who is throwing a fit and you just want it to stop. With a baby, you might say “peek-a-boo” and pretend to appear out of nowhere by removing your hands from your eyes. Or maybe you offer a treat “do you want a cookie? If you stop crying Mommy will give you a cookie.” I think sometimes we can’t let a baby feel their negative feelings, cause we don’t even know how to handle our own difficult emotions.

I would distract myself from negative feelings in many ways. The most subconscious way I’d handle them was to eat, or crave and dream about food. That’s an easy way to distract myself. If it was something directly in my face, like my kids bickering and I wanted them to stop, I’d turn up the kitchen radio and sing loudly till they got the point and left my presence, rather than entering the ring to break it up.

If it was in my marriage, I would add another project or otherwise busy myself. If it was my own feelings of low self-worth, I’d help someone, then I’d feel better about myself. If it was unkind words said to me or something unkind done to me, I would think about the difficulties in the offender’s life and justify their behavior “their not doing it to me, they’re doing it in front of me.”

The problem is, all of that was still there. It was just under the surface. Out of my conscious mind, but totally occupying my subconscious mind and wrecking havoc on my physical well being, so after coming face to face with myself in January, I consciously decided I wouldn’t hide from my feelings anymore.

My husband and I got in marriage counseling to work out the kinks in our communication. I needed to learn how to be honest not only with myself, but with him as well. And I joined Celebrate Recovery where I’m in recovery for food addiction (which as it turns out has a chemical component from processed foods, and an emotional component meaning even if I’m only eating “clean” foods, I still tend to compulsively overeat when emotionally stressed).

I am in recovery for codependency which is so hard to define, but in essence for me, it means I don’t look at myself….all of my focus is on others. Controlling others, even if it is only trying to “make them happy,” which by the way none of us has the power to do.

I am also in recovery for repressed feelings, which it seems everything else is tied into and wrapped with a big messy bow. Repressing feelings keeps me caught in the cycle of addictive eating, keeps me helping in ways that aren’t helpful and all in an effort to fix the final reason I’m in recovery which is because of my lifelong struggle with low-self worth.

God has healed so much in me. Food most days feels like a non-emotional, non-struggle fact of life. Eat when you’re hungry, and only because you’re hungry. I don’t eat flour or sugar and I avoid most processed foods, so all the “physical” cravings are gone. Now when I notice myself eating a little to fast or a little too much, I stand back and ask myself “what’s eating you?” There’s always a trigger.

I’m much better at only saying yes when I mean yes, and letting my no stand without guilt. I’m getting better at expressing the desires of my heart, and stating my opinions, even if I’m aware the other person will not agree. I’m doing better at “staying in my hoola hoop” as my sponsor is always reminding me, and controlling the only one I truly have control over which is myself.

Repressed feelings. That’s where the majority of my struggle still lies. A few weeks ago, a friend said something that I accepted, but as I walked out the door, anger that bordered on rage filled my heart. I knew that my reaction was disproportionate to what was said, but I also knew I needed to get to the bottom of this feeling.

I called my CR sponsor to talk about it. We decided I should sit on it for a week before addressing it because it was obvious I would not handle it well at that point. I wrote letters that I never sent. I talked about it to my sponsor, my husband and my best friend. I couldn’t understand why I was so dag’gum mad….but I always say and still believe that anger isn’t a feeling, it’s a reaction to a feeling. So what was the feeling under it all?

A whole week. It took me a week. I keep saying “I feel like an emotional five year old!” I need a parent figure to walk me through it and figure out what exactly I’m feeling and what to do with that feeling once it comes to surface.

Today I got the mental image of a small child who was just stung by a bee. They freak out! They start yelling and running around and crying. They don’t know what just happened, but they know that it hurts and they’re afraid it might happen again. Or maybe they did see the bee and they know who did it, but they’re still terrified of the bee.

When a strong emotion comes, I feel like that kid who just got stung by a bee. I run to my sponsor, usually, to help me figure out what happened, what to do about it, and that it’s gonna be ok.

Anyways, that’s where I’m at in this whole learning to feel those dumb difficult emotions journey. I’m thankful that I’ve come this far. I’m starting to feel more like a teenager in the “understanding my emotions” process, but I look forward to reaching a better point of maturity about it….and I know I will. You know how I know I will? Because as they say in CR every week “I keep coming back.”

This morning as I was washing my dishes, I was thinking about all that I’m reading as I read through the Bible start to finish. I was thinking of how many times I’ve tried before and how I always wanted to read through it, but always lost interest or got bored. 

I’ve read straight through the New Testament, but the Old Testament has always been a roadblock for me. It was boring. It was long. Much of it didn’t make sense to me, and God in the Old Testament didn’t fit with my understanding of God in the New Testament, so I dismissed it as not valuable. 

This time I decided to read it for content, not to see if I agreed with what was in it or not. I decided to read every word, whether it appeared to hold value or not. I feel like I’m reading the best novel ever written! A really, really long novel, but I want to read it more than I want to clean my house, more than I want to take care of bills, more than I want to rake the leaves….more than I want to watch TV or visit with friends. 

Reading the Bible has become almost an obsession or an addiction. As I was washing the dishes, before recapping what I read today, I thanked God for the ability He’s giving me to keep reading, even with eyes wet from tears, from yawning…what always happens when I read. 

He impressed strongly on my heart “I gave you this passion because I am preparing you to live out what I called you to.” For 17 years, I’ve felt a calling on my life to write and speak to encourage women. In those 17 years, I have faced every challenge one would hope to in a lifetime. 

My marriage has almost ended several times. It took me years to fully grasp the fact that my husband’s business is his business and my business is mine. I came to understand deeply that someday I will stand before a Holy and righteous God and account for every action, every word and every thought I have, and when I do, I will have no excuse. 

God will not care what my husband did or said that caused me to sin, He will only look at my side of the road. The reactions and responses that only I was responsible for. I will have to account for it all….no excuses. 

The comfort was that someday, my husband would stand before that same God, and he couldn’t point to me or anything else. He would be held accountable for his life. 

Food addiction and eating disorders have threatened both my physical and emotional health. Until 2016, I had a horrific relationship with my body. I hated it! I judged it. I mistreated it. I didn’t give it what it needed, then demanded that it do what I wanted it to.

Rather than enjoying exercise, I used it as a form of punishment for what I perceived to be “bad” food choices, so keeping a consistent fitness routine was impossible from the start. 

I’ve learned that small, predictable and not necessarily even intense exercise is all you need to stay reasonably healthy. I’ve also discovered that just a little more than that, you can firm up what is left behind. 

I’ve learned that, at least for me, processed foods lead to compulsive overeating and compromise my health. I’ve learned to appreciate healthy, Whole Foods without bemoaning what I “can’t” have or feeling deprived. Freedom from compulsive overeating beats a slice of cheesecake any day of the week. 

I have lost a full term baby and had to come to grips with what I always claimed to be true “Jeremiah 29:11-13.” It’s easy to tell people that God has a plan for every life and that it’s for our good. It’s harder to say that when your otherwise perfect 7lb 13 ounce, 21″ long baby boy dies due to a knot in his umbilical cord.

That’s where the rubber meets the road. That’s where others can see if you “REALLY” believe what you say you believe….that God is good, all the time. I can tell you with all my heart, that He is good all the time. 

I have been so depressed that I had to will myself to dismiss the thoughts of ending my life with my car. Following that day, I spent the next four years on an antidepressant. I’ve always said that when you’re in relationship with God, you shouldn’t need a drug to overcome depression. God allowed me to see, to feel and to experience the depths of chemical depression to the point where I believed ending my own life would be a relief. 

He allowed me to feel and even express the words that “everyone in my life would eventually be better off without me.” And to express those words with all the conviction in the world while married, and with 2 and 5 year old daughters, and a large circle of friends and family who loved me very much. He allowed me to understand that talk of suicide is not just a dramatic attempt to get attention, but could very much be the final cry of help before taking what feels like the only reasonable action, to end your own life. 

I, who had been told and believed I would be an amazing mom, faced with an introverted child who also met every marker for oppositional defiance disorder had to face the reality that without God’s help, I was helpless to raise my child.  I came to the stark realization that “my kids” are, were and always will be “His kids” first. 

My “job” is to love, protect, provide, guide, discipline…..but above all, to teach my girls to love, serve and obey God, and out of reverence for God, to love people as He loves them.  This job is increasingly harder as our society wants to teach them to look out for themselves before anyone else.  A society that says “if people screw you, screw them.”  A society that says “get rid of toxic people.”  At times, we are all toxic people.  At times we all need grace, mercy and forgiveness.  It’s hard to stand against the culture and teach your kids to love like Christ. It’s hard to tell them to turn the other cheek, and yet, that’s the best way to find peace. 

In trying to love as Christ loves, I have entered into several relationships without healthy boundaries and have been walked all over, and hurt over and over before God showed me that I can have healthy boundaries, KEEP “unhealthy” people in my life, and still love them like God loves them…without being hurt so badly. 

I spent years not allowing any emotions other than positive ones, because I believed that honored God. Only this year have I discovered that those “ugly” emotions are also God given, they serve a purpose and they need to be looked at before dismissing them. They help us with our boundaries and emotional well being if we’re willing to really face them, then surrender them to God who is the only one with the power to truly remove them from us.  

I have learned that convincing anyone of what I believe to be true about God is not my job. My job is simply to gently and without judgement, plant seeds of truth. Whether they grow into anything is none of my business.

Other people’s struggles and sin is also none of my business. God is fully capable of pointing out areas of weakness within others, and it is only by “them” working directly with God on those issues that they will overcome. My job is simply to love. 

I’ve learned that when I speak, my yes needs to be from a heart yes, and my no needs to be a no. When I do what I am not called to do, even if it is “good” I do not have peace. There are thousands of opportunities to do what is “good.” People will ask me to join them in doing “good.” I need to wait on the Lord and only take part in those things which He calls me to. 

If I say yes, and do something I was not called to, it is possible, that I am taking that opportunity from the person who was called to do it. 

I’ve learned that giving and helping is not always helping. Sometimes people have to walk through the tough emotions and physical consequences of their own decisions before they can learn. I had to, why would it be any different for others.  If I “save” them from a consequence they were meant to walk through, I “rob” them of the lesson intended in that moment.   However, there is a way to gracefully walk beside, listen to, encourage and mentor them as many people have graciously done with me. 

The biggest and hardest lesson that I have learned has been to love myself.  Not in the way our society tells us.  Not in a prideful or arrogant way, but in humility, truly believing that God in His infinite wisdom formed me intentionally.  That those parts of me which the world may point out as broken, were placed in me for a purpose.   That when I surrender those broken areas to Him, those become the superpower with which He can use me. 

On September 4^th, 2019 at Celebrate Recovery, I took a 24 hour chip symbolically saying that I surrender an area of my life over to God, because it’s out of control and I know I need His help.  This is what I wrote in my journal: “ Tonight I surrendered my low self-worth to God. I have tried over and over in my own power to accept my worth in life.  I am incapable, but I believe that God can do that in me and I choose to trust Him to do so.” 

I did my part.  I made art.  I made canvases that said truth from scripture about who God says I am, then I prayed He would help me come to believe them.  I wrote, “I am worthy” which was the first and hardest piece to believe.   I wrote “Because you are – I am, I am beautiful.  Jesus is my BFF, I am capable, I am God’s kid, set free in Christ Jesus, Holy and blameless, I was created in Christ Jesus to do good works, I am lovable, I have self-control, I’m unstoppable”…and the final one “Jesus said I’m a light, created to shine!”

God has answered that prayer. I don’t know the exact day that it happened, but over the past two months, God has opened my eyes to the value in who He created me to be. That calling on my life when I was 23 “to reach out, teach, mentor, and encourage women in Christ,” that calling has become a passionate fire deep down in my belly.  It drives me.  I no longer feel unqualified or unworthy of that calling.  

He lead me to Toastmasters in March of 2017 again with that feeling that He had a message He wanted me to share, so I went.  He lead me to read the Bible through, and gave me a passion for it.  Whatever “training” He leads me to, I will follow. Taking up the full armor of God.  All of the tools He has at my disposal. I want to be prepared.  This world, it’s more spiritual than it is physical. I am aware that Satan would love nothing more than to shut the mouth of this roaring lioness, but He’d have to move Heaven out of the way to get to me.   

There is no longer fear of what people think about this “crazy, ADHD, slightly out there, Jesus freak who loves God, people and hugs….lots of hugs!”  This Bible, the one that I always felt I needed to defend, I don’t feel the need to defend it.  It’s God’s word.  That’s His job.  The Bible clearly says that some people will have hearts that are not turned towards God and they will reject Him, and in that, they will reject me. That’s ok. 

If God is for me, who can come against me?  

I’d apologize for this post being over 2,000 words, but why?  It’s my heart.  And if you read all 2,000 words, you did so by your choice.  And if something that I say blesses anyone, to God be the glory. 

If you read all 2,000+ words to get to this point, please pray for me.  Feel free to share this with others who can pray for me as well. Write my name somewhere and pray for me each time you see it.  I will not look for opportunities to speak.  I will continue reading His word and getting so full, it just spills out on those around me.  I will continue writing all that He is inspiring me to write, and if He wants me to speak, I will speak. 

Pray that my heart would not become discouraged.  Pray against the lies of the enemy which God has already helped me to overcome.  Pray that God would protect and care for my family, but overall that God’s will be done in our lives.  Pray for me as I pray for all of you.