In addition to the crazy awesome spiritual adventure I am on, I am also currently on a journey to better health.
Many of my issues began when I was young- I have been above average in regards to weight since day 1- and, for the majority of my life, I accepted my physical appearance as a given, never able to change.
If you know my story, you may know food has been a source of comfort in my life. I have grown in this area- I know some of my triggers and I tend not to turn to food when I’m sad, but some emotions (anger, boredom, frustration, fear) are sometimes harder to identify and they still trip me up.
That being said, since the beginning of the Race, I have lost 25 pounds. Since the photos above, I have lost over 55 pounds.
And I kind of hate it, most days.
It’s sometimes frustrating that people comment on how good I look now, especially coming off a month spent in the bush in Africa. My host last month was excellent, they cooked every meal for us and provided enough awesome food to keep us healthy- but I didn’t eat nearly as much as I would have if I had been in control of my diet. Snacks, junk food, soda, etc., weren’t really an option because of our location.
A week before the Race and during our time in Binga. (The original point of the picture was to show how much of a hot mess I was… Gotta love those bucket showers and manual labor!)
It’s frustrating because I know if I had been in control of what I ate, I wouldn’t have lost the weight. I KNOW this because I have proof- I have been tracking my weight (once a month) and the one month I had the most control of my diet, I actually gained back some of the weight I lost the month before.
As I have lost weight, I have noticed more and more complements- from strangers, my squad, and people back home.
That terrifies me.
I have never seen myself as beautiful, but I was confident in who I was… but then people started to tell me I was pretty and my source of identity began to shift. Even knowing it was a false identity, I began to think I was worth more because I was thinner, and that’s when the fear snuck in.
The fear that the complements would stop.
The fear that the weight would come back.
The fear that people wouldn’t like me anymore if I looked different.
But it’s a catch-22; even though I am terrified the compliments will stop, I wish they would. I fear the weight will come back, but I do nothing to control it. I am afraid people will look past me if I gained weight but I can’t help but desire the invisibility and protection being overweight has granted me my whole life.
I am terrified of being seen but desperately crave to be known.
At one point during month 4 (the Philippines), I actually asked my team to, please, stop commenting on my appearance. Until I could get a grip on where my identity came from, I didn’t want to hear anything about what I looked like.
The Lord has shown me, over the last month or so, that I have a lot of fear when it comes to myself- and one of these areas is my physical body.
I am afraid I don’t have any control when it comes to food addiction, laziness, and my lack of self-discipline and self-control.
I’m afraid I’m intimidating; I’m afraid my “bigness” means I’ll never get married.
I’m afraid that, unless I figure out some way to make it so there is “less” of me (physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.), I will always be too much to handle.
Crazy as these fears may sound, they are a huge influence on how I build relationships.
I’m conflicted.
My heart and mind tell me that this is WHO I AM and to deaden the thoughts of OTHER.
My God tells me HE is the one who defines who I am and I need to bring all of this ish to Him to deal with, it’s not my burden to carry.
And then there’s me. Just me. Sitting in the middle of the road, torn and exhausted.
I look to Jesus, sigh, and shake my head. It’s so much easier to believe the bad, so much easier to listen to the world, to the emotions saturating my heart, and the logic spewing out of my mind. If I choose to believe the bad, believe the lies, I don’t have to change; I can sit in the disappointing, yet, familiar, never expecting anything better.
Or…
“Or, my daughter, you can let it go. Let go of this obsession. Allow Me into the depths you have barred off for so long. Forgive yourself and allow Me to fill you with My love. Let Me show you how loved you are by Me. My love is perfect, it casts out all fear.”
My God is a God of redemption.
XO,
L
