R U Stressed?

I’ve been under a tremendous amount of stress over the last couple of weeks. So you can imagine how my eating habits have deteriorated. I can see the old selfish me going to food for comfort instead of God. How sad...my head is telling me no, don’t do it but my heart tells me, its ok you’ve had a very bad day eat that extra piece of pizza, no one cares. It’s a good thing that God does and he allows me second chances.

As I wrote in my last blog we have 2 different kinds of stress in our lives ones that we create and ones that are beyond our control. I have both...I’ve asked God, why is he allowing this to happen? A good friend of mine said to me “Why not you?” God did not promise me a free ticket to happiness when I choose to follow him, he said:

33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 (NIV)

So I need to ask this question “What is God trying to teach me?” There are areas in our lives which are not in line with God’s will. So I hope you forgive me as I talk about them because they do directly affect our emotional eating. I’m going to take a deep breath and put them out there for you.

1. Our marriages

2. Our families

3. Our finances

4. Our weight

As you can imagine all of these affect ones emotional well being. If we don’t address these issues our lives will continue to spiral out of control until we crash and burn.

I know your probably asking how all these things can be worked on at one time. I don’t know but we have to try. I have a very good friend who keeps telling me I have to get my priorities in order.

1. God first

2. Husband second

3. Family third

4. Ministry fourth

5. The rest will fall into place

Sounds simple right. It’s not! For a very long time I had everything backwards so the result are spoiled kids, an unhappy husband and a financial burden. So you can see where this is self inflicted stress. How can I turn everything around? It won’t be easy as a matter of fact this will be the hardest thing I will ever attempt. I believe the only way I can accomplish such a daunting task is with God’s help.

Step one: God first...make sure I have a quiet time which includes prayer and devotion.
Step two: Make my husband happy. Sigh, this will be a hard one since I can’t change him I have to change myself. I’m going to start with the Love and Respect book.
Step three: Put my foot down and don’t let my kids walk all over me.
Steps four and five: This will work out when the 1st three are where they should be.

I know I’m in a valley right now and this mountain I’m trying to climb will be tough. So I’ll have to cling to my God for peace, comfort and guidance...

Psalm 23

1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul.

He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]

I will fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Blessings

Who am I accountable to?

Interesting question...I’ve been battling emotional eating most of my adult life; just when I feel like I’m ok that’s when I give in to it.

Life is not simple and we deal daily with all kinds of stress. Some we can’t control like:

              • Uncertainty of world events
              • The economy
              • Family stress

And some we can control by the choices we make. God tells us:

             Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
             by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present
             your requests to God.  Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

I want to talk to you today about self inflicted stress. You must be asking why would I inflict stress on myself? One of my negative personality traits is being passive aggressive. That means I will inflict self injury or negative behavior on myself because someone else either hurt me or made me angry and thats how I'll get back at them. One example will be: “He said “You’re fat.” I’ll show him what fat looks like.” Then I would eat a half a bag of chips. Why do I have this type of thinking? How do I overcome such negativity? I’ve pondered these types of questions for a while and I think I may have come up with a couple of strategies to help me:

1. Ask God for help.

2. Keep a journal and ask the following questions before eating.

                a. Am I hungry?
                b. Is this food good for me?
                c. Why am I eating? I think this is the most important
                    question to ask. If I answer this question with an
                    emotional response then I must write down the
                    emotion and ask how food can make it better.
                    Depending on the answer I have to pray for God to
                    help me deal with that emotion and for forgiveness.

3. Get an accountability partner. If journaling doesn’t help I need to go to the next step and get an accountability partner. (Thank you AA for this.) This is very important...pray about who you should ask to do this. You will need someone you can trust to be honest with you. You don’t want someone that will say, “Oh honey, I completely understand, what you need is chocolate therapy.” You want the person who will say, “That situation sounds terrible but food will not make you feel better. Let’s pray about this.”

Remember to keep God the center of your life and ask Him for help first. Until next time please pray for me to find my accountability partner.

Blessings

Success?

What do we really know about success?

The Merriam Webster dictionary says:
Success: 2 a: degree or measure of succeeding b: favorable or desired outcome; also: the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence 3: one that succeeds

Hmmm...What does God say about success?

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Joshua 1:7

So it looks like God’s version may be a little different than the dictionary’s version. I’ve been pondering this today.

I started this week off with a success; I’ve lost 6.6 pounds since the beginning of this blog. Go Me! However, I’ve encountered many distractions that resulted in me taking my eyes off God. Instead of clinging to God to help me through this difficult week, I went to food for comfort. Why do I have difficulty staying focused? I think with me its distractions and busyness. I’ve had both this week. So it’s time for me to pull myself up and not have a pity party over what I’ve done. Oh, I really want to have that pity party...I can’t change the past but I can choose which path to take for the future. I need to ask God to forgive me and get me through the next meal. Until next time I pray that you will have God’s definition of success and keep focused.

Blessings,

R U Worthy?

I’ve been struggling a little lately and I was trying to figure out how I got on this emotional eating rollercoaster. I think it started years before I had weight issues when I was in grade school. It started with self doubt. I didn’t feel worthy of anything. I was the kid who was always picked last for games...no athletic ability. I believe that’s when I started feeling left out and it set the pace for all my years in school. I was always the one looking in wanting to be accepted and living with the painful reality of just being on the fringe never able to cross over. Don’t get me wrong I had some good friends and a social life but I still didn’t feel worthy of their friendship. I was never funny enough, pretty enough or popular enough to be worthy of anything. I said so many bad things to myself it became my reality. This kind of thinking led me down a destructive path of bad choices and more misery. If it wasn’t for the grace of God I would be in a very dark place. It’s strange that these emotional scars have led me to the place where I’m at today. I can feel the same thoughts creeping in when I’ m tempted to eat something. “It doesn’t matter if I eat this piece of cake, I’m fat, so 400 extra calories won’t matter.” Or “I’m full but who will care if I go back to get seconds.” I have to remind myself that God cares! He loved me so much that He sent His son to die on the cross for me. He loves me! I have to keep telling myself that I’m a child of God. He choose me.


                   5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
                       before you were born I set you apart; Jeremiah 1:5

That is how awesome our God is. It will take me a long time to reprogram my thinking to where I know that I’m worthy. I, Sheila Austin, am worthy! I deserve to be loved, to be cherished, and to be healthy. So I’m not going to eat that piece of cake or go back for seconds because God loves me.



Blessings,

I Love You God...

I’m going to ask you for some indulgence as I post this blog today. It will not be about emotional eating but about how God Loves us.

It’s funny how God can reveal Himself to us. He does it in the most creative ways, through songs heard on the radio, a friend just telling us about their day and even through our children. I think God uses children, at least in my life, quite a bit.

When my oldest child was 8 years old we were on our weekly trip to the grocery store. During that time grocery stores gave out balloons to children instead of cookies. We got a balloon and it was our custom to let the balloon go when we got home. It was game to us, the last person to see the balloon won. This time was a little different. Chase wanted to write a note on it to God. I asked him what he wanted to say? He said, “Please write, I love you God.” Well I tried to persuade him to say it in a different way and write “God, I Love You. Chase.” He said “NO” I want it to say I Love you God.” Well, I wasn’t feeling too controlling that day so I said “ok”. We wrote on the balloon and let it go.

Fast forward about 5 years, we’re living in a different city. I was talking with a client at the end of a day and she shared with me how God was working in her life. She said it all started with a balloon. She said she was feeling discouraged and was praying to God outside her home when a balloon came floating down with a note on it. It said, “I Love You God” I looked at her in shock...I asked her when this happened and she confirmed that it was the same time my son had wrote his message to God.

It still amazes me how He can use the simplest moments in our life to make an impact on another person’s life. Most of the time He doesn’t reveal to us how he is using us and I’m thankful that God let me see how he used my son. I still cry when I think about this.

Do you need a balloon today? Just ask God to reveal Himself to you...He will, it could be through a song, a kind word from a friend, through prayer and or reading on His word. He promises to be there for us.

Blessings,

To Plan or not to plan?

Since I’ve began this weight loss journey I decided not to have a weight loss plan. I was just going to wing it and ask God to honor my decision not to have a plan. I was wrong! God doesn’t work that way. We see through scripture that God always has a plan. You can see it all the way from Geneses to Revelation. One example is in Joshua 6:2-5.


2 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."

I believe my Jericho is my weight and my tools are a good nutritional plan, a diet, and God will deliver me from this strong hold but I must obey God. A part of that will be to lay down my bad eating habits, pick up good ones and stay focused on God.

Now, weight loss plans are abundant, if you don’t believe me just Google diet and see what you get. I’ve been praying on which one I should choose and God gave me the answer through a friend who wrote one. She gave it to me last night and I’ll start it soon. I still believe that my major problem is emotional eating and I’ll keep you up to date on what strategies I’ll use to overcome that impulse. Until my next blog I pray that God will bless you.

Missing?

Sorry, it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve been struggling and wrongly thought I couldn’t let you down by sharing. I had some girl friends ask me why I haven’t posted and I shared with them I haven’t made any progress. They said, “Girl, that’s exactly what people want to hear.” They don’t want to see someone do it perfectly not showing signs of doubts or struggles...they want someone who can relate to them. So here I am back on board and I hope you can forgive me for not posting. God has been telling me:

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:10-12

Wow! God is good...He has plans for me, so I need to depend on him to accomplish my goals.

God Bless