God's amazing works

Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him...Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise.
~ Hebrews 10:22-25, NLT

This post has been rolling around in my head for some time now and Andi finally asked if I was ever going to post about it, so here goes.

About 6 weeks ago, I really started feeling convicted about my weight. Not as in, "Gee, I really should lose some weight. More like as in, "Hey, your body is supposed to be God's holy temple and look how you've treated it all these years.

And for the first time in my adult life I decided to take steps to correct this. Frankly speaking - I was addicted to food with a real inclination to inhale sweets. I was also a fan of caffeine - Mt. Dew and McDonald's sweet tea to be exact with a large side helping of the combo sweet/caffeine -- chocolate.

I have made some feeble attempts in the past to lose weight. I even joined WW last year, but the day of the first meeting was the day dad came to live with me and out of the 12 meetings, I think I made it to 1. A time of incredible stress was not the best time to be dieting.

A few years ago I lost a lot of weight, but just did it by stopping eating basically - not really changing anything or exercising. This did not result in long term weight loss and as we all know, yo-yo dieting is not good for your health.

Which brought me to the present state of affairs of my body. I was discussing this sad state of affairs with my friend, Teresa, who lives in Virginia. She told me about a Bible study she was doing, called First Place 4 Health. I looked into it and decided to do it on my own and home while sorta discussing things with her via emails.

Sunday, April 19th was Zac's 25th birthday and it struck me that I had been trying to lose weight and get in shape since he was BORN. 25 years. That's quite some long range failure.

During church that morning, there was an alter call for anyone who needed prayer. I went forward and asked Eric and Sonya for prayer and specifically asked that God remove my cravings for sweets, my late night and between meal snacks and to get me through withdrawing from caffeine.

Eric prayed for all that. And THEN, as he laid his hand on my head, he added something I had not asked for -- and certainly wasn't expecting. He asked God to turn my success into a ministry. I'm certain my eyes flew open, but he continued to pray. And as he pronounced it done, because there were three of us there and obviously we were praying in God's will, I went back to my seat with a sense of determination and peace.

I hang around with basically two groups of friends. One group goes to church with me and one group all go to other churches. I went home and sent an email to my "other" group of friends and asked if any of them would like to do this study with me. Immediately the replies started coming in and before you knew it, I found myself leading a Bible study on weight loss for 8 of my friends. So I ordered the materials started praying that I would do a good job.

Wednesday night - just a few days after Eric's prayer, a lady from church came up to me at the dinner table and asked if she could ask me something. "Sure," I said, "I'm the answer queen." She then sat down and asked me if she wrote down everything she ate and brought it to me on Wednesday night, would I look at it for her and help her be accountable.

I just stared at her for probably 15 seconds before I asked her, "Did God send you to ask me that?" She looked startled and said, she didn't know, she just felt like I was the person she was supposed to ask. Now, mind you, NEVER in the 7 years I have known this lady have we discussed dieting. Never - as in never, ever, never.

I told her why I was so surprised by her question and before you could say No More Sweet Tea, she had joined our Bible study group. Which brought us to 9 people.

As I was walking into the sanctuary, Eric stopped me and gave me a big hug. This is not his normal greeting to me, so I was kinda surprised by that. He told me that even as he was praying for me, God was convicting him and he knew he should be right there with me, trying to get in shape. So we can be expecting good things there, too.

In the past, when I have quit drinking caffeine, it has been horrible. I have felt so bad I thought I must have been having an aneurysm. I have puked my guts out. I have had to have a quick "fix" of Mt. Dew just to get the headaches to subside in order to turn on the lights.

That Wednesday, Eric asked how the caffeine withdrawal was coming and it took me a second to realize that I had not even noticed I had quit. I had not had the first symptom of withdrawal. God had just taken it from me.

After the first Bible study, Vicki called me to tell me she'd been "bad." I thought she was talking about Tastee Freeze, but she was talking about having dinner with a friend she hadn't seen in awhile. During the course of the dinner, her friend asked her if she knew of any Bible study she could get into -- and if it dealt with health issues, even better. So Vicki invited her. She came -- and brought her mother. Which took our group to 11 people.

In the past, I have thrown general prayers God's way during dieting attempts. Never have I prayed so specifically, asking for things to be done. To get through the grocery store and avoid the candy aisle. To watch TV without a bag of chips in my lap. To eat a good breakfast and then nothing till lunch.

And God is faithful to do all of that. He has not let me down - in fact, just the opposite. He is holding me up and doing amazing things. I've started eating things I would never eat before. I'm eating yogurt - something I never even tasted before a week ago. I'm eating fresh fruit and veggies. And doing just fine.

Our group is single minded. We want to make our bodies the holy temples God designed them to be. We are walking in a half marathon in October. I am walking 2 - 3 miles per day right now and have been for weeks.

Our Bible study is awesome. It isn't a short term fix. The study last a year - enough time to REALLY make changes in your life. And this time -- it's gonna be different because I am getting all areas of my life in order. God promises to be there for me - and I believe it. God can do anything -- even help me get in shape after 25 years.