My Joshua Journal – A Weighty Issue

My Joshua Journal – A Weighty Issue

PD_0014
Me in early 1986 at my highest non-pregnant weight

I had tried just about everything to lose weight from the time my high school nurse expressed shock that I weighed 128 pounds as a freshman. I already got lots of exercise being on the track team, but I added more working out to my schedule. I also went on a very low calorie diet, eating dry toast and having lettuce with lemon juice dressing. I quickly lost 13 pounds; I regained it even faster.

Every year of high school I tried to lose the weight and ended up heavier than before. Then I went to college and entered a world where eating had no built-in controls. I gained the Freshman 15 in a matter of months. I know I don’t look particularly heavy in that photo, but my extra 30 pounds had become a very weighty issue in my life. I jumped at the chance to take a weight loss class in college. The instructor was really nice and the weekly weigh-ins motivated me. I became a walking caloric encyclopedia. At meals, my friends would ask me for the calorie counts of foods and I knew them. I lost the Freshman 15, but I was very despondent about something our instructor had said. She told the class that people like us would never be able to eat hamburgers, pizza, or ice cream.

The following year I read the books, Thin Within and Diets Don’t Work. I became convinced that dieting had resulted in my weight gain and that I could be at my ideal weight without counting calories or restricting certain foods. Within a very short period of time, eating anything I wanted according to hunger and fullness enabled me to lose another 13 pounds. I was ecstatic, but not for long.

Although I never again returned to my freshman weight high, I also was unable to maintain my ideal weight. I couldn’t understand it. I knew that if I ate according to hunger and fullness, I didn’t have a weight problem. I just couldn’t seem to restrict myself to eating when I was hungry and stopping myself when I was satisfied. This was particularly upsetting to me as a future psychologist. I wondered how I would be able to help others make behavior changes when I couldn’t make them myself.

In graduate school, I began lifting weights and briefly tried dieting with my friends again, but to no avail. When I met my future husband, I became more committed to exercise and when we got married I weighed what I wanted to. The problem was that maintaining it was a constant battle. My weight bounced up and down like crazy. The only thing crazier were the thoughts bouncing around my head. I would get up in the morning, weigh myself, and decide that I would be “good” all day. By mid-morning, I had already blown it, so I would commit to eating like a rabbit at lunch. When I blew that, I would promise to do well at dinner. When that didn’t work, I would spend the evening ruminating about my fat and my lack of self-control.

One day I saw the article title, “Can God Make You Thin?” on a Woman’s Day Magazine in the grocery store checkout. I had to know the answer to that, so I bought the magazine and read the article. I was so excited to read that men and women were combining the Thin Within hunger/fullness philosophy with a reliance on God and were losing weight for good. I ordered materials and offered a class at church. At first I quickly lost weight. Then as the months wore on, I had the same disappointing results. I would eat when I wasn’t hungry or until I was stuffed.

As the class facilitator, I was quite embarrassed that I couldn’t succeed. I would dedicate myself to eating extra slowly and reading my Bible before and after eating. But to no avail. The weight was not only not coming off, it was coming back on. After confessing my sin of gluttony and worshiping the idol of food countless times, and after praying about the problem over and over, I don’t know what finally led me to quit. But that’s what I did. I stood in my kitchen, looked up at God, and said, “I can’t do this! I quit! If you want me to lose weight, you’re going to have to do it, because I’m done.”

For the life of me, I cannot recall how I ate after that. But I do not remember always sitting down, eating slowly, eliminating distractions, only eating when hungry or until satisfied. I really meant that I was done. Three months later I finally weighed myself to discover that I was at my ideal weight. I had no idea how I arrived at that comfortable number. I do suspect, however, that God removed my weight problem without giving me a clue how it was done so that when people ask, “How do you stay so thin?” I couldn’t give them the Melanie Plan. God took away that weighty issue and I remained at my ideal weight for five years when I had another crisis that is a story for another time.

in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:6)

 

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My Joshua Journal – A Weighty Issue

My Joshua Journal – The Voice

The Plymouth
This is my brother with the vehicle we referred to as "The Plymouth." After the accident, it was our only car–at least for a while.

People are shocked when I explain that I was allowed to drive at 14 in South Dakota (dawn to dusk). They should be shocked! If they only knew the crazy way we drove at that age. We drove 80 miles an hour on gravel hills because fish tailing was fun. We drove one another's cars, or should I say we drove the cars that belonged to one another's parents. My girlfriend stopped her vehicle by throwing the transmission into park. You can imagine how excited I am to have my own kids get behind the wheel.

When I was 16, I could drive at night, and often did. We lived a good distance from my high school and I was involved in a number of extracurricular activities that kept me from home until later. I also had a boyfriend (don't tell my kids). I don't recall what had me driving the Plymouth home in the dark alone one particular evening, but I will never forget the drive.

On a dark and deserted county road, I suddenly heard a voice yell, "Watch out for that deer!" I was so startled, I slammed on the brakes. That's when a deer ran across the road in front of me. I spent the rest of the trip home trying to figure out what had just happened.

Had I seen the deer in my peripheral vision? Honestly, no. Was I looking out for deer? No again. Whose voice was that? Honestly, it seemed to be mine, but like someone else had taken over my head. It was too loud to be a thought. What would have happened if I had not heard the voice? Would I have been injured or killed? Would another accident have crippled my family financially and emotionally?

1 Kings 19:12 calls God's communication "a still small voice." I can't recall God ever yelling at me other than the night I avoided a deer collision. But I have heard His still small voice many times. I look forward to telling you what He had to say.

Could He be speaking to you, too?

for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice (Psalm 95:7)

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My Joshua Journal – A Weighty Issue

My Joshua Journal – Protected

Car Accident

Every year for many years, my family and some family friends took a weekend vacation at a Holiday Inn. We rented poolside rooms, went out to eat, and saw movies. It was a real treat that we looked forward to every winter.

My freshman year of high school, we drove about an hour away to a different Holiday Inn only to discover that they hadn't given us poolside rooms. The parents got reservations at a different Holiday Inn near where our friends lived, so we got back on the road.

Our friends wanted to stop and get something from home, so we waited for them out in the car. As I waited, I thought, "I don't want to go." I questioned myself on this reaction because I absolutely loved these weekends with our friends. No matter how rational I tried to be, I couldn't shake the feeling. I even considered telling everyone that I didn't want to go, but I knew they would think I was crazy. I figured I was.

We checked into the hotel, played some mini golf, and went out for a yummy pizza dinner. I went out to the parking lot of the restaurant and lifted up the door handle of our Volare. It was the only brand new car my parents had ever purchased. Without  thinking much about it, I let the door handle go and I got into the car with my friends. This was very atypical behavior for me. I wasn't one to decide to ride with another family on a whim. Our friends' son climbed into the back seat of our car since I was taking his spot.

We made the drive through a residential area on our way back to the hotel that night. My family was in front of our friends' car. I saw a car speeding and swerving wildly up ahead of us. I watched as though seeing a movie in which I thought for sure the out-of-control car was going to miss my family. At the last second, the car careened into the front of my family's vehicle sending it into a 360 spin.

The next hours were horrific. My dad stumbled out of the vehicle with blood pouring down his face. The drunk and high driver put his head through the windshield of his car, but came over to my mother who was wedged under the dash, and tried to pull her out of the vehicle. Our friend, and the driver of the car I was in, was a police officer and immediately put a stop to that. My mother's arm was shattered and it took more than a year of surgeries and treatment for her to recover. She was never able to return to her previous position as a service technician for Sears. My brother came out of car with the knee of his pants soaked in blood. He and my dad were treated at the hospital and released. I never saw our friend's son, but learned that he had pushed the car's headrest (that we'd never been able to budge) up into the air with his mouth. He required a lot of dental work as a result of the accident. My baby brother, fortunately, wasn't with us.

After the initial shock wore off, I wondered at my initial reaction to our trip and at my decision to ride with my friends. Had God been trying to protect us? Why wasn't I in that car? Even though our family, friends, and especially my mother suffered much as the result of the accident, we were also protected. No one lost their lives. It could have been much, much worse.

Since the accident, I have learned to listen more closely to God's warnings. I have also learned that even when I forge ahead anyway, I am still under His protection. As much pain as I've experienced in life, without Christ, it could have been much, much worse.

But as for me, afflicted and in pain— may your salvation, God, protect me. (Psalm 69:29)

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My Joshua Journal – A Weighty Issue

My Joshua Journal – Dropped But Not Forsaken

PD_0004
Me in seventh grade

I returned to my hometown junior high school after a five year absence. There were just over fifty students in my class, so it was easy to get to know everyone again. What was hard was understanding why the girls in particular treated one another so poorly. Like some kind of crazy lottery, a girl was chosen without much rhyme or reason to be "dropped."

Dropping meant that none of the girls would speak to you. You were shunned. Completely. Anyone (including boys) who dared to associate with the dropped girl would also be shunned. The dropped girl ate alone. She walked back to school from having lunch in the cafeteria, followed by a group of girls who mocked and ridiculed her. I watched as girls subjected to this treatment completely fell apart. Then as quickly as the girl had been dropped, she was restored.

It wasn't long after I arrived at school before I took my turn. It's no wonder. I was the "new girl." I wasn't shocked that I had been dropped. But I was devastated by how long I was the favorite social outcast.

I had an okay time of it outside of school. I had a friend I spent time with. But school itself was unbearable. As a psychologist, I have asked myself why my dropping went on so long. I think one reason was that I never buckled. Unlike some other girls who sobbed, begging for it to stop, I never let anyone see me cry. I won't say how long the ordeal lasted so I don't exaggerate. All I know is that it was an eternity for a junior high girl.

I had often prayed and cried out to God for help. Then one night I had a dream that it was over. When I woke up I knew that this was God's answer. The end of this lonely road was in sight. I felt compelled to write a letter of submission to the girl who seemed to be the dropping ringleader. I heard her reading it out loud to some of the other girls. She was clearly shocked. My status was restored within days of my dream.

In high school, the practice of dropping ended. I went on to become vice president of my class and was on the homecoming court. Since graduating from high school, the dropping ring leader seems to be the last person you'd ever expect to be a "mean girl."

In junior high, I felt completely alone, but I wasn't. God was with me and is with me still.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

 

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