Eva Liebich
This is a new one. I’ve prayed that God would make me skinny. A lot. I’ve prayed that God would make me lose my sugar addiction; that my tastebuds would suddenly change and all junk food would taste like cardboard spitballs.
God even had the perfect chance to grant that request when I contracted covid almost a year ago. I lost my smell and taste for about two weeks. I could tell if food was salty or sweet, but not taste individual flavors. If I ate dessert, it tasted dully sweet, but I couldn’t tell the difference between a Reese’s peanut butter cup, or a marshmallow. It was bizarre.
God could have made my tastebud change permanent, and I may have lost my taste for sweets altogether. Instead, my smell and taste returned and I learned the definition of the word “phantosmia” because I constantly smelled cigarette smoke for the next three months, and to this day, farts still smell like raw hamburger.
Thanks God. Good joke.
I prayed for strength to beat my overeating problem. I bargained, hoped, trusted, got angry, complained; all of that. For years. I didn’t understand why God answered other prayers, but on this He went MIA.
For most of my adolescent and adult life thus far, I believed that if only I could be thin then I would be happy. My life would be complete. It’s not that I wasn’t happy.. I love my husband and the family we’ve built, I have wonderful, supportive family and friends, I love my home, and enjoy mostly stable finances. But this small part of me always felt that I couldn’t be completely, wholly, truly happy unless this thorn of mine was gone.
Being thin was the elusive, mouth watering cherry on top.
Recently I was taking an early morning walk which is my most productive God time- long before the sun and my kids are up; before cars emerge from garages, and the rat race begins. I had this thought that actually surprised my own brain and I paused so I could reflect on that thought some more. The thought was, “God, it’s okay if I’m fat.”
Not only did I surprise myself by thinking that, but there was a sudden indwelling of so much peace around it- almost like a confirmation from God as if He were saying, “Now you’re getting it!” All along what He’s been patiently trying to teach me is that being thin won’t make me happy. That aching longing inside me that thought being thin would finally make me acceptable and worthy was a delusion, because the only thing that can fill that longing to be significant, noticeable, and admirable is Jesus.
Once I learned and actually believed that I already am significant to Jesus, Jesus already notices me, and Jesus already admires me, my perspective began to shift. Who cares what anyone else thinks? Who’s opinion of me matters more than Jesus? And no matter what I’ve said or done, Jesus’ opinion of me will always be the same. “I love you.”
I began to see that I am enough the way I am. That I am loved the way I am, and that God is using me to do great things right now. Not when I lose fifty pounds, not when I get my ducks in a row and my life all figured out. Right now.
Of course, this doesn’t give me a free pass to go crazy and live off of Dr. Pepper and Doritos. God expects me to be wise and take care of the body He has given me. Satan knows I tend to get out of balance in this area and he delightfully uses my weakness against me. It’s a delicate balance between exercising for my body’s benefit and that alone time with God, or exercising because the old whispers are coming back, telling me that I have to lose weight to be acceptable. It’s a delicate balance between feeling my body tell me that I’m getting out of bounds and treating myself a little too much, and falling into guilt and condemnation for what and how much I eat.
Something really cool happened today. See, I have this irritating habit of thinking that once I’ve learned something, I should be able to move on and that old thing will never bother me again. So every time I read a book, listened to a podcast, or received a word from God about my struggle with body negativity and food issues, I thought that was it. The struggle is now over because this new thing that I have learned. Then I get knocked down and am reeling because that old struggle came right back and I shouldn’t be having this issue still.
Today, a few days after I told God, “it’s okay if I’m fat. It’s okay if you don’t make me skinny,” I shouldn’t have been having those old feelings of shame and inferiority, right? It should be done. I’m all better because I had a revelation. That was not the case. Today as I walked into church, got my cup of coffee, chatted with friends, and checked my kids into the children’s ministry, a big wave of unease hit me.
The feeling that I should be embarrassed and ashamed of myself for how I look and who I am. The feeling that people are thinking badly of me. The feeling that I shouldn’t be here, I don’t deserve to be here, and I need to hide.
The fact that it came on quickly and out of nowhere told me that it was spiritual warfare coming over my mind. I knew that getting into the worship center and singing God’s praise would help, and it did, but some of the raw wounds remained.
Then during the sermon, our pastor made a reference to something I had said to him the week before. At that moment I was the coolest person in the room. The pixelated, 8-bit sunglasses from all the memes slowly descended from the ceiling to rest on my face because I was a bad a$$. Something I said made it into a sermon!
It was like God’s wink to me. “See? You’re not inferior. See? Your words matter, and you matter. You are important.” I could barely choke through the last worship song because the lump in my throat was too big.
When the devil tries to steal our joy and confidence, God is always showing us that we matter to Him. We are important to Him. So important that He would sacrifice His beloved son in order for us to be reconnected to Him.
The devil will never stop trying to drag us back into old habits, patterns, and weaknesses because that is where he keeps his grip on us, keeping us far away from Jesus, and keeping our light dimmed, un-noticeable to the people that need that light.
When those destructive habits tempt us again and again, it doesn’t mean we don’t have the victory. It means we’re getting free from them and the devil is desperate to not let you go.
Maybe that’s part of what Paul meant when he talked about his thorn in 2 Corinthians.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:8-10
If I were perfect and never struggled with anything, I wouldn’t need Jesus. If I didn’t need Jesus, I would not believe in Him or have a relationship with Him. And if that were true, then I would miss out on living in His sweet victory, receiving His rich blessings, and would not be saved. So when I think of it that way, it’s easy for me to say, “God, it’s okay if I’m fat.”
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