I am that girl – – the one who lost a bunch of weight and gained it all back. But the next time I lose 30 pounds, I am definitely going to resist the urge to give away all my fat pants. I lost the weight over the course of a summer, and gained it back, slowly, painfully over the course of the next two years. I left that summer in June and came back at the end of August transformed. I was gee-whiz skinny and a whole new size – – six to be exact (which is REALLY small for me). I even bought one size four skirt just because I could zip it up. The only time I wore it was in the store. It was still worth it. Oh my GOODNESS it felt great.

Everyone wanted to know how I did it. It was like achieving some sort of B-list, suburban celebrity. And I was not shy to share my secrets. The victory was mine! I had finally done it. I told them everything – – sounding as crazy as you might imagine. “I juiced.” “I cut out everything bad.” “I went vegan.” I basically didn’t eat for a few months and wham, bam, thank you Ma’am, I was wispy and lithe and I felt GREAT until I had to figure out how to sustain myself on real food and a normal life. But at the time, my enthusiasm was unstoppable. I was so ecstatic, I just couldn’t help myself. If I were not me, I would have run in the opposite direction when I saw myself coming.

A life-long introvert and ridiculously self-conscious, all of a sudden I felt like going places, meeting people and making an entrance. My chub rub was gone. My pants didn’t tug. My arms didn’t jiggle. I didn’t scoff at shopping. I actually looked forward to finding something to wear each day and I had the pick of my entire closet. For the very first time in my adult life, I felt physically comfortable, even happy, in my own skin. I felt pretty. Even the “popular girls” (imagine at my age, but it’s TRUE) wanted to know what I did.

I was wearing clothes that had not fit for decades, and they flowed and fell around me in loosely-gathered, outdated bliss. I fit into the college Levi’s I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. I cannot possibly minimize how great it felt to be that unaware of my physicality – – to be able to be comfortable in my own skin, relax, and just breathe. It was an “unawareness” that was priceless. I am a pretty physical person anyway, I love to move and sweat and run around, and being able to do that unencumbered was really something else. It was a gift and a treasure and not all of that is vanity speaking. It was the body, I believe, God intended for me to live in, one fit and healthy and “right-sized.” It was a body (if not a little too small at the time) that allowed freedom and ease.

And even though here I am back at square one, I am so grateful I went on that journey and I have not given up hope that I can experience those wonderful feelings of being physically fit, unencumbered and healthy again. Although, if there is a next time, the only way I am going to get there is playing the long game not going for the quick fix – – because losing weight isn’t actually about losing it – – it’s about how to keep it off once it’s gone.

So this isn’t a weight loss blog. Clearly. If it were, I would not be writing it squeezed into my “boyfriend” jeans that fit like skinnies. What it is, is my attempt to address what I think of as a really pivotal issue in my life (again not weight or weight related) that happens
to affect my weight and not so coincidentally every other area of challenge in my life.

So in making weight and body and food the “issues” perhaps I have missed the boat completely. I have been focusing on the wrong things entirely. Because let’s face it, I know how to lose weight. Give me any plate of food and within a matter of seconds I can break it down to the last calorie and carb. Talk about any diet and I can weigh in with an informed opinion. I am a smart girl, and I know SO MUCH about losing weight. But that hasn’t helped me get rid of any of my wrap sweaters or XL sweats. I have every piece of information I need to combat weight. I have every incentive to want to return to comfort and good health. But square one is where I have landed, over and over and over again.

I have been happy to make weight and food and eating my issues. And I have lovingly picked them up, and examined them from every conceivable angle for the vast majority of my life. In fact, these issues get so much of my time and energy and attention it is embarrassing. I don’t want to be that girl. I don’t want to be so invested in how I look and feel…but I have been. I know there is no intrinsic value in any of this. I know these things are superficial. And I am certainly not silly enough to think it matters to anyone else. In fact, in general, women would prefer other women to be a little chunky, rather than svelte…so…”You’re welcome…” But even in the light of all that “understanding,” I have given these topics a vast amount of real estate in my heart, mind and body – – for years. I have read every book, tried every plan, made every commitment to myself and others. I have given weight and food and body-issues a focus of my life that is wildly out of proportion. Kind of like….well… an idol.

But what if weight and food and body issues weren’t my actual issues? What if I have been examining and turning over and investigating all the wrong things all these years? What if dying to self and self-control, not dairy or wheat were actually what I should have been considering? What if my myopic focus on food was part of the problem?

Dying-to-self has such a negative connotation, but what if I really looked at it like offering my brokenness to God in exchange for his redemption? A trade-in – – A trade-up, in fact – – Dying-to-self, as a sort of spiritual impulse control that turns  Door Number #1 with the lama into  Door #3 with the “Brand New Car.” So dying to self is a good thing…not an easy thing, but a thing with the infinite promise, protection and blessing of God.

One of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. I think God calls it self-control, not Spirit-control because He gives me free will as an intrinsic part of my relationship with Him. I don’t HAVE to follow Him, I am not forced to do as He says or else – – I can choose to follow Him, choose obedience, choose time with Him, choose to get to know Him – – or not.

As someone who believes in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – – I believe the Spirit and the flesh both live in me at the same time. And I have a choice – – all the time – – which nature I am going to choose. Am I going to practice deferring to the Spirit or practice “doing what I feel like,” and acquiescing to the flesh… because, let’s face it, not always, but so often, the two conflict. God tells me I can live in the Spirit – – not the flesh – – and it’s like a muscle I can build up over time, one small choice after another. The more I exercise Spirit choices in me, the more I am free; and the more I yield to the flesh, the more I am enslaved. Counterintuitive, yes. But knowing that going in is being armed with the truth.

I think for a long time I thought if I was a “good Christian” I wouldn’t feel like being selfish, or angry or gluttonous or fearful. I wouldn’t feel jealous or worried or resentful… and the list goes on…. But that’s not what God says at all. He talks about “crucifying the flesh”… I don’t know about you, but when I think of crucifixion, I think of struggle. God asks me to die to self. And I don’t think he expects me to do it perfectly or gracefully. But I think he does expect me to do it, because if I can, all those beautiful blessings he promises await on the other side of simple (but not easy) obedience.

I don’t think God wants me to think about it as self-denial – – because in the long run it’s not. I think He wants me to think about it as me moving TOWARD His will for me (which is what I want anyway), not away from my own will. Take food as an example – – it’s so easy. I might want the milk shake now, but I want health and well-being more – – Spiritual impulse control, dying to self, leads me to God’s will, not my own. It’s sacrificing the immediate desire for something greater later.

I love how God puts it in Galatians 5. ¹⁶ So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” And if I am led by the Spirit, then I am God’s not my own. So even if it feels like a war on the inside, that’s o.k. – – Doing the right thing, not feeling like doing the right thing, is the real victory for God and for me. And my hope is that practiced enough, those two roads will merge into accord. I think the reality is that in some areas it will and in others it may be a struggle forever, and that’s o.k. The nice thing is it is never hard to recognize what the right thing is – – God makes that part easy.

Slow-to-anger, Love thy neighbor as yourself, love your enemy….so many of the things God asks of us, have elements that sacrifice doing what I feel like now, for a better result later. I think the options God has for me in this life are always the “easier softer way,” they just don’t always (or really often) appear that way at first. A little “death-to-self” which sounds so macabre, but plays out so incredibly well in the long run is just a part of a life of faith – – it is what transforms life over real-time. And that death-to-self has a whole lot to do with free will.

My husband has been telling the girls since in the past few years to “Do hard things”…. And I have watched their characters transform as they have chosen to do just that – – and for each one of them it’s not a “one-and-done” proposition, it’s a matter of getting up every morning and practicing a discipline and doing that again and again and again – – morning after morning, season after season, enduring pain, exhaustion, injury and fear – – facing doubt and forgoing comfort and doing what they don’t feel doing like to achieve something bigger. (Don’t get me wrong – – they also have fun in the doing of it, the camaraderie, the sense of accomplishment and all the rest…) But much of it is work up-front, reward later. And over the course of years, I have seen their characters transform… The Holy Spirit does the transformation, but I think the girls and all of us open the door to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit with a dynamic and supernatural cocktail of free-will, self-control and a splash of death to self to make choices that perhaps are never comfortable or “popular” in the moment, but reap remarkable rewards later.

Dying to self is an easy concept to fully understand – – but for me, it is also one of those confounding spiritual disciplines that is SO easy to “get” and SO hard to execute. In some areas of my life I do just fine – – in others the struggle to die-to-self is epic…which brings me back to food. You think with all the real life I have had over the years, I could best a little bit of carbonara….but not so…not so far.

It was easy to go on a crash diet that summer and see immediate results. But the results didn’t last and the entire experience has really convinced me I am being called to look at the-whole-food-thing through God’s eyes and not my own. Like all truths, God made the truth about food (for me) simple. And I add “for me” very intentionally as I don’t believe we all have the same relationship with food/body/and physicality. But for me, I really feel as if God is saying, “Eat and enjoy good things, enough but not too much, and good health and a healthy, active body will follow.” And when I eat outside that simple Divine plan – whether it be out of boredom or loneliness or for comfort or distraction – – whether it be too much or too often, or just because it’s good – – I am out of God’s will and I have to deal with consequences that challenge my own notions of being comfortable in my own skin. When I veer too far outside that simple and Divine plan, then food and weight – – not freedom – -become the focus.

The whole act of buying another book or going on another plan, or trying another trick is actually a thinly disguised way of just keeping food on its altar instead of its proper place, far lower on the chain of priorities. I think it’s time to really put this issue in a die-to-self category, and no matter how long it takes, have food resume it’s normal, healthy, God-given place in my life. I am tired (very, very tired) of focusing on food. There is more to life, and certainly God doesn’t want food taking up this much of my time and energy and effort. I think He would probably want me focused more on loving God and loving others…a mission with a priority a little higher up on the list.

Lori McKay is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met. She is one of those quietly magnetic people you get to meet a handful of times in your life. She’s a little hard to explain, but I think it’s mostly that Lori glows with the love of God – – and the supernatural aspect of that is an intangible that defies description – – it’s just something you feel when you are around her. Shortly after I met her, I had the chance to meet her parents and it became instantly clear that glow had started at least a generation earlier, and probably many more. Good stock as they say.

Her parents, the Wilsons, lived in a very small town in Texas and one of the first times we ever visited them, we stayed at their home in Cooper. In that short trip, many years ago, both Mr. and Mrs. Wilson spoke words of truth, so powerful, they have resonated since, always coming to mind when I need them most. Mr. Wilson made a passing remark, that struck me with the kind of force only profound truths can deliver. As we were standing on the tarmac to leave, he leaned in over the noise of the planes and said, “People think being a Christian is easy. And that’s partly true. Becoming a Christian is easy, Christ himself already did the work. But following Christ, well that can be really hard.”

I loved him for saying that. It made me feel – – even then – – that I wasn’t doing it wrong, that it was a legitimately hard journey that demanded more of me than I often wanted to give. And now, fifteen years later, when I know so much more about who God is and how much I can trust Him, it informs my journey in an even deeper way. I have been having my way for a long time, in a lot of areas. Perhaps it is time for me to live the hard part of the Christian life in the areas I have tried to keep for myself. Sometimes God speaks through others, and in sharing what Mr. Wilson did with me, I saw in him a real understanding of “where I am weak, He is strong.” And when I get to the point where I am finally and truly willing to submit to Him, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy, and I have to remember that that doesn’t mean I am doing it wrong. Willingness is an action, not an attitude. One small decision after another, day after day, faithful to the idea that God’s way is better than my own- – long obedience in the same direction – – and like Mr. Wilson predicted, “that can be really hard.”

That journey, one decision at a time isn’t perfect, and sometimes it moves forward, and other times back. But there is no condemnation in Christ as I go through this journey – – only love and encouragement. It’s a come-to-Me, invitation, not a game of right or wrong. I am committed to practicing the real deal and not taking short cuts only focused on getting “fast results.” Fast results are my way, not God’s. The issue isn’t food, it’s dying to self. The issue isn’t relationship it’s dying to self. The issue isn’t patience, it’s dying to self. The issue isn’t submission, it’s dying to self. The issue isn’t fill-in-the-blank…..the issue is dying to self – – not doing it the same old way and just because I believe in God, expecting different results – – it’s actually about doing it God’s way and seeing where that leads. That’s faith – – acting my way into right thinking rather than trying to think my way into right action…

The issue is NEVER the issue, the issue is dying to self. With food dying to self looks like self-control – – but self-control rarely looks like something extreme. In fact, played out by the Spirit of God, self-control looks a lot like balance – – rather than deprivation. It’s God’s Spirit who loves me and wants the best for me. Why would that look extreme or painful or punitive? God loves me. Actually. So when His Spirit works through me, it looks natural, as if I am doing what I was designed to do.

Dying to self in all things, demands that I give first, with no expectation of return from the world or those in it. Dying to self is the craziest part of Christianity – – it’s the Iron Man Triathlon of all things physical, relational and otherwise. Dying to self might sound sacrificial, but it is not. Because God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways are not my ways — – doing things God’s way will feel counterintuitive – – it will feel like dying to self – – but in that act, comes relief, a new way, and transformation. Dying to self is moving toward God. Dying to self is a good thing. It’s God’s “eat your broccoli,” and there is ALWAYS blessing after that kind of obedience. And every time I do it, I have been amazed at the results, and so grateful for a God who can see so much further down the road than the next bite, or the next choice or the rest of my life.

Mr. Wilson said, “Being a Christian is not easy,” and I believe him. Living a life following Christ is not easy. But dying to self leads to living in alignment with God’s will which will take me someplace I could never manufacture on my own. And what better destination than the Divine?