Ryanne I had a rough time growing up myself, but nothing like what you had. Never sexual. The person who abused me more emotionally than anything else, today is saved and we have a beautiful relationship in Christ Jesus. No one should have to go through any of those things especially what you did. The devil is so mean and our precious Father God is so Good. I am so glad that God brought you out of those situations and you are such a precious person inspite of it all. I think it is so wonderful how God loves us so much that He brings us through such bad situations and some how turns our life into something absolutely beautiful in Christ. I pray God will always bless you with good things, girl.

Ryanne I understand what are saying. I can't say I know totally you're feelings except from my own situation. When I learned all the person had experienced and the hurts and fears they had gone through, I found it easy to forgive. I also learned that there wasn't anyone that I knew that I would want to go to ****. I have no enemy I would wish that on. So I rejoice with you because of how the Lord has and probably continues to heal you and use you at the same time. God is so Good. And I pray with you that your Dad will accept the Lord before he leaves this world.

Our dearest sweet beautiful Ryann, we so don't feel sorry for you, we feel AMAZED and blessed by you!!!! Look at what God has done! Your Insides are so much prettier than Angelina Jolie's outside is. I bet the angels are amazed at your beauty (I believe they can see the real beauty of us, our spirit). Thank you so very much for sharing with us, it just shows what our wonderful God can for a precious child that could have been so broken. THANK YOU JESUS!!!!

Trish, your beautiful insights so bless me! I would one day like to share this study with people at my church, but I want you all to come with me, because you are so amazing.

Bootsie, you shared how you were hurt as a child also, it's pretty obvious that when we overeat, diet, etc... any addiction really it's from pain.

Like Trish said at the beginning, it's time we stopped letting ourselves be hurt, we are not victims, we are Victorious Warriors of the ALMIGHTY GOD of HEAVEN and EARTH!!! WOOHOO

Week 1 Day 4
Do You Want to Be Healed?
Day ___________________________ Date ___________________________

Do you want to be healed? It’s a simple question, and the one Jesus asked of almost every person He healed. So I am asking you to carefully consider this question, DO— YOU—WANT—TO—BE—HEALED? Yes or No

If your answer is no, read through this day then I’ll ask again. If your answer is yes, you need to make the commitment right now, not the commitment to go on another diet, but to change the way you have been thinking for years.

I want to tell you a story that may help you understand why you need to make this commitment. It is a true story about a dear friend of mine. I love my friend but at a young age, she started an unhealthy relationship with an abuser. This abuser was a bully and had no mercy; she would put her down at every turn. The bully would say, “You are stupid you only have a seventh grade education, you’re a loser, you will never lose weight, and you have tried dieting so many times and have never been successful. Your fine for two or three weeks, then you run out of gas, what makes you think this time is different”?

She would make rude comments on the way my friend looked. She would say, “You have huge pores in your nose and a big white, blubbery, pasty, stomach.” She would constantly tell her she was ugly, every single time she caught sight of her she would tell her she was repulsive. It was brutal, and constant, every time my friend had a success the bully would knock her down. Every time my friend was in a social situation, the bully would point out all her faults. She would tell the other people at the party that my friend was fat.

I think the bully in her own sick way was trying to protect my friend, because she would tell my friend “they won’t accept you if you don’t show them you know your not as good as they are, If I build them up by putting you down they might like you.” Then when my friend and the bully were alone, she would berate her for all the stupid things she said at the party.

People who were close to my friend would try to tell her the bully was wrong, but my friend didn’t believe anything good about herself. She had listened to the bully to long. The bully drove her to the brink of suicide. She tried to kill herself three times but thank God, she wasn’t successful.

Do you think my friend could ever be successful as long as she continued the relationship with the bully? ________Why or why not ______________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

No matter how much self-esteem you have if you are constantly told you are bad, you start to believe it. What do you think happened to my friend in the end? __________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

If you haven’t already guessed, I am my friend and I was also the bully. The way I used to talk to myself was horrifying. You cannot succeed; let me say that again YOU ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT SUCCEED UNTIL YOU GET OUT OF THE HABIT OF VERBAL SELF ABUSE. You may as well quit now if you can’t make the commitment to break this habit. Would you talk to your child the way you talk to yourself? It’s time to stop this destructive habit. I can’t stress how important it is for you to end this.

You’re probably thinking, “I can’t stop, I have been doing it too long.” If you try, God will bless it I promise. This is how you do it, you look at yourself in the mirror and if your alone say it out loud, if not, in your mind, “God made me beautiful, I am beautifully and wonderfully made, I am the temple of the Holy Spirit, my steps are ordered by God. God only sees the good in me. I am well able to fulfill the destiny God has planned for my life, look at how good I look, the best is yet to come, look at me, you good looking thing you. God is pleased with me. I am a good friend; I am a wonderful Christian because if not, God would not have chosen me. I try my hardest all the time. God is perfecting me every day. He is well able to give me all I can ask or imagine because He loves me. Everything that God allows in my life is good”… I mean you need to go on and on.

Everyone has a conversation going on in his or her heads at all times (your internal dialog). Your subconscious mind records everything people say to you and what you say to yourself, literally, and records it for later use. If you don't get anything else from this study, take this truth. It is so important.

What are some of the things you say to yourself that are not productive? ________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Okay, I hope you got that out of your system, because that is the last time you will ever, ever, ever, say those things to yourself.

It’s dark and sad and no place for a Christian, It’s not arrogant to talk to you in a nice way. Is it a sin to abuse your child verbally? ___________________ is it a sin to verbally abuse your spouse? ____________ You know it’s a sin and a crime to abuse another person verbally. What makes you think God says it’s OK to abuse yourself? You listen to your internal dialog more than you listen to anybody else. You take yourself everywhere you go. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I’m not talking about being egotistical, I’m not talking to the person who thinks they are better than others are, that is a whole other issue, and I am not telling you, you are better than others I am telling you, you are just as wonderful, special and blessed as anyone.
Read I Corinthians 3:17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

Some of the definitions of Defile are: To profane or sully, to demean the pureness or excellence.

What are you doing to the temple God gave you when you abuse yourself? ______________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
I was demeaning the beautiful gift God made for me with His own hands. I was so ungrateful. Finish the blanks from the scripture above

I Corinthians 3:17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, _____________________________
For the temple of God is holy, which temple ____________________.

We are not immune to Gods discipline, no wonder my body was falling apart, I was treating it with such distain. Look through all the red text in your New Testament; did Jesus ever, ever put Himself down?

You need to be a caregiver to your self, not a bully. You need to make the commitment to changing the way you talk to yourself, and how you treat yourself. Nurture yourself; look at yourself the way God looks at you. Nurture yourself with Gods words of love to you.

Read Song of Solomon 2:8-14 The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes leaping upon the mountains, Skipping upon the hills. 9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.*Behold, he stands behind our wall; He is looking through the windows,*Gazing through the lattice. 10 My beloved spoke, and said to me:

“ Rise up, my love, my fair one,*And come away. 11 For lo, the winter is past, The rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth; The time of singing has come, And the voice of the turtledove*Is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree puts forth her green figs,*And the vines with the tender grapes Give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one, And come away!
14 “ O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, In the secret places of the cliff, Let me see your face, Let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, *And your face is lovely.”

When you get a chance, read the Song of Solomon, It's a beautiful love song to us from God. It illustrates how God sees us, and how much He loves us, His bride. I was saved for thirty years before I could read this book, because I just couldn’t see myself the way God sees me.
Now I am going to ask you again, the question I asked before…
DO— YOU—WANT—TO—BE—HEALED? Yes or No

If your answer is no, don’t give up, please… just try telling yourself your wonderful. You may feel like you’re lying to yourself, but your not, you’re telling yourself the truth. Pray that God will show you the truth. I admit it was hard to look at myself in the mirror at first. It was even hard look at myself in the eyes, I felt humiliated and weird. For so long I believed I was inferior, it was the place I fit into the world, and it was my identity. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was how I manipulated people into liking me. It was a very unhappy place to be.

Just try it! You will be so surprised at how fast this habit goes away. At first, it is uncomfortable, but after you are finished encouraging yourself in the mirror you feel wonderful, happy, and light, you will be amazed. It only took two or three days for me to stop putting myself down. I had always known it was bad to put myself down, I was always going to stop the self-abuse, but I didn’t know how to do it. I always failed because I didn’t realize how destructive it was, but now I understand, you cannot succeed if you don’t stop self-abusing and start encouraging.

If your answer is yes! Hallelujah! Praise God lets go… Don’t be resistant to the mirror exercise and commit yourself to the healing.

Read Psalm 8
In light of today’s study, what was the scripture or statement in today’s lesson that most spoke to your heart? __________________________________________________ ________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

What steps of faith does God want you to take towards Him today? ____________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

Rephrase the scripture or statement into an expression of faith_________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________

Isaiah 55:9 For as the _________ are ****_______ than the ______, so are My _____ _______ than _______ ways, _____ My ________ than your __________.

Good Morning Everyone,

We talked yesterday about being abused as children. But I must say that I have been the worse abuser of myself over the years. I came to the place that I felt absolutely repulsive when I looked at myself in the mirror. I shared about telling Tony that I didn't even like our names in the church bulletin as head of the enternet prayer ministry. Is it a form of pride? No I see it as such disgust with my looks that I can't see my good points. I know that the real me that is on the inside of this body is a beautiful person, but she seems trapped in this "ugly" flesh of fat.

I battle this bully all the time, but you know when I start confessing what God says about me. I don't feel so ugly. I always dress nice and look as good on the outside as possible. I heard a woman years ago say, "I may have to be fat, but I don't have to be sloppy". I kind of took on that philosophy. But dressing up on the outside, does not get rid of the bully. I have found that the only thing that does that is God's Word.

We or at least I have to continually remind myself that I am God's daughter and that He loves me just like I am. I just have to learn to love myself. Jesus gave to commandments 1. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strengthe. and 2 Love your neighbor as your self". A few years ago after reading this scripture, I told the Lord "Father, I would have to learn to love myself before I could love my neighbor like I should. I don't love me, Lord. I hate me."

I began to ask Him to help me love myself. Loving me is taking care of my health. It is a process and I'm not there yet. But then growing spiritually is a process. We are "God's workmanship". He is doing the work in us. That is why he has brought us together.

Well, I've got to run. BSF this morning. Catch you later. Y'all have a great day.

I woke up late again today, I am running, but I want you to know you both made me cry, in a good way...

I love you so much, and am so glad we are here.

We need to pray hard for bootsie today, I don't know if you have seen her posts on the Encourager's thread, but she can't even get on this thread (Born again encouragers!!!) At first she could just post small posts, now she can't even see the thread!!

I know God wants her here and Satan doesn't.

Well I gotta run!

Love, Kelli

Hello, Ladies!

When I am at work all I want to to is get home and read these posts, they are such a blessing and I am gaining so much more than I did when I just went through the study. I really believe studying the Bible in a group like this is really very helpful. God will show one person this and another that, and I just sit back and get so blessed!!

Trish when you shared this before, I knew we were coming up on this lesson, so I didn't want to say anything then, but you are so beautiful. Your spirit, the eternal part of you is so precious. I know how it feels to feel repulsed by myself, and we don't deserve it. Instead of abusing others (like our abusers did) we abuse ourselves... and just like Ryann, or Bootsie or you or me didn't deserve to be abused by our abuser's we don't deserve the abuse we heap on ourselves. I still struggle with it sometimes.

I have to tell you all, when I read these posts, Yours Trish, Ryann's (and when she can get on,) Bootsies, I cry, I laugh, I get goosebumps (I call them Holy Ghost Bumps). It just blesses me all day long.


This is what Hit me hard today, that is so true, I am so impatient for this medicine to work, I want it yesterday. The time it takes to work is actually such a treasure because all the wonderful things you learn from the healing.

I beat myself up for overeating or wanting something, then Jesus reminds me, it's a process that takes time sometimes. He never told the sick people He healed that "As long as you "be good" your healing will be in effect" (or affect, I never know which one to use ) . "But as soon as you make a mistake you will no longer be healed".

I believe I am healed, and I believe that naturally thin people have days when they overeat too. SO I WILL BE NICE TO MYSELF. Can you tell I overate today, we had a safety luncheon today at work to celebrate 700,000 safe work hours. This morning I had a small pumpkin sweet roll, and for lunch we had Chicken Fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, ice cream... anyway I overdid it a little... BUT I WILL TRUST GOD AND LEAVE IT UP TO HIM and not OBSESS!!!

I love you all, talk to you later.
Love, Kelli

It has let me on to post! I hope I don't loose y'all posting. I have had a BAD DAY! I have not been able to say anything right, write anything right, I just hate myself right now.

I must tell you I have quit another Bible study to do this Bible Study with y'all because I did not feel I could do both. I have the feeling the last few days not being able to post and share my heart with y'all, God was telling me I made the wrong choice, but I think it is Satan working on me, trying to run me off, for when y'all started praying for me , well here I am , what can I say but this is where I belong. Thank you for the prayers!

Today's study seems to really hit home with me today. I wish I could just slap myself silly for not keeping in touch with my friends, even if I never hear from them! I really hate myself right now and yes I come down on myself harder than anyone else because i expect more out of myself.
Well best go and get to work and tell my friends from the past Hello and I love them!

BOOOOOOTSSSSSIIIIII!!!! Why are you being so mean to our friend? You have so much to do on your farm and at your store, you are too hard on yourself! Stop it!

Why was your day so bad? What happened? Please don't say you hate yourself. You can be mad at yourself, you can even say you made a mistake, but Please don't say you hate yourself. You don't deserve that! God doesn't want you to do that. EVERYBODY has a bad day or a day where thay can't say or do anything right, but that's the difference, between a healthy soul and a hurt soul. The healthy soul can acknowledge they made a mistake, they take that pain into themselves then turn around and relase it to God, knowing He forgives them because they are human and not God.

The hurting soul takes it in and absorbs the pain, but then the pain goes all around there brain bouncing all over the place causing more damage.

I think your right about needing to be here, because most of the study deals with self esteem issues, and you need to get some Jesusteem girl. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. I absolutly love it when you tell us about how you chase cyotes with a stick. It makes me feel like I am watching the funniest sitcom!

You said
Well you can't slap yourself silly, because it's too late, your already silly for saying those things about yourself. Your friends, if they are in tune with you and Jesus. They know how extremely busy you are with your farm and your store...

We love you Bootsie, and you belong here!!!

Awe Bootsie I don't know what happened with you, but please don't be so hard on yourself. I also believe that you belong here. As for your Bible Study you quit, we all make those mistakes. I started BSF last year and quit because of a lot of things that were going on at the time. Later I wished I had continued going, because nothing that was the problem when I quit got solved by me quiting. But that is behind me now. I decided to go this year and made a commitment to me and to the Lord that I will finish it. I got throught week 9 on the Diet Bible Study and had planned to stop and pick up lesson 10 next summer when BSF started and had put all my materials away. Then y'all decided to start this thread. I knew I needed to be a part of this. Kellie said I didn't have to do the lessons over since I was doing the other study, but I felt I needed to go along with y'all. I only go over the lessons to see what I did before. What I'm finding is that here 2 months later, I am seeing things a little differently than I did back then. I say that to say that you are where you belong. If you missed it with the other class, God will make a way for you to do that as well. If He doesn't, don't beat yourself up because He has another plan. Be good to yourself. And stick around. I sure missed you and prayed you would be able to post here. You are such a blessing and I too enjoy you sharing your animal stories. You are sooooo special to all of us here and I would hate for us to lose you.

Kellie It is true that thin people have days they eat more than others. I watched this with Tony's daughter. There are days she eats a lot especially if she goes out to eat or to a special occasion. And then there are times she hardly eats anything. I think she is like I was when I was thin, food just doesn't hold a special interest to her. Oh to have that attitude again. Thanks again for sharing so much with us and letting me see that I am not alone. We have all had the same feelings.

Ryanne Thanks for sharing the Joyce Meyer things. I love her and have most of her books and some of her tapes, cds and dvds. You have given me lots to think about, girl. Thanks for reminding me of some things that I have let slip and need to get back to. I appreciate you.

I have felt like I was getting no where with my eating. Not losing any weight yet. Today I ate breakfast earlier because of BSF meeting. Got home and was hungry and ate an apple because I knew Tony would be up soon and hungry. Didn't feel really good physically at meeting and by the time he was up and ready to eat, I was really feeling weak. Once I ate, I was fine. I've been experiencing that a bit lately especially when I go way too long without eating. I'm not hungry for a long time and then when it hits me I am weak until I eat. Strange thing is that once I ate dinner, I was fine. Just kind of snacked a little the rest of the day as needed and all was fine. The thing is though that I'm not hungry much and have no cravings which is a real blessing to me.

It is late. So I'm going to bed. Catch y'all tomorrow.