Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryanne

Romans 7:4-25 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

I want to comment on this part for right now, since God gave me an ephiphany on this just this morning. Then I want to get out for a walk. When husband is off to work, I will do the rest of the study.
I remember a few years ago when I had some revelation on this, as the Spirit grows stronger, the flesh gets weaker. My spirit is the "Real Me".
Well, I remember the feeling that I had that "He must increase and I must decrease". I had a root of rejection, so I thought that what that meant is that God didn't want me, even in my own body. I was sad, but I said "okay". I tried for a while, to do the things that I "thought" God would want, saying always, it is about Jesus, not about me. I was sad, but I knew that it was right. And I tried, then feeling rejected, I didn't stop loving God or anything, but I did go on a huge downward spiral after a huge spiritual high.
Anyway, God has been impressing to me that it is me WITH Christ, In Him...etc. Well, I am fasting snacking between meals for thirty days, to break the habit of it. This morning, I decided early that I will eat when I am hungry and fast snacking today and was asking God to help me.
When all of a sudden He showed me...."My spirit is the REAL ME! I was thinking my flesh was me and feeling sorry for myself in a way....feeling deprived, but what it is is the flesh feeling sorry for itself, because the flesh is NOT the "Real Me", it is the "godless human nature". The real me is my spirit, that is ME WITH CHRIST, ME IN CHRIST and HIM IN ME. God wants me with HIM. I am NOT rejected! God wants me with HIM. So we are in a war...spirit vs. flesh...and the way to win is to let our spirit be OVER our flesh and remember that is the real "US"... the flesh is just godless human nature.

Good Morning!

God is so Good! The part of the lesson that spoke to me the most this morning was the same one that spoke to Ryann, even Paul had struggles. You think of him as the Strong apostle, but even he had struggles he had to give to God. When He says: "Wretchen man that I am, who will save me from this body of death, then he remembers... Oh yeah Thank God, it's not up to me". I will remember today, my weight loss is not up to me, it's up to Jesus.

Ryann Said
Ryann, this is so cool! It's funny God showed me the same thing about the flesh shrinking and the spirit growing, and I also had a root of rejection. You will find many of the lessons in this study deals with this especially the later ones (it took God awhile to show me this).

It's hard to rip the flesh off of our hearts, it's an emotional battle, but then Jesus gives us such precious jewels such as your ephiphany in the midst of them and when you look back you realize you were so close to Jesus during those times of fasting. I will be praying for your fast! (You may want to read ahead, to Week 12 day 2, Fasting to Feast and Week 10 day 1, The Circumcised Heart, if you are fasting)

Whoohoo, let's GO, I'm READY!!!

Have a wonderful day!

Love, Kelli

Trust God and soon you will learn how much food you should take, so you won’t waste as much. Don’t worry God doesn’t mind if you waste a little until you learn how much it takes to make you full. I know this because there are many instances in the Bible where God tells His children to destroy all the booty left after a battle. I am sure it seemed wasteful to them but was necessary to preserve the purity of Gods children, it’s the same with us. It’s more important we keep ourselves from the destruction of our bodies.

Girls I am sorry but I cannot eat everything my taste buds like, that is all that is to that. If I eat sweets I have what I call a sweet tooth hang-over, sick as a dog, the next day! If I eat hot peppers like my Mom and granddaughter does then my belly burns! If I eat macaroni, it seems to stick to my hindquarters like glue! Also I have found that sugar, macaroni , seem to give me water gain, and blow up my belly like a balloon. So I have to beware of those foods ! I truly believe if Jesus wanted me to be able to eat these foods I would not have these conditions. So I am sticking to what I have to stick to; in order to not destroy my body.

The Lord is more real today than he was in my life 10 years ago and I thought then I could not love him any more but I do. Gluttony is a spiritual problem I do have but day by day I am conquering it and gaining control over it with Jesus guiding my steps to take. Everyone have a great day!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bootsie

Girls I am sorry but I cannot eat everything my taste buds like, that is all that is to that. If I eat sweets I have what I call a sweet tooth hang-over, sick as a dog, the next day! If I eat hot peppers like my Mom and granddaughter does then my belly burns! If I eat macaroni, it seems to stick to my hindquarters like glue! Also I have found that sugar, macaroni , seem to give me water gain, and blow up my belly like a balloon. So I have to beware of those foods ! I truly believe if Jesus wanted me to be able to eat these foods I would not have these conditions. So I am sticking to what I have to stick to; in order to not destroy my body.

Bootsie, I agree with you. I don't eat certain things either. What you eat and what you drink is for your body's benefit and to the glory of God. I have to avoid saturated fats, too much salt and too much sugar, I am believing God that I am healed, but I am on medication for hypothyroidism, high blood pressure, high triglycerides and high bad cholesterol, my good cholesterol is too low. I also take an antidepressant for anxiety disorder. So I know what I should and shouldn't eat. I also believe that the quality of foods has deteriorated in the last hundred years and that our ancestors did not have to deal with chemicals and bovine growth hormone and antibiotics and pesticides in their foods. I am careful about things like that. I believe what I eat is for the glory of God, I do this for me and my family, I believe that Kelly will eat what is on her heart to eat, Trish will eat the way God would have her eat and Bootsie, you eat the foods God put on your heart. I avoid alcohol to the glory of God, but some people drink wine to the glory of God. I believe all foods are clean, cuz that it what Jesus said, and all things are "legal" for us to do, but not all things are "helpful". I have bowel problems, so I need to know what things can help or hurt me, too. I know that I cannot tolerate caffeine or artificial sweeteners...(Thanks alot diet soda all week!!! I am paying for it today!!! I had quite forgotten what they do to me!) Bootsie, You do what you feel is right for you. That is not what the study is really about. Yes there are dietary things in the study, but just as I said before, I don't believe that what we eat or drink is one size fits all...I believe that God has a specific plan for each of us. Your sugar busters is good if that is what God is showing you. I read that book a long time ago and there is a lot of sound advice there. I still have to avoid too much sugar. In fact, the Bible warns us to not "eat too much honey" which is sweets! So YOU GO GIRL!!! I love you, Bootsie!

Howdy!

Hey Bootsie and everyone else... I Just want you to know when I wrote the "Diet" portion of this study, ten years ago, and I wrote it when I thought it was just for my foster daughter Mylissa and me (she was a teenager) This is the diet I felt God wanted for me and Mylissa, but you do what God tells you to do. So I hope you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are a lot of good scriptures in here, and unless it is something that is just goes against the Bible (which I would really hope someone would bring to my attention!!!) then just skip over it if it doesn't apply to you .

I think the whole point is to not use the weighing and counting and everything else that goes into dieting as a distraction from your real pain. That pain needs to be addressed with Jesus. I know the pain I was trying to avoid with the whole process of dieting was the feeling that I just wasn't quite as good as the rest of the people on earth. Like Ryanne I had felt rejected by God, because I hated myself so much. I used dieting, measuring, weighing, nonfat everything.... all the stuff that goes with dieting as a distraction so that it would be at the front of my brain and not the pain that was just to hurtful to deal with. My being overweight was less painful than feeling like I had to try twice as hard to be half as good as everyone else.


This is good you do it the way God tells you!!! Someday I will fix the Study to say that I just seem to be soooo busy, I'm sorry...

Well got to go eat dinner! Homemade hamburger soup with homemade noodles... YUM!

Hi Ladies,

I came in here with some ideas earlier and Hubby's pc messed up and I had to come off line. So now I can't remember all I was going to say but will try.
I won't make quotes this time since it is late.

I do not bring certain foods into the house that I cannot handle. However, as of late I have noticed that when I do eat some of those foods that they just do not taste the same. I realized yesterday that I actually eat pretty much along the lines of Sugar Busters. That is why I asked Bootsie about it. It is strange that Tony likes chips so we buy them for him, but they do not hold an interest to me any more. There was I time I could eat a whole big bag in one sitting all by myself. Ate a piece of white bread a few weeks ago and it was terrible. Ate a hamburger at McDonald and couldn't stand the taste of white bun. So tastes do change. I believe God is changing my tastes.

I used to say Psalm 103:5 as a confessed prayer making it personal, don't remember the translation "He satisfies my mouth with good things so that my youth is renewed like the eagle". I did this believing God would change my desires to good foods rather than junk. I honestly believe it is working.

I wanted to say something I thought of concerning something Ryanne said. It goes along with what I saw in the first scripture on the lesson. Romans 7 when Paul says "but I am carnal". See I knew I was to re-read these lessons and do them with y'all because what stood out to me today was not what spoke to me when I did the lesson in August. This hit me because of the Sunday night study at church goes with it.

Before we were born again, we were carnal. We did everything to please our worldly, flesh desires. When we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit came in to live in us. Of course, I know you know this. What hit me is this. When we are born again, we become a new creation... a child of God. But we are babies and Paul told the Corinthians that they were carnal Christians who should have been eating meat, but he could only feed them milk. They were saved, but had not grown spiritually still acted like they did before they were born again. We are all growing at different levels in different areas. I don't think we ever dreamed that God wanted to teach us how to feed our bodies. What brought me to the the fact that He wanted to do this is when I realized that I was not supposed to live like the world or seek advice from it for my spiritual life so then I wondered why I did this with diets.

The goal of my Pastor in our church is for us to learn God's Way of doing things. Pastor drew a heart on the board Sunday night and wrote Holy Spirit in it. Then he showed how there are areas in our hearts that needed to be changed so the Spirit can fill those areas, but that we have to ask the Holy Spirit to change us and give those areas of our heart to Him, because God never forces us. As we give Him control and surrender those areas to Him, then He begins the work that needs to be done to change us. I believe that I have used food to fill that area instead of letting the Lord have that place. For one thing I thought "I" had to do it all, I didn't know He wanted to be Lord over the area of deciding what I eat.

We are His workmanship and He has brought each one of us all together because He has been preparing us for this time. If we will be faithful to trust him and give Him control while doing what He shows us to do, we will succeed. However, this time when we succeed it will be a sweet success, because we will get to our normal weight and stay there because this time we will have done it God's Way and He will be glorified through the testimony we will have of what He did for us and through us.

Till tomorrow. Good night.

Wow! Trish, amen! That's exactly what I was doing with my dieting, filling that place in my heart. I also thought I wanted it so much for some reason I thought is was selfish to ask God to help me with it. But that's what He want's isn't it... Total surrender.

Thank you...

Exposing Strange Doctrines

We have a tendency to rely on the so-called dieting experts, and God is the last place we go for diet advice. We pray and ask God for help in following the diet of the week, but why? If you think about it, God is the one who formed our bodies, and spoke the world into existence. Don’t you think it’s time we discover what the only true authority has to say about it?

Read Hebrews 13:8-9 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.
Answer the following questions:
• Who is the same yesterday, today, and always? __________

• What do you think established by grace means? ______________________________
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The dictionary defines establish as 1: to institute permanently, 2: to put upon a firm basis.
Grace is defined as 1: unmerited help given to people by God (as in overcoming temptation) 2: freedom from sin by divine Grace.

Remember in the last study we read, Mark 7: 18 –23 So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” 20And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

• Do you think if God was going to change the food and make certain foods like fat, sugar, and breads unclean for the modern world, He would have left it out of the Bible? _________

Remember God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

List all the diets you can remember being on.
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(Use more paper if needed)

Do you remember each of these diets and their premise? Was it a counting calories, food exchanges, eating more fat, eating less fat, eating more carbohydrates or eating less? Was it eating a little or eating a lot? Was it eating only certain foods at certain times of the day? Drinking a lot of water with your food, or don’t drink water with your food, eat all protein. No! That will make you sick and you could die, but he was a doctor!?

It’s exhausting, each of these experts claimed to have the truth and the only truth. Most of them claiming the reason all the others had failed was because you were not counting calories or you needed food exchanges or you needed to eat more carbohydrates, or you’re eating too many carbohydrates and not enough fat, and so on and so on…

Read the previous scripture again: Hebrews 13:8-9 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

Doctrine simply means "Something that is taught". When you think about your dieting history, does it seem as if you were being carried away by strange doctrines? _____________

Most diets focus on food; this creates a strong love and desire for it because it’s the focal point. The Bible says, “We do not profit by being occupied with foods, but it’s good for the heart to be established by grace.” By focusing on God and His love, we are established by grace, not what we can or cannot eat.

We have been working on the wrong problem when we diet, because we are trying to change the food we normally eat. We go to a whole lot of trouble, making ourselves different meals than our families, weighing it and counting the calories, etc. The whole time we are focusing on the food. We need to recognize the real problem. The food can’t be responsible for your weight. We don’t need to change the food we need change our hearts, our attitude.

Let’s say you do lose weight on one of these methods, you will still have the anxiety you have always had about your weight, but instead of worrying about being overweight, you will be anxious about gaining it back. Your thoughts will still be obsessed with food, fat, calories, etc. Being thin will not make you happy, you will still yearn for and desire food.

Start concentrating on your relationship with God and not the substance of the food. Pray and ask God to help you become established by grace, and to help you to focus on Him, by the truth of His word.

God will deliver you from the bondage of food, it’s up to you how long it takes, it can take four months, or forty years. You can wander in the desert with half a commitment or you choose today to go straight to the Promised Land, by faith.

Colossians 2:8-10 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

Do you think God is able to help you lose weight? _________________________________
Why do you feel that way? __________________________________________________ __
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READ: Matthew. 7:7-12

In light of today’s study, what was the scripture or statement in today’s lesson that most spoke to your heart? __________________________________________________ ________
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What steps of faith does God want you to take towards Him today? ____________________
__________________________________________________ _________________________
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Rephrase the scripture or statement into an expression of faith_________________________
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Isaiah 55:9 Isaiah 55:9 For as the _________ are _______ than the ______, so are My _____ higher than _______ ways, And My ________ than your thoughts.

Good Morning Girls

I am up early for a change haven't even had my cup of tea yet. Wanted to check here and see what is going on. I was so late posting last night decided to hit it first thing.

The title of todays lesson is what hit me today. Strange Doctorines Never thought about diets being "strange doctorines". First we have to remember that "doctrine" means "teachings". So it makes sense to me that we have been duped into not realizing that "Diets" are or can be "strange doctrines". Stop and think about diets and how Satan has used it against us... especially us women just as he did Eve. First, we are convinced that we have to look a certain way to be "beautiful" and the promise that the "diet" is going to make that happen. My Grandmother always told me that beauty is skin deep and her favorite saying to me was "Remember Patricia 'Pretty is as pretty does'". She said it so much I thought it was written for me.

I've always said that if I hadn't tried a diet, it was only because I hadn't heard of it. Kellie named one or two in the intro that I'd never heard of. Don't know how I missed them. More people have made loads of money off of me, as I've said before I could start a "diet" library. What is deceptive about them? Well I remember one day telling my husband, "I don't know what to do any more. There are so many diets and ideas out there and they all claim they have the answer. One diet says don't eat carbs, one says don't eat meat, or don't eat fat... eat margarine, no eat butter and the list goes on and on and on". Then the word that flashed in my mind was CONFUSION, CONFUSION like a neon sign. Isn't this what Satan does? He wants to keep us in total confusion. When we are in a state or spirit of confusion, we get frustrated and we end up doing nothing because some of us give up because we don't know what to do. I almost did this last spring.

I thank God that He has never let me totally give up. I've just always believed that if I would keep trying and trust God that some how He would lead me to the right thing. Now I know He was trying to tell me to give it to Him and let Him teach me how to do things. I never dreamed it was that simple. Give it to Him and Let Him teach me? Didn't Jesus say He was giving us the Holy Spirit to teach us all things? ALL THINGS? WOW, I didn't know He meant what to eat and how to eat it? I just thought He meant spiritual things. Duh!

I remember one Sunday night at Bible study, the pastor was talking about how he ate. He said "I only eat 2 meals a day and some days I may forget to eat and not eat that much. He said I've always eaten that way, if I didn't I would weigh over 200 lbs." I thought, that is how I ate growing up. What changed? Well, Mother's/women are taught how to feed their families. I had a dietician friend I had one time make up a diet for me. I told my husband, I can't eat all that food? She had me eating 3 huge meals and 3 snacks. That was about 30 or 40 years ago. She had a weight problem. No wonder if she ate the way she was telling me to eat. She was a precious Christian friend who was duped into thinking she had to eat that way to be healthy. I went to a dietician when I had diabetes 2 years ago and she was giving me the same diet my friend had. I knew right then that if I ate the way she wanted me to eat that I would die. So I never went back to her.

My chiropractor told me last year. "Stop dieting. They don't work". My first thought was what do I do? This is hard for me to say or admit, but diets were my god. They took priority over everything. I have set back and wouldn't go to church or to eating functions because I needed to lose weight. You know that senario. I'm sure we've all let our weight hold us back from things we wanted to do but felt we couldn't do. My husband doesn't understand how I feel about our prayer ministry. I told him that I was glad they finally took our names out of the announcements and just put the email address. He said well what are you going to do when the Pastor asks us to stand to remind people who we are? I said "I'll do that I just don't want to be on the spotlight all the time. Maybe it is false humility". As I read this, I realize it always goes back to me being so overweight. I feel like people think I should have more willpower or do something. It has nothing to do with pride or humility... it has to do with being ashamed or feeling bad about how I look. I always dress nice and look nice, but I feel like all people see is "she is fat". Never had anyone say that to me. But as Ryanne or Kellie said I've heard the jokes and heard what people say so I guess I figure everybody probably feels the same way. Enough of that,

What really hit me about the heart illustration the Pastor did the other night was... he marked off a lot of areas in the heart (he didn't name them) and then he said, "As we give Him control of this area (and he erased it), then the Holy Spirit comes in and fills that area." Then Pastor said something that really hurt my heart, he said "When we will not let the Holy Spirit have an area of our heart (Iassume this means when He is dealing with us in an area) because we want to hold on to it, we grieve the Holy Spirit". Boy, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Am I grieving the Holy Spirit when I look to food for comfort or when I look to man to give me another diet to follow instead of allowing Him to lead me and teach me how to get the victory over this area of my life?

He wants to teach me ALL THINGS even how to eat, because that is what Jesus sent Him to me to do. What a revelation. I've had Him in a little box over here that says "spiritual" things only. Never realized this is spiritual growth. It is denying the flesh; dieing to self. It is time for me to let Him out of the box and let Him do His job and just surrender to it. This is called "spiritual" growth.

I remember something my Mama told me when I was pregnant. She said, "Now you are going to learn what surrender means. When it comes time for this baby to be born, all you can do is just let it happen because it is going to be born and you can't do anything but go through it. That is surrender". I've never forgotten that. So now it is time to Surrender and let the Holy Spirt show me how to do this "God's Way".

I thank God for teaching Kellie how to do this and leading her to us. I thank you Kellie for not only listening to Him, but for sharing it with us.

You girls have a BLESSED day in the Lord.

Ryanne-I agree 100%. I think that is another reason why dieting is so bad for me. I spent so much time with the diets that took away from the time I had with the Lord. I often wondered about the kings in the old testament who would turn to God but never tear down the idol worship area in the high places. I have come to believe that those things represent the things in our lives that takes up our time that should be used for the Lord. I didn't think of it that way, but now think unknowingly I allowed diets to became one of those idols in my life. It was easy to do, because I think everyone I know is on some kind of diet. Thank God we are learning how to kick that out of our lives.

I know now that diets and the desire to be thin were definitely gods to me...food, too. I, like you, spent so much time and energy learning all I could about foods, calories, nutrition, and exercise...it now makes me so sad. I could write a book with all the "knowledge" I have...but what good would it do anyone? Like you said, we have all this knowledge, but it all leads to confusion. Who is the author of confusion? Of course, Satan is. Thank God He is MERCIFUL and loves us and when we hurt, He hurts, when we don't understand, it hurts but God uses this for His Glory, we cannot glory in the flesh or in any diet or eating plan, the Only thing that we can glorify is GOD, and that is how it should be!
I remember once, I wrote a heart wrenching post here at 3FC on how I was sooooo tired of being "OBSESSED". I was at rock bottom with the world's way, even though I had been seeking God about this, I looked to this plan and that plan, and I remember telling God that I don't know what to do, I wanted to do it His way, because my way is not working and all these things are just temporary fixes. I don't want to be thin enough to still be in bondage, I want to be FREE! There is no sense being thin if I am still a glutton or an idol worshipper. Which is funny, because "THIN" seems to have been the most important thing to me, which is idolotry...I didn't care "HOW" I got there, I just wanted there in any way I could get there...and as fast as possible. To be honest, and I do hate to admit this, but I equated thin with "problem free" and "happiness". I would finally be accepted and invited places and my marriage would work. Everything would be perfect.
I would look at thin, beautiful women and girls and think "if they look like that, how could they have any problems?" I really believed that. I was taught a big lesson on this. Just because your body size changes and you maybe look beautiful, you are still human and you still have human problems.
A little story...I had been doing this way of eating with God, and was going along good, until I started doing it "my way"...I didn't realize I took over, at the time. I started over exercising trying to do it in my own power.
Well, I had lost a lot of weight, I don't know how much I lost, because I had thrown the scale out. But I had gotten down to a 10/12 from a 22 or so. Anyway, I became involved with the prayer team at my Church and was trying to get more involved, as I thought, "now I will be acceptable and will make good Godly friends"...well, that didn't happen, really. The only "friend" I did meet was a lady that wanted to "use" me and my husband. I allowed her to use me I should say...and allowed her to use my husband because I really wanted good Christian friendship, and I thought that doing things for others was the way to get this friendship...so I allowed her to give us a dog...big mistake...that dog chewed up our outside wiring, and the phone lines...it was bad...we gave that dog to someone who really loved him. My husband did so much yard work for this lady, it was ridiculous, he trimmed trees and hauled wood...exhausting work on top of his already exhausting job. My husband was abusive with me and my son,(my son was from a previous marriage, in which my husband was murdered, so my "new husband" felt I didn't really love him because I was mourning the death of my son's father.) So I thought because I had lost weight and was going to Church and was on the prayer team, that my husband would suddenly love me. I had two daughters with him, and he always acted like they were his, and not mine. That my son was mine, but the girls were his. He despised me.
One day in Church he made a big abusive scene and walked out of the Church, but he made a big show of going out the door by the pulpit so everyone could see! I was humiliated. I was crying and embarrassed. It was hard.
Finally I stopped the prayer team, I stopped going to Church and I stopped trying to lose weight, I gave up...I was exhausted in trying to lose weight, and it didn't give me the peace and happiness I was seeking.
Only God could. I didn't realize at the time that was what was going on, though, you know we are human and we grow.
I grew up in an abusive home, I was the youngest of ten children, my mother never wanted me, and tried several times to abort me because I was a conception of rape because she already wanted out of the marriage. She did leave when I was 11 months old, and left my dad to raise all of us kids. I was young, but I remember a lot from that time. I remember seeing my daddy crying and he was soooo sad. I remember him sexually abusing me and my sister, who is a year older than I. I remember being in my crib and her pleading at me with her eyes to make him stop, and I remember feeling so helpless. I felt terrible. I allowed my dad to physically abuse me over him beating the other kids, I couldn't stand to see them hurt, so I would beg him to beat me instead so I didn't have to see their pain.
He would make us line up for spankings and he was not a little man, he was 6 feet tall and 300 lbs. He was an angry giant.
We had so many abusive housekeepers, too...but one in particular came when I was about a year and a half old, and my dad couldn't afford to pay her and was about to lose all of us to the state, so he asked her to marry him, and she did. I was 2. She didn't care about us, she made sure our physical needs were met, but emotionally we had no one. She would beat us, make us eat like dogs off the floor, tie us up, it was terrible. Then when my dad came home from work, she would tell him which one of us needed a beating. I could tell he didn't really want to do this, but he did anyway, to keep her happy. When my dad was enraged, it was a beating for whoever was near, he was beaten by his mother, she had mental problems but my grandpa didn't want to institutionalize her...he later had to, but while my dad and his brothers and sisters were growing up, they endured her abuse as did my grandpa.
My step-mother did not help us when she saw our dad being sexually inappropriate with us. She just ignored it and never helped us.
Anyway, I carried a lot of insecurities over into my adulthood and I know God is still helping me with that...and well, I know this time that when my body size changes, that is all that changes, is body size. My body will be healthier, but as for any problems in life, that belongs to God. My ONLY NEED is JESUS DAILY! Now I want nothing more that My God to be MY ONLY GOD...and I will not have any idols before Him.
I will let go of what lies behind and press on to what lies ahead. Knowing God will reward me and I want my life to give HIM glory!

Additional note: I did leave that husband.

Oh Rayne, my heart cry's for what you have been through. Bless your heart.

"Old things are passed away;behold, all things are become new"