As I have been returning to the routines of life that really work for me, I am reminded once again of how important it is for me to seek God in the morning before I even start my day.  This is something that seemed to fade away from me for awhile.  The more weight I lost the ‘busier’ I became.   No longer trapped inside a body that struggled to move, I was free!   The world opened up to me.  I went to new places and met new people.  And soon I was no longer feeling this daily desperation that I had before.  Pain no longer woke me in the night.  Walking across the room was effortless.   I no longer noticed every step that I took the way I once had when my body cried out in pain from the weight crushing down on me.  But with that freedom came a complacency and an almost self congratulatory demeanor that I had achieved something all on my own.

I could not have been more wrong.

There was once a time when I could not even get through the night without being awakened by hunger.  My nightstand was a hiding place for boxes of Hostess cupcakes.  The pillow next to me carefully concealed at least one bag of candy.

Reeses.  Kit Kats.

Perhaps both.

In my bathroom cabinet nestled securely behind bottles of shampoo and toilet paper was a stash of M and M’s.  At least one pound.  And in my purse hidden underneath my wallet would be another one.  These things were critical elements for my survival.  They were the comfort I would seek when trouble came my way.  Anxiety or panic calmed in a few bites.   When I was first divorced and the emptiness of that side of the bed felt like a vast ocean, I would simply reach out not for the hand that was no longer there but the bag of candy which was now ever present.  Without even opening my eyes, I would unwrap it and quickly bring it close to me.  The sweetness delivering me from my sorrows.

At least for that moment in time.

When the babies would cry or the bills would arrive, I knew food was always going to be there for me.  If my problems increased, so did my food.  And I never left home without it.  I trusted in, relied on and confidently hoped in that next gallon of ice cream to bring a merciful release to my  heart when it felt broken beyond repair.   And while I knew it was killing me slowly, there seemed to be no real hope for something better.  I simply could not live in pain without some mercy to see me through.  I could not wade through the loneliness without a companion.  My food became that for me.

Each time I tried to give it up, I quickly returned.  No diet was simple for me because it asked me to break up with the very best friend I had ever had.  Food was a husband when mine was gone.  Food was a mother when mine died. The comfort and security I lacked could be found in every Hershey Kiss.

I hid my food for one main reason.  I was scared. Terrified in fact that someone else might eat it and leave me without my lifeline.  If one of my kids ate the last cupcake, how would I get through the night? What would happen if  a panic attack took over and there was no bag of candy to reach for?

Some may never understand what this is like for food has not filled this void for them.  It has not given them the same response that it has given me.  But food was more than a crutch.  It was my salvation.  My deliverance.  The only trusted escape to which I knew I could always run.  So I had to guard it with my life.  For my very life depended on it.  I could not make it through a single night without the food that walked me through the darkness.

No diet could fix me.  No surgery could repair what was so wrong in my spirit.  Only God had the power to deliver me.   Because the strangle hold food had on my life was beyond the reach of human hands.

Even when we  have faith, it is not always easy to find our way out of the great abyss.  God alone was the reason I survived so many years living in a body that was over 400 pounds.   Even food would not have been enough to carry me through the darkest times had God not also been by my side.

So many people think that those with addictions lack faith in God.  And yet the opposite is more often the case.

Anyone with a life threatening addiction whether it be food or something else must cling to the last shred of hope they have to keep walking through another day.  Even those in the deepest throws of their addiction still have some level of hope.  No matter how small.  If not for that, they would have already completely given up.  But in our desperation, we just want to crawl into the familiar comfort that we know. Even if that comfort is food.  And hide within its shadows.

But my hiding place could no longer be with the bag of candy under my pillow.  The M and M’s hidden in my bathroom cabinet.  The cupcakes tucked away in a nightstand drawer.  My hiding place could no longer be food.   For nothing was hidden anymore.  My weight was apparent to the world.  I wore my pain like a scarlet letter.  Nothing would ever be invisible again.

When you eat your pain, you wear it.  Your privacy is taken from you.  Perfect strangers can see your problems without your permission.   It is clear that food is your addiction.  That you can’t control it.   And now even your right to privacy is taken from you.   As if being unable to fit in a chair or even walk from the car to the door of a store without excruciating pain was not enough.

Nothing is confidential.  Nothing is off the record.

And while you desperately want freedom, you are now locked in a cell with glass walls.

Where the entire world can see your private struggle.

I have been writing to you lately of the things I need to do to lose the weight I have regained.

Drinking more water.  Eliminating sugar.

Doing the type of exercise I can enjoy.

Listening to the natural cues of hunger.

Not comparing myself to others.

And while all of these are essential elements, none of them will matter at all if I forget where my true hiding place lies.

God has promised to be a hiding place for us.  When we seek refuge from a troubling world, He wants to be the One we run to.  When we are lonely, He wants to comfort us.  When we are in pain, He wants to be the one to answer our cries.

How many of us seek to hide inside the fortress we have created with our own weight?  How many times haven’t I wondered if life felt ‘safer’ at 400 pounds.  The world can be a frightening place.   If you’re lonely you may seek comfort in all the wrong places.  When you’re free, you can go anywhere.  But will your freedom bring with it new temptations as well?

What if when you lose the weight, you find new problems to confront?  Someone commented to me recently that perhaps we find some level of comfort in knowing that our weight is an ever present mountain to climb.  If we ever were to resolve it, we might have to face the very things we are hiding from.  The things we would never have to face if the weight were not in the way.  We hide at times inside that fortress of extra weight because it protects us from having to live a life we may be too afraid to take on.

Who knows why we hide? Or what we hide from.  But we all seek a safe place.  We all need a sanctuary.  A restful place where we can find peace.  A shelter from the storm.  No one can take the endless barrage of stress and strain that the world places on our shoulders without some reprieve.  And so we find it wherever we can.   Just to make it through another day.

I can lose weight but life will still bring me trials.  If I run to food, the weight will return.

But if I ask God to help me and I feel nothing in return–what else am I to do?

I am reminded today that there is more to losing weight than drinking water.   Exercising.  Preplanning a meal.  At least there is more to it than that for me.  Because my desire to binge was far greater than simply the cravings sugar created.  My overeating could never be cured with just logging my food.  There was a deeper void within me that needed something stronger than me to fill it.   And while God was always there for me, I was not always able to trust Him when He felt a little too invisible.  I needed to feel comfort in a more tangible way.

One thing I have been surprised by in my life is the level to which I must go in seeking God.  I cannot find Him in a simple prayer I say behind the steering wheel as I make my way through traffic.  While that helps,  it cannot be the only means by which I seek Him.  There was a time when I felt God’s presence strongly in my life.  But that was the time when my knees hit the floor before I barely got out of my bed.  When I set my clock to rise before the sun to talk with Him.  To read His word.  To pray.  When I surrounded myself daily with music that reminded me of His power.  When He was more than a footnote.

He was at the center

I lost that when I lost my pain.   When I lost so much weight that I no longer had misery as a daily part of my life.  For years, I lived in a constant and persistent physical pain that never ended.   My weight crushing me at night.  Removing the oxygen from my lungs so that I would wake up gasping for air.  My children often sleeping next to me for fear I would choke to death.

How quickly we forget the pain. How soon we turn our eyes to other things once we are free.

Not being able to breathe was once a miserable part of my daily existence.  My weight crushed me. Panic attacks consumed me.  Sleeping was little more than a nightmare when I woke many times in the night trying to catch my breath.

But the very breath which carries me through comes not from this world but from the God who has never given up on me.  Who was there for me all along.  And when I look back on my life, I can see his hand carrying me through.  Knowing that a piece of candy could never have the kind of power required to keep me from drowning.  Beneath the food, He was the one truly keeping me alive.

He must be my hiding place.  The refuge I seek in troubled times.  But I must seek Him in a more powerful way if I want to find that same freedom again.   His promise rings true.  But only when we seek Him with all of our heart (Jeremiah 29:13).  Not a heart divided.   Not with a heart more willing to seek the next show on Netflix before time with Him.  A heart ready to grab food before asking Him for help.  And for far too long now that has been me.

For me this is more than food.   It is a spiritual battle that takes place every day.   I cannot afford to lose sight of that.  Only when I stop hiding in the food and reach instead for the One who is already there will I find the comfort I seek in this world. When food takes that place, there is no room for Him to reveal what He can do.  God wants to be the One we seek.

And His love has always been so much sweeter than cake.

May we find it now.

(c) 300 Pounds Down – Read entire story here.