I wrote some months ago about an epiphany I had. So now I’m ready to share with all you lucky people my second blinding revelation…it shouldn’t take too long as I gave the background on it last month. Because it’s been so long since my first post on this subject (and since you may not have the time or interest to read about the first one), I will refresh all our memories on what my definition of an epiphany is…Several of the definitions of epiphany from Miriam-Webster (other than the Roman Catholic variety) are 1) “a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something”, 2) ”an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking, 3) “an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure”. I list them all, because it is difficult for me to pinpoint just one in telling of my experiences…both times, I had an illuminating discovery or realization, it was a perception of the essential nature of something, and it felt like an intuitive grasp of reality.

I will summarize the background by saying that because of my difficult relationship with a perfectionist, hyper-critical mother, my body image has always sucked eggs. I have hated my body for about, oh, forever…because it could not be what I considered to be perfect. For a very brief period in college I like the way I looked, which was skinny, bony (even then I couldn’t enjoy it because there were so many other things I hated about myself…sigh).

Over the long years, I have made peace with myself on many levels, accepting who I am and appreciating it…except for my body. I just couldn’t accept being fat, I just couldn’t love myself that way. I always felt that “If only I could lose this weight, THEN I will love my body.”

The epiphany came early this past summer, as I was taking a brisk early morning walk and talking to God (this was right after I started to develop this habit). I was thanking the Lord for various things in my life, which I try to do before I start asking for stuff  :), and I thanked Him for my body. And that’s when the blinding light just hit me between the eyes.

Now, I must interject here that I have been reading the Bible, or having it read to me, MY ENTIRE LIFE. I know what it says. I have always known up here *points to head* that God loves me, that He wants good things for me, that He has given me gracious gifts galore, and that my body is the “temple of God”. But I haven’t always believed those things in here “points to heart”. No matter how many times we read something in God’s word, we don’t always apply those things to ourselves.

That first epiphany, the one where I grasped the depth of God’s overwhelming, awe-inspiring love for me personally, is what set me up for this one. I suddenly understood, as if God was whispering in my ear, that all these years I have had it totally backwards. I have always wanted to lose weight and be healthy, SO I could finally love my body. WRONG! Soooooooo WRONG! What an idiot! God has given me this precious gift of life, a span of time given to me to be a human being on this earth. And what did he give me to house the precious eternal soul that is mine? A temple. A temple for my spirit and soul to dwell in during my pilgrimage on this earth. I should be so grateful for this temple. It was a gift from my Creator. A beautiful gift, a functioning gift. And this gift, this house, this body of mine must last my whole lifetime. I need to love it, cherish it, and take good care of it, BECAUSE I am grateful to God for it. Duh…

I have been such a whining ingrate for so long. This body has served me beautifully for 50 years. It has been nice and strong, it rarely gets sick or injured, it has carried and borne three children easily for me, it enjoys the sensual pleasures nicely. And what have I done in return? What have I done for this spirit-home? I have ignored it, neglected, abused it. Mostly leading a sedentary lifestyle, I haven’t given it the fresh air and exercise it needs to stay fine-tuned. I have stuffed it with bad food, all kinds of unhealthy junk, and over-stuffed it so that all it wants to do is NAP!

Well, no more. I LOVE my body, and I am so grateful for this incredible gift…and I tell the Lord so every day. And because I love and am grateful for it, I will do my best to take better care of it. Of course, bad habits are hard to break and good habits are even harder to maintain, no matter how much I love my body (because I am a weak-willed weenie), but I’m trying. As of December 1, I will have been walking 5-6 days a week for six whole months! I’m very proud of that…this is the longest I have kept up any kind of exercise for over 10 years (the longest was a whole year of walking back in the mid-nineties…I plan to shatter that record). And I’m eating much healthier for the last 6 months too…although the bad stuff that I love so much creeps in there more often than I’d like. I need to convince myself to STOP loving it! It’s BAD, I don’t want it, I DON’T!!!

Well, that’s it…that’s the second of my blinding truths. If I have any more I’ll be sure to share them with you…but don’t hold your breath, I’ve only had two in 50 years!

I wrote about having an epiphany some time ago, and mentioned that I had 2 in the last 3 years, approximately. But then I completely forgot about the second one! Well, I forgot to write about it anyway…

But I need to give a little history, so you will grasp the significance of this second epiphany for me…

I had a difficult childhood. Broken home, et cetera…we’ll leave it at that. I have issues…don’t we all? Is there a perfect childhood, an idyllic childhood? I don’t think so [my husband and I have been married almost 27 years, and love each other and our children dearly...and still managed to screw them up in some ways]. I could whine and complain about my mother all day, and have many times with my two sisters. We three grew up with ISSUES, but for this post I want to focus on body-image issues. By the time I was a teenager, here’s a few of the gems of loving wisdom my mother would pass along (constantly–and there were lots more, these are just the ones about looks):
You would be so pretty if you would lose ten pounds (my personal favorite).
Get your hair out of your face…brush your hair…fix your hair…do something with your hair.
Smile, you’re so pretty when you smile…when you don’t smile you look angry…don’t look at me like that (like what??).
Aren’t you going to wear some lipstick…you’re so pretty when you wear lipstick.
Stand up straight…don’t slouch (ok, well, we’ve all heard that one)

and on and on and on……..of course, all mothers want their daughters to grow up to be nice-mannered young ladies, but there is a fine line between instructing your daughter in modesty and presentation, and making your daughter feel like a fat and ugly troll. Just sayin’…

There’s really no need to state that our society does nothing to help normal-sized young girls feel good about their not-skinny bodies. By 16, I was very conscious of my weight and although I was around 5’4”-5’5” and weighed anywhere between 125-135, I felt fat (I look back at pictures…I was so not fat). I learned about dieting from my older sisters, and the first diet I remember trying was the summer after graduating high school. I did the Atkins diet with my sister, which was all the rage in 1977. I lost about 10 pounds, starting college weighing 125 pounds and feeling confident about the way I looked for the first time since about my junior year. Unlike many people who do a diet like that, I continued to eat low-carb for basically the next two years. I was attending college in Florida, and in the fall it is so hot and sticky that high-carb food did NOT sound good to me, so I would eat mostly meat and salad; it just became a habit. While other girls gained the usual “freshman twenty” from all the starchy campus food, I continued to gradually lose weight much to my total delight (of course, I was playing society sports and walking all over campus which helped a lot).

By the end of my freshman year, I weighed about 120, and had a steady boyfriend. Was I satisfied with this? Not really. Because I had a terrible body image. I didn’t LIKE my body unless I was really thin. During my sophomore year I made the STUPID and SELF-DEFEATING mistake of asking this same boyfriend if he thought I needed to lose weight. “You could probably stand to lose 5 pounds,” was his oh-so-loving and wise reply. What can I say, he was a 20-year-old boy and completely clueless as young men are. BUT I LISTENED TO HIM! I was so depressed when he said that to me…of course, I had just wanted affirmation that I looked okay. I was almost 5’5” and 120 pounds…I looked fabulous! But I couldn’t see it (hey, if I hadn’t enjoyed eating so much, I probably would have become anorexic). And guess what? I lost another 5 pounds…by giving up my beloved honey buns heated with ice cream on top and skipping dinner. By the time spring banquet came around, I weighed 115 pounds…my hipbones were sticking out. But I felt skinny and liked it very much.

When my mother and best friend, E, drove down to be at my graduation (AA degree) and to drive me home, E laid it on the line (she was never one to mince words). “You look awful, you’re too skinny,” was her blunt assessment. “You need to gain about 10 pounds.” I was in heaven. Someone thought I was TOO skinny!

Well, that summer my boyfriend broke up with me…I was devastated, heartbroken. This merely reinforced my bad self-image. This person that I loved with all my heart and wanted to spend my life with, didn’t love me back…which could only mean one thing…I was unlovable. I was unworthy of a man’s steadfast love. Well, let’s just say that I went to a very dark place for a year or so (never mind that we had argued ALL the time and really weren’t right for each other). During that time, I gradually gained back up to about 125 pounds which is where I stayed for about three years (where I really should have been, but always felt I needed to lose 5-10 pounds…always). I also entered what I can only say was a weird and rather unhealthy (for me anyway) relationship with a guy several years older than myself, and dated him off and on for three years. Soooooo, we’ll skip to 1982…

You’d think that meeting the guy that’s really right for you, the one you’ve been waiting for, the one that makes you feel beautiful, and smart, and loved, and safe…you know, THAT one…you’d think that would chase away all the old demons. And being loved that way over a lot of years does help some of the old bad stuff, gradually erasing the early programming…but not the body-image problems. Those are deeply ingrained indeed.

I have tried all kinds of diets over the years (especially after the births of each of my three kids), Atkins was just the start…Pritikin (harsh, baby), Weight Watchers (points, points, points), cabbage soup (man, I get sick of that soup quick), apples, fasting, cleansing of some sort, one meal a day, six meals a day, sugarless, low carb (although I am convinced that my body is addicted to carbs, one book was very convincing about that), herbal supplements. The one that has been the healthiest and the most often successful for me is South Beach. I have gone on some kind of diet at least once a year for the past 26 years and have managed to lose as much as 25 pounds in the past, but I always gradually put the weight back on, and I’ve never once reached my goal weight since my first pregnancy, not once. Oh, I’ve come within 10 pounds once or twice many years ago, but since then usually not even close. And it’s not like my goals are unrealistic. I’m not stupid enough to think I can or should get back to what I weighed when I got married (JR thought I was too skinny anyway…he likes a little meat on his woman).

Mostly what all that dieting and failing did was make me feel like a total loser (and not in a good way ;) ). I got to the point where every time I even started trying to get fit and lose weight, I had no confidence in my ability to stick with it for the long haul. Of course, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy…every time. And over the years I came to hate my body, because it could never be what it used to be. No matter how many times JR told me he loved me just the way I was and proved that it was true, it didn’t matter. I didn’t love me. I didn’t even know what that meant.

After my first epiphany (previous post), I wasn’t sure what to do with that information (and in the midst of my pondering this, we made the move to Boise from California). True change in attitude and actions doesn’t happen overnight. The feelings produced by the realization of a wonderful truth, the truth of God’s love for me, clung to me like a warm blanket for several days, weeks. But I didn’t know how this knowledge was going to affect my life. I had always tried to serve the Lord, and I continued to do so. The changes I have undergone since that day have been gradual, but steady.

The first sign of growth came when I became dissatisfied with the status quo of my relationship with God. I’ve always believed that to have a close relationship with God, you have to do a lot more than believe, you have to do a lot more than talk about Him or listen to sermons or show up to worship once or twice a week. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good start, but it’s just not enough if you want to really be His child and He your Father. I firmly believe that you have to talk to Him on a daily basis, confide in Him, let Him into your heart and mind (like you do with people you love). AND you have to let HIM talk to YOU, through His word…just so you know, I believe with all my heart and mind that His word is the Bible. You can’t know Him until you know what He has to say to you. Okay, that’s all well and good, Ann, but were you doing these things? No. No, I wasn’t. I was lazy and apathetic when it came to Bible study and my prayer life stuttered along; sometimes it would be days between prayers and I would remember with a guilty start that I hadn’t talked to the Lord in quite a while. I don’t treat my husband that way, or my children, or close friends. But the most important relationship in my life was languishing, the “person” I said I loved more than anything was shoved to the back of the line when it came to spending my precious time every day. (And of course I knew that if I delved into what HE had to say to me, I might have to change……ugh, not CHANGE, not that. Not put forth any effort…that requires energy and THAT might pull me out of myself, out of my apathy.)

But I knew I NEEDED to change that. But how? How do I start? What can I do to build better study habits? I stepped out of my shell that had been building around me for quite a while, and in what was a very brave moment for me, walked up to a woman at church (who was just starting to become my friend, but I knew was a diligent and spiritual person), and asked her if she would become my “study buddy”. As simple as that. Yeah, it sounds simple, but that one question was literally the turning point in my relationship with my God. Because she immediately said, “Yes, I would love that,” and we began a routine. We talked on the phone every morning bright and early, and told each other what our goal for the day was. This always included (at the very least) a Bible study goal and a “good work” goal, because we both wanted to grow in service to the Lord and our Christian family. Sometimes we would add another goal for the day that was something we were trying to accomplish. It started out very simple, like…”Okay, today I’m going to read two chapters in Romans and send a card to Mary, who’s been sick this week. What are you going to do?” Then the next morning we would check with each other to see if we accomplished our goal, and set another one for the day. Baby steps. It was a way to stay focused, and we had each other to be accountable to which really helped us both. And I’ll admit it, my friend “D” is a much more self-motivated, self-disciplined person than I am (the Lord has surrounded me with these types of people for my own good, I know…my sister, my husband, my daughter, now this good friend, all gently show me how to be better in a weak area), and many times she accomplished her goal and I didn’t, which made me feel a little guilty, but it’s all good…it’s a growing process and I’m growing, I think that’s all the Lord asks of us. Just keep growing, keep heading in the right direction! Don’t give up, don’t lose heart…

That one little daily routine has helped me in so many ways! It eventually evolved into a blog study that we’re doing with several other women, which has been ongoing for about 2 years. I can honestly say that I have done more continuous and sustained reading and studying of scripture in these last 3 years, than I have in a loooooooong time. It just feels so good to have that consistency in my life, that anchor for my soul. As a result of allowing God to talk to me regularly, I have been much more consistent in my communing with Him too. It feels like a real relationship, a real fellowship, more satisfying than any other one in my life, just the way it should be…

to be continued…

Have you ever had an epiphany? In the last 4 or so years, I have had two…I highly recommend them :) . Several of the definitions of epiphany from Miriam-Webster (other than the Roman Catholic variety) are 1) “a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something”, 2) ”an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking, 3) “an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure”. I list them all, because it is difficult for me to pinpoint just one in telling of my experiences…both times, I had an illuminating discovery or realization, it was a perception of the essential nature of something, and it felt like an intuitive grasp of reality.

Now, I’m not a particularly introspective person…a navel-gazer as my sister puts it. In fact, I have a tendency to do everything in my power to keep from thinking deeply or examining my feelings, or at least I used to for many many years. Feelings can be very unpleasant and messy and I would prefer not to deal with them if they are the least little bit negative. I have learned over time, however, that I can only push them down, push them away, ignore them for only so long before they come back and bite me in the butt. Yes, I admit that it is best to deal with feelings sooner rather than later, so I’m a little better about it than I used to be. All that to say perhaps I would have more “sudden insights” if I allowed myself to mull things over more.

The first epiphany came during a period of uncharacteristic introspection, when I was in one of my sporadic journaling “phases” (over the last 8 years, I have started and stopped journaling several times). I was sitting on the couch very early one morning (the time that is best for this kind of writing), and I can’t even remember what I was writing about, but I remember that I was comparing our love for our children to God’s love for us (probably venting about my son’s attitude), and suddenly, like a blindingly bright light in my head I just GOT IT. I felt God’s love for me, truly felt it, probably for the first time in my life. I was brought up “on the pew” as some Christians put it, studying the Bible, believing in God, talking about God, thinking about God, wondering about God, fearing God, loving God, trying to please Him in one way or another, my entire life. But I never got it. I guess I never really understood how God could love me, when I was such a mess all the time. I didn’t feel a personal connection to Him as MY Father. Possibly because my close connection to my earthly father was torn asunder at a very young age. But in one moment of utter clarity, I understood. I wept, actually I sobbed uncontrollably for a while out of the sheer enormity of the feelings provoked by such a discovery. My description here is completely inadequate to express that moment…..human language is too limited!!!!!

There is no deeper love on this earth than a parent’s love for their child, none. If I, a puny, weak-willed, immature, imperfect, selfish, fear-filled human can love my children with such a deep and abiding love that nothing they do can shake, that nothing on this earth can end, how much MORE can a God of perfect love feel for me, His child, His creation? It’s almost too wonderful to imagine. Since that day, every time I feel alone, hurt, or sad, in mental or physical pain, all I have to do is remember that feeling of being loved beyond measure (not to mention the sacrifice He made for me, the grace and mercy bestowed on me), and I am filled with joy again. I am comforted.

And just like I want what’s best for my children (and want them to lead joyful lives), God wants what’s best for me and wants me (and YOU) to lead joyful lives…the difference is, He actually KNOWS what’s best for me. We discipline our children, not because we’re mean or want to see them suffer, but because we must, to help them grow and mature into healthy, functioning, contributing human beings (and in my case, lovers of God and His servants). God, as a loving Father, deals with us in the same way. On that wonderful day, my picture of God as a harsh judge, watching me but not helping, weighing me and finding me wanting…that picture was shattered forever. God is our Creator, and He IS the judge of all, He will judge in the final day according to our lives on this earth (and I believe in heaven and hell as real and literal places in the spiritual realm), but He loves us always and wants us to be able to come and live with Him for all eternity. He also loves us enough to give us free will…the choice to believe in Him, to love Him in return, to trust Him, to serve Him is ours. I choose it…until my death, I choose it.

…to be continued.