A Work in Progress

As I continue on my journey I have begun to realize that my relationship with food is much deeper than just feeling hungry or even just a reaction to stress. I'm not sure when my love affair with eating began, but food has become my self-medication. Over the years I have removed many vices from my life, but I didn't recognize this one until relatively recently. It is a subtle addiction. I eat when I'm stressed. I eat when I'm angry or sad or bored. What do I do to celebrate? I eat, of course. I soothe my inner child with food. I also punish her with food. Addiction to overeating is difficult to overcome. When I quit drinking, I removed the substance from my life. I poured out all the bottles in my house. I refused to go to bars, and for several years I wouldn't even sit near the bar in a restaurant. I would walk all around the entire grocery store just to circumvent the liquor aisle. I shunned the substance like a rattlesnake.

But I can't quit food. I can't eliminate it completely from my life. I can't go cold turkey on it. (Pardon the pun.) I have to control it--and stop letting it control me. As I struggle to gain control of my eating, I realize that I need to really dig in there and see what my thoughts and feelings are when I eat--or when I don't eat. I have been moodier lately. I have emotions such as frustration, stress, or depression, but I don't know what to do with them anymore now that I'm not eating them. They just swarm around me in an ever-thickening cloud. How do I cope?

When I drive home from work, I grip the steering wheel tightly so it doesn't turn into the fast food drive-thru. When I'm home I force myself to walk out of the kitchen and go upstairs. My house is cleaner than it has been in a long time. I feel like an alcoholic or a smoker who has kicked the habit--all nervous and jumpy.

But there is a feeling of peace that is beginning to grow, and sometimes I can see the light begin to cut through the cloud around me. Slowly. Subtly. Somehow I need to learn to take care of me. Maybe that's the root of it all. Maybe I have never taken care of me because since I was a child I had to take care of everyone else. Maybe I always felt like I wasn't worth taking care of since no one did. I took care of myself in the only way I could teach myself--by ignoring me and focusing on the chaos around me and the people around me who needed help. I was too much of a mess inside to be able to fix, but I could work magic on those around me.

So I turn to food to comfort me or punish me depending on the situation. I either deserve to be treated because I have earned it, or I think, 'What does it matter? No one else cares anyway. It's a hopeless dream to think that I could ever lose weight (be attractive/desirable/lovable/worthy) anyway." And so I eat. I try to fill the emptiness.

I don't have an eating problem. I have a faith problem.
I don't feed myself too much. I love myself too little.

I wouldn't treat my daughter this way, so why am I treating a daughter of God this way?
I don't know how to change myself.--I'm grateful that the Lord can change me.
I guess I'm a work in progress. If I keep working, eventually I'll progress.
Lord give me strength.