Fear or Trust?

Yesterday I took my car to the body shop to get an estimate on what it will cost to repair the damages from the accident we had in Canada on Sunday.  I gulped when I opened my e-mail with the estimate attached - over $5,000.  Ugh!  We have a $1,000 deductible, so thankfully the insurance company will cover the rest, or at least I assume they will once their adjuster makes his own assessment of the damages.  Obviously, the deductible is $1,000 out of pocket that we weren't planning on.  Coupled with a couple thousand dollars in medical bills from my recent broken bone (bills that exceed what our medical insurance will cover), it would be very easy to get discouraged right now as we face these unexpected expenses at a time when we're feeling stretched anyway.

When we are in a crisis, the crisis reveals what we fear and what we trust.  Not only does a crisis reveal our fear and our trust level, but how we come out of that crisis may very well depend on whether we choose fear or trust.

Many of us were prompted to start on Take Shape for Life/Medifast because of a crisis on our lives.  Some of us received a stern warning from our physician (God bless those physicians who are willing to look their patients in the eyes and talk frankly about the health risks they’re facing because of their obesity); some of us received lab work that revealed a disease we were unaware of (a routine blood draw uncovered my own diabetes).  For others of us, our health is fine at the moment, but we reached an emotional crisis – an “I can’t live as an overweight person any more” moment.  Very few people start this program if their health is great and they’re happy being overweight – a crisis of one kind or another is usually the catalyst.

When that moment came for us regarding our weight, we made the decision to go on this program.  The crisis led to action, but both fear and trust are still very much in play.

There is a fear of staying overweight, which is why we started on the program, but we may also continue to deal with other fear – fear of failing, fear of what would change in our lives if we really did get to goal.  That fear can paralyze us and keep us in an oscillating gain-lose-gain cycle.  The fear of ultimately failing on this plan can keep us from just going for it and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The fear of what life might look like if we were at goal can keep us from getting there.  I’ve seen people self-sabotage because it’s more comfortable staying where they are, even if where they are is at an unhealthy weight, than risk seeing their lives change by getting to goal.  

Trust, on the other hand, can allow us to move forward into unknown territory, and it makes all the difference!  First of all, we can trust this program.  It is a proven program with over 30 years of research and history behind it.  I didn’t know much about Take Shape for Life/Medifast when I started, but I knew that Johns Hopkins used this for their own weight loss program, and that’s all I needed to know in order to trust that this was safe and effective.  This program has been been recommended by over 20,000 physicians, and knowing that also gave me a lot of reassurance.

Because of my own personal faith and relationship with Jesus Christ, I also chose to trust God on my journey, looking to Him for the strength I needed for each day.  I have a dear friend who has been my prayer partner for over 15 years and she said something to me that made a difference in my life – “fear and faith can’t stand in the same spot, so you have to choose what you’re going to stand on.”  

Fear keeps us at status quo – if we choose fear, we don’t move forward.  Faith and trust, however small it may be, allows us to take the first step, and then the one after that.  Will you choose fear today, or will you choose trust?  Choose wisely :-)