As a follow-up to last Friday's blog, I've done a little more thinking about the process of allowing pain to transform us. In that blog I wrote about how painful experiences in my life have been transformed into blessings and opportunities to encourage others.
The truth is that pain doesn’t automatically transform into blessing. We all know people (I know I do) who’s pain has turned them hard and bitter. Pain always eventually transforms us, but what it transforms us into is pretty much up to us. We’ve all heard the saying “It will either make you better or bitter,” and that certainly true when it comes to dealing with the painful issues in our lives. It doesn’t matter if the pain happened a long time ago and has scarred over, or if the pain is fresh and the wound is still oozing, because eventually we will have to decide what we’re going to do with it.
The good news is that even if we DO go in a direction that is leading to bitterness, things can be turned around! When dealing with my daughter’s anorexia and the issues that led to her eating disorder, my first reaction was anger turned inward (anger at the issues that led to the anorexia, not anger at my daughter). Anger turned inward quickly turns into depression and I went straight into a serious clinical depression that, at my worst, led me to plan my own suicide. What stopped me from taking my life (or, more accurately, what God used to stop me) was my weight! I realized that if I took my life, there would be an autopsy and then my husband would know how much I weighed. I know that sounds funny, but it’s the honest truth. The Lord used my pride and my shame about my weight to keep me from ending it all at a very dark period in my life. When I think now about what that would have done to my family, and of all the joy I would have missed, I’m so thankful that I was FAT!!!!!
With prayer, good counseling and an effective anti-depressant, the depression finally began to lift and has been completely gone for several years – and I haven’t been on antidepressants in over 7 years. As I began to heal from that, God began the transformation process. My part was allowing Him to do that, and being willing for that healing to happen. To heal, I had to release the anger I had towards those who had hurt my daughter, and I had to release the anger I had towards my Heavenly Father for allowing the pain to begin with. I will admit that that was easier said than done, but it was an important step.
Every time I face a situation that has the potential to grow me or break me, I have to make a choice to trust God and allow Him to work in and through the situation. The older I get, the easier it is to just trust Him, because I have found Him faithful. God doesn’t always work things out the way I’d like Him to (and I DO tell Him how I think things should work out!), but I am continuing to learn that He doesn’t make mistakes.
Sometimes I wonder about the timing for me coming to Take Shape for Life/Medifast and I wonder why God didn’t lead me here years ago. I would have been spared years of pain and humiliation, I wouldn’t have been on the brink of so many health issues, the list of “what if’s” could go on and on. I sure tried hard on so many other diets, and I wonder why nothing ever “clicked” until now. I don’t have a good answer for that, other than to say that two decades of obesity sanded down some rough edges in my life as probably nothing else could have done. I’m not saying that God made me fat, because I know that He didn’t. What I am saying, and what I believe, is that God used that time to refine and shape me, and when it was “my time, in HIS time, He led me here. So now even the pain of my obesity is being transformed – that’s the kind of God I love
and serve!
We have so many choices to make today - not just what we're going to eat and whether or not we're going to stay on program. We also have to choose how we will deal with struggles from our past that continue to shape our responses today, and how we will respond to new situations that may challenge our resolve. Choose wisely :-)
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