Week 12 C
Guidelines and Assignments for you
For best results:
Do these assignments on the last 5 days of Week 12 after you’ve read through the material in section A and B
DAY 1
Be on guard
Remember this verse:
1 Corinthians 10:12 (AMP)
Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands [who feels sure that he has a steadfast mind and is standing firm], take heed lest he fall [into sin]
Don’t let your confidence in yourself grow too big. In fact, one of the greatest lesson we can learn through the struggle with eating disorders is to think soberly about ourselves: We should know that we can not stand alone against the enemy, and taking him on alone will get us in trouble, but we are not pathetic either, we are daughters of the King and with the King of kings on our side the enemy is in trouble. We should find our identity in God, nowhere else.
Sometimes we learn this lesson after the first fall, and sometimes it doesn’t dawn on us until we fell a dozen times or more.
I know this from my own life and lots of ladies would told me the same story: As soon as God starts to work in us, and some of the layers start to come off, things get easier, the air seems clearer, life feels so different and we convince ourselves that we are again in full control of our lives, and then we let our guards down…
Here’s what happened to me in the past:
I would think to myself: “This is great, at this rate I can lose at least 30 pounds a month. I think I will start cutting out starches all together, just to help this on a bit (note how I start to give God a helping hand).
A few days later, after at least two months of consistently eating healthy and exercising and also replacing some of my addictive foods, I would forget to write down what I ate, and then proceed to just let it slip. I would think to myself “I have calculated this so many time, I know exactly how much to eat, it’s a waste of time, I’ll do it again tomorrow”
Things would start to spiral down from there, and before I knew it a week would go by where I didn’t write down what I ate, didn’t write in my journal, and didn’t exercise. I would use busyness as an excuse for my slacking.
A week wouldn’t make much of a difference in my weight though, and I would pretty much still stay the course without too much indulgence.
At this point I would have my aha-moment “I must be totally there. I must finally be over my bizarre eating spree”. I would wonder how on earth I could have let myself be ruled by such vulgar behavior. I would also mention to others that this is something of the past and that I am sure it was just a season of insanity that I finally outgrew. Maybe I never really suffered from eating disorders, maybe I should have just straightened myself out a long time ago. Look at me now, I am in total control of my eating.
Mmm…Control or Denial?
After another week I would start to buy some of my addictive food again, I would prepare dishes I know I have no business preparing, I would invite people over, and make plans to go dine out. All the while I would stay busy, busy, busy. I would avoid God’s presence and pretend that I don’t even own a Bible. I would be happy, too happy, talking fast and loud and being silly and crazy. Everybody would comment on my funny mood and laugh, I would laugh too, but inside the crying already started…
After weeks and months I would stand in front of my closet with nothing to wear. I would feel bloated and tired all day long. I would watch TV into the wee morning hours and just fall into bed. I would wake up with heart burn and a headache from a sugar and fat overload the previous night. Yet, unable to stop the cycle I would reach for coffee and doughnuts for breakfast, mixed with tears of despair.
So every time I thought I was standing just fine on my own and that I didn’t REALLY need God, I would hit the pavement. I would finally look up from my denial and she was back, the one who could not stop eating, the one who hated mirrors, and the one who thought she would just help God a little. Finally I would cry out to God again, and He would stretch out His hand and help me up where I laid in the miry clay…
Through trial and error I’ve learned that this girl on her own is actually super vulnerable, but when she runs to her Father and climbs on His lap, she can look life straight in the eye and stop being afraid.
I’ve learned and I am still learning that without Him I can do nothing, but with my God all things are possible. So for the rest of my days, may I get it through my thick head, there is only one place that is safe: Under His wing.
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IMPORTANT! Please be on guard! You have come far, my dearest sister in Christ, but don’t dare to think that you will be okay on your own. Stay close to the One who truly loves you: JESUS
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PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 2
Be prepared to get up quickly
Always have faith that you will never fall again!
Hebrews 11:1 (Amplified Bible)
NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
At some point during my struggle with food I started taking a hold of God for my deliverance. I started believing with my whole heart that God could set me free from this eating disorder: I knew from His Word that He is able and willing to do so and I took the promise as my own.
I also learned from Hebrews 11 that without faith it is impossible to please God. I wanted faith and I started asking God to give me more faith and forgive my unbelief.
However, it is important to know that faith is not a way to manipulate God.
We can not tell God when and where we want things done and if it doesn’t happen that way, we lose our faith and trust in God. We have to remember that He is sovereign and that He does things for a reason and with our best interest at heart. So His timing in all of this is also for our sake, even though it doesn’t feel like that to us. We can’t see the future. In fact, we can see a very small piece of the big picture. So we would be wise to believe that God will set us free, and also to believe that we can trust Him with the timetable.
The question remains:
If I believe that He is going to set me free in due time, will I remain laying down and wallow in my sin if I slip and fall?
I used to, before He renewed my faith and reminded me that I live by faith and not by sight – and that the ONLY WAY FORWARDS OUT OF THIS JUNGLE OF FOOD STRUGGLES IS TO KEEP GETTING UP WHEN I FALL
We have to start wising up to the fact that a fall is discouragement from the enemy. The Word says that in the last days he will try to wear out the saints. Satan knows that by tripping us up, and by sending waves of busyness and temptation our way, he might get us to fall or at least stumble.
I also believe God allows it to happen sometimes as part of our journey to freedom. He knows that we will destroy our own lives if we keep those desires alive, so He gives us an opportunity to hurt a little, so that we will let it go, before it hurts a lot.
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So sometimes these falls are just discouragement, and other times they are allowed for our growth. In the end it is all part of the journey: Falling and getting up. I have seen ladies turn their backs on God and ruin their marriages, careers, and lives by falling and never getting up again. If you give up, and keep laying down, the enemy joins you there in your pit of despair. He comes and whisper all kinds of lies in your ears, and the more he talks the deeper you sink into the pit, until you can hear nothing but lies, and can not see the light of day anymore. |
My dear friend, please don’t stay down if you fall.
The Lord is going to raise you up for good, but in the meantime, JUMP up if you fall, don’t look back, keep going forward. Refuse to lay there and listen to the enemy’s lies! Once you’re up and moving again, it is so much easier to see his lies for what the are and hear the truth of God’s Word again.
- Would you please take this day to think about your FAITH again. How are you doing with that?
- Do you believe at this point that God wants to free you and that He can free you.
- If you don’t, please pray again to be forgiven for your unbelief and to be given a new measure of faith.
Have a look at this verse again, it is powerful:
Hebrews 11:6 (AMP)
But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 3
How do I get up?
Always Get Back to Basics
1. Kick denial and pride out of your life!
PLEASE stop telling yourself you’re okay when you’re not, and stop drowning out the Holy Spirit’s voice with the TV or your own voice. Just get to a quite place with God, lay down your pride and repent. If you’re not ready to truly repent then ask Him to give you true sorrow for your sin that you need to come clean before Him.
2. Come back to God first.
Ask God to help you get up and on track again. Commit to spend time with Him first of all, before establishing anything else again. Never first try and get your eating, or your exercise routine fixed before you didn’t repair your relationship with God.
3. Tell family and friends who have supported you in the past the truth about your fall, and ask them to pray with you as you’re getting back up. Ask them to especially pray for you during the next 40 days as you have to stand against the enemy while you clean out your house and your heart.
4. Bring your heart before God every day, let Him search it and tell you what went wrong and why you ended up falling again.
Let Him heal you and restore you. Give your heart back to Him and start writing in your journal again. Write down your deep heart’s desires again, and bring them back in focus as your number one priority: Fulfilling God’s purpose in your life.
5. Start building up your body again.
Get away from the diet mentality by telling yourself that from tomorrow you are going to stop all sweets and starches (you’ve probably been doing that for a while without any success). Rather start adding some water, fresh fruit and vegetables to everything else you’re eating RIGHT NOW. Or start a program that has enough nutrition to build up your body right away and that has support and accountability in place so you can get out of the vicious cycle.
6. Get your healthy food plan up and running again:
Keep to your menus and shopping lists again or start a program that has it all in place for you. Don’t listen to the enemy’s lies that you will now be deprived and you should start binging before the diet – a healthy program and laying down is not a diet – those are just memories of your diet days that the enemy is using.
7. Get a handle on your thought life again.
Start to read your note cards every morning when you wake up so you can hear the truth of God in your ears. Leave them laying around the house, especially the kitchen, and keep reading the truth throughout the day.
8. Weapons!!
Give praise to God during the day.
Put some worship music on when you feel tempted and start praising Him.
Use all of your weapons against the enemy. Expect temptation once you are up and going again, but be prepared to resist. Run to your room again during those first days and just cry your heart out before God when you just want to give in. You will even experience grieve again, partly because you formed a new attachment to the food and partly because of your sorrow over falling again. Just go through it, don’t fight it, but let the Holy Spirit counsel you and let Jesus heal your heart.
9. Forgive yourself and others who contributed to this fall. Move away from the pit of despair and keep moving forward on this journey. The faster you get up and forgive yourself and others the easier all of this will be.
10. Don’t see this fall as a failure, but see it as schooling, lessons learned to be wiser for the rest of the journey. There might be more, but you never know, this might have been your last fall ever! Whatever the case might be, you’ve made up your mind, you’re completing this race
- Will you make up your mind with me to keep getting up, no matter what?
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Will you make up your mind to finish this race no matter what?
I will see you at the end of this race, I know we will meet each other there at the finish line!
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 4
How can I avoid falling?
Keep working on the layers – listen to the triggers
1. Give over to God’s time table.
Don’t insist on your time for deliverance anymore. Instead just walk the journey with consistency and faith that He will bring you through.
2. Never go a day without God’s presence.
Learn to dialogue with Him throughout your day, and make some time for the two of you to talk about your heart’s desires and also the things that are pressing on your heart and emotions.
3. Be aware of the enemy’s schemes.
See him behind people, and don’t fall for it. Expect his temptations, and expect especially for him to try and keep you from fulfilling your heart’s desires. Fight for those desires and dreams.
4. Feed your spirit with all that is edifying and starve the evil desires of your flesh by avoiding things that get you in trouble.
5. Be aware of busyness, people pleasing, and worries that can distract you from your purpose: Pleasing God and fulfilling His purpose for your life.
6. Listen especially to triggers God brings about to nudge you towards change.
If we obey God because we want to, He will trigger things in us through the voice of the Holy Spirit. Spending time with God and obeying Him makes us sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s voice. If there is a problem with unforgiveness or suppressed pain, we will hear His voice speak to us, and we will deal with it. Let God remove those layers one by one. We don’t have to fall to help this on, we can willingly surrender to the great Physician and let Him remove things from our hearts and make us whole, healthy, and clean.
7. Give thanks to God in everything.
Start telling others about God’s work in you so far. You will edify them and you will be edified and strengthened in your faith. The Bible says that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and our testimonies.
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 5
Today – take a year
Give yourself a year, starting today, to be consistent and surrender to God.
Don’t look at this on a short scale. There is too much to be dealt with to see the true impact of all the change over a short period. Rather commit to go one year without diets or dangerous methods. You can do it. Print out a calendar and start your year today – don’t wait for January.
Every day check off the days that you surrendered and that you stuck to your commitment to be consistent in your time with God and reaching for health instead of weight loss.
Don’t give up hope. Never mind the days that you don’t do so well. Never mind the falls, just get up as soon as you can, and remember that all those days count together to shape your life. So even though you made a big mess of things yesterday, you are given today again, God’s mercies are new and you get to try again to shape your future.
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IMPORTANT: EVERY DAY MATTERS! The enemy will ALWAYS try and tell you to just eat this now, or just use this dangerous method today, because one more day wouldn’t make a difference. This is one of his biggest lies the enemy uses in our lives. Don’t fall for it! Write this down everywhere in your house as a reminder: Everyday matters! TODAY MATTERS! |
A Special Note for You
My dearest sister in Christ
This is your year: You can do it!
Don’t panic. Just stay consistent and most importantly: Stay close to your God!
Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me. Never forget that you are a princess of the only true King – nothing less!
“Thank you God for your grace and patience with me. Thank you for nudging me, guiding me, and giving me the words to finish this study for your precious daughters. Keep every lady who joined me on this journey safe in your hands and bring each one to a place of healing and freedom in you”
Love, Heleen
Scripture quotations are from the following versions with corresponding abbreviations:
AMP= THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, EXPANDED EDITION. Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Words in brackets [ ] and parentheses ( ) are those of The Amplified Bible translators, not the author.
NIV= Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
Complete List of the research material I’ve used for my eBook and 12 Week Program
I recommend that you read some of these that pertain to the areas you struggle with
The purpose and passions God placed in our hearts:
Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
Finding favor with the King by Tommy Tenney
The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a relentless God by Francis Chan
Just like Jesus by Max Lucado
Walking with God by John Eldredge
Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray
Spiritual warfare:
Victory over the darkness by Neil Anderson
The Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson
When Godly people do ungodly things by Beth Moore
Waking the Dead by John Eldredge
Battlefield of the mind by Joyce Meyers
Prayer:
Living Free: Learning to pray God’s Word by Beth Moore
The power of a praying woman by Stormie Omartian
The power of simple prayer by Joyce Meyers
The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson
Issues Surrounding Eating Disorders and Addiction:
Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Hope, Help and Healing for Eating Disorders by Gregory L Jantz
Mercy for Eating Disorders by Nancy Alcorn
Approval Addiction by Joyce Meyers
Inside Out by Larry Crab
The power of forgiveness by Joyce Meyers
Conflict free living by Joyce Meyers
Food and Love by Gary Smalley
Love to eat Hate to eat by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Longing for Daddy by Monique Robinson
The Mom Factor by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Father hunger : fathers, daughters & food by Maine Margo
Anatomy of a food addiction by Katherine Anne
Freeing Our Families from Perfectionism by Thomas S Greenspon, Ph.D
How People Grow by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Perfectionism: What’s Bad About Being Too Good? by Miriam Adderholt, Ph.D and Jan Goldberg
Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave by Edward T Welch
Get out of that Pit by Beth Moore
The Christian Counselors Manual by Jay E Adams
When People are Big and God is Small by Edward T Welch
Made to Crave by Lisa Terkeurst
Healthy Eating and Exercise:
The Maker’s Diet by Jordan S. Rubin
Body for Life by Bill Phillips
Body for Life for Women by Peeke Pamela
Master you Metabolism by Jillian Michaels
Winning by Losing by Jillian Michaels
The Carbohydrate Addict’s healthy heart program by Dr. Richard F. Heller, Dr. Rachel. F. Heller, Dr. Fredric J. Vagnini
Dr A’s Habits of Health by Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen
Help your child overcome eating disorders:
When your child has an Eating Disorder: A Step by Step Workbook for Parents and Other Caregivers by Abigail H. Natenshon, Jossey-Bass
Bible Studies
Conquering Eating Disorders by Robert S McGee & Wm.Drew Mountcastle
Breaking Free: Making Liberty in Christ a Reality in Life by Beth Moore
Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit by Beth Moore
Giving Christ First Place (First Place Bible Study) by Gospel Light Publications
Seek God First (First Place 4 Health Bible Study Series) by First Place 4 Health
Giving Christ Control (First Place 4 Health Bible Study Series) by First Place 4 Health
God’s Purpose for You (First Place 4 Health Bible Study Series) by First Place 4 Health
Copyright © 2009 by Heleen Woest Eating Disorders – All Rights Reserved
Revised Version – Copyright © 2011 by Heleen Woest Eating Disorders – All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The information pertaining to women struggling with food on this site is for guidance only. It is not to be treated as a substitute for professional eating disorder treatment by a physician or professional counselor
