Help! I'm A Slave to Food and My Body!

I'm so excited to announce that beginning today I'll be hosting a new online show every Wednesday for women, Every Body Matters. To be consistent, I'm going to be blogging on the same topic each week. I know many listeners are visual learners, so this should be a plus.

You may remember the story of 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard who was kidnapped in 1991. Abducted from a school bus stop, she went missing for over eighteen years. During this time Jaycee had two daughters by her abductor. Most people wonder why she simply didn’t run away when she had the opportunity. Psychologists have a term to explain this phenomenon: the Stockholm syndrome.

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response that occasionally occurs in people who’ve been abducted and held hostage. The abductee doesn’t resist and actually shows signs of loyalty or caring for the person who took them. They do so despite the dangerous and harmful things the abductor does to them. Instead of hating the abductor, the person befriends and, at times, actually believes the captor is protecting them instead of harming and dominating them. Some people believe this may have happened to Jaycee.

We can use this term, Stockholm syndrome, to understand how a person becomes abducted by addiction. Using an eating disorder as the example, the disorder takes hold of the person’s mind and won’t let go despite the fact the eating disorder is harmful, even potentially lethal. The abductor (eating disorder) makes the person do many things: starve, binge, purge, take laxatives, or exercise until exhaustion. In return, the abductor offers her a false sense of protection.

The woman held captive believes she controls the power of the eating disorder because she chose it. As a result, she befriends the eating disorder and creates an identity around it. She’ll even defend it when other people show concern or try to medically treat her; similar to the abused woman who defends her abuser. Over time she actually believes the eating disorder is helping, not hurting her. It gives the message, “If you’re thin, all your problems will disappear. I’m your savior!” It promises life, but ultimately robs you of your very soul.

There’s a good chance that right now you feel stressed. You promised yourself you wouldn’t engage in a negative or self-destructive behavior. But somehow the abductor baited you with those familiar promises. The liar it is, it starts the process of churning out negative self-talk. You find yourself doing what you don’t want to do. Sin deceives. It whispers, “The abductor will give you what you want. It will take care of you. God won’t. He’s angry at you.” The abductor promises to relieve your pain and fill your soul-hole. Christians have a name for this captor, Satan—and his goal is to silently seduce us, infect our minds, and destroy our lives.

Someone said humans have a tendency to crucify ourselves between two thieves: the regret of yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. The good news is healing and transformation often occur smack in the middle of life’s adversities. God knows the lessons we must learn—lessons of patience, submission, and self-denial. When we vent our heart to the Lord, He uses our pain to draw us closer to Him.

Many times our prayers aren’t answered immediately. The Bible tells us not to lose heart (Luke 18:1). Keep praying—don’t cease. Sometimes God fulfills our desires. Sometimes He asks us to wait. Sometimes He says no so He can give us something better.

Do you have an abductor? Describe your abductor. What do you find so compelling about it? What promises it has made you. What precious gifts has it stolen from you? How have you been deceived? Pray and think carefully: What do you really want? What are you actually seeking?

This is an excerpt from the 2nd Edition "I’m Beautiful? Why Can’t I See It?" by author Kimberly Davidson

Scars and Stories

There is a saying that goes, “Scars are like tattoos—with better stories.” I tell my stories, those stories that produced scars of all lengths and depths, to help others avoid the same dicey and destructive path I traveled. God tells us he will use what was meant for evil for good and he does through our stories—our scars. But as new creations in Christ our stories will change when we change our choices. Here are five ways you can begin to create new stories by facilitating change and growth:

1. Bring God into everything you do. The ongoing presence of God can strengthen and heal as he nurtures your mind, body, spirit, and cleanses your soul. No addiction has a chance of survival. Work on continuously communicating with him until it becomes a regular habit. Set aside a specific time each day to immerse yourself in God’s Word, even if it’s only a couple of verses. He will provide the light so you can understand (see Psalm 119:130).

2. Practice solitude and self-examination. Find a still quiet place where you can meet with God to pray and examine yourself. Ask him to help you answer these questions as you move forward. Take your time and scrutinize your motives.

• What do I think will truly make me happy?
• What or who do I believe fills the hunger of my soul?
• What deep needs am I trying to fill?
• Do I fear God’s plan for my life is not what I really want?

3. List the personal traits you want to change first. Go back to your answers from the “Pre-Study Exercise.” Pray over the areas in your life where you feel enslaved. It helps to focus on changing one area at a time. Ask God to reveal the area he desires to begin working on first.

4. Be patient and give yourself time to heal. God’s timetable will most likely be slower than yours. Depend on God for the power to change, but don’t expect him to miraculously change your personality and behaviors. Changing engrained traits takes time.

5. Keep directing your energies toward growth and healing. Get a routine going, and an adequate amount of rest and sleep. Scripture tells us that rest leads to restoration, “The LORD…makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul” (Psalm 23:1-3).

This is an excerpt from the book "Something Happened On My Way To Hell" by author Kimberly Davidson

You Don't Have Time for That!

Diagnosed with terminal cancer at thirty-three, Carly worked to maintain a joyful spirit. Weakened but hopeful, she asked her girlfriend Beth to go shopping with her for a new dress. After selecting a few dresses she called Beth into the dressing room. Donning a smart royal blue jersey wrap, she pointed to herself in the mirror and asked, “Do I look fat?” Beth shook her head and grunted, “You don’t have time for that!”

This story kicked me right in the gut. I realized whether we’re ill or not, in the kingdom of God we don’t have time for “that”—for worrying about our weight, or whether we’re admired, or covering up the pain with a substance or activity, or… You know what your “that” is.

Jesus had something to say about this, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Matthew 6:25). I regularly remind myself of this woman’s wise reply and Jesus’s words. My desire is for my heart to be focused on the kingdom of God, not on myself—on my body size or wardrobe. As a child of God these things no longer identify me.

Through prayer and Bible study, God will put up a mirror and we’ll begin to see our attitudes, beliefs, and motives from a very different perspective—his. One of the purposes of Scripture is to show us the truth about our own human nature. Self-examination is a light shedding process; the light of truth penetrates and exposes deception. Jesus said the truth will set us free (see John 8:32).

God gives us our experiences so we might be able to examine them under his light. We learn that his fingerprints have been on them our entire life…even before we were born. Even the worst chapters of your life are full of his presence.

God promises he will “bestow on you a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:3). Can it get any better than that?

This is an excerpt from the book "Something Happened On My Way To Hell" by author Kimberly Davidson

Lured into a Web of Idolatry

Whatever feels good, what seems to give us an immediate experience of life, we decide is life; we decide it is food for our souls, and we chase after it with all the excitement of a street person in the back alley rummaging through the fine restaurant’s garbage. –Psychologist Larry Crabb

Hard, cold facts reveal that we tend to set our sights on godless promised lands and people who assure us of every good thing. In what’s been called “the parable of the rich young ruler” (see Mark 10:17-31) we find Jesus about to leave town. One man knows it is his last chance to ask his question to Jesus face-to-face. The young man kept all the commandments, but still sensed incompleteness. A picture of urgency and humility, he ran up to Jesus and fell on his knees before him. He asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus addressed the young man’s real point of need, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Scripture then says, “At this the man’s face fell, and he went away very sad, for he had many possessions.” Imagine how devastating Jesus’s words were to this young man. The young man clutched an idol. Money and processions can be horrible masters.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Let the idol go and follow me. My desire is for you to join me, but I will not force you. Of all the people who came to Jesus, this man went away worse than he came. The thought of giving up his possessions, his way of life, his security and status—his pleasure, was too much. He declined Jesus’s offer. The hole in his soul would remain eternally unfilled.

When we repeatedly worship worldly treasures instead of God, they become an obsessive addiction. This explains why we can’t “just stop.” This is idolatry: the practice of ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth—things other than God. Idolatry elevates pleasure in things or people above pleasure in God, which God considers a sin. He doesn’t want to share his throne with anything or anyone else. The idols in themselves are not actual sin, but can lead to sin. The danger of idolatry is it usually goes undetected. At first the idol seems exciting and it makes promises. Before we know it we’ve become its slave.

Anything we use to soothe our stress or pain, and boost pleasure, may potentially be made into an object of our devotion. Pray: “Lord God, You are God Almighty. Yet, sometimes in ignorance and arrogance I try to take your place. I ask for your forgiveness and submit my life to you. I acknowledge that all glory, honor, and praise belong to you alone. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

This is an excerpt from the book "Something Happened On My Way To Hell" by author Kimberly Davidson

Image Management

If I asked you, “What image do people have of you… or more importantly, what image do you want people to have of you?” how would you answer? Today personal image often centers around our own mental images of success, power, youthfulness and accomplishment.

Psychologist Mary Pipher says, “Girls become ‘female impersonators’ who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces. Girls stop thinking, Who am I? What do I want, and start thinking, What must I do to please others? American culture has always smacked girls on the head in early adolescence.”

For decades my main concern was my own image management. Scripture says the person who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives (1 Tim. 5:6). My soul was dead. There was nothing to me. If you were to take off my mask, there would be no face. A person without a face is indifferent. I didn’t care about others. I used people. It was all about me—me working tirelessly on my image.

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it (John 3:17). He didn’t want people to feel bad about themselves. He wanted people to feel loved by God. Jesus wanted people to find freedom from shame and self-condemnation, not get stuck in it.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Let that that earthly, cultural image go and follow me. My desire is for you to join me, but I will not force you. If we’re honest many of us are afraid of the what will happen if we obey Jesus’s words: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely” (Mark 8:34, TLB).

I think too often this is one of those biblical truths which have been misapplied. Taken out of context it results in a narrow and faulty doctrine that basically says, “If you really want to follow Christ you must give up your comfortable life to suffer and be miserable. The more you suffer, the more God will love you.”

Jesus meant we must accept the death of our own self-directed life. As Pastor Lou Giglio says in his book I Am Not But I Know I Am, “It is nothing more than the doorway to a life filled with the matchless wonder of all that God is.” Jesus is our model. He willingly left glorious heaven for dysfunctional earth in order to be in God’s redemptive story. As a man, he was willing to fully give of himself so that the ultimate glory would be given to his Father. He knew there was greater glory to come. All Jesus did was give of himself so others, including you and me, could be privy to a great relationship with God—now and forever.

The Bible define the Christian disciple as one who models Jesus Christ’s lifestyle; one who will “deny himself and take up his cross” and follow Christ (Mark 8:34). Jesus too knew that embracing smallness and crucifying the flesh is something we have to do every moment of every single day. In the process we must be willing to face whatever physical, emotional, or social harassments ensue—being ridiculed for our beliefs and losing certain friends (they were probably not real friends to begin with), turning off our Internet connections for a couple of hours and serving the homeless, or giving up things that have no eternal value.

This is what exchanging our old image and selfish life for a new image and selfless life in Christ looks like. Far too many Christians are living a life they weren’t meant to live. They assume that if they do something they don’t like or feel comfortable with, it is what God wants. They don’t understand that God desires for them to live an abundant life. Someone once said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about discovering who God created you to be.” As we discover our God-given purpose and live in accordance with that, joy is imminent.

It is hard to deny ourselves what we truly desire with temptation banging at our door each day, maybe every minute. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can learn to let go of insatiable desires. To do this we must grow in the spiritual virtue of attachment—attachment to God alone. As we receive nourishment from him then our minds and heart begin to change, and we begin dying to self.

Brennan Manning prayed, “Dear Jesus, gift us to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in your love. Amen.”

Move Closer to Love

If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. –Pastor Francis Chan

A drowning boy struggled to survive in a river as his mother stood watch, gripped with fright and grief. A well-built man walked up seemingly indifferent to the boy’s fate. “Save my boy. Sir please save him!” cried the terrified mom. But he made no move. Losing strength, the boy’s thrashing began to diminish. He rose to the surface, weak and helpless. Then the man leaped into the river and brought the boy in safely to the shore. “Why didn’t you go after my son sooner?” cried the mom. “Madam, I couldn’t save your boy as long as he struggled and thrashed around. He would have dragged us both down to certain death. But when he grew weak and ceased to struggle, then it was easy to save him.”

To struggle to save ourselves is to hinder Jesus Christ from saving us. Why does God allow us to struggle in these mighty rivers? I believe he does this to overwhelm us with our own sense of inadequacy. He permits trouble and perplexities to ensure we fill ourselves with him and accept his grace.

In the Gospels, a picture emerges of the close communication Jesus had with the Father. God the Father was always available, supportive and affirming. The Son sought his Father’s approval, trusted him instinctively, and knew he could count on him to meet his deep needs.

When you’re in a rough place, God desires you hold on to him. He won’t drop you! As you get to know God through the Bible, you will find he is a strong rock, a sustainer, a rescuer, and refuge for the weak. No doubt this is why he brings us to the edge of the raging river.

Reflect on It:
• What do you feel in your heart God is telling you to do right now to begin moving closer to him?
• Take an inventory of how much time you’re spending with him (called worship)—in prayer, reading his Word, participating in church services and studies. Are you including him in every part of your day? If not, set three goals and write them out. Then stick to them. For example,
1. I will get up 20 minutes early each day to pray. I will read and meditate on a few verses in my Bible.
2. On my way to and from work, I will shut off the radio in my car and imagine the resurrected Jesus Christ sitting in the passenger seat. He wants to know what’s on my mind and I will tell him.
3. I will start attending church regularly and seek to get “plugged in.”

This is an excerpt from the book "Something Happened On My Way To Hell" by author Kimberly Davidson

I'm Gorgeous Inside

“I’m Gorgeous Inside.” Realtors commonly put this sign in front of a home they want to sell. Could this sign apply to us as Jesus followers? This is a vivid metaphor for how we should present ourselves in the world. Are you bold enough to wear a "I'm Gorgeous Inside" t-shirt? It may sound arrogant, but it requires humility to invite others to take a look at our insides. The truth is we are gorgeous inside. How can we not be if the perfect and beautiful Jesus Christ lives within us? Sadly, the t-shirts we wear often say things like, "needs work", or "depressed," reflecting self-condemnation, rather than celebrating our true gorgeousness!

It’s been said that the average woman will spend nearly one year of her life trying to decide what to wear. What exactly does the Bible say about inner beauty? Romans 8:6 says, “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Paul speaks of a mind that is controlled by life and peace. He told the Galatians that when we let the Spirit take charge of our inner being he will build in us the “fruit of the Spirit:” love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness” (Galatians 5:22). These are the qualities that make us gorgeous inside.

The Bible says, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). This is where authentic beauty resides. Righteousness [virtue, morality, honesty, decency, uprightness, blamelessness] in our hearts is the beauty and qualities that makes us gorgeous. Real beauty isn’t found in seeking to look a certain way, or to be praised or great. It’s in the heart.

What is the state of your heart today? We cannot spend day after day in this world without it affecting our minds, our hearts, and our souls. They become unguarded. Our hearts start to shift away from God. And the ironic thing is the harder we work to become free, the more freedom we seem to lose. It is no surprise King Solomon advised, “Above all else, guard your heart [or affections] for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23, my emphasis).

“Lord, I pray that through the work of Your Spirit dwelling within me I will be transformed into a grand display of the fruit that will attract others to You and reflect glory back to you.”