Letting go of control
Dear Jenny,
Oven at 350? Timer set for 12 minutes?
Who knew this could feel so normal, right? Checking your favorite food blogs. Searching the cabinet for that elusive bag of chocolate chips. The way that particular shaft of sunlight—slanting through your kitchen windows in the late afternoon—illuminates the puffs of flour as they float up from the bowl. Normal, and yet … extraordinary. Especially when you remember sophomore year.
That was the beginning, wasn’t it? The obsessing about food. The compulsive calorie-counting and over-exercising and the relentless self-loathing.
Even then, though, you prayed. This mindset, these choices—they didn’t feel right. But there were times when you feared you were in too deep—that no power was big enough to pull you out of this vortex.
Still, you prayed. You clung to the life-saving thought that God’s healing message of love is “ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself.” Repeating itself. 1 You knew that meant that God would keep loving you until you yielded—until Love saved you.
The hardest part was the control. That was the root of it. You couldn’t control your relationships or the world’s reception of your work. But food? You could control that. So you did.
Years passed. You struggled, but you were also moving forward in so many areas. And you were beginning to see that your concept of control was pretty upside-down. You thought you had the power to make things happen (or not). But your prayers were showing you that God was the real authority, the real source of movement in your life.
Like when you prayed about your career. You glimpsed the truth of this statement: “Mind’s control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science.” 2 Mind’s control. That’s right. Prayer showed you that you’d never had your hands on the steering wheel of your life. But every right thought and action was a promise that God was in control, and that you couldn’t ever stand outside His wise and attentive care.
Then came The Day. You’d been feeling the peace from knowing God’s control—God’s tender shepherding—for a while, hadn’t you? And you’d been loving it. Not being in control was so much easier than clinging to the illusion that you were somehow responsible for your life and progress.
On The Day, you’d met up with some friends for lunch. And you were eating—you were eating. That’s when you realized that the obsessive thoughts about food were just gone. You couldn’t even remember the last time you’d worried about how much you’d eaten or felt afraid and out of control when you’d come into contact with food.
You were healed. Forever.
Speaking of which, it’s probably time to check on those cookies. I know, when you take them out of the oven, you’ll pause for a moment to give thanks. It’s a powerful, sacred thing to have a Saviour, isn’t it? And it’s an unspeakable gift to know what it means to be saved.
Love,
Jenny
Topics: Body image, Guilt, Health and Identity, Self-esteem | Tags: control, eating, eating disorder, self-worth
Thanks everyone!
THANK YOU. I’m going to think about this:
it wasn’t my job to extricate myself.
What do you think about my question about asking God for direction?
Ummm … I’m not seeing your question about asking God for direction. (Sorry if I’m missing something.) What is it?
I think this is the question:
Isabella Says:
How do you know when you’re trying to make something happen or if you’re really letting go and letting God be in control?
[Reply]
jenny Reply:
October 17th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Good question-and one that I still ask myself all the time! I’m sure other people will have different perspectives to share, but I’d say that in my experience, it always comes down to a feeling. Whenever I’m trying to make something happen, I find that I tend to feel anxious and panicked, or I just get frustrated really easily when things don’t go exactly as I want them to. By contrast, when I feel like I have been really clear on God’s control and guidance of a situation, I’ve felt more peaceful and less stressed (and often a whole lot happier).
One other key piece for me is just having an ongoing willingness to keep turning back to God each step of the way. To keep asking, “Father (Mother), is this the way?” I think that simple act of consistent prayerful asking does a lot to get frustration, fear, and willfulness out of the picture-and to help me feel connected to a faithful, loving Shepherd.
[Reply]
Karen Reply:
October 23rd, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I never really stop to ask God for direction but I still feel Her direction. Do you think it would be better to actually ask? It just doesn’t feel natural to me.
[Reply]
Karen, I think that just like “desire is prayer,” living is asking for direction. Because God can’t stop Father-Mother-ing us.
Personally I love to go the extra mile and say, “I’m relying on your guidance here, so thanks so much in advance.” Why? Cuz that attitude of childlike trust feels so darn good.
I’m really in awe of how something like this happens. How do you get such a different view of yourself to let go of something so pervasive? I am drinking in what you wrote, but it seems so “big” to me.
Yeah, I’m kind of in awe of it too. Especially because I’d felt so trapped in that earlier way of thinking–I didn’t know how I could possibly extricate myself.
But the thing is, it wasn’t my job to extricate myself. That’s what I saw when I realized I was healed–that Christ, God’s message of love and salvation, is always at work on our behalf. That we have a Saviour. Yes, I do think it takes consent. I do think it takes a willingness to change our perspective, and to follow the new path God is showing us, and to abandon old ways of thinking and acting. But if God really is the only Mind (which I believe that He is), then wouldn’t it make sense that we wouldn’t be allowed to stay in a harmful, unproductive, un-Godlike mindset? God is at work being God–and what I’m seeing more and more is that I’m being given the strength and freedom and willingness to conform to who and what God is, and who I am as His expression.
I think one of the biggest things this healing taught me is that as I pray and listen, I will be shown the way–out of any unproductive behaviors/ways of thinking. And I can trust God to keep speaking to me until I do yield.
I see now that the light of Christ really is there to illuminate all our dark places.
MBE said “That body is most harmonious in which the discharge of the natural functions is least noticeable.”
To me, “least noticeable” translates as “least stressful.” I say: what can I eat that gives me the most joy and the least stress?
God as Love creates a perfect answer to this question for each person. I love my almost-vegan diet. But the answer is different for each person.
God made us each to thrive. The most joy. The least stress. Claim that as your birthright and the perfect diet will find you.
Violet- those words are beautiful and exactly what I have been working on in my thoughts all weekend- I feel that God has really guided me in this direction- ‘almost – vegan’- very good. As I said I love all the foods I discover while being vegan and yes as you say I can eat them totally care free and without stress! Love inpsired & guided. xx
Thank you so so much for sharing that story Jenny and to all the others for their comments. I too have battled with eating disorder related issues for a number of years, avoiding certain foods fearing they would make me ill. Then just last year I started to think that the ‘best’ way to live was to be a vegan (ie. avoiding all food stuffs from animals- meat, dairy, honey, eggs- the lot!). I was fooling myself that I was being soooo good by doing this but I am slowly growing spriitually to recognise that we are all spiritual ideas, the animals too, and that I didn’t need to limit myself to veganism because in truth that’s an over focus on matter isn’t it, we are all spiritual ideas after all and as Jesus taught, take no thought for yourself or what you shall eat, and to eat what is set before you! Veganism was just another ‘stick to beat myself with’! I have found though that a lot of the foods I started to eat on this vegan voyage were really yummy (peanut butter’s my fave!) so I guess now they are my preference and not a limiting factor in that I can really have all that God has provided.
Thanks again Jenny, thank you so much for this.
Love Cheryl xx
Thank you, Cheryl! I like what Violet said below about asking Love to guide you in each circumstance. It’s this kind of fearless trust that enables me to have a non-scary relationship with food (i.e. to enjoy it!) now. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)
Yes Violet’s comments were excellent and got me thinking even after posting my first reply above. I have been thinking all weekend on this thread / blog and have been listening very closely to God. Now I really see that God has guided me in the direction of veganism, a very loving way of life, a way of life that has taken the stress and scary relationship away from food too, at last! Thank you Jenny & Violet, after my prayer filled weekend I can say that I am experiencing healing. At peace. xx
How do you know when you’re trying to make something happen or if you’re really letting go and letting God be in control?
Good question–and one that I still ask myself all the time! I’m sure other people will have different perspectives to share, but I’d say that in my experience, it always comes down to a feeling. Whenever I’m trying to make something happen, I find that I tend to feel anxious and panicked, or I just get frustrated really easily when things don’t go exactly as I want them to. By contrast, when I feel like I have been really clear on God’s control and guidance of a situation, I’ve felt more peaceful and less stressed (and often a whole lot happier).
One other key piece for me is just having an ongoing willingness to keep turning back to God each step of the way. To keep asking, “Father (Mother), is this the way?” I think that simple act of consistent prayerful asking does a lot to get frustration, fear, and willfulness out of the picture–and to help me feel connected to a faithful, loving Shepherd.
I never really stop to ask God for direction but I still feel Her direction. Do you think it would be better to actually ask? It just doesn’t feel natural to me.
I’ve never missed a meal. Or a dessert. And that’s my problem. I have battled weight for as long as I can remember and never win. Sine you were healed forever, are you a regular weight?
Hi Cara,
It’s funny you should ask that, because when I used to read healings of food-related issues in the Christian Science Sentinel or Journal, I always wondered what people looked like “after” the healing–especially those who had battled eating disorders. I was fixated on not ever getting “fat” in the same way that I think those who have battled issues with weight can just want, more than anything, to be slender or “normal.”
So to answer your question, yes, I’d say I’m on the slender side for my build. I’ve always been petite, so this really wasn’t about weight for me, or even about food. And that, I think, is the important thing to remember no matter what food-related issue someone seems to be dealing with. In my case, (and I don’t think this is unique to me) it was really about my relationship with God. Was I worshiping God, or was I worshiping food/control/matter? Was I trusting God to care for me–for all parts of my life–or was I feeling cut off, like I had to control everything myself?
One other thing. I’ve found that in every significant healing I’ve had, the turning point has always come down to love–to God’s love for me and to my love for God. But mostly God’s love for me. Sometimes I think we think we know what it means to say “God is Love” or that we’re loved by God. But are we really feeling that? Do we really understand the implications of being God’s beloved child? I dealt with a lot of self-hatred during this time in my life. So the shift to feeling God’s love and care for me, and to knowing what that meant–that I could trust God, that God loved me enough to save me from myself–was a key part of the healing.
Hope this helps.
Hi Cara and Jenny – first, thanks so much, Jenny, for sharing your story. As a teen and into my mid twenties, I struggled with eating disorders. I went from trying to eat almost nothing to eating and throwing it up. It was all an attempt to control my weight. I felt like the only way I was ever going to be thin enough is if I didn’t eat at all. Not a great way to live life. It took me a long time to realize that I should pray about the situation. I just thought of myself as all wrong. It was fundamental to my being, I thought, to be just wrong.
I began to pray about the situation, but for a very long time, years, I didn’t let go of that idea that I wasn’t ever gong to be right – whatever right was. My build, my weight, just me were all always going to be wrong. So, my prayers were more along the lines of surviving what was wrong with me – not being so unhappy about it.
One day I realized that every time I looked in the mirror, I hated myself. It was really aggressive. I would think the most horrible things about myself and then assume everyone else thought those things too. I couldn’t even be comfortable in public because I thought I was disgusting to people. I thought this when I was only 110 lbs.
Like Jenny said,though, it had to come down to Love. I had to accept that God did love me and that I cold love myself. I started to defend myself the way I would defend a friend. I wouldn’t let anyone talk to a friend, or a stranger, the way I talked to myself. So, I couldn’t allow it in my own thinking. I even started to realize that if I was going to claim to be a reflection of God – a concept I learned by studying Christian Science – I couldn’t so aggressively criticize myself, dislike myself. It would be like criticizing God.
Mary Baker Eddy, in her spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s prayer, writes that love is reflected in love. I take this to mean that if I’m not really loving myself and others, I won’t feel love or lovable. The change had to come from me first. I had to be willing to love without reservation – to love me unconditionally. That was the beginning of the change.
I’m a little on the pudgy side these days – my kids say fluffy. What I’ve learned is that my size has everything to do with how I think. It really isn’t the food or exercise, it’s how we think about ourselves and others. Whenever I’ve approached loosing weight with diet or something else, it’s never worked. But, now, if I want to loose a few pounds, I know I have to realize my spiritual identity is blessed and beautiful and totally in God’s care.
Again, like Jenny said, I have to give control to God, where it belongs. Then I find the success I’m looking for. Otherwise, I just enjoy me – fluff and all. Took me a very long time to get to that point. I truly hope, Cara, that your journey is much, much shorter.
Cara and Dawn-Marie,
I find myself in the same place as you were. I hate seeing myself in the mirror and I blame my chubbiness on heredity because my dear mom is not a small lady. So these days I have been working to see the falsity of any mortal, hereditary claims that could tempt me to think of myself as separate from God.
I however still really struggle with the suggestion that I am a sinful mortal who takes WAY too much enjoyment in food. Clearly this is ridiculous, but I am wondering if Dawn-Marie could share just how you started to enjoy yourself. I found the paragraph where you said, “I wouldn’t let anyone talk to a friend, or a stranger, the way I talked to myself…. It would be like criticizing God,” very helpful. Are there any specific Bible or Science and Health quotes that you worked with to keep your spirits up during this challenging transition from hate to love?
Much appreciated.
Hi Kayleigh, Basically the whole chapter on Prayer in Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is what got me going. There are passages in that chapter about living consistently with one’s prayers. Page 9 is a really good page for that. Eddy asks the reader if they are adjusting their actions to meet their prayers. If we pray but are unwilling to act like we mean what we pray, we will be hard-pressed to see results from our prayers.
Christian Science is really unique in its definition of prayer. Prayer is not asking God for favors or miracles. It is scientific, spiritually based, reasoning. It starts with a concept of God that is the only intelligence and power of the universe and is pure and total Love, and it reasons everything out from there.
If you look in the mirror and pray to feel more love for yourself, but then you berate yourself for looking bad, or something else, you are not living consistently with your own prayer. We cannot ask for God to give us something we are unwilling to give to ourselves. First, asking God to give it to us means we think God has withheld it from us. That’s not consistent with the idea that God is total good and Love itself. How could Love withhold love? It would break its very definition and therefore couldn’t be Love. So, Love is already giving you what you might be asking for. 24/7 – Love is always loving you. Your question must then be, are you accepting it, or are you pushing it away?
It is nearly impossible to feel something before we act like we have it. To feel good about you, you need to treat yourself as though you are worth having the good. To over eat is to, with your actions, claim you are missing something that food can give you or that you deserve the punishment that comes with the overeating. Neither is accurate.
Eddy’s chapter on Prayer will give you questions to ask yourself as you analyze your actions. It will help you see how to improve your motives and how to achieve the outcomes your truly desire – outcomes that may result in weight loss but are not focused on that. It will also show you how to discern if the negative thoughts in your head are really yours or if they are impostors, masking themselves as your thought but really liars that you can and should permanently push out.
Basically, if Love wouldn’t say it, why should you?
Hope that helps. :)
Hi Dawn-Marie,
It won’t let me respond to your latest comment, so I am writing it up here and hopefully you will get it.
Thank you so much for your response!
I will certainly take a thorough read of the chapter on Prayer. That concept of living up to our prayers is certainly one that I will work on! “Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform
and the very easiest step. The next and great step required by wisdom is the test of our sincerity,
— namely, reformation,” (p. 4) has been helpful text as I work on this issue. I think the healing will result when I finally kick the resistance to following God’s laws and yield to man’s natural goodness.
I will give page 9 a particularly thorough study.
My understanding of Love seems to be coming along slowly, but surely. I know that this is a great opportunity to get to know God as Love and to express as much of it as possible – starting with loving myself!
Many many thanks.
Gorgeous, Jenny. Your point about love repeating itself is so helpful to me today. Many thanks for sharing!
Thanks for being authentic. Authenticity stands out in these Dear Me blogs. You have shared a sweet discovery — how much happier life goes when we let God be in control.
I love the photo too. Visuals are great.
I like the authenticity too. Thank you for being direct and honest, Jenny.
What I rally like about this blog and the other Dear Me blogs is that they show that things can be messy and there’s still healing. Thank you for being honest and sharing your story. I love how complete your healing is that you don’t avoid food but enjoy it.
Thanks, Samantha. Enjoying food and what it represents–fellowship, love, nourishment, etc.–has been an important part of the healing. It’s wonderful to be able to see something in a positive light that before only terrified me. :)
Jenny,
There are some great thoughts in this article that I am definitely going to cherish as I work on my own healing of the fear and temptations of food. I got the message loud and clear that “Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, life and death” S&H page 246. I also love how permanent your healing was and it sure gives a wonderful, encouraging example to us all. I also really like how you bring out the “fellowship, love, nourishment” that food represents. Very helpful. I am grateful for your healing and your willingness to share it.
Thanks, Kayleigh. A friend of mine has a little saying that I often think about: “Don’t fall for the decoy.” I think that’s really applicable to this healing, because though I initially thought it was all about food, food was only the decoy–the thing on the surface that was masquerading as the real issue. But the real issue was about coming into a deeper understanding of God’s sweet control over my life. Whatever it is you need to know, whether about food or something else, God will tenderly show you. I’m grateful for that!
Wow. Your message Jenny to Kayleigh is exactly what I needed to read right now. I love how you learned to dig deeper, to go beyond the decoy (and isn’t a human circumstance always a decoy?) to learn the real lesson, the lesson that blesses your entire life.
Thanks Kayleigh for your comments, thanks Jenny for yours.
Thank you Jenny. I will not “fall for the decoy” anymore! I can tell this healing is going to be a huge lesson in humility as I yield to God as the One in control.
I am SO grateful that God will show me what I need to know. And I am grateful for your healing and insight.