Step Away from the Doughnut!: And other tales of self destruction

There's an old adage that says, "Wherever you go, there you are." 

"The weight of lies will bring you down," sing Folk rocker's The Avett Brothers, 

"The weight of lies will bring you down, and follow you to every town. Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there. So when you run make sure you run to something and not away from- Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere."

What are they saying? In my opinion, each is simply a way of saying you can't run away from your problems. 

Before this year I subscribed to a lie; a lie about the very nature of what I believe and who I am. My great grandmother Eve bought into the same lie, except she turned to apples, whereas I turned to chocolate. 

The lie is powerful. 

It's old too. It began in the garden, and now passes the time lurking around malls and supermarket aisles (particularly the magazine section).


The lie is this: who you are, where you are and what you have been given is not good enough. There's something better than what God has to offer. Unfortunately this lie is easy to believe. After all, we're told it's true a thousand times a day; from magazines to adverts, the media says we aren't good enough and if we ever want to fix that we need to buy more useless stuff. In the bible Peter warns us against this kind of thinking. He cautions, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 


If it sounds dark, it's because it is. Im convinced when you aren't sure what you believe about life and about yourself, you can start giving into all sorts of destructive habits.So, recently I began asking my self these questions: What do I believe about myself? About my life? About God? Self help guru Geneen Roth helped me begin to answer that question. "To discover what you really believe," she says, "pay attention to the way you act -- and to what you do when things don't go the way you think they should. Pay attention to what you value. Pay attention to how and on what you spend your time. Your money. And pay attention to the way you eat."

I emphasized EAT, because Geneen Roth was supposedly the first person to make connections between a persons eating habits and their emotions (in her book "When Food is Love"). The quote above was taken from her newest book, "Women, Food and God."


It sounds crazy to look at how you eat to answer those kinds of hard Life questions - but I did. Honestly, for me it makes sense. Ever since my Senior year of high school, I have struggled with weight issues. When I was younger I played so many sports I never had to pay attention to my weight. Then I went to university and things went downhill, fast. First there was the freshmen 15, then I got a bad case of the sophomore 10, and so and so on... The weight gain came as a packaged deal, along with depression and regret. Fully aware of the irony, for so long now I've felt like someone running on a treadmill - no matter how fast I go, or how long I keep up the effort, I go nowhere. My last year at school was the worst. I isolated myself and crippled the present with the past. I felt like because I gained so much, I couldn't (or shouldn't) do the kinds of things 20 year olds like to do. As a result, I fell even deeper into depression - since I felt like I was wasting my youth. I write this in the past tense, keenly aware it affects me in the present. I thought it was possible to leave all these thoughts behind in America, but "wherever you go there you are." 

My flat mate Marie gave me a journal right before Lent. It's a Freedom* journal, with prompts helping identify things that keep you in bondage, emotional and other wise... It begins by asking you what your dreams are, what's stopping you from accomplishing them, etc. Then goes on to list all sorts of negative beliefs about yourself and God, and asks you to circle ones that apply. At one point it starts an open sentence, 

"This makes me realize I might believe..." 

I filled in: 

"I am fundamentally not a good person, and I can never have a new beginning."

After I wrote it, I sat back, shocked at this thing I had just written. Where did I get these ideas about myself? Everything I've ever claimed to believe about God and how He loves us as we are is all true, and yet I put pen to paper and come up with this?

Now I realize exactly where this comes from. It comes from dozens of failed diets. It comes from lingering at mirrors too long. It jumps from the pages of  magazines, and climbs across the living from the TV. You can say it a thousand different ways and it will always mean this: My weight has caused me to believe I am a problem that needs fixing. Let me say this again, me, not the weight, is a problem which needs fixing. And apparently I don't think there's anything I can do about it. 

Have doughnuts really done this to me? A few chocolate binges later and I have lost all hope in life? All defining sense of self? It's the lie. But here's the truth: 

"It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels."

I should mention I wrote this in my journal before Scotland. If you happened to read the entries afterwards than you'll know I learned something very important on that trip: God does deliver on his promises, and in my last post I realized my life has changed, and that a new beginning is possible. I refuse to believe any longer the number on my scale has the last word about my life. Neither will I believe that junk food is  better than what God has to offer. 

I confess to you I need to change. But not in the way that makes you somehow different from who you are, but brings you back to who you really are. "Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest (Geneen Roth)." 

"Let us draw near to God with a sincere 

heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."

-Hebrews 10:22-23