Friday, January 18, 2008

More Hope

"If you don't got hope you don't got nothin."

Christianity is based on hope. We hope our sins do not drag us into Hell. Just kidding. I am not sure hope and fat are compatible. They aren't for me. I think that's some of what ails me, they probably should be. If I am fat I think I am worthless. Sounds hopeless to me. But...if I believe God loves me ( read, died to absolve me of my sins and give me eternal life) in whatsoever condition I am in, then I am not worthless. So with that logic, the fat should not matter. I should be able to love me fat or thin. I should have hope.

So, what do I deduce from all of that palaver. I deduce I do not really believe God loves me. Oh God, it's hopeless. My circular thinking suddenly strikes me as pathetic, and hilarious. Alright, there has to be an answer to this conundrum.

I am a worthwhile lovable person fat or thin. My thinking is just wrong. My wrong thinking tells me I am pointless in my "who" and but not in my "do" if I meet meet the standard of being thin (and work like a dog from dawn to dusk.) How do I convince my brain it is wrong? I am valuable in just the skin I stand up in. God says so. Ergo, I should just be able to change my standards. Why can'/don't I? My feelings. I also feel I am pointless unless I meet my God awful standards. So I think/believe and feel I am worthless unless I am thinner and more organized. Dandy.

How do I change my thinking and feeling? I want to love and care about my "who" as much as God does. I want my "do" to follow my "who" and not vice versa. I have got to learn to love myself in whatever condition my body/house/life is in.

How?

Good grief, Love Bea.

4 comments:

Nory Roth said...

Right on the money! One of my favorite scriptures about faith: Faith is SUBSTANCE of things hoped for; the EVIDENCE of things not seen.

So......there is SUBSTANCE to that which we hope for? How can there be any EVIDENCE of the existence of something that is only hoped for? This is a conundrum.

Further, I also think we base our perception of God as a loving heavenly father based upon our own experience of our perceptions about our Earthly fathers. And, if our Earthly fathers were less than stellar.....it's a little hard to wrap your mind around the concept of unconditional love. Especially if you either didn't have a father, or he was a first class jerk.

We also carry "tapes" in our heads from the things that other people have said to us about our "selves" and how worthy we were to be loved.

Interestingly enough, if you have been raised in the Christian community, as I have, you find that your worth as a person is almost always tied to what you are willing to do. (Either for the church, the community, or your family.) And you are judged according to your works. (Read: Faith without works is dead.)

But I also learned, (and somewhere along the line, this got brushed under the rug) that there is NOTHING we can DO to obtain salvation. It is FREE, provided by grace and grace alone.

Having said ALL of this, it is an attempt to let you know that I struggle daily with this, too. And the whole worthiness, weight, sin, redemption cycle also goes round and round in my head.

Blessings,

Nory

Helen said...

I'm not sure of the answer, but I'm pretty sure that when you figure it out you won't have to worry about your weight anymore...fat or thin.

Anonymous said...

I hear it repeatedly, "God answers all prayers" "God loves me as and wants me to be happy" "God is all merciful"
oh really.
Nobody could pray harder or with more sincerity yet here I am 48 years old, morbidly obese--doing THE BEST I CAN DO.
I don't believe the crap anymore. I can't love myself. I just want this life over.
Carol

ar said...

Hallo Carol. You could not have said it better for me. Yet, I feel very guilty for those thoughts, i.e. wanting life to be over. Feels as though I am failing a test. Worst of worst would be, if my life should be over, and I look back and realize that all of this thinking and association with weight had nothing to do with anything. I had been on the wrong track all along!

Would be nice if I can use all my power of concentration on my weight issues to make the picture of "me" and "weight" smaller and smaller and smaller. And to find something else that I can make bigger and bigger and bigger. Maybe it could be as simple as being bored with life and being on the wrong track for self-fulfillment. Maybe there is something else much better, waiting around the corner, and beckoning. So now the greatest challenge is to become suitably detached from my daily limiting thoughts to open myself up for those opportunities. Possibly the key here is also real love. Which is only to be found in absence of selfcentredness. I believe we can never get away from ourselves, and whatever we focus on is who we are or aspiring to be, but focussing on something better than "we think we are" can work in our favour. Have you ever read a biography of someone really energetic and on the go and accomplishing wonderful things, and at the end of it feeling inspired by it. I think if one can truly attach to the content of a book like that, that over a period of time things are bound to rub off in mysterious ways.

Another thought is that maybe the struggles surrounding weight do have an offsetting positive. All of it is generating energy, such as in this blog for wake up calls about our thinking and perceptions about who we are. One thing that stands out for me is that we are not our weight, but we are thinking and becoming our weight issues in an attempt to find our way to who we really are. Common sense says we are much more than our weight. We got stuck in a weight rut.

When I am hoping "life to be over" then possibly it is more a case of I want the thinking and all that it has attracted to me in the form of awful ugly weight to be over. I am looking for an exit out of that dark and hopeless cave and the gateway lies somewhere in between my thinking and connection with life and somehow to stop living does not make sense. Possibly we need help and from what I can see there are plenty of loving souls out there to help us, we just need to open ourselves and connect with the living.

When I was reading Babysteps, there was something I learned and recognized as having the potential to work for me. I.e. to get out from a solitary existence and to go and connect with the living. Join a yoga club and try out all different kinds of exercises. Then another leaf out of her book, consistency, dedication to her life, in baby steps.

Thank you for the blogs. Books are OK, but somehow can never be as real as witnessing struggles in a connected way. Almost like the power of one.

ar :>)