The Struggle is Real

Lately, I've been compulsively watching "My 600lb. Life".  I can't get enough.  Something about the struggle of these people resonates somewhere deep in my soul.  It's a allegory.  I can relate.  The premise of each episode is 2 people hitting rock bottom with their weight soaring, health declining and at times paralyzed by their bodies, no longer able to care for themselves.  Each one begins a journey with a specialized Doctor, committed to do everything he can to help them lose their weight and regain their health.  Through following a very specific diet and exercise program and undergoing gastric bypass they begin a new journey and a completely new way of life.   Although, I don't really understand physically what they are experiencing, I do relate to being desperate for a change in my life.

In the beginning, most of the people are so desperate for a change and after consulting Dr. Now, they leave excited and in anticipation of a new start.  Most of them have to go home and lose a certain amount of weight to even qualify for the surgery.  Some are in such bad physical shape they wouldn't be able to handle the gastric bypass. Some can't walk and haven't been able to leave their beds for years, but everyone of them leave the Doctor's office ready and willing to do whatever it takes to have that surgery and begin their journey back to health and living again...  Every one of them is so sick of just surviving each day...  and I get that.

I get it.  I totally get being so fed up with your life and knowing that it could be different, it should be different.  Knowing that you could be living a whole new life, IF you decided today that you don't want to live this way any more.

Excited about the future and hopeful for the first time in a long time, they leave the Doctor's office and head home to rearrange everything in their lives.  Junk food out, healthy food in, exercise and living intentionally for the first time in decades.  Coming out of a numb existence, where you mindlessly do what you have always done and making decisions as if every one of them is life or death.

Amazingly, the results astonish, as they each begin to lose pounds by the dozen, and  some take literal steps for the first time in forever, life begins anew.  As the pounds melt away each patient goes to see Dr. Now again to learn their fate...  qualified for surgery or not.  Some do and some don't,  but either way they are undeterred in reaching their goals.  They give all they have to losing weight and having surgery with hopes of regaining a normal life somewhere in the future.

After having the surgery, the pounds begin to melt in much larger numbers, as they do each person undergoes an amazing transformation, losing 1/2 of themselves in a matter of months.  It's a baffling process to watch the complete transformation that takes place, as each person gains confidence and self-respect that had been lost long ago.

Strangely, it never fails that midway through this amazing process each person has a relapse.  They begin to eat things they shouldn't and stop moving like they should.  Shortly after they lose heart and become depressed and when they go back in to the see the Dr. he always asks, "What's going on?"

What's happening to slow down your progress.  What is going on in your life that has caused you to begin gaining again.  Dr. Now will send them to a therapist to dig deeper and find out what the issue is...  The therapist always asks the question "What is your trigger?"

As each patient talks it out they begin to see a pattern...  when this happens...  I do this.  I turn back to what I have always done.

When you are 600 pounds what you have always done can no longer work... because it's killing you.  What comforts you is actually destroying you.

I am not 600 pounds.  I am not addicted to food, although, I do turn to food for comfort on a regular basis, but that is not my thing.  I do have a thing though, a few to be honest, and they are not killing me quickly like a food addiction can, but running to them causes problems none the less.

This post isn't really about my crutch though...  It's about my trigger.  It's about me knowing that Jesus can meet all my needs and it's about me drawing near to him knowing that He is the answer to my every problem.  It's about me knowing that it's not my husband or my kids or my finances or homeschooling that is the problem.

I know that everything I need is in Jesus and I get desperate for a deeper walk with him.  I do the things I need to do...  like prayer and bible study and church and spending time with other people who love him, and I do good for a while, but somewhere along the way, when life happens and I let that trigger rule me, I turn and run away from Him (the source of all goodness in my life) and I veg out, numb out and run to things that I know are only going to hurt me.

Why???  Because it's comfortable.  It's what I know.  I can be mindless.  It's easy.   But my trigger makes me feel hopeless and I give into that hopelessness.  But it's a lie.

In my allegory Dr. Now is like God.  He wants to help and he has the wisdom and the ability to help me achieve every thing my heart desires.  He knows I can do this, but it's up to me to believe it too.

On the other side of that screen are all of us at home saying, "YOU CAN DO THIS."  Take one more step, pass that drive-thru, don't eat that burger, you don't have to live like this...  I imagine people in my own life, who are watching my struggle and see me turn back to destructive, lifeless substitutes, yelling at me through the screen, "You can do this.  I know it's hard and I know it hurts and I know you're tired, but you can do this."  You can have a life again.  You can lose the weight...  Dr. Now is right....  YOU CAN DO THIS.

Eventually, each person decides that the effort to change is worth all the discomfort.  The desire to live pushes them to try again...  and even though they know it's not going to be easy and it may take a long time to get where they want to be... they are convinced that there really is only one way to live the life they want.

We must do the same thing.  We have to decide that Jesus is better.  We have to believe we can do this.  Things are going to happen, but I can't keep using that excuse to give into my old comfortable way of coping.  In Christ we have all that we need to succeed, but we have to turn to him.  We have to be intentional.  We can't live numb.

Jesus said, "I am the bread of life.  No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry again, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again."

Psalms 34:8 "Taste and see that the Lord is good.  How happy is the person who takes refuge in Him."

"Why do you spend money on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods.  Pay attention and come to Me; listen, so that you will live."  Isaiah 55:1-3

Look friend, I don't know what your struggle is, but it's real.  I don't know what your trigger is, but it's powerful, I don't know what your drug is, but if it's not killing you quickly, it's killing you slowly.  It's stealing your joy and your hope.  Only Jesus can satisfy that hunger that keeps driving us all, but that means we have to pursue Him intentionally and be ready to feel, to face disappointment, to push through the pain to get to the gain.

The struggle is real...   but we can do this!