Strong Stronghold

So I haven’t written much about healthy eating lately. I did a class at Greater Love a couple of weeks ago on Eating Well and wow, did I way underestimate the effects of talking about making good choices.  We had such a good time, we laughed and then we wanted to cry, some of us anyway.  Me, I came home and wanted to eat everything in sight!!! (I understand I was not alone in this).  One of the men in attendance revealed the root of his unhealthy eating-an alcoholic father who came home in the middle of the night and caused the whole family to get up and eat, then fussed at him for being heavy.  Many of us shared about how hard it is to break habits and look at the root cause underneath the habit.  I never realized I could be an emotional eater until the first time I went to counseling.  I came out the door thinking wow a milkshake would be really good right now! Then I realized it was an issue.  Today, I went to a long group bible study on deeper healing from past abuse.  I decided when I left to stop at the ice cream shop to write, you guessed it….ice cream!  There have been many things from my childhood that I have been looking at lately that are tied to food.  Things I hate, things I love and places where I am indifferent.  At the end of the day, while preparing for what I thought was going to be a simple class on making good choices, the Lord showed me something.  He showed me that anything I run to for comfort other than Him is…..you guessed it….an idol. He reminded me today that the thoughts and notions that are formed in childhood can affect us deeply for the rest of our lives until we decide we will no longer be held captive to the things that are not good for us.  We have to learn to make choices that give us room to respond differently to the triggers in our souls from the things we have encountered.  While I can see that I have come a long way, I still have a very long way to go.  With God’s grace and wisdom I know that the strongholds in my life can continue to be broken.  I understand now that to eat well, we have to love ourselves well and that can require a new way of thinking and a new measure of knowledge and understanding.  God help us all to put and keep food in the proper place in our lives.  You meant it for fuel and we use it for comfort and pleasure, a perversion to be sure!