“You will never be able to eat whatever you want. You are a food addict.”

Harsh words that I needed to hear again and face up to. Even though it is hard to swallow and even harder to come to grips with.  Food will always be a problem for me, everyday. 

Those words were prompted by a year of excuses and denying my reality.

About a year and half ago, I returned from an epic trip to Australia with my family. Before I even went on the trip, I was carrying a few pounds after completing my 3rd Half marathon.  (I wasn’t running the miles but still eating the same amount of food.) So returned from my trip, I tried my best to get rid of those pounds, which I did, but they came back.

Slowly, after a few disappointments and a busy grad school semester, I mentally gave up. 

Last summer, between moving and a foot injury, some of those precious pounds that I worked and sweat off a couple of years ago began coming back.  Then in the midst of depression and hopelessness I spiraled.
At the start of the year, I realized that I had stopped hoping and dreaming about what could happen next.  Let’s be honest, in my mind I had thought that getting skinny was my best hope for good things in my future. 

I had thought getting skinny would fix anxiety, procrastination, relationships, and my own fears.

It didn’t.  It didn’t fix any of that, in fact it made all those things much more complicated.  I am still learning that.   

I also am still learning, like in life, there is never a point of arrival where things are over and you can live happy and content in that arrival place.

(Maybe this is the record that will be on repeat until the day I die. Maybe this is the one anthem that will be sung to my heart again and again.)

In the midst of that conversation, the hard reality hit me, I will never be one of those people that can eat whatever they want and not gain weight.  I will never be one of those people that doesn’t have to work out.  I will have to work hard for every pound and every calorie.

In the same way a alcoholic or a drug addict or a hoarder has to face up to the truth of their situation in order to heal, I have to do the same.  And I have to do so every day. 

But let me get spiritual on you, this is the reality of our souls as well.  We are sin addicts. At the core of who we are, we are sinners. We want to worship at the idol of ME. We feed that idol when we deny the reality of our sin nature.  When we down play the severity, when we chalk it up to circumstances or blame other people.

The part that makes this easier to bear, is the fact that God hasn’t left us in the street with a needle stuck in our arm.  The second part of the the passage gives us hope.

When I think about this truth, and the reality of where I am at with my physical battle, I am hopeful.  If God is able to save my soul from the trappings of a great addiction, how much greater will he be able to help me in the battle against these physical addictions.

I don’t write this because I have finished the race, but because I am still running it.  I might be getting lost, backtracking, and stumbling.
I write this as a reminder to look to him who hasn’t left me to run this alone.
I write this to encourage myself to keep going.
I write this because all is not lost, but rather saved by his grace and mercy!