In which I Pursue Personal Transformation or Sanctification | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Comfort Eating, Emotional Eating, Compulsive Eating: Goodbye to All That

Continued from In which I seek healing, and the healer says, Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.

So for ten days now, I have not had sugar or white flour (deciding to cut just these two things from my diet for starters) and have not eaten when I have not been hungry.

And I have been surprised by the strength of my desire for sweet things (for the first 4 days) or to eat when I have not been physically hungry (still struggling). Wow!

* * *

To break an addiction, we have to say NO and we have to say YESES we did not say before. Subtraction alone won’t work for long. AND what we say YES to has to be as powerful and pleasant as what we say no to. [Read more…]

Five years have past! When a retrospective glance consoles

By Anita Mathias

Tintern Abbey

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters!

Wordsworth writes, as he revisits Tintern Abbey, and muses how he has matured over the last five years.

For nature then

To me was all in all.

But now, he sees something else in it. Dare he say it—God?

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man….

* * *

Five years have passed. Looking back, if we are Christians, should bring comfort. We should have grown, matured and deepened over the last five years of walking with Jesus because of the working of his mercy and grace on our souls.

About 12 years ago, I was telling my mentor, Lolly Dunlap, that I was frustrated about my marriage which was mediocre then, rather than excellent (and oh, how I hate mediocrity!!) and my temper, which I then hadn’t learnt to control. (But now I have, I am glad to report!!) And my mothering was distracted, and my housekeeping haphazard, and as for exercise…

“Think about 5 years ago,” she said. “Have you improved in any way over the last 5 years?”

I thought. I brightened. I began to tell her how amazing I was in 2001, compared to what I had been in 1996. I was actually showing off about the progress over which I had been so despondent a few minutes earlier.

So if you’ve been a Christian 5 years, think back to what you were and thank God for how far you’ve come under his loving eyes, with the action of his grace in your soul.

I am not what I ought to be.

I am not what I wish to be.

I am not even what I hope to be.

But by the cross of Christ,

I am not what I was.

~John Newton

* * *

So, Christian, compared to April 2008, how is it with your soul today? Does the answer console you?

Set Free from Food Addiction Through Intimacy with God (A Guest Post by Lynda Alsford)

By Anita Mathias

Freedom

I used to be a food addict. I love saying that sentence, so please indulge me as I say it again. I used to be a food addict…until Jesus set me free in March 2012.

My journey to freedom has taken many years and in that time I’ve learned many things. One that stands out to me is that in order to appreciate freedom fully, you first have to understand the preceding captivity. In my experience, the greater the darkness the brighter the light seems when it comes.

Part of my personal darkness was that I didn’t know how to deal with difficult emotions. I would do anything rather than feel them. I ate them away, piling on huge amounts of weight. Once I started eating I could not stop. Food was an anaesthetic and its anaesthetising powers had me imprisoned. It is near impossible to describe to someone who has never had an addiction what it actually feels like to be in the grip of one. The poem below is my attempt to put into words how I felt as I struggled with something that was beyond my control.

Captivity

Unbidden thoughts arise, so sorrowful and sad.
Volcanoes of pain that threaten to erupt.

Searing red-hot lava expands within my chest.
The god of addiction requires his sacrifice.

From somewhere deep within, he cries ‘appease me now’.
‘Appease me now or this pain I’ll surely spew’

This pain, I don’t doubt, will rip me quite apart
So I do what I must do this idol to placate.

At the start of my journey I didn’t realise how dark my darkness was. I thought I could overcome my problem with a little will power. But that was the problem. I thought I could overcome it. But I couldn’t. Eventually I realised I was fighting a losing battle. And that is when I realised just how dark my darkness was. I thought I was worthless and no good. I even made a list of all the things about me that I thought were not good enough for God. I gave God this list, expecting Him to agree with me. But all He did was tell me how much He loved me despite every last thing on my list. I wept that day. I was overwhelmed by His grace and compassion.

I started to seek freedom, hoping rather than knowing it was possible. I tried and failed to rid myself of the unhelpful addiction to food by pushing countless doors. Some opened and helped me take a small step forwards but many didn’t open at all. However, I didn’t give up my search. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7) so I kept seeking.

“Keep on keeping on” I told myself as I pushed yet another door.

In 2005, God in His mercy caused one of those wonderful God-incidences to occur. I discovered New ID (www.newid.org ), which is a 6 week Christian eating disorders course. It gave me the message that I was not alone and that freedom was definitely possible. I thank God for this course because He used it greatly in my life. However, it was another seven years before I would find freedom.

Ultimately, it was finding deeper intimacy with God that finally set me free. For years, I was seeking healing from my compulsive overeating. But I wasn’t seeking God Himself. I was seeking healing not seeking the healer. In 2009 I lost my faith for a year when I struggled with the devastation of broken dreams. I stopped believing in God but in an unexpected way it was this that set me on the final part of my journey to freedom. You see, I suddenly realised I missed God. I missed Him so much it hurt. And that made me start to seek Him, really seek Him for His own sake. And there is no prayer God is quicker to answer. Just like the father in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 at the first glimpse of our turning towards Him He is running with all His might to meet us and hold us in His loving divine embrace.

After coming back to faith in January 2011, I was finally seeking God for who He is not for what He could give me. I longed to know His love. I longed to find more intimacy with Him as Father. I devoured books about the Fatherhood of God. I listened time and again to Christian meditation CD’s that drew me into God’s presence (my favourite is Liz Babbs, A Quiet Place).

One day in March 2012, while sitting in Church, I knew I finally trusted Father God enough to let Him remove my food addiction for good. A wise Christian friend, Wendy, listened to me as I prayed, asking God to take it away. She then prayed for me too. I haven’t binged since then. Not once. The temptation to stuff myself with food still came knocking at the door of my mind occasionally. But when it did I found that if I went to the fridge I didn’t want to eat. It is a miracle!

Over the last year I’ve lost 2 ½ stone in weight without trying, and the weight is still coming off, very slowly but I am losing it. There have been hard lessons to learn as well. I’ve learned to sit with the difficult emotions and feel them rather than eat them away. This first year has been very challenging while I have learned this new skill, but it’s been so wonderful too.

I’ve been a Christian for over thirty years and it is only in the last year that I’ve found freedom from my addiction. It’s been a long painful journey. It has taken patience, dedication and a great deal of hard work but it’s also the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my life so far. The thing that has been so challenging is learning to trust Father God with the very deepest part of me, learning to live in intimacy with Father. Once I did that, He took the addiction from me, because I trusted Him enough to let Him do so. I don’t know what Father has in store for me but one thing I do know. Freedom tastes so very good!

Lynda Alsford

Bio

Lynda Alsford is a Church Army Evangelist and lives in Sussex very near the sea which she loves. She enjoys various creative crafts and loves reading. She went through a major crisis of faith in 2009-2010 when despite being a trained evangelist she stopped believing in God. Her first book, ‘He Never Let Go’, describes how she evangelised herself back to faith once more. She is currently working on her second book, ‘Being Known’, which portrays her struggles with, and eventual freedom from, food addiction through finding deeper intimacy with Father God. Find out more about her and her books at her website and blog.

The Light and Easy Way of Sanctification or Transformation

By Anita Mathias

I strayed onto an acquaintance’s blog, and started feeling tired.

Oh, it was all so bossy, so prescriptive. 10 ways to be a better wife; 10 ways to be a better mum; 10 ways to lose weight in a Biblical way; 10 ways to read more spiritual books.

It made me feel so tired. I scrolled through the blogs she had blogrolled, even more prescriptive and bossy, and began to feel even more tired.

* * *

18 years ago, when I lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, I had taken a theological course called Sonship developed by the brilliant Westminister Seminary Professor and founder of World Harvest Mission Jack Miller. It was the most heavily theological material I had encountered to date, and gave me a taste for theology!

At the outset, Miller reports someone raving about Richard Foster’s“The Celebration of Discipline.”

And Miller, a big, hearty, larger-than-life man, laughs a big booming laugh and says, “I am too big a sinner to be fooled by the Celebration of Discipline.”

* * *

Huh? I did not understand what he meant then, but understand it perfectly now. Discipline cannot save us. 10 ways to study scripture, fast, give, serve are not going to change our selfish, self-seeking, ambitious, twisty old hearts. If anything they might just make us more self-righteous. For our hearts to change, we need a heart transplant. We need God to pour his Holy Spirit into us and give us a new heart (Ez 36:26).

* * *

We do need strategies—for ensuring we pray every day, spent time soaking in Scripture everyday, and for our own particular battles: eating healthily is one of mine.

But strategies cannot save us. For me at least, lists of food rules, or domesticity rules or spiritual rules or time-management rules get a bit boring and feel like too much of a strait-jacket and I soon drop them. They are the law, a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? Acts 15:10.

What helps me, and fills my days with sweetness is going through my day with Jesus, sharing the easy yoke.

* * *

I do have food rules, as for much of my adult life, I have medicated boredom, low spirits, stress, anxiety, and even happiness with food. So my two rules are: Limit eating what is not a blessing to your body (sugar, white carbs, chocolate). Do not eat when you are not hungry.

I was energized when I first formulated them, but now, especially that I am walking 6 km. a day, I sometimes buy chocolate or pizza or Indian takeaway after a long walk. The law, my strategies, weren’t strong enough to save me. On the other hand, slowing down, and asking Jesus for help and grace and the filling of his spirit does help me to resist things which are a curse to my body.

Slowing down. I wondering if that is a major secret of the spiritual life.

It’s the same with exercise. I know I will be stronger if I do it. I know I will be happier if I break up my writing with housework breaks (pomodoros) but this is very hard for me, for really, I like to work till done—and if what I am working on takes 3 to 4 hours it is quite painful almost for me to leave it and switch gear. So I need Jesus’s help to get up and get moving more than rules.

* * *

Hudson Taylor after continued spiritual failure, and self-excoriation stumbled upon the secret of abiding, which is known as Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. He writes:

“Not a striving to have faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need.”

Here, I feel, is the secret : not asking how I am to get sap out of the vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine-the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. Aye, and far more too! He is the soil and sunshine, air and rain-more than we can ask, think, or desire. Let us not then want to get anything out of Him, but rejoice in being ourselves in Him-one with Him, and, consequently, with all His fulness.

” I have not got to make myself a branch. The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him, and have just to believe it and act upon it. If I go to the bank in Shanghai, having an account, and ask for fifty dollars, the clerk cannot refuse it to my outstretched hand and say that it belongs to Mr. Taylor. What belongs to Mr. Taylor my hand may take. It is a member of my body. And I am a member of Christ, and may take all I need of His fulness.”

Perhaps this is the easy way of sanctification—to see yourself as a branch in the vine of Jesus, and pray, relying and drawing on the wells of his strength and sweet life when tempted to indulge your temper, your gluttony, your laziness, or any of the deadly seven temptations.

In Which I Decide to Forgive a Frenemy; For Nothing is as it Seems

By Anita Mathias

The view from my bedroom window: The fields and hills covered with hoar frost.

The snow fell over our Oxford garden and transformed it. I sometimes look at my garden, and think it’s getting rather scruffy, and resolve to get out with shears and secateurs come spring.

But then snow falls, and the garden, a little bit overgrown, much in need of a prune, is transformed. White, magical, still and quiet. Cobwebs, laced in frost, glisten.

Nothing is as it seemed yesterday.

Nothing is as it seems. That’s a great lessons my garden teaches me as it changes from season to season—bulbs burst from the barren ground come spring; there was rich life beneath the frozen year. The bare branches sing with blossom; where had that been hiding?

The earth suddenly turns rich green and bursts with flower and birdsong in summer. Then it morphs again, gold-vermilion, followed by winter, austere and stark.

‘You thought you knew me; think again. You thought you had me pegged; think again.” We can only understand a fraction of reality.

And we too shall be changed, just as our earth is. ^“Our bodies sown in dishonour, shall be raised in glory; sown in weakness, shall be raised in power. We will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.” (1 Cor. 15)

Beads of ice transform a spider’s web

Change, metamorphosis, metanoia, or changing one’s mind. Repentance. For me, these are magical words, full of hope and possibility.

Day by day, we can change the seeds we put into the soil of our lives, resisting negativity, and judgement and meanness, sowing instead mercy, and kindness. And what we sow we reap. And gradually, the very substance of our hearts changes. Because of the mercy of the gardener.

Icicles on the leaves of a contorted willow.

Nothing is as it seems. I wrote a harsh email earlier this week to an old frenemy I kind of like whom I first met 18 years, and who has been making a nuisance of himself on my Facebook page, and sometimes blog, leaving several negative, hostile, almost slanderous comments daily. Replying or deleting; replying or deleting: How time-consuming it all became.

Was it just envy, hostility, insecurity, sadness over his own failures? Relative success reveals whom your true friends are, just as relative failure or poverty. I blocked him, unblocked him at his request, and then when he was back with his undermining, hostile comments, reblocked him.

I wrote a harsh email explaining why (after being patient for months and months), sent it, and then a minute later, as many writers do, saw how I could have said the same thing in a dignified, restrained way in just two or three sentences. And without judgement.

His put-downs and contentious comments sure looked like envy and hostility and malice, but they may not have been. Some people are just nuts, high-functioning nuts perhaps, but nuts, not evil. “Do not judge,” Jesus said, for nothing is as it seems. As adults we can decide whom we want in our lives, and whom we’d rather block, but without withering character judgements as to whether they are mad, bad or merely sad.

I feel too ashamed to re-read that email. How will my friend, or frenemy feel? I felt dreadful.

Frost on a rose

Oh, there is only one place for such as I to retreat. To the fountain of forgiveness that falls, falls like blood, magic blood that turns its recipients as snow.

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
²Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

And so I return again to the cleansing fountains, to the love of Jesus at Calvary when he, inexplicably, heart-rendingly, offered his beautiful life as a payment in full for every sin of mine.

And the mercy from the Great Heart, the life-blood of that Great Heart pours over me, and I feel the sweetness of that great love, and I feel his love and acceptance, and I snuggle into the recesses of the Most High, and there am I safe.

Such forgiveness, for a cranky woman who blew it. Incredible. I am made new, forgiven, washed white as snow.

Ice fingers on the twigs of a contorted willow.

* * *

And I forgive the man whose been trolling my Facebook page so insistently.

And become Facebook friends again? Oh no! He was consistently judging my theology, my reading of the Bible (he has a mercilessly inerrantist reading) and my politics. The continuous contemptuous putdowns were very annoying. And being exposed to people’s judgements is bad, dangerous and harmful. Judgments can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and being judged in a heavy weight to bear!! As we are not to judge, we are also not to expose ourselves, our ears, hearts or spirits to other people’s judgements. For nothing is as it seems. They too only see in part.

Envy is dangerous, and the leading, hostile questions he was asking me on my FB page were almost slanderous–“Do you support abortion for any and every reason,” (in response to my posting, without comment, a Guardian article on the medically unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar)

Anyone who experiences increasing business success or career success will face putdowns and envy and snideness from old friends, acquaintances or frenemies whose own life has been disappointing. It’s a sad fact of life.

How do we deal with this? Do not boast. Certainly. Disguise your relative success? Perhaps. Drop them? In some instances, where is not much fondness in my heart for them, or vice-versa, and we still meet up out of old habit, this might be the best solution.

Iced rosehips

I love being a Christian adult. I do not have to act reflexively. I can act with wisdom, after consultation with my Lord. My forgiver.

“When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”

William Butler Yeats

Frosted fennel in seed

Sanctification, Or The Weight of Glory

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

Relentless pressure

Turns mud, clay, coal, rock,

And the bones of dead creatures

Into diamonds and rubies,

Jewels of this earth.

Ah, and when we invite him in,

The inexorable one,

The tireless pursuer,

There is the steady pressure,

Of the weight of his glory

Bearing down on our laziness,

Our smallness, our comfort zones

Relentlessly,

Until we are changed,

And our weaknesses,

Repented of, forsaken,

Become strengths,

Like shards in stained glass

Through which his glory shines.

“Five Years have Passed!” : When a Retrospective Glance Consoles

By Anita Mathias

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters!

Wordsworth writes, as he revisits Tintern Abbey, musing on how he has matured over the last five years.

For nature then

To me was all in all.

But now, he sees something else in it. Dare he say it—God?

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man….

* * *

Five years have passed. Looking back to who we were five years ago, if we are Christians, should bring comfort. We should have grown, matured and deepened over the last five years of walking with Jesus because of the working of his mercy and grace on our souls.

About 14 years ago, I was telling my mentor, Lolly Dunlap, that I was frustrated about my marriage which was mediocre then, rather than excellent (and oh, how I hate mediocrity!!) and my temper, which I then hadn’t learnt to control. (But now I have, I am glad to report!!) And my mothering was distracted, and my housekeeping haphazard, and as for exercise…

“Think about 5 years ago,” she said. “Have you improved in any way over the last 5 years?”

So if you’ve been a Christian 5 years, think back to what you were 5 years ago, and thank God for how far you’ve come under his loving eyes, with the action of his grace in your soul.

I am not what I ought to be.

I am not what I wish to be.

I am not even what I hope to be.

But by the cross of Christ,

I am not what I was.

~John Newton

How People Change their Very Characters, or Sanctification!

By Anita Mathias

I have heard two remarkable stories of dramatic transformation in the last few months.A friend from a family well-known in Christian leadership and told me how he rebelled in his mid-teens, chain-smoked, lived with a series of women.

When he was 40, a serious sports injury left him immobile; his girlfriend asked him to move out, his work made him redundant. So he was left single, homeless, jobless, and immobile, and had to move back with his parents. It was his Jacob moment. He surrendered his life to Christ, invited all his siblings and friends to a ceremony at which he burnt his last cigarette, and never smoked one again.

Another was from a pastor. As a teenager, his mother who was dying of cancer, killed his father who was leaving her, six months before her own death. Grief-stricken, he slipped: heroin, cocaine, alcohol, all causing deep physical damage. In despair, he cried out to God, “If you are real, take away my desire for drugs.” Well, God did. He gave up drugs, and is a driven and passionate evangelist, out of gratitude to God who set him free.

Very cool.

· * * *

How I love these stories of instant dramatic change!

Mine, however, has not been like that. It has been slow, slow, slow, but, nevertheless I have changed.

I had a fiery temper, and over the last decade, have learnt to get it under control, though I still lose it some!! But there is much freedom and joy in thinking things over, thinking about the objective I want to achieve, remembering Jesus, changing addresses, so to say, moving myself away from maelstrom of anger and indignation into living in Jesus, surrounded by him.

Roy, though the sweetest and most helpful of husbands, also has a fiery temper when he’s over-tired, or over-provoked–and I used to wonder if it was escapism to retreat to a quiet place of God’s love and eternal truths, in the Psalms for instance, while his anger reverberated fearsomely. (He’s generally mild, but when he loses his temper, well…).

I decided: Nope, it wasn’t escapism. The Rock of Truth is the rock, no matter how tempestuous the ocean. God’s love is steady, despite the storm. Scripture is an axis for one’s life, even if someone has just lost their temper with you, making your internal world feel unsteady. So mentally and spiritually, in family life, you sometimes need to go into your room, lock the door, and sail away into the quiet sea of God’s love. Taste the truths which are always true.

Yeah, that battle with out-of-control anger is mostly won, I believe. I can process my anger with God rather than the person. The battle with forgiveness is not as huge as it used to be. As far as my deceitful heart knows, I walk in forgiveness, fully achieved, or in process!

The battle with untidiness is in process, but yeah, it’s in a virtuous circle. I’m winning.

* * *

So what battle do I now wage with Appolyon? Which, as in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress can only be won by the two-edged sword of the word of God and prayer.

I believed I had no addictions, after I broke my coffee addiction.

Not so. I have finally acknowledged a embarrassing, deep-rooted habit to myself, which is perhaps an addiction.

James says: Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.

Well, I sometimes have.

But my default method of dealing with uncomfortable emotions gets quick results. Sad, low-spirited, depressed—Eat chocolate. Happy and high—eat chocolate, which I unconsciously associate with happiness. Stressed, bored, empty—eat chocolate.

Chocolate works; it produces results. It contains tryptophan, which triggers the release of endorphins and serotonin, which decrease stress and depression. It contains phenylethylamine, the “chocolate amphetamine” which raises blood pressure and blood-sugar, helping one feel excited and alert. Its anandamide activates dopamine, the neurotransmitter which gives us a sense of well being. Its theobromine produces a sense of mental and physical relaxation and increased alertness.

There are other things which help me feel as high as chocolate does. I can listen to scripture while jogging or dancing. I can read beautifully written spiritual books which can make me feel hyper and excited: Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, or Frederick Buechner, or Willard’s Divine Conspiracy or Piper’s Desiring God. Playing worship music while dancing or tidying up induces a change of emotional state. As does prayer.

Or running. Or yoga or gardening.

But, you see, chocolate, or chocolate biscuits, or crisps, or comfort food—ah, that induces a change of state far more rapidly!

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 16:25).

Ah, haste. Hurry up. Quick. Fast. Speed. Words which are death to the spiritual life. Dallas Willard writes “Haste has worry, fear, and anger as close associates; it is a deadly enemy of kindness, and hence of love.”

· * * *

So, to be honest, this is the humililating “Valley of Humiliation” in which I currently battle Appolyon–my tendency to medicate stress, boredom, sadness, low mood, reverses, life with a highly-strung family with food, especially chocolate and sweet stuff.

And so I am trying to break a habit I started in my teens. Low mood: eat. Stressed: Eat. Bored: Eat.

Put off, put on: That’s a consistent New Testament formula.

Put off mindless seeking for comfort in things which will cause distress later (weight gain, and being excessively hyper).

Put on: stopping work when chocolate craving overwhelms. Changing the activity. Seeking joy in God who delights the soul as with the richest of foods. Exercise with Scripture. Read a spiritual book, some good old lectio divina.

Yeah, it’s a bit embarrassing that I am waging this sort of low-level spiritual battle after being a Christian for 22 years.

But waging it, I am, and I am determined to win.

I so want to change, and taste God, and the pleasures of God when I am low-spirited, bored, stressed or depressed instead of the quick, easy, deceitful pleasures of chocolate.

anita.mathias