health | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Do Not Worry About What To Eat: Jesus

^“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6

So Jesus advises his listeners–fishermen who had worked all night

and caught nothing, unemployed labourers, and those without food

for their guests—not to worry about what they were going to eat.

And when Jesus speaks, that man who visited from a world

beyond our world, to share the deep secrets of life and the

universe, we would be wise to listen up.

Jesus tells his original listeners that, by an effort of will, they must quit

wasting time and energy fretting about what they would eat, must

quit worrying about money, and instead trust the God who sustains

singing birds who never save a single worm. They must ask, seek and

knock on God’s door for wisdom and good ideas to meet their daily needs.

Of course, today, with an obesogenic food environment

and an obesity epidemic, we worry just as much about the sugary

fatty, ultra-processed foods everywhere, which lead to weight gain,

society’s condemnation, and our self-condemnation–pressure

which leads to further overeating. Having lost 82 pounds, I know

the difficulty of shedding weight and the fear of regaining it.

But we, like Jesus’s listeners, must refuse to worry about fattening

food, weight loss, and weight regain, but instead, live as God’s beloved

children, eating what our hosts set before us, without fuss,

as Jesus advised his disciples, and trusting our health to God.

Of course, Jesus does want us to reflect his “endless energy, boundless

strength” in Eugene Peterson’s phrase, and, being kind and practical,

he gives us strategies. Jesus recommends fasting, which brings a reward

from God and gives us power over oppressive forces of evil. Fasting

is sheer Jesus-genius, skipping a meal, saving time and money while

burning up metabolically active, inflammatory, toxin-storing fat which

overweight bodies don’t need. Hunger pangs which are temporary waves,

rising, receding, passing, are an internal bodily reminder, a trigger

and an alarm clock to pray about our worries. And the force

and power of persistent prayer slowly changes our lives.

Do not worry, Jesus says, but seek first God’s kingdom and his

righteousness, and all the things the pagans run after will

be added to you. How does that work in the area of weight and health?

Well, the greatest commandment, Jesus says, is to love God with all

one’s strength. I have been incorporating movement into my spiritual

life, praying, and listening to the Bible and the book for my Christian

book group on my morning walk. And when my body buzzes

with endorphins, my mind and emotions work better, and my spirit soars.

And then Jesus says: the second commandment is like the first-

Love your neighbour as yourself. I’m trying to use movement

to bless others, too, decluttering my house of unnecessary acquisitions

from 33 years of marriage, working on my large garden to make it

a place of joy and hospitality, hanging out with friends during long

walks rather than over meals, and getting my body a little stronger

and fitter for life through “exercise snacks:” several daily

mini-sessions of yoga, weights, HIIT, dance, or rebounding.

The Father feeds the birds, which, like all wild creatures, instinctively

only eat what is a blessing to their little bodies. Seeking the kingdom,

acting as if Jesus were our visible beloved King, is refusing to eat a curse

on ourselves by eating food we know will not bless our bodies, but instead

slow them down by weight gain. For me, it’s sugar, wheat, rice, grains,

potatoes. We each have a unique metabolism created by genetics, our

biography, and our psychological makeup, and so we must ask the Spirit

to guide our minds and intuitions to a way of eating which blesses our bodies.

Seeking to establish God’s micro-kingdom in our own lives also means

getting our bodies fit enough to do the work God has given us to do.

Losing weight, getting fit, is like a conversion experience, completely

life-changing. As we bear this micro-cross of self-discipline without

which, Jesus said, we are not worthy of him, let’s pray we experience

the paradox he spoke of–that the yoke of following him is oddly

easy and light. May it be so. Amen.

This is a meditation on Matthew, Chapter 6

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or

Amazon Music

or Audible.

And I would be grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

8. Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

On Keys (of the Kingdom), and Knowing Where to Cast one’s Net

By Anita Mathias

So this summer, my husband locked us out of the motorhome, in which lay all three sets of keys, which he had hidden, in case we lost them.

After some colourful and entirely justified language…I contemplated keys. Scraps of metal, smaller than one’s little finger, yet they can unlock homes worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, palaces, super-yachts, safes–and motor homes!

Jesus promises us the keys of the Kingdom. Earthly kingdoms have great variety–the United Kingdom in which I live has mountains, oceans, lakes, palaces, priceless art, golden universities, and storied cities. So too Jesus’s oft-repeated phrase “the Kingdom of God,” means different things to different people. To me, the Kingdom is within me (Luke 17:21). I know I am “in” the Kingdom when I experience peace, joy, love and the awareness of God’s presence and power. For others, it means justice, healings, miracles, shalom, lightning bolts of spiritual power…

And sometimes, it just takes a key, small shifts, for us to enter this Kingdom. Forgiveness, for instance, repentance, persistent prayer, a humble heart, and, always, gratitude.

* * *

In this workaday life of ours, simple shifts can bring disproportionate changes and benefits. For instance, after the crippling pain of sciatica, I worked with a health coach. Losing weight has never been easy, but she suggested that I completely eliminate all starchy carbs (bread, pasta, noodles, wheat, rice, potatoes, oats, grains), and all sugar and chocolate, and limit caffeine and dairy. And I discovered that, for me, entirely cutting out things that are not a blessing to my body is oddly easier than moderation (Moderation kills: Dr. Esselstyn) and weight is coming off, 18 pounds more recently, and I am 40 pounds down from my highest weight. A simple key, a big shift. (I have more to lose, sadly!!)

Similarly, I have always had romantic, yearning feelings about waking up early, and “awakening the dawn,” but have never been an early riser. My brain lights up around 6 p.m., and I am often alert and clear-headed until midnight—or later. However, I finally followed the gurus’ most common sleep recommendation which is to sleep at the same time and wake at the same time daily, even on weekends, and to keep pushing it back by 1-5 minutes a day until one’s goal time. I am now waking early, and, God willing, will continue waking at even earlier and more magical hours.

I am seeking the keys, the simple secrets of two other changes I want to make …to become a more productive and faster writer, and to write some good words each day (anyone know the secret, please tell me!), and to make time to run an even more organised, decluttered, tidy, super-efficient house. As with the first two keys, there’s probably a simple secret lurking in plain sight. I just haven’t stumbled on it yet

* * *

Luke 5 is an amazing passage. After a hard night of fruitless fishing, Jesus tells Peter, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Peter says he’s “worked hard all night and hadn’t caught anything.” But because Jesus asked, he would let down the nets. He takes the risk. Risking further exhaustion, and looking foolish, and wasting time on a wild fish chase, he goes into deep water again, because Jesus told him to.

And then, “they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.”

Because of the divine direction.

* * *

I have reached a stage in my life in which it’s almost become second nature to ask Jesus where to cast my nets before I cast them. Almost. When I forget, it leads me into foolish pointless activity, wasted money, wasted time, wasted days, weeks, months… Oh yes!

I, most memorably, experienced being told exactly where to cast my nets, 12 years ago. I had, the previous year, flung myself into starting a business which I’d always thought would be fun. And it was fun, and exciting, and interesting and I learnt SO much on its steep learning curve, but it was also hard, exhausting work, with no potential for leveraging it, or exponential growth, or passive income. The only prospect was more of the same.

When I reached rock bottom (which often is a prerequisite for hearing God speak), I read the words from Psalm 81.

“In your distress you called, and I rescued you,

I removed the burden from your shoulders;

your hands were set free from the basket.”

And I called out to the Lord in my distress, and he lifted the burden from my shoulder, and my hands from the basket, and I was “given” an idea and a business plan, in which a lot of things I had learnt and done in the course of the unsuccessful business, coalesced and which used the knowledge and character and grit and perseverance gained through the business that exhausted me. However, it was far easier, and worked better than I had dreamed of praying for it to, so much so that less than 3 years after I started it, my husband was able to retire in 2010 from his Professorship in mathematics, and run that small business, which now entirely supports our family.

Would this work every time? Would Jesus tell a fisherman exactly where the fish were every time they asked? Would he tell a Christian investor which stocks to pick? Tell a Christian medical researchers how to cure cancer with just plants?

He might. We should always ask.

* * *

However, Jesus’s prime objective for our lives is not easy money, success, or fame. (It’s probably not even health!) Jesus treasures beauty of heart and character, and that is sometimes learned in a hard and bitter school. Grit, perseverance, resilience, patience, endurance, these are sometimes earned and learned when we labour all night and catch nothing, but become physically stronger in the process, and learn not to snap at our fishing mates, or blame them or God for our failure, but instead work past soreness, thereby increasing our strength.

Always ask for the key, always ask where to cast your nets, but be aware that God doesn’t always give us easy answers. He sometimes wants us to use the brains and experience He has given us.

And once we have aced one challenge, God releases us to another, and bigger one. Peter proved he could follow directions, and fish brilliantly when he did the tiring, irrational, pointless thing Jesus advised. He was then released into a nobler call: “I will make you fishes of men.”

The will of God always leads us to a bigger place.

Listening to your Body, Listening to your Life

By Anita Mathias

Buttermere, Lake District

God speaks to us, guides us, and shows us his will through the circumstances of our lives.

And sometimes, through our bodies.

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to a deaf world,” as C. S. Lewis put it.

And for me, the pain that shrieks most loudly, insistently, in a voice which cannot be ignored is physical pain.

For almost a year, I had a mystery pain, which was first diagnosed as sciatica, and then as moderate-to-severe arthritis, and spondylolisthesis. It made walking unbearable, and led to a series of expensive visits to physiotherapists, osteopaths and masseurs, first NHS and then private. (Interestingly, it lifted, unbelievably, and miraculously, after a spine surgeon, and Oxford Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery… get this… PRAYED for me in church, and prayed for me with absolute faith!!)

But for a year it dominated my life… ruling out running, and affecting my long walks, my sleep, my travel, my exercise, my happiness, and my usually sunny temperament!

* * *

Bassenthwaite, Lake District

“Everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person,” wrote Rumer Godden, (a favourite writer of mine, when I was a teenager).

For most of my life, until my early thirties, the intellectual room predominated… I ignored the physical. Then through my thirties and forties, I probably spent the most time and energy, thought and passion in the spiritual room. But last year, pain shouted, the body first.

* * *

Brothers Water, Lake District

The body first? Yes, for it is the home in which mind, spirit, and heart live. And if pain or dread diseases grounds the body in their imperative way, then the other dimensions of a full human, the spiritual, the intellectual and the spiritual are usually similarly crippled.

So for the first time in my life… I am prioritising health, learning about the best nutrition for my body (food as medicine!!). I am doing my sciatica exercises… and yoga. I am doing some meditation too, which as Jon Kabat-Zinn has shown mysteriously reduces physical pain, perhaps by reducing the flight-or-fight response, perhaps by promoting relaxation.

I am paying more rigorous attention to what I eat, and have shed a total of 46 pounds.

* * *

Crummock Water, Lake District

The impressive mega-church founder, Rick Warren, whose success in ministry and evangelism and writing is matched by his legendary generosity, writes

“If you want to change Your life, start with your body.

For change to happen in any area of your life, whether it’s financial, vocational, educational, mental, or relational, you have to begin with the physical.

Why? Because your body affects your behaviour. Your muscles affect your moods and your motivation. Your physiology can actually affect your psychology.”

It’s ironic that it took the megaphone of pain, and an inability to exercise without pain, to decide to put the body first!

Jesus talks of the steep and narrow path that leads to life. I love the Lake District which I visited last year, the Himalayas, and especially the Alps. The gasping, sometimes tedious effort on the steep and narrow paths lead to fabulous wild views we could not have seen any other way. The trick is to enjoy each step, each view on the journey. “Trust what is difficult,” the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote; trust the process, trust that the steep and narrow path will lead to joy.

And so I will continue prioritising changing my body… as a prelude to positively changing all the things that my body affects… my often tired mind, my sometimes cantankerous, and sometimes soaring spirit, and my sometimes cranky and sometimes sanguine emotions!

Wish me luck!

(All photographs taken by me, on my iPhone 6S, in the Lake District, earlier this month).

Some (affiliate) links which helped me, and might help you.

Meditation tapes. I particularly recommend Jon Kabat-Zinn on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Mark Williams meditation tapes on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan includes the spiritual elements of weight loss, as well as offering a helpful practical plan, which includes exercise. On Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Weighted blankets have almost magically improved the depth, quality and length of my sleep. I use this one… on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

My Fitbit HR helps me track my steps, my active hours, my sleep and many other things. On Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Biggest Losers, Grace, and Silver Linings

By Anita Mathias

I read the New York Times’ distressing account of The Biggest Loser show.

Because of their rapid weight loss, the participants’ metabolisms dramatically slowed down, as happens with any diet. Researchers discovered that, six years on, the metabolism of the contestants continued slowing down, and they continued gaining weight disproportionate to their calorie intake, their bodies intensifying efforts to keep them at their highest weight. “The body will fight back for years,” against dramatic weight loss, the researchers discovered.

Following post-diet weight loss, leptin and four other hormones which signal satiety vanish almost completely so one feels ravenous all the time. Similarly, levels of ghrelin, which signal hunger, shoot up.

Becoming overweight is a kind of vicious circle. The more foods you eat that give you a dopamine rush—sugar, chocolate, cakes, cookies, the less sensitive the dopamine receptors in the brain become. Some actually die, according to an amazing book I am reading Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey.

“It’s like hearing you have a life sentence,” said worship leader, Sean Algaier, who entered the show at 444 pounds, got down to 289 and is now 450.

* * *

Yup, a life sentence indeed, but a life-sentence to what?

A life sentence to long walks, so that your mobility is never as affected as that of Danny Cahill, the biggest loser of all time on the show, who was 485 pounds. “He began sleeping in a recliner because he was too heavy to sleep lying down. Walking hurt; stairs were agony.” That is no life!

Working on reasonable fitness is a life sentence to the glory and ecstasy of nature in spring, in summer, in autumn and winter. A life sentence to walks in parks, forests, fells, mountains and by the sea.

A life sentence to discovering forms of exercise which are fun so as to prevent further weight gain, and, perhaps, (inevitably?) to lose some weight. Yoga? Hiking? Running? Weight-lifting? Walking listening to books like David Sedaris, who began walking 25 miles a day, 60,000 steps, which took 9 hours. He listened to audiobooks and podcasts as he did so, which would mean getting through a book a day most days. Not a bad use of time, if you have it, for saturation reading is the quickest way to improve as a writer, and, of course, has its own joys.

A life sentence to meals rich in nutrient dense fruits and vegetables. A life sentence to restricted sugar, chocolate, white flour (and in my case, as a colon cancer survivor, red meat)—addictive stuff which does not bless the body. A life sentence of discovering ethnic foods which are fruit, vegetable, lentil and bean based. A life sentence to learning to eat in a way that blesses your body. Not too bad is it?

A life sentence to having to learn to practice discipline, though you may fail often.

The goodness of God remains constant whether you have an illness which is random or genetic, like MS or MND/ALS or illnesses caused by your own actions as well as by your genes, like obesity or alcoholism. There is grace—silver linings in every cloud.

* * *

We are actors in a great, great story. We do not get to choose our roles. We do not get to choose the plot of the story.

It is our job to act in the story as well as we can, as cheerfully as we can. To see the silver lining in the blackest cloud.

Obesity is not really a completely incurable disease, any more than cancer is. (And anyway, most diseases are not incurable because there is a powerful God who flung the stars into space). I lost 25 pounds in late 2012 after beginning to cut back on sugar and floor and eat more fruit and vegetables, most of which has remained off, though I have more to lose, of course, of course).

Of course, becoming fit and strong is going to be a challenge for me, for life. Challenges may not make our hearts leap with joy, but they make life worth living. Those of us with health problems have a difficult road–a road of humility as we come to terms with our weaknesses; a road of learning discipline, better late than never; a road of dependence as we realise that constant prayer for grace is one way out of the maze.

Yes, our weaknesses may even teach us to pray constantly, which is something well worth learning, even if it takes struggle to learn it.

My One Word for 2015 : Joy

By Anita Mathias

I had wanted to choose “Accelerate” as my One Word for 2014 but God impressed “Alignment” on my heart, and it proved to have been useful through a tumultuous year—a cancer diagnosis, and surgery, the death of my beloved border collie Jake from cancer, a burglary. And some nice things too… being invited to Cambodia for a week by Tearfund; being the runner up for Tweeter of the Year in the Christian New Media Awards; being interviewed on Premier Radio; publishing a children’s book, Francesco, Artist of Florence.

* * *

That cancer now a past tense occurrence, God willing, all gone.

Because I could not stop for health, health kindly stopped for me. Health will be one of my priorities this year

I will have to be careful about diet and exercise–so as not to have a recurrence. My body will have to change its bioeme to become an ecosystem unfavourable to cancer. I will learn stress management techniques, and practice positive psychology, thinking positively. I am juicing to get my diet more nutrient-dense, and am moving towards a raw and plant-based diet.

I thought of choosing “Focus,” as my word for the year because huge things can be done with focus, but no, I had a greater need.

My word for 2015 will be Joy.

* * *

I am training myself to become conscious of my emotional states, of when joy leaches out of me, and am learning to slow down and ask, “Why are you sad, oh my soul?”

And then, I am learning to accept the things I cannot change, and to change the things I can, as in the brilliant Serenity Prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous, and to be thankful for the rest, the obviously good things, and the more ambiguous things–for there is a God who is writing straight in crooked lines in my life. Again and again, I see this.

When I notice I am grumpy and low-spirited, I tell myself, “Anita, light the sacred flame of joy.” I visualise myself as a priestess in a temple filling the sacred bowl with incense, the seeds of joy, lighting the flame. I start noticing the good things, thanking God for the good things. I ask the Holy Spirit—who, Jesus says, comes on demand–to fill me with joy, those rivers of living water, and He does.

We can change our emotional states, as blogger Michael Hyatt writes. He calls being able to do this his most important asset.

I shift my emotional state by entering the narrow gates of surrender to God. By deciding to walk in love. By praise and thanksgiving. By worship music. By reading a bit of the Bible or a spiritual book. By physical activity, a walk outdoors, or even just tidying the house. By spending time with my family or seeking out a friend to hang out with.

* * *

19 years ago, I told a good friend Paul Miller (author of A Praying Life, often praised as one of the best books on prayer, for instance by Tim Challies) that I had not experienced joy-as opposed to happiness. He volunteered to disciple me in exchange for editing help, and this discipling relationship lasted for 5 years. Joy, he said, comes from dying, from dying to self.

I did not stumble upon joy through “dying;” that was not my path. (However, I learned other things from Paul, about Jesus–I was an editor for his book Love Walked Among Us–about love, and faith, and prayer).

Nonetheless, I was eventually surprised by joy. Joy and peace crept up on me, as my original ambitions were thwarted, and the fierceness of ambition leached away, leaving more of an openness to what God might be doing in my life, to the plot he was writing. To giving God what he takes, and taking what he gives, with a smile—Mother Teresa’s definition of holiness.

So in 2015, I want to experience joy, by seeking it where it lies in plain sight, and if necessary, hunting it down, looking a little harder, a little deeper. I want to light the flame of joy with the incense of praise, of thanksgiving, of faith, of Scripture, of nature, of friendship, all the good and precious things which come down from the Father of Lights.

And if you’d like to pray for me, please pray for vibrant health and that cancer never returns. Eight weeks after surgery, I am glad to report that I feel full of energy, good spirits, health and…yes…joy!

Tweetables

One Word for 2015: Joy. On lighting the sacred flame of joy from @anitamathias1

Have you chosen a one word goal for 2015? What is it?

Walking on the Waters, Looking at Jesus, in the Shadow of the Big C (who Must not be Named)

By Anita Mathias

I had a cancer scare two and a half years ago. Fear gripped my heart when I realised the doctor suspected endometrial cancer. Fears of chemotherapy–and, perhaps worse, death. My youngest daughter was just 12. I was by no means ready to die.

And I lay down, and “saw” a vision. Christ walking towards me on the dark waters. And he said, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

I took that to mean that I did not have cancer, and fear left my heart.

The biopsy results took six weeks to arrive. A friend who worked in that department told me that I would get my results earlier if I called. Roy urged me to call, but I had lost interest. I had seen Jesus and he told me not to be afraid.

When the letter arrived, all was well.

* * *

Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, why did I not revise my life? Change my diet, cut fat and sugars, become active and lose weight. Oh Jesus!

So I reach a state of exhaustion this August, and I keep telling Roy, “I think I have cancer. Nothing else can explain the progressive exhaustion despite a good, good diet.” My short daily walk was exhausting me.

I go to the doctor. I am severely anaemic. I have a colonoscopy. They find a very large polyp. It has been growing for years by the size of it. The doctor looks at it, and says it has a Type V pit pattern, the worst incidentally, correlated with malignancies.

The biopsy results take 23 days to arrive—just long enough for hope to spring up in my heart, hope for a second chance to be healthy and revise my life.

The nurse hears the tremor in my voice, and says the results are “highly suspicious” of cancer. Was she being kind? Oh I prefer the truth, no matter how brutal.

So I am to see a surgeon on November 13^th for another colonoscopy and to plan on how to remove the 6 cm polyp. The nurse thinks it will probably involve major surgery, scheduled for November 25^th or December 9^th.

This dismays me. I have so little energy, and exercise is hard for me, anyway. How on earth will I exercise while recovering from surgery?

* * *

Anyway, when I first got the call saying the anaemia was severe, and I should have a colonoscopy, I was filled with fear, and lay face down on my bed.

And, like the previous time, I “saw” Jesus walk towards me on the waters. And he said, “Take courage. It is I; do not be afraid.” (Matt. 14:27)

And like Peter, I saw myself walk towards him on the waters, and grow afraid, and begin to sink.

And Jesus held my hand, and said, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

So that was the image and the comfort. Not a clear sense of “No cancer,” as last time, alas, but this comfort: Jesus will hold my hand through this. I will walk on the waters of what is to come, holding Jesus’s hand.

* * *

So that’s where I am. You see posters, “I don’t just hope for miracles. I rely on them.” Well, increasingly, that’s the way I live, relying on miracles.

So I am praying for a miracle–that when the surgeon looks at the polyp on November 13^th, it will have shrunk. That God will change the molecules of the polyp so that when they are biopsied again, they will prove not to be malignant. (He IS a molecular biologist. He changed the molecules of water to wine; of bread, so it fed five thousand.)

There are three types of surgery: snaring the polyp via endoscopy, but the team thinks it’s too large for that. There is keyhole surgery, which would remove it with minimal intervention. Or, horrors, removal of that section of the colon, which is what the nurse thinks might happen. NO, Jesus!!

And, of course, cancer is Mordor, the Land of Shadows and Darkness. There are other possibilities which I am refusing to contemplate until I have to.

So, if you are a person of ridiculous faith, please could you pray that the polyp will shrink, that God will change its molecules so that it is not malignant, and that it will be removed with minimal surgery.

* * *

The risk factors for colon cancer are red meat, a high fat diet, being overweight, and being sedentary. Readers, you can be jolly sure that I will not be eating red meat, will not be eating high fat, and will not be sedentary. Oh no, I will not! As for being overweight, if I can figure out what to do to shift my weight, I will. Oh yes, I will.

Fortunately, the things which minimise one’s risk of colon cancer—fruit, vegetables, bran, cruciferous vegetables, onions, are also things that are great for one’s health.

So if I get out of this shadow alive, I am jolly sure I will be a healthier girl. And if you could pray with me that the horror will be minimal, I will be so grateful!!

In which Christ Writes to an Overweight Woman

By Anita Mathias

Jesus, I am fed up of food rules and diets, and giving them up. and sabotaging myself when stress or cravings or boredom demand: “Chocolate. Crisps. Comfort foods.” Oh, and the sadness of exercise in a world of subconscious triggers, when kebabs and pizza and cookies undo all the virtue?

And I am fed up, but I cannot give up the battle to be a light, flexible strong woman who can walk fast for long hours, because I love to travel, and I love to see your world, and I love to walk by rivers and in mountains, in wild and beautiful Aslan’s own country, and I want to continue being able to do so into my nineties!

And I think of this little canker in my life in an area which should be joy. And I think of decades of abandoned diets, and I could cry, and so could you. I am fed up of vacillating between diet plans, but you are never fed up of me; your heart wells with sadness and compassion for me and you love me, and you want to give me the keys of life, and to tell me your secrets, which lie in plain sight for her who has ears to hear, and eyes to see.

And I know that once I have sought your face, and heard your voice, things are easier. It is easier to set my face like flint on my course.

So speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

* * *

Turn it over to me. Hand your weight, and your body which I created and whose life and health and death are in my hands over to me. Hand it over; let it be my worry. It is too heavy a weight for you to carry.

From today this area of your life will no longer be your worry but my worry. Not your business, but my business. I will manage it. Entrust it to me. Trust me. When you don’t know what to do, ask me, and I will tell you.

I do hand it over. Food, weight, fat, my body, all this is now your concern, not mine. When I don’t know what to do I will ask you.

* * *

Thanks.

Leave it in my hands now. I am managing it.

A table I set before you

In the presence of your foes

And your cup overflows (Ps 23:5)

I will prepare

a feast of rich food for you,
a banquet of aged wine—
the best of meats and the finest of wines. (Isaiah 25:6)

Eat from the table of goodness I set before you, remembering me,

For the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet. You are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

* * *

JESUS, a feast of rich food, the best of meats and the finest of wines? Banquets, feasts! I am overweight, I tell you.

In the sheet of goodness which tumbles from heaven, are four footed-animals, birds, seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, and large numbers of fish.

Child, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ Do not submit to the rules of this world: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules are based on merely human commands and teachings. But now is the time for feasting. In me, it always been “Yes.”

Feasting and fasting, feasting and fasting, come savour these rhythms I have built into creation with work and rest, seedtime and harvest. Enjoy the good things I richly provide for your enjoyment

Eat when you are hungry, with celebration, with joy, with thanksgiving, in remembrance of me. And then, fast until you are truly hungry again. For food is for the stomach, and not to be eaten when the body feels no need of it.

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Jesus! No food rules? Really? Me, I’ve tried low-carb and no-carb, and Atkins and vegan, and low-fat and low-sugar, and…

I know.

Think of blessings (and curses). The original food I gave Adam— every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit has blessing in it. You know what is a blessing to your body: fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, fish…

However, everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. I have been recorded eating bread, and fish, and a Passover meal, traditionally of lamb, bread, egg, wine, and charoset, with honey, fruit and nuts. None of these would have been an optimal sole food.

Be careful though with foods I wouldn’t have recognized, treats known to be toxic, food deliberately manufactured to be addictive.

When hungry, eat for health, and eat with joy.

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What if I crave food when I am not really hungry? To relax, because I am stressed, as a break, and for pleasure?

Slow down, child. Slowing down is the beginning of the spiritual life. Examine the real needs of your soul and body when you find yourself wanting chocolate or “comfort foods.”

Build a treasure box of the heart in which you put other pleasures: a quick run, reading blogs or a book, reading scripture, yoga, a movie, fixing a date with a friend. Or just pray recreationally. Or pray and garden, pray and walk.

I might free you from this food-crutch instantly, today. Or I might heal you gradually, as the blind man I cured first saw men like trees walking.

But healing is in your destiny, because we need to deal with this challenge, you and I, so you can move forward on your pilgrim’s progress on the narrow road of sanctification, dealing with the next challenge, and the next.

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Finally, remember the value of physical training. You eat recreationally for the sense of bliss and satiety, for energy, to keep you going for long laptop hours, for forgetfullness, for dopamine surges, for highs. Running will give you all this.

Come, let’s run the race together.

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Yup, a life sentence indeed, but a life-sentence to what?

anita.mathias