Truth Retreat

When my kids were little, I used to leave them with my husband every once in awhile and head to a town an hour away from here for a little quiet time. I resisted the urge to shop and do errands and instead headed to the local university library. There I'd go down into the basement, find a nice quiet spot, and spend some time with God.

I usually had some agenda besides my quiet time. Some truth agenda (this was back in the early days of my truth journaling). What I would do is pick an emotion or a subject (rejection for example), and I'd go back into the past writing down significant memories. The list might be ten or twenty items long.

Then I'd truth journal through the list, one memory at a time. I'd write down what I was thinking at the time (it's surprising how much you can remember), and then I'd apply the truth to those old thoughts. If it was a bad memory, I'd picture God with me in the midst of the memory and imagine what He might say to me about that memory.

Sometimes I realized that I hadn't handled those past situations the way God would have wanted me to handle them. When that happened I thought about what I should have done in the situation I was remembering - not in a beat-myself-up sort of way, but in a reflective way. I hadn't really planned on doing that but for some reason it seemed to help the healing process.

I only did this a few times, but I remember them being wonderful times with God. Now my kids are older - only two left at home - and the house isn't as noisy as it used to be. I don't need to leave home to find a quiet place to spend a few hours, so I don't think about going on retreats. But I went on one anyway a few weeks ago, and it was just as delightful as I remembered. This time I brought a friend.

I picked her up around 8:00 in the morning, and we headed for that same university library I used to go to - only this time we went to the fourth floor and found some nice comfy chairs in front of a couple of windows.

My friend started in on her regular quiet time, while I asked God what He wanted me to go over that day. In the past I'd always had a plan, but this time I didn't have anything in mind when I got to the library. So I prayed for a bit, and God seemed to be directing me toward working on my people pleasing tendencies.

I thought back through my past (which takes a lot longer now that I'm nine years older!) and wrote down some memories of times when my people pleasing tendencies caused me to make bad decisions. It was an interesting experience. In the beginning, I was just thinking it would be an interesting thing to look at, but as I went through my list I realized I had a much bigger problem than I had previously realized!

Someone once said that she could feel God pouring out truth through her pen as she truth journaled. I feel the same way, and God was really pouring out the truth that morning. It was a delightful exerience (although the next day when God gave me an opportunity to put what I'd learned into practice, it was far less delightful!).

After a couple of hours at the library, we walked downtown for a bit and had lunch at a Thai restaurant which was fun and yummy. We took another walk by the river and then headed into a coffee shop for another round with the past.

This time it was my friend's turn to get poured on by God as she started her own look at the past. We sat on a cozy leather couch drinking our lattes, writing in our journals, and sharing our hearts with each other when we couldn't see the truth on our own.

Our last stop was the public library. More time in the Word, more journaling, and more talking it over with God. We finally headed for home around 4:00.

It was an amazing day of fellowship, growth, friendship, and truth. I wanted to share it with you just in case any of you might want to try something like this. You could have a subject in mind when you begin the day or just ask God what He wants you to go over once you arrive at your destination. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!

Renewing of the Mind Challenge

I’m sitting here by the fire this morning wondering how everyone is doing today. The holiday season is officially over now and the kids are back in school. Many of you are probably thinking, “Good—life will get back to normal today.”

I still have my Christmas tree up—in fact I’m looking at it right now all lit up—and my older boys are still home for Christmas vacation, so life isn’t back to normal yet here, but I like it this way. I love having all the kids home.

Still, it’s time to get back to work today. I’ll be working again on my new Bible study and forcing myself to go back to my writing schedule.

The first Monday of the new year is a good time for beginnings, and today I’d like to present you with a renewing of the mind challenge. What I’d like you to try is five days of truth journaling, Scripture prayers, or one of the other mind renewing practices in Freedom from Emotional Eating.

If you’re having problems sticking to your eating boundaries, you may want to place your efforts toward trying to stick to your boundaries. If you’re already doing that, I would try working on one of your negative emotions.

Here are some pointers for you if you’re going to work on sticking to your boundaries:

1. Print out some lie/truth charts right away or get a notebook handy. Find a pen and put everything in a place where it’s easy to get to when you need to journal. You can find a larger version of the lie/truth chart that’s in the book at www.truthwaypress.com in the sample content area.

2. Make a commitment to journal every time you eat something out of your boundaries, and I mean every time—even if it’s just one lick of the spoon.

3. Make a rule that you have to truth journal before you can eat anything else.

4. Truth journal even if you’re already planning to break your boundaries again the minute you’re done truth journaling.

5. Don’t beat yourself up even if you break your boundaries ten times during the day—but you should have ten truth journal entries to show for your ten boundary breaks. I would also intersperse those truth journal entries with Scripture prayers which you could even write out.

6. Do this for five solid days even if it doesn’t seem to be making a difference.

Here are some pointers for you if you had been sticking to your boundaries faithfully before Christmas but you’ve been doing terrible since:

1. Do all the things I just mentioned in the previous section.

2. In addition, you’ll need to truth journal your feelings of failure and your fear of continuing to fail.

3. Every time you feel like you will never get over this problem, journal those thoughts. This is a necessary part of the process. I don’t think you can break free from emotional eating without going through the fear of failure stage. It usually hits more than once and it’s often accompanied by failure. You’ll need to use the truth to combat all those lies that tell you you’ll never get over this problem!

4. Be willing to accept that your failure has made you gain some of your weight back if that’s what has happened. Weight isn’t everything, but following God is. Ask yourself, how does God see this situation you’re in? How are you seeing the situation? Adjust your thinking so it matches His.

5. Recognize that this is a trial and know that God can use this trial to bring you closer to Him and make you more like Him if you go to Him for help. If you have Freedom from Emotional Eating, go back to the chapter on trials and rework it with your present trial of eating failure in mind. Make a list of all the things God could do in your life if you were to keep going to Him for help with this trial.

6. Steep yourself in the Word. Spend as much time with God as possible. Remember that life is about loving God and loving others. Answer this question in your journal: How can I love God best in this situation of struggling with food? How can I love my neighbors best in this situation? In the overall scheme of life does a five or ten pound Christmas weight gain make that much difference? How would God want me to move on from here?

I’m going to have to give the pointers for working on the emotions in my next post because I need to get to work on writing before I lose my momentum. I’ll be praying for all of you this week.

I'll just break my boundaries, and then journal about it afterwards.

It’s been a busy week of canning and writing and school, but I thought I’d take a quick break to write a blog post. I hope you’ve all been doing well at sticking to your boundaries—I’ve actually been doing pretty well myself, so I pulled this one up from my (huge) file of past lie-truth charts.

Beliefs: 1. It would be so relaxing to have a lemon bar and listen to this beautiful music. 2. I was going to have one later, anyway (so it’s okay to have it now instead). 3. I’ll have one now and just journal about it after I eat it.

Truths: 1. True – although breaking my boundaries on a regular basis does not lead to a relaxing lifestyle. Having an eating obsession is stressful! 2. That’s like saying, “I’m going to get married later anyway, so I’ll just have sex now.” (Well, not quite, but I guess I was in a drastic mood the day I wrote this!) The truth is that breaking the boundaries once leads to a lifestyle of breaking the boundaries. My life is much better when I stick to them. 3. True (that’s what I did). Although, it would be much better to stick to the boundaries, it’s far better to plan to break them and journal about it, than to plan to break them and not journal about it.

The surprising truth is that even if you willfully break your boundaries, planning all the while to truth journal about it—and then actually follow through with it and truth journal—it will still be a good experience of replacing the lies you believe with truth. If your focus is on changing the way you think about food, the only real failure is when you break your boundaries and don’t renew your mind afterward.

But of course, it’s even better not to break your boundaries to begin with. (Not to mention the fact that if you did this on a regular basis, you might gain fifty pounds by the time the truth finally kicks in!)

Alone in the House with Ice Cream and Rhubarb Bars

The kids are all gone at backpacking camps, and I’m alone in the house with a carton of Blue Bunny cookie dough ice cream and a Tupperware container filled with rhubarb cheesecake bars.

Not only that, I still have an hour and a half of writing to do for the day and a decision to make that I don’t really want to make—both of which make me feel like eating. Not to mention the fact that it’s late afternoon, that magical time of day when the things in the freezer often call out to us.

But I’m not listening. Let me take that back—I was listening, but not anymore. Why am I not listening? Because I decided to truth journal about it (before I actually ate anything, for a change), and I no longer feel like eating.

This is what I wrote:

Beliefs: 1. Some ice cream would be good right now. 2. I deserve it after such a hard day. 3. And since I still have more than an hour of writing to do.

Truths: 1. It would be good for about FIVE MINUTES!!! After that it would make me feel bloated, uncomfortable, crummy when I wake up tomorrow morning, and weigh more than I want to weigh. Is that all worth five minutes of enjoyment? (I actually capitalized the five minutes again in my journal, but I’ll spare you that.) No, the answer is no. 2. Some days will go like this. If possible I need to devote my mornings to writing, so I don’t have any left by afternoon. But when I think of the collective suffering in the world, I’m one of the lucky ones. 3. That hour of writing is an opportunity for me to share in the sufferings of Christ(ouch).

Then I truth journaled about the decision, since that was another thing that was making me want to eat. And you know what? I didn’t feel like eating anymore by the time I was through.

There’s two things I think are really important to keep from giving in to emotional eating.

They are:

1. Start working on your emotions. If you only journal about the food, you'll be in danger of turning to some other bad habit to escape your emotions. If you learn to go to God for your emotions, you'll see things from His point of view and the negative emotions themselves will go away. Journaling about both the writing and the decision today gave me peace about both of those.

2. Make a commitment to journal or pray Scripture before you eat outside your boundaries – even if you’re already planning to eat. Just say to yourself, “That’s okay – I can still have the bowl of ice cream (or whatever), I just need to renew my mind first." More often than not your desires will change, but if they don’t you have nothing to lose. You can go ahead and eat what you were planning to eat.

Why don’t you give this a try and see how it goes? I actually got interrupted while I was writing this so it’s been a couple of hours since I was tempted by the ice cream. And I still haven’t felt like eating anything. I’m not using will power to avoid eating – I just don’t feel like it anymore. Because I’m believing the truth. But I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t taken the time to find it.

Getting Back on Track

Writing is so hard I deserve another granola bar. Besides, Mischief (my cat) is sitting in my chair (where I would conceivably have another quiet time instead of eating the granola bar), and I’ve wasted the whole day again. The least I can do is have a little treat.

Do you ever feel a little silly when you truth journal? Yes, these are your thoughts, but you know they’re immature before you even write them down? Well, you can probably see I’m speaking from my own experience. I actually wrote that entry while I was eating the granola bar five minutes ago. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Normally, I stick to my boundaries well enough that I don’t take the time to truth journal when I break them, but because I’ve been breaking them for three or four days now, I decided I better go back to truth journaling. The combination of writing a new Bible study along with still dealing with the things in my last post is making me want to eat.

There’s still a part of me that says, “Oh, I’ll just be more careful tomorrow,” or “Maybe I need to change my boundaries.” But the truth of the matter is that what I really need to do is bring my thoughts captive to the truth.

So here goes:

Beliefs: 1. Writing is so hard I deserve another granola bar. 2. Besides, Mischief (my cat) is sitting in my chair (where I would conceivably have another quiet time instead of eating the granola bar), and 3. I’ve wasted the whole day again. 4. The least I can do is have a little treat.

Truths: 1. Writing should be a joyful act of worship—something I give to God, and I’ve lost sight of that. Forgive me, Lord. I need to expect that some days will be easy, and some days will be difficult, and some days I’ll write the whole day with nothing concrete to show for it. I need to accept the fact that writing isn’t an efficient occupation and do it anyway. 2. Mischief would be perfectly happy on my lap, or I could go outside for my quiet time. 3. I haven’t accomplished much, but that wasn’t for lack of trying. I’m imperfect, and life is imperfect. Some days will be like this. 4. The best I can do is see this day from God’s point of view so I can experience peace. I’d rather have the best than the least.

Wow. I had no idea all those things were going on inside of me until I started to truth journal. I thought this was going to be a simple blog about getting back on track after a few days of eating outside the boundaries, and in the name of efficiency I thought I’d write down the truths while I was writing the blog.

Instead, I spent ten or fifteen minutes on my first lie, and another ten minutes on the third lie. God obviously had some things to say to me about my attitude.

Did you notice that God used the thoughts that were at the top of my head making me want to eat to show me what I really needed to work on? As I looked at my thoughts through His eyes, I began to see things differently. His peace began to steal into my heart once again.

Do you see what bringing your thoughts captive to Christ does? It changes the things in you that need to change. It gives you peace. It did both of those for me just now. I often find—no, I take that back—I usually find that truth journaling is a time of intimate fellowship with God.

And you know what? It’s the only type of writing I do that’s always worth it.

Cinnamon Bread and Chocolate Clusters

Today I want to walk you through an actual journaling situation. When I first started working on eating with lifelong boundaries, I tried to journal whenever I broke the boundaries—or at least before I went to bed that night.

Now that following the boundaries is more habitual, I don’t journal much even if I do break the boundaries. The thing that makes me pull out my lie-truth chart again is when I’ve broken my boundaries and feel like there’s a good chance I’ll break them again the next day. I would guess this happens maybe once or twice a month. (It used to happen all the time, so I’m making progress!)

Since this happened to me today, I thought I’d show you how journaling works in a real-life situation. First I’ll tell you what I ate today and then show you what I journaled about.

Breakfast: ½ chicken sandwich, 1/3 cup yogurt with berries
Lunch: 1 chicken sandwich, small bowl applesauce
Snack: An incredibly yummy dark chocolate, almond, caramel cluster that came in the mail today from a friend.
Supper: Three pieces cinnamon bread (made by my daughter), small ham and cheese omelet, celery
Snack: strawberry orange smoothie (about 6 oz.)

My boundaries are three meals and one snack so, technically, the only time I broke my boundaries today was with the smoothie. However, I hadn’t planned on eating the chocolate for a snack. I was planning on having a piece of cinnamon bread when it came out of the oven and another for supper - but when I opened the envelope with that yummy chocolate cluster I couldn’t resist, and I ate it right away.

So what did I journal about? The chocolate and the third piece of cinnamon bread. Even though neither one was a technical breaking of the boundaries, both of them were indulgent eating occasions, and I knew I would be facing more temptation tomorrow (lunch with friends and more cinnamon bread in the house). I knew I needed to bring my thoughts captive to Christ tonight if I wanted to glorify Him in my eating tomorrow.

Let me show you how I journaled it:

Chocolate: 1. I have to have this right now because it looks so good.
Truth: I have to go truth journal or pray Scripture or get someone to hide this right now because it looks so good, and it will be better for me not to have it.

Cinnamon bread: 1. I should have one more piece of cinnamon bread. 2. It’s so good it’s worth having one more. 3. It’s okay to have three (it’s just one more piece, after all).

Truth: 1. I should stick to my original plan. When I break my boundaries, I almost always end up eating more than I want to eat. I can never get enough cinnamon bread to satisfy me in this situation. I’ll always want more (unless I eat enough to get sick, of course). Since I’ll always want more, I should stop not when I’ve had enough (because that will never happen), but when it’s a reasonable amount.** 2. It’s never good enough to stuff myself and feel uncomfortable for! 3. Although it’s okay to have three pieces, it’s not wise to have three pieces.

**Note: There are many times when I do feel satisfied with a small amount of a sweet, but not when I’m in an indulgent mood like I was at dinner!

Now here’s the funny thing—I was doing the truth journaling while I was drinking the smoothie, and you know what? As I was writing, I was thinking oh, it’s never good enough to stuff myself; I don’t think I’ll have the rest of this smoothie because I don’t want to feel stuffed. And then I gave the rest of the smoothie to my son (don’t worry, he’s a healthy eater!).

I am now ready to go to bed, and I’m not worrying about breaking my boundaries tomorrow. There’s still cinnamon bread in the house, and I don’t even want a piece. God has used the truth to take away my wrong desires and replace them with holy desires. It was worth truth journaling tonight.

P.S. Did you notice I didn't condemn myself for breaking my boundaries or say things like, "I can never stick to this"? The only reason I didn't say those things to myself, is because I don't actually believe those things anymore. And the only reason I don't believe them anymore is because I truth journaled thoughts like that so many times in the beginning that the truth is ground into my head!

The Lies that make us cave into the social pressure to eat

Hi, everyone! I said I’d try to write another post this week about the lies you might believe in a situation where you’re feeling pressured to overeat. Here it is—I hope it will help those of you who struggle in these situations.

1. I need to please (my mom, my family, my friends, etc.).
Truth: I need to please my Father—and I can't always please Him and others at the same time.

2. If I don’t eat (as much as they expect me to eat), they’ll be mad at me.
Truth: If I do eat, I’ll be mad at me.

3. They’ll ridicule me if I don’t eat.
Truth: I so rarely get the chance to suffer because I'm doing the right thing (usually I'm suffering because of my sin), that I'll take that as an honor if they ridicule me.

4. They’ll think I’m (uppity, self-righteous, judgmental, etc.).
Truth: God knows my heart, but it’s inevitable that others will sometimes misunderstand me and judge me. This is difficult and sad, but I need to press on anyway and do what God’s called me to do. I’ll have to spend some time with God before the get-together so I can love the people there with a pure heart, and not a defensive heart.

5. I’ll end up gaining my weight back and then they’ll ridicule me.
Truth: If I end up gaining my weight back, God will help me through it. He can use all things for His purposes.

6. They think I’m dumb for wanting to change my eating habits.
Truth: It’s okay if they think I’m dumb, but that may not even be the case. It's possible they feel threatened that I'm changing and would feel more comfortable if I didn't.

7. I won’t fit in if I don’t eat as much as they do.
Truth: This might be the price I have to pay for doing the Father’s will, but I'm guessing they'll love me even if they think I'm strange. I need to stop worrying about what they think and focus on loving them regardless of what they think.

How to Make Yourself Truth Journal

Studies show that over a period of three days we tend to remember:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 70% of what we say and write

Maybe that's why truth journaling works so well. There's something about writing the truth that helps you remember it and act it out.

The question is, how do you get yourself to truth journal when you don’t feel like doing it? Here are five things that can help:

1. Truth journal at the same time every day.

When I was struggling with writing my son (who likes to write) gave me some good advice: “Mom, just pick a time to write and do it at the same time every day—it will get easier as time goes by.” He was right—it did get easier. If you don’t have the time or the drive to truth journal every time you break your boundaries, try truth journaling once a day instead.

2. Set an easy goal.

If you don’t enjoy truth journaling, make sure you set a reachable goal. It should be small enough that you can make yourself do it even if you don’t feel like doing it. You could set a time limit goal (five minutes a day) or a writing goal (one entry a day).

3. Get your ducks in a row.

If you have to search for a notebook and pen every time you journal, you won’t want to journal. Make it easy to write by having everything ready to write and easy to find. If you’re going to use lie-truth charts print a bunch of them out. You can download these charts from the sample content tab at www.truthwaypress.com.

4. Truth journal about truth journaling before you start to truth journal.

I know this sounds a little crazy, but it will help you find out why you don’t want to truth journal. Here are some of the common lies that might be keeping you from truth journaling and the truths that will change your attitude.

1. It’s too much work.

Truth: It’s not too much work when I think about what it will accomplish in my life. It’s worth a bit of work to be set free from emotional eating.

2. I don’t have time to do it when I need to do it.

Truth: It doesn’t have to be done at a specific time to help me change the way I think. (Note: It is true, though, that if you wait until the next day to truth journal, it will be hard to remember your thoughts.)

3. It takes too much time.

Truth: It’s worth the time. And five minutes isn’t too much time.

4. I’ll just do it in my head.

Truth: Although doing it in my head is better than nothing, writing it down will be much more effective. It’s worth taking the extra time to write it down.

5. I’ll do it later.

Truth: The longer I wait, the less I’ll feel like doing it. I better do it now.

6. I’ll just force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) so I don’t need to truth journal.

Truth: I can only force myself to (stick to my boundaries, etc) for so long. Sooner or later I’ll break down and do what I feel like doing. It would be far better for me to put my efforts into forcing myself to truth journal—because that will change me permanently.

7. It doesn’t work.

Truth: It doesn’t work as quickly and as easily as I want it to work, but it does work. If I'm persistent and consistent, it will eventually change the way I think.

5. Pray about it.

Never forget that we're in a spiritual battle. Satan would just as soon see Christians focus on their behavior and not the renewing of their minds. Why? Because if we think like the world thinks we're going to act like the world acts - no matter how much we focus on our behavior.

If we want lasting change in our behavior, we need to take the time to renew our minds.

Journaling the food vs. Journaling the emotions

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like eating absolutely everything in the house? It doesn’t matter how good it is—you just want to eat. On those days, truth journaling about the food probably won’t be enough to keep you from breaking your boundaries.

Why? Because there’s something more powerful going on—some emotion, some situation, some person—something that has you so upset that you just want to eat and eat and eat.

On days like that it's usually much more effective to journal your beliefs about the situation itself rather than about the food you feel like eating. Let me tell you what I do on those days in case it will help you with your own struggles.

1. Find out what’s bugging you.

This may seem obvious, but in reality, you may not know what’s bugging you. Think back over the last day or two. Have you had any relationship problems, any looming deadlines, any big worries? Has anyone said anything to you that made you feel bad? Are you experiencing any negative emotions?

2. Truth journal the emotion.

Once you’ve figured out what the problem is—or at least what you think the problem is—you’ll need to carry your thoughts captive to God in that area. Write your thoughts down and number them, then replace the lies with the truth. If you don’t have peace after truth journaling, you’ve probably either missed a lie or you haven’t fully submitted to God.

Sometimes what you’ll find in truth journaling is that the truth isn’t pretty, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In those situations you’re going to have an “opportunity” to die to yourself and live to God—no, it’s not fun, but it’s necessary if you want to experience peace, and there really is joy in submitting to God.

3. Study the emotion.

This will sound crazy, but what I sometimes do when I’m experiencing a real onslaught of negative emotions is to go back to the chapter of Freedom from Emotional Eating on that emotion and rework it.

Even though I wrote the Bible study, it’s an entirely different experience to do the study, because then I’m forced to answer my own questions, and God uses those questions to convict me all over again.

If you have the study, it might be helpful to jump to the chapter on the emotion you’re struggling with. You may want to check out other books on the topic, too, if it’s an emotion or situation you struggle with on a regular basis.

I probably have ten books on my shelf on organization and time management, and I was telling myself today as I truth journaled procrastination for about the millionth time that I really need to get some of those books out again so I can get my life organized!

4. Spend time with God

If you’re going through a hard time, you need to spend even more time with the Lord than usual. Sometimes you really have to wrestle through a negative emotion to find peace, but it’s worth it. Seek God in prayer—pour through His Word—spend the time you need with Him to finally see your situation from His point of view.

When you’re finally able to see a situation or person through God’s eyes, the negative emotions will drain away from you, and His peace will fill your soul. And when His peace fills your soul, you won’t need to truth journal about the food - because you’ll no longer be interested in it. Honest.

The Anatomy of a Binge

Today I’d like to walk you through a common eating situation and show you how to renew your mind with truth journaling.

Picture if you will a woman named Tabitha. Her boundaries are three meals a day and one snack. Before she eats each meal, she plans what’s she’s going to eat for that meal, based on what a reasonable amount would be.

Tonight’s dinner is pizza—her favorite. She plans on eating two pieces and a salad, but it’s so good, she decides to have another piece.

After dinner, Tabitha is cleaning up when she remembers the brownies in the freezer. She eats one brownie while she’s cleaning and later that night, she eats more brownies . . . and some cereal . . . and the leftover pizza.

Tabitha has clearly broken her boundaries. She’s tempted to condemn herself; in fact she’s already halfway there, when she remembers that she’s supposed to truth journal. So she pulls out her trusty notebook (or truth-lie chart) and makes the following entries:

(Note: She will actually be making three different journal entries, because she ate for three different reasons. If Tabitha had taken the time to journal right after dinner, she probably wouldn’t have eaten the brownie. If she had journaled after the brownie, she probably wouldn’t have binged. Still—better late than never, and if she journals now, it will help her to eat well the next day. I’ll list the truths for you under each lie entry so you can follow it more easily.)

Pizza: This is so good, I should have another one.

Truth: This is so good, I should fully appreciate every bite. Two pieces of pizza, well savored, are actually more enjoyable than three pieces of pizza eaten without care.

Brownie: Since I already broke my boundaries, I might as well have another one.

Truth: Since I already broke my boundaries, I must be very careful the rest of the night, so I don’t break them again. Breaking my boundaries once makes me vulnerable—I should pray through some Scriptures or have a quiet time, so I don’t break them again tonight.

Binge: 1. I already blew it, so I might as well eat more. 2. I’ll just eat what I want tonight and start again tomorrow.

Truth: 1. I haven’t actually blown it—I’ve only eaten one extra piece of pizza and one extra brownie. That’s probably not even enough to make me gain any extra weight. If I were to stop right now, it would be an incredible victory. 2. If I eat what I want tonight, I’ll feel horrible tomorrow. If I feel terrible tomorrow, there’s a good chance I won’t stick to it then either. The sooner I stop, the better. If I stop right now, even though I’ve already eaten an extra piece of pizza and a brownie, it will still be a victory. Learning to stop in the midst of a boundary-breaking session would be a major accomplishment.

Note: If Tabitha is feeling like she’ll never change, it would also help her to journal those thoughts. It would look something like this:

Beliefs: 1. I am such a failure. 2. I will never get over this problem.

Truth: 1. I am a child of God who had a bad night of eating. This isn’t surprising. I can’t expect to overcome this without going through some struggles and failures. 2. I will never get over this in my own strength. However, If I continue to apply the truth to my life and go to God for help, I will get over it. His truth will set me free.

Here’s an example of a Scripture prayer Tabitha might pray based on Galatians 6:9, Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up:

Scripture prayer: Lord, I failed again, and I feel like giving up. It seems I will never get over this problem, yet you tell me I’ll reap a harvest if I don’t give up. Lord, help me to persevere. Help me to keep bringing my thoughts to you for renewal. Help me to keep trying to follow my boundaries. Teach me what I need to know to overcome this problem. I’ll persevere, Lord, even though it’s difficult, because I want to reap that harvest. Give me strength and help me follow my boundaries today.

Do you see how this works? The thing you always need to remember is that God changes us from the inside out. It’s not the boundaries that will change you. It’s not a certain style of eating. And it’s not your will power and determination.

What will change you is the truth. And you learn the truth one situation at a time . . . by the renewing of your mind.

A Plan for Success

I said in my last post that I would tell you some practical things to do to change the way you think about food. That's true. I will. Unfortunately, I feel compelled to give some more theory before I do that! (If you can make it through the first part of the post, though, I'll give a nice practical list at the end.)

I want you to think back with me to your young childhood. How did you learn that eating for fun and comfort was a good idea? Did your mom sit you down when you were five years old and say, "Honey, don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't eat whatever you want whenever you want. Food is there for us to enjoy. Don't worry about the consequences. Just eat what you feel like eating. Oh, and would you like some ice cream?"

I'm guessing she didn't. I bet it was more like this:

She gave you a treat when you were hurt, because she wanted you to feel better, and she knew treats did the trick. She let you eat all your holiday candy in a couple of days, because she wanted it out of the house, and she was tired of hearing you ask if you could have some. She said, "Let's go have some pizza and ice cream - we deserve it after all that yard work!" And you were happy to oblige.

Your mom had good intentions, but she didn't realize what her words were teaching you about food.

Now I'm not knocking moms. After all, I am one. In fact, I've done every one of those things with my kids. It wasn't until I wrote Freedom from Emotional Eating that I realized what I was teaching them:

Food will make you feel better. It's okay to overeat on holidays. You deserve a treat when you do hard things.

It would be wonderful if that same mom could sit us down and say, "Honey, I was wrong. It's really not good to eat whatever you want whenever you want. That won't make you happy. No, it's much better to have boundaries and stick to them. So why don't you just change your way of eating, and life will be much better!"

Well, it would be wonderful if we could change that easily, but I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. Why? Because we learned lots of lies about food growing up and it takes a while to "unlearn" them.

We learned those lies situation by situation, and I'm afraid we have to unlearn them the same way.

That's where renewing the mind comes in, and now we'll get to the practical part. I believe there are five things you need to do if you want to change the way you think about food:

1. Choose a set of lifelong boundaries. These boundaries must be flexible enough to fit into regular life, yet strict enough to disallow opportunities for emotional eating.

2. Make up your mind not to eat one bite outside your boundaries. This is very important, because it helps you develop the mindset that you only eat at certain times. What you want to do is train yourself to only think of food at certain times of the day (either at a meal or scheduled snack or when you're hungry). (And no, Pavlov's dogs do not come to mind.)

3. Renew your mind every time you eat outside your boundaries. What you're doing with this is re-thinking all those things you learned growing up. Truth journaling, lie-truth charts, and Scripture prayers all work well to renew your mind. (One note on truth journaling, it's far more effective to write it down rather than do it in your mind.)

4. Get someone to hold you accountable, not to sticking to your boundaries (although you can do that too if you want), but to renewing your mind every time you break your boundaries.

5. Abide in the Word of God. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit, and we get the fruit by abiding in the Vine, not by trying as hard as we can to muster it up only when we need it. Instead, we change our desires by replacing lies with truth, and we gain self-control by abiding with God and spending time in His Word.

If I were going to add one more thing to the list,it would be, "Don't condemn yourself when you mess up!" But I will save that for the next post.

Romans 12:2 and emotional eating

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Today I’d like to take Romans 12:2 and apply it to emotional eating. Let’s take it one section at a time.

Do not be conformed to this world.

I can think of many ways we conform to the world that cause us to eat too much. Here are a couple of them:

1. We’ve adopted Hollywood’s idea that we have to be gorgeous and skinny (and so we eat in despair when we aren’t).

2. We’ve adopted our culture’s idea that because we deserve to be happy, we should be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want.

Neither of these ideas are scriptural. God says it’s what’s inside of us that counts, not what’s outside (1 Samuel 16:7, Proverbs 31:30, Luke 16:15), and He doesn’t go along with the “you should get whatever you want whenever you want” idea, either. If fact, He actually expects us to give up things for Him (Matthew 16:24-25).

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The Greek word for transformed here is interesting. It’s a change that starts on the inside and is manifested on the outside. In other words, God’s not asking for an outward show of obedience. He wants to change our hearts, so that we actually want to obey Him.

How do we do that? By the renewing of the mind. We must change the way we think if we want lasting behavior change.

So that you may prove (test) what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

There are two Greek words that can be used for prove or test. Peirazo means to test with no expectation or with the expectation of finding it bad. Dokimazo means to test with the expectation of finding it good. Guess which Greek word is used here? Dokimazo.

That means that if we do die to self, get transformed from the inside out, and take on God’s thoughts rather than the world’s thoughts, we'll find that His will is good.

On the other hand, if we just go for the outward conforming—following a set of boundaries out of brute force rather than a heart that actually believes life is better when you follow the boundaries—we’ll find that His will is not good.

Why? Because we haven’t been changed from the inside out. We’re still essentially hanging on to our own will fueled by our own set of beliefs.

We may be conforming to a set of boundaries on the outside, but inside, our hearts are telling us that we should be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want. Sooner or later, our hearts will win out, and we'll be eating like crazy again.

No, for lasting change to take place, we must be transformed from the inside out.

In my next post, I’ll show how this is played out in a practical way—how to change the way we think, so that we actually want to stick to our boundaries.

New Year's Resolutions

I used to make long lists of New Year’s resolutions. I even had resolution categories—spiritual, physical, recreational, personal, etc. Each year I completed many of those goals . . . most of them were in the recreation category:

1. Camp three times. Check.
2. Take one backpack trip. Check.
3. Ski in to ski hut one night. Check.

I was a raging success in the recreation department.

Unfortunately, the physical category was another story:

1. Lose weight. Afraid not.
2. Start exercising regularly. No go.
3. Eat healthy. Not really.

I racked up year after year of defeat in the physical realm.

Then three years ago I changed my goals. I didn’t write down “lose weight.” I also skipped “start exercising” and “eat healthy.” In fact, if I remember right, that was the year I stopped making long lists of new year’s resolutions.

Instead, I made one goal that year. I bought a journal and determined to go to God on a regular basis for help with my poor eating habits. I planned to eat three meals a day and journal any time I ate outside my boundaries.

I’ll tell you right now I didn’t follow through on my resolution. At least not perfectly. But I did keep at it. I journaled on a regular basis, and God began to shed His light on my compulsive eating habits.

I saved that journal, and I have it in front of me right now. Let me share some of the entries from that year with you.

2/28/06 Weekly reasons for breaking my boundaries:

It was there to eat: 3
I deserve it: 9
Overwhelmed with procrastination: 1 (Obviously, I hadn’t started writing yet.)
Cook’s “right”: 2 (I believe that was cookie dough.)
Mindless eating: 1
Stressed out: 1
Fear/Worry: 1

3/10/06 I’ve missed the last three days of truth journaling, not because I’m perfect, but because I’ve been a total failure!

5/11/06 I am so mistreated and overworked that I deserve a treat. Since I always have to be the bad guy and always have to get people (that would be my kids) to do what they don’t want to do, the least I can do is have a treat.

Truth: Barb, Barb, Barb—you know that treats don’t really fulfill you. How about, “Since I always have to be the bad guy, I’ll go and spend some time with Jesus who loves me enough to die for me!? Which would be better? Sweets or Jesus? There is no contest—turn to Him next time.”

(Note: Do you think I might have been exaggerating my circumstances a bit here?)

7/23/06 I’m feeling defeated today. I’ve been trying to change myself by will power, not with the truth. Plus I’ve been putting perfectionist standards on myself. Condemning myself when I fail. This is a stronghold—it requires spiritual weapons of prayer and carrying my thoughts captive. Getting up and using will power and positive attitude is not going to cut it! I need to go back to journaling when I eat for a non-hunger or non-meal reason.

8/3/06 I deserve a treat for doing so well at the potluck.

Truth: Do I deserve a reward for not eating much? No—people are starving to death in this world. I don’t deserve food just because I wasn’t gluttonous! This should be standard behavior—the norm.

9/2/06 Boundaries are a good thing, not a bad thing. They bring freedom to my life—freedom from discouragement, despair, lethargy, weight gain, unhealthiness, self-incrimination, etc. Does unrestricted eating bring any freedom to my life? I guess it brings the freedom to eat whatever I want—but I know what that freedom leads to: slavery.

9/23/06 For the first time in thirty years, I don’t feel like food has control over me, and I don’t fear it. Yet I walk each day in His grace, knowing that it could control me again and praying that God would give me the strength as I need it.

12/31/08 The victory has been lasting. That doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I still feel like eating for the wrong reasons sometimes, and I still follow through on those feelings and eat too much now and then. The difference is that I now know the solution. It’s not setting a goal to lose weight. It’s not determining that “this year I’ll finally get it together.” No, the solution is filling my mind with the truth—bringing my thoughts captive to God’s Word. Learning to see life as He sees it.

My hope is that a year from now, you and I will be different people—that we’ll be following God a little more closely, living His Word a little more consistently, and loving each other a little more like He loves us.

In order to make that happen, we need to see our lives from God’s perspective. This will happen as we read His Word and apply the truth directly to the areas of our lives that need it. For me right now, it’s procrastination. What is it for you? I encourage you to let His truth change you this year.

Broken Boundaries

It’s never more important to remember we’re in a spiritual battle than when we’ve just broken the boundaries big-time and feel like giving up. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

In other words, getting out of bed the Monday after Thanksgiving with a new resolve to stick to my diet this time (!) is not going to solve the problem. Chances are, I’ll break it again by the end of the week if not by the end of the day. Why? Because strongholds can’t be destroyed with determination, self-control, and diets.

What does the passage say? We break strongholds by destroying the ways of thinking that aren’t in line with the truth and bringing our thoughts captive to Jesus Christ.

That means, first of all, that we need to cling to God and His Word if we want to experience success. That’s where we’re going to discover what the right thoughts are. In addition, we need to examine our thoughts to see which ones need to be taken captive. Why don’t we do that together?

The Lies of Broken Boundaries

1. I can’t do it.
Truth: I can’t do it easily, I can’t do it without failing from time to time, and I can’t do it if I only use the weapons of the world. However, if I continue to take my thoughts captive to the truth and rely on God’s strength and the power of His Word, He will break this stronghold in my life.

2. It’s too hard.
Truth: Hard things aren’t necessarily bad things, and I can do all things through Him who gives me strength(Philippians 4:13).

3. This will be like all the other times.
Truth: This will only be like all the other times if I don’t use my divine weapons.

4. This doesn’t work.
Truth: This doesn’t work overnight. It takes time for the truth to kick in. If I replace the same lie with the same truth day after day after day, one day I’ll hear the truth as soon as I hear the lie. And one day I won’t even hear the lie. That's when I'll know that it works.

5. I’m going to gain my weight back.
Truth: If I continue to use divine weapons to fight this stronghold, eventually I’ll lose weight and keep it off. In the meantime, I need to have a little talk with those “Hollywood” thoughts that are running through my mind. It’s presumptuous for anyone to tell me I need to look a certain way to be acceptable, when God tells me that looks don’t matter, and I’m acceptable as I am. (This may be another area of my mind that needs to be renewed!)


I hope you ate within your boundaries this Thanksgiving, but if you didn't, don't beat yourself up. Carry your thoughts captive to Christ and keep pressing on. Think of it this way - it's the truth that sets you free . . . and each breaking of the boundaries is a perfect opportunity to learn a little more truth.

The Lies of Thanksgiving Dinner

I love Thanksgiving. I love the smells, the tastes, the friends, the family, and the coziness of it all.

What I don’t like is the day after Thanksgiving—that moment when you’re lying in bed, and all of a sudden you remember what you ate the day before, and you think to yourself, “How will I ever make it past Christmas without gaining a ton of weight?”

This year I’m going to try a new tactic—I’m going to start preparing early for Thanksgiving dinner.

Sure, I’ll make the rolls and the pies and the stuffing (with the help of my family), but that’s not all I’m going to do. This year, I’m also going to prepare my mind for Thanksgiving dinner.

I’m going to fill my mind with truth before I start to eat. In fact, I might even start a couple days before, so I’m really ready.

I’ll take a look at the lies I believe that make me want to stuff myself with moist turkey, savory stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy, warm rolls with butter, pumpkin pies made from scratch, fluffy whipped cream - on second thought, I think I better start right now. It may take me awhile to get ready for Thanksgiving this year.

The Seven Lies of Thanksgiving

1. It’s Thanksgiving—I should eat.
Truth: It’s Thanksgiving - I should be extra careful what I eat, because it will be easy to eat too much.

2. I don’t know when I’ll get this again. I better eat as much as I can now.
Truth: Chances are I’ll get the same thing tomorrow for leftovers, but if everything is gone, I can always make it again.

3. This food is so good that I should have seconds.
Truth: This food is so good that I need to concentrate on thoroughly enjoying each and every bite. In all seriousness, I will enjoy myself more if I eat a healthy amount and savor it, than if I eat an unhealthy amount and not fully appreciate it. (It’s hard to truly appreciate large amounts of food.)

4. It’s Thanksgiving. I should celebrate (by eating whatever I want).
Truth: It’s Thanksgiving—I should celebrate God’s goodness to me by praising Him with every fiber of my being. Eating three pieces of pie is not an expression of praise.

5. I shouldn’t have to follow my boundaries on holidays.
Truth: Boundaries protect me. My life will actually be better if I don’t stuff myself on Thanksgiving.

6. It won't be as much fun if I don't eat whatever I want.
Truth: It will actually be more fun, because I'll be able to totally enjoy what I eat without having to feel so uncomfortable afterward.

7. I can’t help myself—it’s there, and I’m going to eat it.
Truth: If I fill my mind with truth before I sit down to dinner, there’s a good chance I won’t even want to stuff myself.

I deserve to eat this donut because….

1. Someone else is eating one.
2. I had a hard day.
3. I’m the only one who does any work around here.
4. I’m on vacation.
5. I’m sick.
6. It’s a holiday.
7. I’m at a party.
8. It’s not fair that everyone else gets to eat, and I don’t.
9. I have such a hard life.
10. I want it.

I don't know how many times I've written entries like these on my lie-truth charts. I even felt like I deserved a treat when I was good on my diet! It wasn't until I wrote the truth over and over again that I began to see that these statements were really lies.

In the olden days, the word deserve meant that you earned something. For example, if you worked 40 hours a week, you deserved to get paid.

I guess that begs the question: What kind of work would you have to do to “earn” a donut?

I can only think of two things. The first is working in a donut shop that gives you a free donut with each work shift, and the second is working out at a gym long enough to “pay” for the calories that are in the donut.

Okay, maybe when we say we deserve a donut, we’re not talking about the old-fashioned definition of the word.

What deserve has come to mean in our society today is that we “deserve” something if someone else has it. In other words, it’s not fair if someone else has something, and we don’t.

Is that biblical? No, I can’t say that it is. Is it practical? I can’t say that’s true either. We can always find someone better off and worse off than we are.

What if we were to line up all the people in the world one by one according to their lifestyles, with the worst lives on the left and the best lives on the right. We could call this our “fairness” line. Where do you think our lives would fit in on that line?

Do you think we could look at all those people to the left of us and honestly say, “I deserve a donut after my hard day”?

And even if I did deserve that donut, would it be a reward? One donut, if eaten outside my boundaries, often leads to another donut, which could lead to a binge. Is a binge really a reward?

If I’m going to go with the “I deserve it” idea, I should at least make sure that what I’m deserving is a reward and not a punishment.

Better yet, I could focus on the blessings God's given me - and not the blessings He's given others.

In other words . . . EYES OFF THE DONUTS!!!

I already broke the boundaries, so I might as well eat a big slice of cake, too.

Usually the phrase “might as well” is used to imply that we’re going to make the best of a situation. I might as well stay home and do the laundry since it’s such a rainy day, we might say, or I might as well stop at the library since I have to go to the store anyway.

But am I really making the best of a situation when I say, “I might as well eat this huge slice of cake since I already broke my boundaries?” I don’t think so.

Why? Because what I’m really saying is this, “Since I’ve already done one bad thing, I might as well do another bad thing.”

That would be like saying, “I already flunked one test; I might as well quit studying for the year,” or “I already broke my budget; I might as well buy that new car I've been wanting.”

Two wrongs don’t make a right. (I'm sure your mom would agree.)

What we really should be saying is this, “I better study hard for the next test, so I don’t fail the course. I better be careful not to spend any more money, so I have enough to pay the rent. I better make sure I don’t break my boundaries again, so I’m not tempted to binge.”

The next time you break your boundaries, do this for me. Grab your lie-truth chart as soon as you can and record the lies you were telling yourself that made you break your boundaries.

Then ask yourself, “What would Jesus say?” Would He say, “You know, Barb, you'll have to go back to being good tomorrow, so you might as well be really bad tonight," or would He say, “You will feel so much better if you stop right now,Barb. Pick up my Word and read it; I have some verses in there that will give you the strength to do hard things”?

Record the truth; believe the truth; and act on the truth. And don’t break your boundaries again! After all, you might as well stick to them if you want to lose weight!

Should: A modal verb indicating that something is the right thing for somebody to do. Encarta World English Dictionary

Hmm...somehow I don’t think that’s how I used it when I was writing my journal entries:

I’m all alone, and there’s ice cream in the freezer - I should (do the right thing and) eat it.

Since I didn’t eat much on Valentine’s Day, I should (do the right thing and) eat extra now.

It’s my birthday; I should (do the right thing and) celebrate.

Hmm...I don’t think it was doing the right thing that was on my mind, but eating the right thing. Okay, maybe just eating everything.

The problem with the word "should" is that it often involves sacrifice. We say, “I should, but . . . I don’t want to do the work . . . it’s too hard . . . that wouldn’t be any fun.”

We may want to be free from emotional eating, but do we really want to do what it takes to gain that freedom? Can’t God just change us in an instant?

He can . . . but He probably won’t.

Look at the Bible. God requires sacrifice. He wants us to give our lives to Him, to be a living and holy sacrifice (Romans 12: 1-2). That same passage tells us how we are to be transformed. It’s by the renewing of our minds.

I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of thoughts in my mind that need to be renewed if I’m going to be transformed. Why don’t I start with the “I shoulds?”

Belief:
1. I should eat this, so it doesn’t go to waste.
2. I’m all alone, and there’s ice cream in the freezer - I should eat it.
3. It will taste better today than tomorrow, so I should eat it now.
4. Since I didn’t eat much on Valentine’s Day, I should eat extra now.
5. It’s my birthday; I should celebrate.

Truth:
1. It will still go to waste if I give it to a body that doesn't need it (yes, that would be my body).
2. Just because the ice cream is there, doesn’t mean I need to eat it. (I never thought that was a good reason for climbing mountains either.)
3. If I made all my eating decisions based on taste, I would weigh 500 pounds.
4. Since I didn’t eat much on Valentine’s Day, I should congratulate myself and try to continue the trend.
5. It’s not a celebration if you regret it the next day.

Here’s my challenge to you (and me) for the next week. Try to use "should" in the right way. And on that note, I really should go get some exercise. After all, I exercised yesterday, and I should continue the trend!

Update: I posted this yesterday, and I really did go and exercise afterward. I didn't want you to think I just wrote that to be clever and then didn't really exercise. (all right, I only exercised so I wouldn't feel guilty, but at least I did it)

I'm out of touch with reality.

I was cleaning out some papers this morning and came across some of my old lie-truth charts. These are the charts I used to change my thinking about food. It was interesting to read them over again from the vantage point of time.

What I noticed was that my reasons for overeating seemed to fall into just a few tried and true categories:

· I should eat because…
· I might as well eat because…
· I deserve to eat because…
· I can’t do this because…

Oh, and there was also an interesting “I’m out of touch with reality” category. This could also be called the “I can’t think of any other good excuse, so I’ll just pretend this is the truth” category.

Here are some examples in this category:

- I could have had more at supper, so this isn’t really a snack.

- This pizza is so good, and I bet it’s not really five points per piece.

- It’s the night before Valentine’s Day, so it’s okay to eat.

- This will be my brownie from the potluck. It’s not really a snack.

- These crackers with frosting probably aren’t too many points.

The funny thing is that I wouldn’t have even known I was saying these things if I hadn’t filled out the lie-truth chart. They were just quick little things I told myself subconsciously to justify eating outside the boundaries.

If I were to tell myself the truth, which was that I really didn’t like living with boundaries and wanted to be able to indulge my every desire, then I would have felt too guilty to eat. Telling myself the lie allowed me to throw off responsibility and eat with relish.

What filling out the lie-truth chart really does, then, is to bring those lies to the surface. If I see what I’m telling myself this time, I’ll be more likely to recognize it the next time. And after a while, I’ll start recognizing it before I eat. Which will make me less likely to break the boundaries.

(Note: You can find a lie-truth chart at www.truthwaypress.com under sample content.)

P.S. I'll talk more about the other categories in future posts.

Feelings

We live in a feelings oriented society. How many times have we heard the reporter on television ask the question, “How do you feel?”

He asks it of the young man who just won the gold medal at the Olympics. He asks it of the woman who just lost her whole family in a tragic accident. He asks it of the old man who won the lottery. “How do you feel?”

Do you ever feel like shouting at the guy on television? Quit asking those questions!!! Can't you guess how they're feeling?!! Why do reporters insist on asking questions with obvious answers?

Could it be because there is nothing more important to our culture than how we’re feeling at any particular time? We are trained from birth to believe that how we feel is of utmost importance.

Well, as long as he’s happy, that’s the important thing.

Yes, I know you’re right, but I just don’t feel like being responsible. I’m happy with my life as it is.

I want a divorce. I’m not in love with you anymore.

We tend to focus on feelings, while the Bible focuses on truth. That’s why it’s so important to abide in God’s Word. As we read His Word, His truth invades our thoughts and allows us to see life from His perspective.

Oh, that’s right, loving God and loving others is the most important thing.

Oh, I forgot, it’s not what I feel that counts, but what God asks me to do.

Oh yeah, God hates divorce. I better learn to love.

Truth transforms. If we only pour our feelings out when we journal, the tendency is to see things only from our own point of view. True cleansing comes when we choose to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and instead see our problems through God's eyes.

As we view our problems through His eyes with a willingness to die to self in order to live for Him, those feelings of self-pity will dissolve. His peace will fill our souls.

In fact, we can almost imagine what we might say to the reporter, “Of course, I’m devastated. But my God is good, and if He has allowed this to happen to me, then I don't need to worry. He will provide.”