Victory?

The last day of 2011.  It has been quite the day.  I have not been able to shake the feeling that the gray heavy sky outside is wrapping itself around me and stealing any light, any energy, any joy I may have.  Another year over, a new one about to begin.  I am usually filled with anticipation and excitement about what is in store, but this year...this year:

"Like a vast majority of people, the holiday pounds were making my clothes pull and protest.  Again.  And these were my big clothes.  So many years I had vowed to do better and here I was again, defeated.  I didn't want to write a cheesy resolution that would wind up at the bottom of my purse torn, tattered and eventually used to wrap a chewed piece of gum...I want victory, but I feel so weak."

I feel SO WEAK.

"We were created to be God's representatives as we live out loud the message of God in our daily lives.  But I'll be honest, the last think I feel like doing when I'm in a defeated state is to reach out to people.  i don't want to 'be made new in the attitude of my mind', nor do I want to 'put on my new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.'  I want to cry.  I want to withdraw.  I want to be jealous that others don't have my issues.  I want to be mad at God for giving me this metabolism."  

I'm tired of this struggle.  I'm tired of the mind-games.  The guilt.  The self loathing.  The...

"attitudes that I've wrapped in a lie.  'Well, that's just how I am and if that's all the bad in me, I'm doing pretty good.'"

I'm scared.  I'm scared to begin, scared to fail.  I know I can't do it on my own, but as Justin reminded me during my cry-fest, I'm right, I can't do it on my own and that's the point.  I'm at the place where my lack of discipline disgusts me.  I'm there.  I'm at the end of me.   Which means, if I want to change, only HE can do it.  God's unwavering strength.  A.W. Tozer writes that "God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible.  What a pity when we plan only the things we can do by ourselves."

I've been prideful, thinking I could do it on my own and then failing time and time again.  I've been too embarrassed to be honest, to let it out and admit my weaknesses.  I've been telling myself lies that my lack of self control and discipline doesn't really matter, it's just food, it's not a God thing.  And for some people, it's not a God Thing.  But for me, it's gonna have to be.

"He's given me everything and I don't want to forget.  Not with my mind, not with my soul, not with my heart, and certainly not with my body." 

"And so I've made the choice to step into a place of intentional sacrifice.  A place where my strength would fail, should fail.  'My flesh and heart my fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.' Psalm 73:26" 

That's where I'm at.  That's where I'm at this New Year's Eve, 2011.  I'm not hiding anymore.  I'm not pretending this struggle doesn't exist.  Because it does.  And I'm ready to defeat it.


*All quotes from Lysa Terkeurst's Made to Crave.