{"id":27822,"date":"2022-03-17T14:37:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T18:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/?p=27822"},"modified":"2022-04-12T13:33:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:33:17","slug":"getting-honest-enough-to-admit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/getting-honest-enough-to-admit\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Honest Enough to Admit&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cListen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.\u201d Psalm 5:1-3<\/span><\/i><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I rolled over and looked at the clock. Another day. Beyond all reason and rationality, I slid out of bed and stripped off everything that might weigh even the slightest ounce as I headed to the scale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I thought, &#8220;Maybe today will be the day the scale will be my friend and not reveal my secrets. Maybe somehow overnight the molecular structure of my body shifted and today I will magically weigh less.&#8221;<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I yanked out my ponytail holder &#8211; hey, it&#8217;s gotta weigh something &#8211; and decided to try again. But the scale didn&#8217;t change its mind the second time. It was not my friend this day.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Vowing to do better, eat healthier, and make good choices, I headed to the kitchen only to have my resolve melt like the icing on the cinnamon rolls my daughter just pulled from the oven. <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">Oh, who cares what the scale says when this roll speaks such love and deliciousness.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Two and a half cinnamon rolls later, I decided tomorrow would be a much better day to keep my promises to eat healthier. But tomorrow wasn&#8217;t the day. Or the next. Or the next.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-27822 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-full'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/getting-honest-enough-to-admit\/26-7\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2.png 1080w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2-576x1024.png 576w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2-768x1365.png 768w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/26-2-864x1536.png 864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/getting-honest-enough-to-admit\/25-4\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2.png 1080w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2-576x1024.png 576w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2-768x1365.png 768w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/25-2-864x1536.png 864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/getting-honest-enough-to-admit\/27-7\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2.png 1080w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2-169x300.png 169w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2-576x1024.png 576w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2-768x1365.png 768w, https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/27-2-864x1536.png 864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I knew I needed to make changes. Because this wasn&#8217;t really about the scale or what clothing size I was; it was about this battle that raged in my heart. I thought about, craved, and arranged my life too much around food. So much so, I knew it was something God was challenging me to surrender to His control. Surrender to the point where I&#8217;d make changes for the sake of my spiritual health perhaps even more than my physical health.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I had to get honest enough to admit it: I relied on food more than I relied on God. I craved food more than I craved God. Food was my comfort. Food was my reward. Food was my joy. Food was what I turned to in times of stress, sadness, and even in times of happiness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I knew this battle would be hard. But through it all I determined to make God, rather than food, my focus. Each time I craved something I knew wasn&#8217;t part of my healthy eating plan, I used that craving as a prompt to pray. I craved a lot. So, I found myself praying a lot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Sometimes I wound up on the floor of my closet, praying with tears running down my face. And I gave myself permission to cry, just like the psalmist in Psalm 5:1-3, <\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201c<\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"none\">Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God,\u202f for to you I pray. In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.\u201d\u202f<\/span><\/i><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">And that is literally what I did each day. Laid my requests before God and waited in expectation. Moment by moment, week by week, month by month, I made the conscious (and many times, painful) choice to surrender my desires to the transformative power the Lord wanted to work in and through my life.\u202f<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Then, one morning, it finally happened. I got up and for the first time in a long while, I felt incredibly empowered. I still did the same crazy routine with the scale, no clothes, no ponytail holder. The numbers hadn&#8217;t changed much, but my heart had. One day of victory tasted better than any of that food I&#8217;d given up ever could. I had waited in expectation using prayer as my guide and I did it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Have there still been hard moments after that victorious morning? Yes. Have there also been great signs of progress? Absolutely!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I can&#8217;t promise you there won&#8217;t be any more tears. There will. And I can&#8217;t promise the scale magically drops as quickly as you wish it would. It probably won&#8217;t. But it will be a start. A really good start.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Lysa TerKeurst is a #1 <\/i>New York Times<i> bestselling author and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries. Her latest book is <\/i>I\u2019ll Start Again Monday (January 2022). <i>Lysa lives with her family in North Carolina. Connect with her at LysaTerKeurst.com or on social media @LysaTerKeurst.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advice we can all learn from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":27823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"coauthors":[81],"class_list":["post-27822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-advice","category-testimonies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27822"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=27822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}