Are You Tired, Too? Episode 2 of Waiting for Weight Loss Series

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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hey, Heather Creekmore here, Welcome back to our Waiting for Weight Loss, a special series through lent on the Compared To podcast. I'm glad you're listening. Have you joined the community yet? That's really key to getting most out of this experience. Go to Waiting Forweight Loss dot Com. We had some tech issues earlier in this week, but I think they're all ironed out now. You all try to get on at the same time and we crash the system. But go to Waiting for a Weight loss dot Com and we look forward to just interacting and getting to new there. Okay, it's day two of our Waiting for Weight Loss journey, and I have a question for you. Are you tired? Have you ever eaten only special k cereal for a week? Have to be of a certain age to know what I'm talking about. Or maybe you've only eaten grapefruits or only bananas, or maybe you've eaten two bars, drank two shakes and had a healthy dinner. Oh goodness, I can't recount the number of things I've tried over the years to lose weight. I put so much hope in each of them. The mental commitment is real. Finally, this will work. I get all revved up and excited. There's hope, there's possibility, only to be let down again. I cannot imagine what I would be like now if the Internet and social media had been around for the first few decades of my weight loss and dieting quests. It feels like one hundred times more exhausting. Now there's always something new to buy. Instead of seeing one new thing to buy every few months in an infomercial and then having to call a number, get out my credit card and wait a few weeks for delivery, now I'm shown hundreds of supplements, cadgets, pills, and potions that are supposed to be the one thing that will work when nothing else has, and to buy them, all I have to do is tap my finger a few times and then they show up at my house in just a few days. It's so easy, it's scary. So as I stand here wearing my weighted vest, standing on my vibration plate, with my red light shining on me, enjoying my pizza made out of cottage cheese and fairy dust, enjoying the strong word, I wonder, are you as tired as I am? It's exhausting? Going from one program to the next, trying all the things. What's even more exhausting is the rollercoaster of hope, getting all geared up to try something new, getting excited at the possibility maybe this thing will work. I've never tried this before, only to be let down again when it doesn't. It wipes you out, and then it takes a few days or weeks to get your energy back up to try again, doesn't it. Sometimes it feels like life is all about changing my body, meeting this goal. Have you ever felt that way too? And it's draining, so draining, always thinking about myself, my body, how to change it, what I'm doing wrong, what I'm supposed to be doing better. I think of myself as a DIY project. Only this project never seems to finish. Maybe you know how it goes. Just when I thought I kind of had things under control of my body, aging it like a ton of bricks, all bets are off. Everything changed again. Now I'm supposed to fix my body and try to stay looking young. My responsibilities as a woman just doubled. Now here's the truth. I knew I was exhausted in the battle, but I don't think I knew how exhausted I really was until I started to surrender things to God in a new way. It's like we have to stay geared up. Science would call it fight or flight. We have to stay in a stress state, a stress response for a good part of our lives. We have to stay as if we're engaged in finding this fight with our weight or aging. We're not actually being circled by tigers, but in our nervous system it kind of feels that way, like if we let down even just a little bit, we'll wake up one hundred pounds heavier with a face that zags to our shoulders. But I wonder, as Christian women, has this battle taken too much from us? Has this battle gotten a little out of control? Have we forgotten some of the basics about how our worth and value and purpose and identity are really found in christ For me, it felt like I knew those answers, those God and Jesus answers, but the God and Jesus answers didn't seem to have enough to say directly to my struggles. It felt like it was just part of the deal. Like you're born a woman, you got to do all the things. It's what's expected. Keep up or get left behind. Let your guard down and your we're going to get run over. But I think there's a better way. I think there's a more peace filled, less consuming way for us to pursue our goals. Why do I think there's a better way than buying all the things and trying all the things, Because I've experienced it. But I also know that God's word makes us a promise. Jesus says his burden is easy and his yoke is light. Matthew eleven twenty eight to thirty reads like this, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Wow, I know I've felt heavy laden on my way lost journey. Have you. There's a lot of things that will struggle with in this world that are hard, It's true, but Jesus still promise us rest. And it's interesting Like diets, fitness plans, supplements, they promise us rest too, don't they. They say, if you just use me, if you just try me. If you just are really good this time and stay on my plan, then you'll be fixed. Then you'll be better, then you can finally relax. But I don't think we have to wait on finding the right miracle program or pill to be able to find that rest. I think in Jesus we're supposed to be able to find that rest now. So what would it look like to pursue our goals from a place of rest, from a place of peace. That's the question I want you to wrestle with today. Do you feel like you can rest? Some of us feel like we don't deserve rest, like we have to earn rest. We're not worthy of rest until we've worked really, really, really hard and met all of our goals. But friend, that's a trauma response, not biblical truth. Jesus invites us all into his rest, and rest doesn't mean laziness or sloth. The Greek word for rest here is ano pauso. It means a refreshing break intended to restore strength. Wow. I don't know about you, but I think it'd be pretty amazing to have my weight loss journey look like a refreshing break instead of decades on the treadmill of drudgery. So if you're ready to find Annopauso, if you're ready for this kind of rest, join us again next week. Remember episodes our Monday, Wednesday, Friday through Easter in this series, and we're going to continue this conversational rest and we're going to talk about exhaling. Why you don't have to hold your breath and white knuckle through this anymore. You can exhale and we'll talk about three specific ways to do this next week. And hey, don't forget to do in our community how we've got so many women in there now, it's amazing. Again, I'm sorry about some technical issues we've had, but it's working now. So go to Waiting foroweight loss dot com sign up. You'll get instructions on how to join right away and we look forward to connecting with you there. Thanks for listening today and again join us next week for more Waiting for Weight Loss. And hey, don't forget to invite a friend along on this journey with you. Nothing will be more impactful than having someone in your real life to process this way. The Compared to Do podcast is proud to be part of a life audio podcast network from our Great Christian podcast. Go to lifeaudio dot com.