My Big Bottom Blessing (17 page)

Now, in the physical world, it might be important to spend lots of time studying one's enemy. Learning everything about it—the enemy's inner workings, and ultimate plans. But, in the kingdom of God, it really doesn't work that way. In God's world, we win our battle against the enemy by focusing not on the devil, but on God. The more we set our hearts and minds on the things above, the more powerful we are against our foe (Col. 3:2; James 4:7).

And setting our sights on things above means remembering that this world is not our home (Heb. 11:13). We are strangers in this world, and our ultimate destiny will not be fulfilled until we are sitting in our heavenly Father's literal presence looking at Him face to face. What an amazing day that will be!

In the meantime, as we wait for that nice time, we must establish a strategy for daily success. The devil will try to keep us overburdened by the cares and pain of the temporary. But we must not be tricked. The more you can be proactive instead of reactive, the better.

 

• Tape your favorite scriptures to your bathroom mirror and commit them to heart.
  
• Play worship music often.
  
• Read your Bible and as many uplifting and encouraging books as you can get your hands on.
  
• Have at least one good friend you can be totally real with—one who won't doubt your salvation when you let it all out. (External processing to the rescue.)
  
• Go to bed early sometimes (I've called it a day as early as 4:30 p.m. on occasion), and remember that His mercies are new every morning.
  
• Never hesitate to get professional help when all the above doesn't seem to be cutting it.
  

You may not have Trainer (the voice that berated my body) or Reflection (the one who calls out my moral weakness) or Sabby (who wants to sabotage everything) living in your head. The fruits and veggies might not throw snide remarks your way at the grocery store. But, I'll bet you have some not-so-kind voices trying to be heard in that head of yours. Any voices that don't encourage you in the truth must be silenced.

I know from experience that some of these voices don't give up easily. Even after experiencing great healing in my life, Reflection tries to tear me down here and there. I just tell her to shut it. Sabby likes to try to get me off the beaten path with her self-absorbed ideas and selfish motivations. I have to tell her to shut up too. The more times I tell them to zip it, the less they try to speak. They've just kind of given up.

Miraculously, I never hear from Trainer any more. God pretty much zipped her lip once and for all. I have never equated my value with the appearance of my body (no matter what my weight) since that encounter at the beach. Sometimes God just does the really big stuff for us. It's the miracle of a transformed heart.

There is one very important truth you must always remember: your life matters. Yours, mine, everyone's…God planned them all before the beginning of time (Ps. 139:16). He formed us in our mother's wombs with a purpose in mind (Ps. 139:13). Not one of us is a mistake.

No matter the circumstances of our birth—whether we were conceived in the back of a car during a teenage lust fest, or in the marriage bed of a happily married couple—God is the one who delivered us and brought us into the world. We truly are His children. We were His idea.

The one thing our enemy wants most of all is to see us dead (John 10:10). So, we must not let him succeed. Let's choose to embrace life—the good and the bad of it, remembering that even when life is painful, God is at work. He is the Master Gardener in our lives, and as Bunny Wilson says in the book,
Becoming God's True Woman
, “The gardener only prunes the branches that belong to him, which makes it an honor.”
¹⁷
Let's give the Father praise for all He's done to redeem the messes we've been a part of, whether willingly or not.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)

Precious Father
,

Thank You for being a God of love and for pouring that love upon me. Thank You that Your Word is steady and unchanging and that it is a rock for me to stand on in every season of my life.

Thank You for healing my brokenness. Continue to show me the places in my heart that still need Your touch. Thank You for giving me everything I need to rise above the hurts in my life and the plan of my enemy to hurt me. You are such a good God.

I thank You for the territory You have given me—my inheritance in Christ. I pray for the wisdom to defend it. Help me to recognize the lies I hear in my head and to use my weapon of Your truth against them…quickly. I give You permission to convict me every time I forget all You have done in my life, giving opportunity for Satan to steal Your glory.

Thank You for my life—every bit of it. I know You planned it, and You long to direct it. Thank You that You have promised to complete the good work You've started in me as I surrender to Your plans. I want to be a warrior for You, Father—a warrior for truth.

I pray that Your voice would drown out all the others in my head, that I would become more and more sensitive to Your Spirit so that I can love others better. Show me what matters most to You in my every day so that I can be a part of it.

All that I am is for You. There is nothing I want more than to be loved by You and give Your love away. I am ruined for the ordinary.

In the name of Jesus, my amazing Lord.

Amen

1. How can you tell if a thought is a lie?__________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   
2. If you catch yourself believing a lie in the future, what will you do? What is your plan of attack? _________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   
3. Why do we want to proclaim the truth aloud? ___________________
   ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________
   
4. List a couple of truths you want to commit to memory so that you have your ammunition ready at all times (for example,
   No weapon formed against me shall prosper
   ):
   

   a. ______________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   

   b. ______________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   ________________________________________________________________
   

5. Have you been keeping your “delivery truck” parked in the garage too often? If so, do you think you can take steps toward taking it for a spin more often? _______________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________
   _________________________________________________________
   

This Christian journey is not for wimps. This is a life for warriors—for those who intend to go for the gusto. The good news is we've been given all the supplies we need to run this race to the finish. We will never find ourselves lacking.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to settle for anything less than God's best for me. I've done that before, and it's anticlimactic. I don't want to settle down just because I've secured my salvation from hell. No. I want to live an adventure for God—battling the enemy to the death for my King. I don't want to listen to Satan's junk. I don't want to give him the time of day. And not only that…I want to get back from him everything he's stolen from me in the past. I want my full inheritance. I know you want yours too. We've got to take the advice given by the unorthodox newsman in the movie
Network:
We've got to stand up to the devil and say, “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.”

• 2 Samuel 23:10—He arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword. The L
  ORD
  brought about a great
  victory
  that day; and the people returned after him only to plunder.
  
• 1 Chronicles 29:11—Yours, O L
  ORD
  , is the greatness, the power and the glory, the
  victory
  and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O L
  ORD
  , and You are exalted as head over all.
  
• Psalm 98:1—Oh, sing to the L
  ORD
  a new song! For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the
  victory.
  
• Matthew 12:20—A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench, till He sends forth justice to
  victory.
  
• 1 Corinthians 15:54—So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in
  victory.”
  
• 1 Corinthians 15:55—O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your
  victory?
  
• 1 Corinthians 15:57—But thanks be to God, who gives us the
  victory
  through our Lord Jesus Christ.
  
• 1 John 5:4—For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the
  victory
  that has overcome the world—our faith.
  
• Revelation 15:2—And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the
  victory
  over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God.
  

God has such a great sense of humor, don't you think? His ways are often so contrary to our own, and I love that.

As I look back at my life, I see that the thing I wanted for so many years—the thing I thought would make my life worth living might have actually killed me. If I had been the skinny woman I was desperate to be, I would have had a beautiful body, but that's about all. I know myself, and I know that if I had always been satisfied with my looks, I would have found my full value in that. I would have happily strutted my stuff, enjoying the attention it brought me. But I wouldn't have known the goodness of God like I do today.

God wants us for Himself. He wants us to want Him above all else, and He wants to perform miracles in our lives. I love how Nancy DeMoss puts it. She says, “God specializes in the impossible, so that when the victory is won and the task is complete, we cannot take any credit.”
¹⁸

I can almost hear the conversation that must have gone on in heaven when God was designing me. “This daughter of mine is going to love beauty, but I want her to love MY beauty, so I'm going to put a little extra padding on her to keep her from being vain. Vanity would kill her.”

I'm not sure if that's exactly how it happened, but I do know this: my padded body is one of the biggest blessings in my life. If I had not been so utterly desperate to get answers about my big rear, I don't know that I would have ever found out what I really needed. I don't know that I would have seen how very little of God's love I was really experiencing or how selfish my love for others had been. Chances are, I would have been a wounded skinny chick, pretty on the outside but broken on the inside.

Ironically, whatever it is that you despise most about yourself (it doesn't have to be weight) can become the catalyst for serious life change. Take that “thing” and drop it down at the feet of Jesus. Then ask Him to help you get to the bottom of it. But be willing to
really
get to the bottom of it. The answer you get might not be the one you've wanted or expected, but it will be the one you
need.

I'm still “padded” today, but I love myself more than I ever have because I no longer let the devil define me. I let my doctors (not
Vanity Fair
or
Cosmo
) tell me if I'm physically healthy, and I let God alone assign my value. And truthfully, as long as I'm healthy, if I never lost a pound I'd be more than fine with that. In fact, if someone were to offer me a pill right now—one that would assure me a thin body for the rest of my life no matter what I ate, with only one stipulation: you must give up all the hope and healing you've gained on the inside—I would laugh and walk away. Being thinner is nothing compared to being free.

I believe it can happen for you too. Your pain can be turned into dancing as you stand under the waterfall of the Father's amazing love. And when it does, your testimony will be used as a powerful part of God's plan to overcome Satan. Look at this:

And they overcame him [the evil one] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 12:11)

Let's stand together as daughters of the King and tell our stories to all who will listen. Once we carried a load of pain and shame and despair, but God knew exactly how to use that burden. He knew exactly how to bring beauty out of those ashes. He knew that in the end it would all be worth the weight.

Father God
,

Thank YOU for my big bottom.

I love You. And I can't wait until I can tell You that face to face.

Amen

There are many quality books and ministries that provide resources that deal with the issues I have touched on in this book. I highly recommend that you not stop here. If any of the topics resonated with you, continue to search it out. I can, however, highly recommend the following list of resources for further insight and encouragement in your journey toward God's best life for you.

To the best of my knowledge, I believe these resources are faithful to Scripture, and they have all been a blessing to me personally. However, inclusion in this list does not necessarily imply my complete endorsement of the authors, resources, or organizations represented. As Christians, it is our duty to personally examine everything in the light of God's Word.

Anderson, Neil.
The Bondage Breaker.
Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2000.

Backus, William, and Marie Chapian.
Telling Yourself the Truth.
Bloomington, MN: Bethany House, 2000.

Cloud, Henry, and John Townsend.
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

DeMoss, Nancy.
Becoming God's True Woman.
Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008.

Eldredge, John, and Stasi Eldredge.
Captivating.
Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005.

Frost, Jack.
Experiencing the Father's Embrace.
Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2004.

Frost, Jack.
Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship: Your Destiny Awaits You.
Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2006.

Hession, Roy.
The Calvary Road.
London: Christian Literature Crusade, 1950.

Meyer, Joyce.
Straight Talk: Overcoming Emotional Battles with the Power of God's Word.
New York, New York: Time Warner Book Group, 2004.

Mullen, Grant.
Emotionally Free: a Prescription for Healing Body, Soul and Spirit.
Tonbridge, England: Sovereign World, 2003.

Murray, Andrew.
Humility: the Journey Toward Holiness.
Bloomington, MN: Bethany House, 2001.

Rhodes, Constance.
Life Inside the “Thin” Cage: A Personal Look into the Hidden World of the Chronic Dieter.
Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook Press, 2003.

Wilson, Sandra.
Hurt People Hurt People.
Grand Rapids: Discovery House Books, 2001.

Winter, Jack.
The Homecoming: Unconditional Love: Finding Your Place in the Father's Heart.
Seattle: YWAM Publishing, 1997.