Update

I haven't had any time to blog, but I have been reading a lot. I am still reading Mere Christianity. I have been reading lots of Christian fiction. I recently read Karen Kingsbury's Even Now and Ever After. Great books! I also read Beverly Lewis' Heritage of Lancaster County trilogy. They were my first Lewis books.

The biggest thing I have to blog about is Dr. Phil McGraw's Ultimate Weight Solution. I am progressing steadily through it. To be honest, the timing for picking up this book was amazing. My doctor told me a couple of weeks ago that my weight issue is coming from stress. The stress topic wasn't new between my doctor and I. At first, I was not so sure what that meant. The more I contemplated it, the more I began to see how the two could be related. Then I came across the book. Once before I had skimmed it, skipped to certain chapters and discarded it. This book can not be broched in this manner to be of any help! It must be read and applied. So, I began to read slowly and take notes. Was my doctor ever right!

Through the first "key" I discovered the fallacy of my negative self talk. I have been thinking of how these keys apply to the Bible as I have gone through them. For this key, I was reminded of Philippians 4:8 "Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise". The negative thoughts we allow to control our thinking in no way meet this criteria!

The second key is emotional healing. This is about how we take in stress and allow it to affect us. The Bible says that we should "take every thought captive", so I know allowing my emotions to be out of control does not glorify Him. When a serious event happens in my life, out of my control, I tend to have very strong reactions. Like yesterday, when my son came in with blood spouting out the back of his head. The book says it is not about the stressful event, it is about the negative things I say in to my self that scare myself. It is about allowing my mind to go over and over and over it again. It is about calming myself with deep breathing, prayer, reading the Word, ect. Basically, it is about my reaction. So, today I realized that I get a great rush of adrenaline that sets my system off, sometimes for days. So here, I have to decide to let it go, exercise or something to release it all, be thankful it wasn't worse and move on! And when the event involves feeling hurt by someone, talk to them, or write a letter, forgive, choose to not let it change me and move on! What does this have to do with weight? Don't allow food to be what soothes me when all of this process it taking place. Makes sense huh?

So, I'm on to Key 3 now. Looking forward to it!!!