I am redeemed. I simply love this study. After a couple of days where I felt really out of sorts, it’s a blessing to accept and acknowledge that I am not a failure because I’m imperfect… I am an… uh huh, you guessed it… eagle. Alrighty, so back to our regular program.

Day Seventeen

Today’s lesson was all about gratitude. It is virtually impossible to have a stinky attitude when you are focused on gratitude. Of course, the enemy is a master at twisting anything into something bad… if you let him. I began the lesson praising God for all sorts of things. I even chuckled a few times at some of the silly things I wrote down. I was grinning until suddenly a dastardly thought popped into my head.

“Look at how much you have to lose.”

Gasp. Suddenly my praise caught in my throat and visions of Job being dealt one horrible affliction after another. He had much to be thankful for too… and then it was all taken away in a series of unfortunate events. The stifling grief of burying a child rushed in as I pictured Job receiving the news that all of his children were dead. His security… his money… his health… gone. The enemy left him with one thing besides breath… an angry wife (I’m sure she was grief stricken too).

What this revealed to me was the grip I had on the relationships/things I listed as being grateful for. I need to turn them over to God too. They are His, I just get to enjoy them while I’m here.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)

Hunger Graph

Ok, so we’ve got another tool at our disposal now… “if you choose” to use it. I’ve decided to try it out for a few days to see if it adds to the task of renewing my mind about the eating thing. If it doesn’t, I’ll stop using it, but I’m at least going to give it a go. I kind of think it would be cool to have a tool that encompasses all of the charts in one, but I don’t know what that would look like.

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. ~ Psalm 28:7 (NIV)

Observations and Corrections

T=”Table”; S=”Sofa”

First of all, ignore those green blobs in the photo. They are just bleed-through from the otherside. I got a little “highlighter happy” on the Hunger Graph. I won’t use a highlighter on it tomorrow.

Yet again I attempted to sit on the downstairs sofa to have a nighttime snack. I broke my boundary of 0-5. I really need to figure out something to break this pattern. It is so frustrating. Putting a sign on my scale a long time ago broke my pattern of daily weigh ins… I’m thinking I should follow through with something like that for the sofa. I’ll take a photo once I’ve placed it. I’m hesitant to set an official boundary that I shouldn’t eat while watching TV at all. I need to pray about this one some more.