Be Thou My Vision
by Deborah Prescott
July 1998
In March of ‘96 I had given up. I believed that it was my fate to be fat, over 300 lbs.! And I was doing what I could to accept it and get on with life. I hadn’t ever had the money to try the really expensive diet plans, Jenny Craig or Nutri-system for instance. I had tried Weight watchers for a while, but I didn’t have my drivers licence(at that time) and the woman I was going with became pregnant. She didn’t want to go anymore. I had another friend who tried to help me go on a starvation diet of about 800 calories a day.
I read about and watched news reports about weight loss, that made my head spin! One would say one thing another would say the opposite! I began to think that they were all a bunch of well-payed kooks! One thing I know is that dieting is big business! This society emphasizes our looks to the exclusion of anything else. I think that’s why I like those commercials for some soda that say, “Image is nothing. Obey your thirst.”
I prayed for help. But I couldn’t see it! Little did I know I held it in my hands all along! I reasoned with the Lord that he couldn’t have created us with the intention of our being unhealthy. Surely the God of creation who made everything didn’t design some people from one plan and others from another! God is infallible! Right? God couldn’t have made it impossible for people to become healthy once they’ve become fat! He made it possible for us to become holy once we had become unholy afterall!
One day a co-worker at school brought a tape to me and asked if I’d like to hear it. When I found out it was a weightloss tape I was tempted to say no, but she is a sensitive person and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I took it home to listen to.
The next morning I put the tape in and started to go about my business. When the voice came over the speakers I was totally put out. This woman was a southerner! Yes, I have had a prejudice about southerners. I snorted and went to do laundry. The tape was loud enough so that I could hear it in the bathroom. As I lifted a bundle of dirty clothes to put in the machine the irritating voice on the tape said loudly, “Now you put that laundry down and listen to me!”
I stopped in mid movement and stared toward the kitchen. I started laughing and dropped the clothes without putting them into the machine and went back to the kitchen, where the tape player was. I sat on my flour bucket and listened to the rest of what the woman had to say. Once I got used to the accent, I began to hear things that spoke to my heart. The truth about my condition was made clear to me and I was rejoicing by the time the tape ended.
I borrowed one tape from this friend a week. She wrote the scripture references on a paper for me to look up. I was so thrilled by them that I wrote the scriptures on scraps of paper and posted them all over my kitchen! It isn’t intended to make my home look more beautiful(unless you really love God’s word). It just made the inside of me more beautiful. I later made posters on the computer of them.
For the first 18 months it was just the Lord and me out in that desert. It was great!!! I loved having Him all to myself! I didn’t have a group to rely on. I didn’t have the Weigh Down encouragement board because we weren’t on-line yet. I didn’t even own the tapes! I lost 2 1/2 lbs. a week until I had lost 90 lbs.
At that time I was asked to be a co-facilitator of a WD class at my church. It was a difficult adjustment to learn to share my desert with others! At first I took their difficulties and misunderstanding of the class personally and my focus on the Lord slipped a bit. I didn’t actually gain, but I stopped losing so fast! I think I have that figured out now though. I’m still not losing as fast as I did at first, but I am losing again!
One of the first things I learned about myself was that I had been afraid of going hungry (What’s the technical term for fear of starving?). I thought it was something I inherited from my dad, who went through The Depression. I was afraid of feeling hunger even a little bit.Just today I learned that I had brought this upon myself by all the times I tried to fast. I got so that just to mention fasting or dieting brought on a binge!
I have been set free from those irrational fears (although I have more to deal with). I would have told you that I just liked to eat before. I never faced the fears in me, or if I did I never realized that there was a way to overcome them.
I have learned that we ARE NOW FREE! We “have been healed by His wounds” (1 Peter 2:24)! It’s already a reality all we have to do is think like free people and act like free people!
I eat what I feel like eating and when I feel like eating it! Yes, there is a restriction. “Do all that you do to the glory of God!” (1 Corinthians 10:31) The whole point of this is to learn to obey the internal regulations God has put in place within you. God created our bodies with the ability to be at their optimum health. He gave us a sense of fullness and a taste for some foods at some times. If we can learn to listen to the true hunger our bodies tell us we have, we can lose weight. Not as the main objective of our lives, but as a natural side effect of growing closer to the Lord!
I weigh 140 pounds less than I did that March day when I listened to the first tape. I used to think that if I ever got below 200 again I’d be on cloud nine, but I’m not on cloud nine about that! I am grateful, but I am on cloud nine about knowing the Lord better! I still have 30-40 lbs. to go, but I feel that I’m in the promised land now!
Some of the jewels I have recieved are astonishing (to me anyway). I have discovered a love of writing! I have written several novel-length stories and some short stories. I have become a co-cordinator of a Weigh Down class. I was never leadership material before. I’m still not, but the Lord leads through me. I have become closer to my husband, without nagging him into conforming to my ‘perfect husband mold’.
I have discovered that the words to Be Thou My Vision express how I feel about the Lord now.
Le Meas (Yours Faithfully),
Deborah Prescott
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