Fat is a Feeling too

I think I have already written about this once before but I had something remind me of this again recently and wanted to share.

I am two weeks post surgery. I am actually feeling pretty good, but I was feeling down just a few days ago- do you want to know why?

At the end of August - I decided to give up caffeine(which by the way was a good choice and I will explain later in this post) Anyway - I have also cut my soda's way down. I limit myself to one a day if I have one. Well I also started walking. Well in the 3 months since then I have lost right at 12 pounds. At the beginning of all this I had measured myself and then had measured myself about 1 month before surgery. Well last week I had went to look in my little booklet at my measurements. Well when I looked at it the first time - and then I measured my waist and it looked like I was about 4 inches up on my waist measurement. That discouraged me so very much. And it did not help that when we went to my Mother in laws for Christmas- my sister in law that had stomach surgery about 1 year and 8 months ago- had lost a total of 180 pound. Well the next day I measured myself again. And I thought- I want to go look at my measurements and see what the exact damage since surgery is. Well lo and behold - I had looked at the wrong page and come to find out - I only am up 1/2 inch or so on my waist - which is very understandable when you think of the incisions and the damage done down under the skin.

Once I realized that I was only up 1/2 inch and I have held steady the 12 pounds lost - my whole attitude changed! I no longer feel so fat. Sometimes we can feel fat by outside circumstances- by what we see on TV, by media, by other people and their actions or words. But we need to always go by the true facts. The true facts  - like our true value does NOT come from our size- but comes from the fact that we are a child of God. And I am glad that the fact that I thought were true - the measurements were the wrong measurements. And that the truth was that I was only up a little bit. But what I am truly thankful for is the reminder from God that I can not base my value on those physical facts, but I need to base my value on the value that God has placed on me. This is something that I struggle with - and I am sure that there are many others out there that struggle with this too. I hope that we will all learn to keep our focus on Jesus Christ and the value that He has placed on us. The great value - that caused Him to die on the cross for us - because He loved us and valued us so very much.

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Ok - I said I would explain why giving up caffeine had been a good idea. I have heard that caffeine causes hot flashes to be worse- so I am very glad now that I have up the caffeine. I just love it when I can see God working in my life. For example long before I knew I would have to have surgery - God inspired me to finally - once and for all...to give up caffeine