A Journey of Faith
As I began my journey, I topped off at 321 pounds. I am five feet four and one half inches tall. So, I was short and fat. I knew if I wanted to live a happy and healthy life. I had to make some changes.
Yes, in 1989, I had a gastric stapling and lost some weight, but within two years I gained it back, plus more.
Why? I had not learned to eat healthy, and I did not change my lifestyle.
Then in 1996, I had a hernia repair and gastric repair, lost weight again, but I did not learn to eat and live a healthy life, so once more I gained weight back.
In the winter of 2011 I started feeling ready bad. I prayed for God to help me.
I prayed for Him to help me to find a doctor who could show me what I was doing wrong. A doctor who knew about weight lost surgery, but a general surgeon also, because I knew there would be a lot to do to fix what was wrong with me.
God lead me to a great doctor, who found out that everything I was eating was digesting through my system, then re-entering back into my stomach.
I also had adhesions that were causing me so much pain.
Extra note: Since 1989, I have been in and out of the hospital, with intestinal blockages, I developed severe anemia, and my body stopped producing vitamin B-12. I also had a colostomy and a reversal. I had hernia repair, in which I ended up with living with surgical MRSA for a year, then had surgery to clean the MRSA infection out of my abdominal area. When this surgery was completed, I soon found out that I had surgical E-Coli in which I fought for a year.
As you can now see, I was not happy about seeing a doctor, or at the thought of having more surgery.
But on March 21st, 2012, I went into seven plus hour exploratory surgery. In this surgery the doctor had to repair my colon from letting food go back into my stomach. He had to bypass a large amount of my small intestines, and while the exploratory surgery was taking place, he found my liver had adhered to my stomach. He also was looking at the dead stomach, and staples from previous surgeries. So, he repaired what he could to save my life.
I stayed in the hospital for ten days. When I came home, I could do nothing for myself. My husband and daughter took all their days off, then a dear friend came and stayed with me for three weeks, doing everything for me.
What kept me alive of course was God, but my doctor had me to drink three 2-1/2oz bottles of Sunkist Protein everyday. Each bottle had 26 grams of protein. My friend Sam would fix me cream of chicken soup in chicken broth and force it down me a little at a time.
But, I will tell you that I truly believe God and those three bottles of proteins was a life saver.
Now, eight months later, it is God and will-power. But, during this time, I have learned to eat healthy and and keep healthy foods in my cabinets and refrigerator.
My husband and daughters have been very supportive. My youngest daughter said, "Mom, if your grandmother would not recognize it in the grocery store, then do not buy it."
I will get into more details about eating habits in a few days.
But, right now let's look at what God says about your temple.
Being a Christian, I decided that God loved me just as I was, and anyway, I am now 59 years old, and you just gain more weight and it is hard to lose, so I am just supposed to be this way. My dress size went all the way to size 32. At a size 32, I had to shop in expensive stores to find large women's clothes.
WOW! That is the first lie the devil was throwing at me.
Well, now I was letting the devil steal money from me. My suits were costing me over two hundred dollars and higher, because I was a minister, so I had to dress and look nice, right?
My husband would tape all the messages I preached, and when I looked at them I wanted to cry. Yes, I looked nice, but I was not showing the world that I was keeping God's Temple healthy.
Preaching one way and living another. "Keep your temple clean, and I was filling mine with junk foods."
I would even laugh and say to people, "hey, the Bible says in Malachi chapter four that the righteous of the Lord will be made fat, like a stall fed calf. And that is my story and I am sticking to it!"
I was watching TV awhile back, and there was a news report on showing the celebration of the oldest women in America. They asked her how she lived so long. Her answer was, "I do not eat junk food, and I stay out of other peoples' business." Now that is another sermon for sure.
Psalm 37:4
(KJV)
4 Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
I knew that to do the work God has called me to do, I needed to be healthy mind, body and soul. And if I delighted myself in the Lord that He would help me achieve the goals and desires of my heart.
So, for the first time in my life, I totally gave God my total mind, body, soul, and my eating habits. This was mean a drastic change to my life. No more diets, and to take the word diet out of my vocabulary, and replace it with healthy eating. Not just watching calories, but fat grams, carbohydrates, and sugars. Yes, reading labels.
I could hear the voice of the devil again, "eating healthy is costly." Well, friends, that is just another lie, because the only costly thing about not eating healthy is the loss of health and the enjoyment of life.
So, tonight I will end the first section of this blog by saying, "make your mind up that you want to live, and do not look at the five pounds to maybe the two hundred plus pounds you need to lose. Just take one step at a time and one day at a time, and God will guide and help you through your journery.
I look forward to sharing more with you in tomorrows night's blog. Please let me hear from you.
God bless you,
Patricia Aman, Phd
Please do not take any of the graphics or written content without written permission. Thank you for being kind and honest, and for respecting copyright laws.
No comments:
Post a Comment