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From: rodhugen
Date: Mon Nov 22 17:23:52 EST 2010 Subject: Strongholds suck

Responses
benjipark: Food (11/27/10)
lizzies: I agree (11/28/10)
clrclady: Me too (11/30/10)
Responses (sorted by date)
clrclady: Me too (11/30/10)
lizzies: I agree (11/28/10)
benjipark: Food (11/27/10)
I have had a life long addiction to food. It has become a savior to me. It rescues me when I am depressed and discouraged. It offers me comfort when I am mourning. It has been a good idol. It needs to be destroyed.

There have been a life long series of events in which I have wholeheartedly participated that has brought me to this place. When I was a little kid I was taught to not waste things. Wasting food was a very bad thing. We were taught to always ‘clean our plates’. Every scrap of food was to be eaten. I remember going to someone’s house where they cut the crusts of their bread and I was horrified at the awful waste. If something was placed on our plate and we did not like it we were taught to be polite and eat it anyway and to say thank you to those who had given it to us. We were taught to say thank you for every scrap of food no matter how small. We were taught to remember the poor who had nothing to eat. I still recall Dad and Mom telling me to think about the poor starving kids in Africa or elsewhere whenever I refused to clean my plate. My brother once got a severe spanking because he responded to my mother’s request that he think about the poor starving children who had nothing by picking up his plate and saying, “Here, send them this.” Not good. Dad rarely spanked us, but Mark got a good licking and quite a lecture that day. Never waste food. The voices still ring in my ears.

As a teenager I was always hungry. I grew from being 5'9" at the beginning of high school to being 6'8" by the time I graduated. I weighed around 150# and was often laughed at and made fun of. “Hey, Rod, stand sideways and stick out your tongue and you look like a zipper.” I learned to be embarrassed about my size. I drank nutritional supplements to try to get bigger because the basketball coach said I needed to bulk up because I was so pathetically skinny. Then my Dad died and we were suddenly very poor. We would cut mold off of bread and we ate rotted vegetables and fruit. We would have one or two pork chops to feed a family of five and Mom would fry the pork chops and then add flour and seasonings to the Chrisco that she fried the chops in to make a huge skillet of milk gravy. We would pour the gravy over bread or potatoes and get just a few small bites of meat. I filled up on very unhealthy things. When you are abjectly poor it is easy to make vows. I vowed to never be that hungry again. I am trying hard to renounce that vow now.

When I married Kathy she introduced me to all kinds of new and exotic foods I had never eaten before. Mexican and Italian and Chinese and all sorts of new delights. It was fun to experiment with all the different tastes and textures. I became a foodie long before they were called that. Whenever we went out to eat and discovered something on the menu we had never eaten, we made a pact to try it. It was lots of fun. It was not a good idea. I was also addicted to fast food. When the Big Mac was first invented they challenged people to eat a dozen in one sitting. If you could do it you got them all free. I ate lots of free Big Macs.

Eating became a hobby. I slowly began to learn to cook. I got to express myself in cooking. I got to be creative with spices and sauces and styles and types of cooking methods. It was lots of fun and I got lots of kudos. I still do. I always made sure to make extra so that we would have leftovers the next day for lunches. I got to bask in the praise and it felt good. I became even more addicted. To the praise and to the food.

When I was thirty everything in my world changed. I caught some sort of virus that attacked my duodenal opening which is the place just after the stomach where your body absorbs most of its nutrition. The opening became inflamed and swelled up and suddenly I started throwing up everything I ate twenty minutes after I ate it. I was getting almost no nutrients from my food and for several months I lost a huge amount of weight. I went from being 230# to being 170# in a little over two months and after trying all sorts of medications and procedures the doctor called me into his office and said, “You are dying and I can’t stop it. I’ve tried everything I know, but if something doesn’t happen soon you will die. You need to start getting your affairs in order and make a plan for what you want to yet do. You don’t have a lot of time.” It was so scary to hear those words. I kept asking him what we should do and he kept saying that he didn’t know. Finally they scheduled me for exploratory surgery and then tried me on some experimental medications that eventually reversed the process and I slowly gained back the weight I had lost. And then more weight. And then more. The doctor was thrilled. But I was fat. And addicted to not dying.

One of the after effects of that incident is that the duodenal opening is now scarred. Because of that I have difficulty eating the healthy things that we should all eat. Roughage like spinach or grainy breads hit that scar tissue and cause me a good deal of pain. It also causes me to bleed and that is never fun. So I ate around my issues. I ate extra of the stuff that didn’t hurt. My weight ballooned to over 300#. With it came all the shame of being obese. The shame of getting on a plane. The shame when little kids point at you and say, “Mommy, that man is fat.” The shame of buying large sized clothes. Lots of little shames. And when you hear them you go eat something to make yourself feel better. And it works for a little bit. Until the next time.

I have tried diets. They either didn’t work or I couldn’t sustain the momentum. I keep failing time after time. I resolved again and again, but my resolve is like the prophet Hosea suggests in the Bible. It fades like the morning mist.

I’ve been praying. Crying out really. Crying out to God for help. The other night at leadership we prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to reveal things to us. I had started to leave food on my plate. It seemed sort of stupid but I think the Holy Spirit was telling me to keep it up. I try to scrape some food off my plate into the garbage at every meal. It is really hard. The tape in my head plays very loudly. “You food waster, you! You ungrateful slob. Think about those poor people who have nothing to eat and here you are throwing good food away.” So it is pretty hard. And the next steps won’t get easier. Taking less food on my plate. Turning down people’s offers of food. Giving up the addiction to the varieties of food. Giving up eating to quell the fears. Leaving the table hungry. Stopping the habit of cooking too much.

Most of all it will be hard to stop the belief that God is not good. That he won’t take care of me. That he won’t give me this day my daily bread. I have a lot of repenting to do. I invite you to get up in my grill and offer correction and counsel. I invite you to remind me when you see me do self destructive behaviors. I know many of you won’t engage because it is, well, embarrassing. That’s okay. You are forgiven. But if you can and will I invite you to walk with me. Blurt out what you need to blurt out. I’ll feel awkward, but I won’t die. I don’t know how this ends. I only know that this is a sort of beginning. And I’d love for you to pray. And maybe celebrate some little victories in the days ahead.

Rod

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From: benjipark
Date: Sat Nov 27 00:51:51 EST 2010 Subject: Food

I was going to make a joke about me being in your grill and how cannibalisim is a whole new level of food that we don't need to get to, but I won't.... even though I just did. So then I got to thinking about how hard it is to make good tasting healthy food because what tastes the best is usually not to be had in large quantities. Bacon is arguably the best food on the planet, but if you had a rash of bacon every day, you would soon die of heart failure or something. Food that is good tasting and healthy is usually a lot of work and fairly pricey. Some of my problems with food is that I become quickly bored and want something different. I often want comfort food (which is almost never healthy). If I've found something that isn't boring and tastes really good, I eat to much of it because I don't want the enjoyment to end. If I'm having trouble finding something I want to eat I'll often go without. It is not unusual for me to eat once in a day or not eat at all. Then I get really hungry and my patients for healthy food goes out the window and I scarf down too much of whatever is easiest at the moment.

I am constantly looking for ways to make healthier yummy food and I often get side tracked down the path of just plain yummy. Maybe we can both work on making smaller yummy portions. And being happy with it.

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From: lizzies
Date: Sun Nov 28 17:20:19 EST 2010 Subject: I agree

Hey Rod, This hits really close to home. Some of those same tapes play though my head. Lies about "celebrating" with food or finding fulfillment for my emptiness, relief from anxiety. Emptiness that will only be satisfied with Jesus. More and more of Him. A few months ago,after hearing God talk to me about food during a Mtn. Solitude experience, Hannah said, "What a gift that God is talking to you that way." I didn't see it that way. Do you know how many times a day I think about food- wanting something to comfort me, calm me, wondering what I will come up with for the next meal at our house, shopping for it, dreaming about it. . .
But she was right, God is using someting so "ordinary" as what I put in my body to tell me things about Him and about my relationship with Him. That He alone satisfies. That even delicious healthy food will not fill me or brign me lasting joy. Lately, food tastes more bland to me. Its losing its power. I am also crying out for relief from this slavery to food. In the meantime, the little steps of obedience like taking less, throwing some away, not eating just because its available, etc. are repentence for me. I will not continue to justify my sin. Standing with you in prayer!

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From: clrclady
Date: Tue Nov 30 08:09:19 EST 2010 Subject: Me too

I relate to all of this and the many tapes. I am constantly going to food for comfort and as a check out for life. Plus as a way to hide. I have been struggling on this path for many years now and will pray and stand by all of you.

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