It's Happened!

It's happened! I said it! What a DAY!

Let me back up a bit.

Last night my roomie mentioned that the temperatures this morning would begin with the number 2. Uh, I live in the South. We don't get temperatures that start with 2...especially in November! And so, since my newest hobby is FREEZING TO DEATH CONSTANTLY, I decided to pull out my biggest, thickest sweater--big, fat turtleneck and all--and layer it over a long-sleeved shirt.

Now this sweater was purchased for my trip to Chicago two winters ago. It's a serious sweater, not one of those wimpy ones you find in the South. And seeing that I bought it two years ago, it's a little...big. I think it's designed to fold under at your waist, but mine hangs straight down past my hips.

Earlier today, as I was in the ladies room, I was looking in the mirror and thinking how big and lumpy this sweater was. And I thought, "Boy, this really makes me look fat."

And then it happened. In my own head, I said the word. I didn't mean to. I didn't even know it was coming. Honest! I suddenly heard--through my tumbling thoughts--I suddenly heard myself say..."I don't care. I know that underneath I'm skinny."

Did you catch it? My own self-talk used the word SKINNY. About MYSELF! THAT is a change. Words like chubby, fat, lumpy...maybe. But skinny? THAT has never happened before! Probably not ever, considering how I viewed myself even as a child/teen.

I'm still not to goal, but I have come a looong way. (Oh, you want details? How about 95-pounds-gone-worth? Will that suit you? *wink*) And you know what? This instance, this stumbled-upon thought process, tells me that I've come along way in my head and heart too.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all a Jesus thing.

Enabled by His gift, buoyed by His Spirit,
-J

For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code...Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering... Romans 7:5-6; 8:1-3a, NIV

(c) 2008