Preying vs. Praying

Ah! Here I am setting at my table in Walloon. It is quiet it and peaceful. The coffe is brewing and my view of the frozen lake actually warms my soul. It is the best time of the day. Every thing is perfect except for the fact that my frame has become so slight that it is hard to sit on the bench. My sitting bones sit directly on the wood with little to cushion them. This, my family thinks is where the eating disorder began to prowl, circling me like a pride of lions just waiting to pounce. I was training for the Charleviox 1/2, and I was here for 6 weeks. But it isn't this place I had come to for peace and solace that set me up as prey, it was where I went to in my mind and not really trusting as I prayed. How interesting that my lack of faith when I prayed, caused me to be preyed upon by this beast. Two words sounding so similar yet they are nothing alike. Through this all I never stopped praying, I never stopped believing, I think I just stopped trusting. I think I knew as far back as April 2011 that I was if nothing else unsettled, agitated, and grasping for a way out of the pain surrounding dealing with my parents. Who I felt never really dealt with me or understood me. Feeling like I was being asked to carry the problems that they had created for themselves. And yes, I do believe even their health issue are the cosquences of how they chose to live, as are their finance consequences. The weight of their problems weighed on my soul and my foundation, what little I had began to crack. And I unintentionally went back to what I knew best. I went back to something I knew I could control. My body. In June I wrote: I catch myself setting the scene. The little excuses, well actually lies for eating a little less. Just I case anybody was still watching after 20 years of eating well. I throw the excuses out as little comments here and there. My teeth hurt, these meds hurt my gut, oh I ate a late lunch. I do this just in case my husband notices anything is amiss. Not that he did at the time. I suck! How can I not share this struggle with him? Because, I tell myself, this is only temporary. I am so in control of it all this time. I did pray that day. I prayed for the Lord to give me patience, and wisdom to handle my family. And God, if you could, just put a hedge of protection around me and protect me from their hurting me further. Will you do for me Jesus, what they couldn't or wouldn't? Jesus could and would, but still I chose my path over his and now I was facing my own cosquences. As I blog, forgive me as I jump and forth from the days gone by and the present day! Today I was sent a devotional. The good old 23rd Psalm. Words that I forgot to lean on and I strayed from. I walked off the path he had set before me. " the Lord is my Shepherd I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me by still waters, he restores my soul" Wow! Such familiar simple words. I am not in this alone HE RESTORES my soul. Like a shephed, The Lord can pull be back into his flock. I am the lamb that is lost. The good news for me and everyone, is that a shepherd will leave the rest of the flock in search of the one that is missing until he finds it. Matthew 18:12 " What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety- nine on the hill and go look for the one who has wandered off?". I am gratefully Jesus has kept looking for me. He has not left alone on the hillside. But I must be careful to stay alongside of him. I know that he can and will strengthen me if I allow myself the physical nourishment I need. I want to be strong, but for now I rely on his strength because finding my way back, re- fueling this empty tank is harder than it looks.