The First Step

I don't even know where to begin, except that I am very fat and very afraid.

I am NOT afraid my husband will leave me for someone thinner. He's fine with how I look, but I know he is concerned about my physical fitness and ability to take care of my children. I am NOT afraid my kids will shun me because I am so fat, but I fear that when they get older and go to school, they might start to compare me to the other "normal" moms, and try to hide my existence. I am NOT afraid that my mother won't continue to love me with all her heart, but I am so sad that she cries for me and prays for me because she knows the quality of my life is less than her own.

I AM afraid that I will be so fat, that my client base will shrink because they feel I'm not able to do the work they hire me for. I AM afraid that I will get so fat, that I will be required to ride one of those motorized wheelchairs to take the kids to school or to go shopping. I AM afraid that I will be so debilitated from my physical ailments, that I will become one of those couch potatoes who sit on the couch so long, that the fabric grafts to their skin. I AM afraid that I will develop terrible yet preventable diseases. I AM afraid that I will drop dead of a massive heart attack at home one morning, leaving 4 little girls scared and crying for HOURS until my husband comes home to find us. I AM afraid that I won't be around to see my kids grow up, graduate, get married, and have their own children.

I woke up sometime this year and decided NOW was the time I needed to change. I just needed an extra push to get there. One dear friend sought me out one day and told me that she woke up in the middle of the night and felt God had burdened her about me, and so she prayed for me. When she was done, she felt such a sense of peace and told me that day that the Spirit put on her that the one thing I had been praying for in earnest for years would happen if I made the effort to change it. While I have been wanting and praying for it for years, I guess I wasn’t ready to take such a drastic step to reach that goal until now, and my friend had NO IDEA that I actually wanted to lose weight. It’s not something that comes up in conversation… “hey Tam, I noticed you were super fat. So are ya ever gonna do something about it?” Yeah, that goes over real well. And she never told me what it was that God was going to grant me, just that I was going to have an answer to prayer. It was up to me to decipher what He meant.

Suddenly I didn’t feel afraid anymore. I took the first step… and found the answer was right there in front of me. And I said a prayer of gratitude.