Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 070--The Big Question

I was listening to a training where a coach was telling her client to ask God a question. The minute I heard the question, I felt like someone and hit me in the stomach because I felt no way in a million year would I ask God that question. It scared me to death to think of His answer to what felt like the BIG question. 

I had already lost 250 pounds by this time, but I had just hit that mark and I not had time to accept the fact that I was living in an entirely different body and actually doing what God had wanted me to do for years.

For all of my adult life I had been trying to compensate for my weaknesses of overeating and gaining a tremendous amount of weight. I thought I could make up for my utter failures by working harder, doing more tasks which I dubbed “kingdom work,” but really it was that I was working to be noticed by the Almighty. Yeah, I admit it. I thought I could earn brownie points with God.

I knew this wasn’t how God operated, but I still felt like I had to do something, I just didn’t think I could do the one thing God wanted from me which was to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. So because I didn’t think I could do that, I’d try to approach things from a different angle.

Cognitively, the adult me knew I couldn’t earn God’s favor. I knew that His grace saved me and that it is always freely given no matter what I’ve done or not done. However,  there was still a part of me that said, “Have I done enough to be called your daughter, God?”

So when I heard the question I panicked because the question was, “What do You think of me, God?”

Even though I knew my sins had been removed as far as the east is from the west as Psalm 103:12 NLT says, I still believed they were a part of me. It was really hard to understand that to God they are gone. 

The message I was listening to was designed to help me understand who I really am to God. I got to the place where I had to just stop the recording and finally ask God the question or I would die. I wanted to know, but I didn’t. You know that feeling where you feel like you are standing on the edge of the rest of your life and this one step will define everything? 

I share more about how God answered me when I got the courage to ask. 

Free Seminar link: Your Blueprint for Losing Weight and Living Healthy: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/blueprint/

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

VIP Freedom Coaching link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/vip-freedom-coaching/

Episode 069-Living in Truth

Here are some highlights from Living In Truth.

• Despite what many might think, Christians can be bound for heaven and stuck in strongholds at the same time.
• God is always fighting for us, but we are not always fighting for ourselves. 
• The evil one’s tactics were and are subtle, manipulative and before I knew it, he was controlling me.
• When  I  stopped listening to the still, small voice, that’s when I had allowed myself to be controlled by something other than God. I had opened the door to believe the lies Satan had thrown at me. 
• Lies can only be defeated by the truth and not just truth that we have memorized and can recite, but truth that God illuminates to us and becomes part of the very fabric of our being.
• Breaking free of lies is impossible on our own. 
• No half-truth is pretty. It’s an out and out lie that will start a string of events the devil has planned in order to destroy us. 
• Half-truths and lies we believe must be exposed. If not, they become footholds for the devil and then strongholds. 
• “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are My disciples for sure. Then you will  you are My disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” (John 8:32 MSG).
• Experiencing Jesus’ truth is when it moves from our heads to our hearts and then out to our hands and feet as we live it out by following Him obediently, every day.

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds Link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Free Ebook—What Is A Stronghold link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/what-is-a-stronghold/

Episode 068--Beautiful One

Pain, heartache, mistreatment, rude comments, being treated like a doormat, being pushed around, being taken advantage of, pointed at, whispered about and made fun of. This is what it is like to be super morbidly obese.

I know. I was there once. After losing more than 250 pounds, by the grace of God I am no longer there, but I coach those who are. When I hear the depths of abuse they go through and have gone through, I am angry that so-called “family” and “friends” who would treat them less than human.

No Boundaries

However, what happens is the obese woman feels like she must do everything everyone wants so she won’t be alone. However, doing everything for everyone without any boundaries around her time and energy is one thing that is making her continue to go to the high carbohydrate foods she loves. She thinks those foods give her energy. They do for a short time, but then her blood sugar plummets and she needs more to get the same feeling and thus begins the roller coaster ride she calls her life. 

Inside she is silently angry at all the people she is helping because all she wants is to feel loved and accepted. She’s there for everyone else whenever they need her, but they aren’t there at midnight when she’s eating a whole pan of brownies by herself and crying because she feels … Alone. Abandoned. Worthless. 

She eats to shut up the angry child within her, the one who wants to scream at somebody. The pesky voice in her head tells her, “Good girls don’t get angry. Good girls are nice. Good girls do what others want them to do. Good girls are people pleasers. And fat girls have to do everything everyone else wants them to do or they will be …. alone.”

God has a message for every person who has ever felt this way. He wants you to know that you are valued and loved. On more than one occasion I’ve heard Him speaking directly to my heart something like this.  

“Hey, Beautiful One. I see you, the real you, the wonderful woman you are, a woman with thoughts and feelings, knowledge and wisdom. I see the gold inside of you, the person who was buried a long time ago through all the pain and hurts of your life. The one you tried to bury with more and more and more foods that are only making you sicker.

“Still, I love you, Beautiful One. I love who you are. I love who you are becoming. I love every piece of you. I don’t want you used or abused by yourself or anyone else. I want you to love yourself like I love you. And I love you more than you can ever comprehend.”

Overcomers Academy Link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

VIP Freedom Coaching Link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/vip-freedom-coaching/

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds Link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Free Ebook—What Is A Stronghold link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/what-is-a-stronghold/

067--Loved Into Existence

I woke up at 2:15 a.m. with God saying to me. “I loved you into existence.” My first thought was of course you did. You created me. Without your desire for me to exist, I wouldn’t exist, I wouldn’t have life. God literally loved me into existence, into living the life He created me to live. 

God created each of us on purpose for a purpose. As God’s creation you and I are priceless to Him. I was a valuable person to Him even when I weigh 430 pounds and I was eating myself to death. God still loved me and if I had survived and was still breathing today and eating everything in sight today, He would still love me.

What I did by losing 250 pounds does not make Him love me anymore. But it does help me love Him more because I know the depths of His love and grace that called me back to Him again and again. He didn’t condemn me for my behavior and rebellion against doing what I knew He wanted me to do. 

What He did was set up circumstances to call me out of that miserable pit I found myself in. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt God called me out of my bondage to food addiction and into a closer walk with Him. If you’ve heard my story you know that too. 

Looking back on my life, what I see clearly is that the effort Jesus went to in order to show me that I needed to give up sugar and gluten was so I could live free, “have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance to the full, till it overflows,” John 10:10 AMP.  What greater gift could He give us than a life full of abundance and meaning?

His love is so ridiculously amazing and all He asks in return is that we love Him. But how can we, in our very human condition, love God? It’s simple and yet extremely difficult. We don’t have to love Him. We are free to love Him and if we choose to do that, He gives us instructions about how we can go about that. 

Mark 12:30-31 TPT gives us more insight into how we can do this. But so do the following verses: Matthew 6:24 AMP, Matthew 16:26 AMP, 2 Cor. 10:3-5 NIV, 1 Cor 6:19-20 NLT, Galatians 5:1 TPT, Matthew 11:30 MSG, 1 Cor. 3:18 NKJV and Ephesians 2:10 TPT.

Overcomers Academy: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

Latest book—Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Free ebook—What Is A Stronghold?: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/what-is-a-stronghold/

066--Where Are You Stuck?

Where are you stuck? It was a question that begged an answer. Any seasoned coach, teacher or mentor will just sit there and let it sink in. My way of dealing with any question is to answer it even if I don’t know the answer. This is obviously not the best way to deal with this question.

But I’m learning that some questions are meant to make us think. Thinking requires marinating in time. A good question isn’t one you answer right away. A good question is one that you go to bed thinking about and then wake up still pondering. 

There are several possible answers. We may think we aren’t stuck but everyone else around us is so whatever issue we are having is their fault. We may know we are stuck but blame it on our past. We may be stuck because of something that has been done to us that we are trying to change, like a rule at a job that we don’t agree with and want to change. 

It doesn’t matter what the problem is, we still feel stuck without a way forward. Stuck is not a comfortable place to be.

As a Christian weight loss coach, I encounter many beautiful women who feel like they are stuck. If I ask them where they are stuck many say, I just can’t figure out how to lose weight or a common one I hear is I’ve lost weight before, but I gained it all back plus more and I am afraid if I try that again I’ll just do the same thing again.

They feel they are stuck because of what they did in their past.  When we really get down to the core of the issue, many times it is because they were trying hard in their own strength to lose weight and then something happened that threw them for a loop. 

These are problems they can’t fix and so they go back to what they’ve always relied on to help them through any circumstance. They eat whatever they want whenever they want it. It is what they have always relied on for comfort. 

They know they are stuck and they recognize it has something to do with their weight. but blaming their stuckness on their weight isn’t all of the answer either. This is where many people come into a weight loss program or coaching group. They think if they can just get on the right diet, their problem will magically be solved.  

Even why we started eating everything in sight again isn’t the root of the issue. The real issue is much deeper. Overeating is a way many of us deal with the problems we don’t want to face. We have to deal with those problems first.

For more, listen to this podcast and ponder this question. Where are you stuck? 

Overcomers Academy link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

065--Breakthrough

Here are the main points:

• Breakthrough happens as we are on a specific quest.
• Breakthrough doesn’t happen in a void. 
• Direction for the Breakthrough comes from God.
• To get the breakthrough, we have to do what God directs us or agrees with us that we should do.
• Breakthroughs help us accomplish what God wants us to accomplish on this earth.
• God wants us to have a breakthrough more than we do
• Ask God to show you how to get your breakthrough

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Check out all my other resources at: https://Teresashieldsparker.com

Episode 064--Knowledge Versus Action

We live in the age of information and knowledge. Whatever we want to know we can google and find the answer or ask Alexa or Siri. Knowledge is easy to obtain. But it’s the implementation of that knowledge that our quandary lies.

Trying to amass all the knowledge to make a decision about how to attack my weight gain is part of what kept me stuck in super morbid obesity for way too many years. The truth was I knew what to do to lose weight. I knew what my problem was. I was just trying to find a different way to lose weight, one that would let me eat what I wanted and lose weight at the same time.

In Overcomers Academy, we give you the tools you need to begin to implement what you already know you need to do. A lot of that is about following what God desires for you. He wants you to be healthy in order to fulfill the destiny He has designed for you.

Doors are open from now until January 26. Join by midnight on Jan. 20 and get our early bird bonus—a copy of my newest book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds and a copy of Sweet Journey to Transformation: Practical Steps to Lose Weight and Live Healthy. 

Overcomers Academy Link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers

Episode 063--Adulting is Hard

It always proves to be enlightening when I wake with a thought in my mind I know came from God. I always know it because it’s not something I’ve ever thought about and it is always thought-provoking. Recently He said to me 2021 is the year to grow up and become an adult. Then I saw clearly how 21 is that year we tend to believe individuals are adults. 18 gives them certain privileges, but really they are still teens.

2021 is the year we all need to pull up our big girl panties and step boldly into adulthood. I see childish behavior everywhere no matter what the age or season of life. We are very impatient. We want our own ways. We are totally convinced we are right and everyone else is wrong. Sound like any kids, adolescents, or teens you know?

Obviously, there have been many bad decisions on my journey. One doesn’t gain up to 430 pounds making good ones. Each bad decision has taught me something. This is a part of growing up and moving into adulthood. Along the way, I lost over 250 pounds. It wasn’t easy. Adulting is hard, but the rewards are so worth it. 

How do we grow up in God? We fasten, bolt, secure, and fix our minds on God and what He wants for us. This takes a submission of our earthly desires, thoughts, and feelings to Him. 

Check out Romans 7:19-25 TPT to hear how Paul tells us to do this. Submitting completely to God is not easy, but then when is adulting ever easy?

2021 just might be your year to take the next step towards defeating the giants in your life and growing up in God. 

Overcomers Academy link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

Sweet Surrender link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Episode 062--What is a Stronghold?

This is the first week of 2021, but today I’m really excited about something that happened in 2020. My new book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds went live on Amazon on Dec. 30, 2020. 

Even though I’m a Christian weight loss coach, I am a writer first. Writing and eating comfort foods were my two passions. But it was my love of overindulging in my favorite foods that eventually got me to the place that I could barely walk and weighed 430 pounds. I’ve lost 250 pounds with God’s help. What I share in Sweet Surrender are the strongholds I had allowed to creep into my life that kept me captive for way too long.

I used to think sugar was a stronghold in my life. It wasn’t sugar that was the stronghold, it was the thoughts, desires and feelings I had that made me think I needed sugar or I would die. Crazy thing is it was my overeating of sugar and other comfort foods that landed me in the hospital with a death sentence hanging over my head if I didn’t lose weight and keep it off.

Lying there in that hospital bed, I began to realize that feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help. That was the day I decided I would do everything possible to live. It was a turning point, but not a drastic one. I didn’t all of a sudden lose 250 pounds. I had to first face why I was eating when I didn’t need to eat. I had to understand what strongholds I had allowed to be constructed in my life. 

A stronghold is a tool of the enemy designed to enslave us. The meaning of the word means a fortification, like a walled fortress on a hill. In many places in scriptures, God is called our strength, our strong towner the place we run when we need help. God should be our stronghold. 

There is another meaning of stronghold, though. It can be something that takes root in our lives as an argument against God. It’s something we begin to believe because of circumstances or situations in our lives but it is a lie. 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV talks about this. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

A stronghold is a false mindset which imprisons a part of us. It begins as a lie. It gains a foothold as we begin to feel it is helping us in some way. It develops into a mental stronghold we think we need to survive. We see it as protection, but it is becoming a prison that keeps us further from God. 

Strongholds are mindsets that God says must be broken. If we can get to the core issue or the lie on which any stronghold has been built, the stronghold has to fall. I talk about this and so much more in the free ebook, What Is A Stronghold? 

In my new book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds, I share the strongholds I faced and how God helped me break them. I encourage you to get both of these and enjoy walking in freedom!

Link for the free ebook, What Is A Stronghold: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/what-is-a-stronghold/

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds Link: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/sweet-surrender/

Episode 061--The Challenge of More

Every year since 2013 God has given me a word for the year. The word He gives me is one I don’t want really want to focus on. Now He’s given me another word that is both exciting and scary for me at the same time. It’s a small simple word that packs a lot of punch. It is the word “More.”

It’s not about what we want from God, though. It is about what our role is that He has for us to play in this great galactic saga He has planned. When we focus on the MORE that we want, such as more food, more money, more cars, more furniture, more electronics, more things to comfort us, we lose focus of what God wants for us. 

Prov 25:16 TPT tells us when we overindulge to excess in anything the world offers, it can make us sick. Excess in anything can make us sick of even things that appear to be good. Money is good. It can do good things. Food is good. We need it to fuel our bodies. We just need to view these things through God’s eyes and this is the great challenge of more.

Let me give you three mores that will work for you and not against you.

1. More Than Enough Grace. 2 Cor 12:9 TPT  and James 4:6 tell us we need more grace because it is the power of God at work in our lives. Money cannot buy the power of God. The challenge of the operational grace of God, which is the power to do what we thought we couldn’t do just a minute before, is that it only comes when we admit our weakness and operate out of our humility. That means we must submit completely to God. This includes letting go of the bad habits and wrong thinking that has gotten us stuck in the past or may even have us stuck now. 
2. More Of Jesus. We all want more of Jesus. We want to be like Him and operate in the power He operated in. There is a huge challenge with living like Jesus did and that means we must die to ourselves, Gal 2:20 NIV. In order to have more of Jesus, I have to step aside. My wants and wishes are no longer important. It is all what His desires are for me, John 10:10 TPT. 
3. More Dreams Fulfilled. God promises us when we focus on the right things, which are allowing Him to strengthen us with power by the Holy Spirit, being rooted and grounded in love, and being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God,  He will achieve infinitely more than our greatest request, our most unbelievable dream and exceed our wildest imagination. He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes us, Eph 3:20 TPT, Eph 3:16-19 NIV.

God loves to make our dreams come true. He fulfilled the dreams I didn’t even know I had. Let Him do that for you.

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds:  https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender.../dp/0986159247/

Overcomers Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers-Christian-weight-loss-academy

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