Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 040--67 and Counting

It’s my 67th birthday. It scares, frustrates and excites me all at the same time. 

Every year on my birthday I like to think about what the past year has been like and what I’ve accomplished. That’s why my birthday is always a deadline of sorts for me. It’s usually the time I shoot for getting a book finished. 

This year is no exception. I’ve just finished my sixth book, Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds that Lead to Sugar Addiction. I talk more about that on this podcast. But I also share some highlights of what I’ve been through.It really helps me to see how through the years I kept wanting God to show me what my purpose or destiny was. Instead it felt like He would change the subject and tell me what I should be doing regarding weight loss. I wanted to know about my purpose. Why was He telling me about what I needed to be doing regarding my weight.

For me, my weight and my destiny were totally intertwined. Now I’m asking a question T.D. Jakes asked back at the start of the year when we could still go to church. 

What do you want your life to look like in five years? What will you be doing in five years? What goals will you have accomplished in five years? 

I share those on this podcast. Now share yours with me.

Episode 039--The Cost of Unhealthy Eating

I’ve been asked about the cost of eating healthy versus unhealthy a lot. I know we really think healthy food is more expensive, but I’ve found eating unhealthy is even more expensive because when we are eating everything in sight we are eating more and that cost continues to skyrocket. If you are eating a bag of chips a day and drinking two to three two-liter sodas or diet sodas a day plus a bag of cookies and whatever “meals” you eat, buying frozen chicken breasts to grill and the fixings for salad is a lot less expensive.

If you eat the same quantity you are eating when you don’t have a stop button, yes even eating unhealthy can be expensive. Still I know my food bills are a lot less these days than when I was eating whatever I wanted and however much I wanted. Eating healthy is not just about eating the same quantity of food only making it more healthy food. That might help in the beginning. But it is really about changing our entire lifestyle.

When food is what we crave, we don’t really realize the cost of what we are doing. Take the cost of a dozen large cinnamon rolls. They used to be my favorites. I could get them for less if I bought them by the baker’s dozen, which I did just to get the free one.

You Can Afford To Eat Healthy

I know I save money when I go to the grocery store today even eating gluten-free items, which are usually more expensive than the regular processed foods. That’s because for at least the last 10 years I have not been using food as a panacea for every emotional turmoil I feel. That was pretty much a constant thing because I had programmed myself to eat whenever I felt an emotion rise up that I didn’t want to deal with.

After learning how to deal with my emotions in a much more positive way, I found that I was eating a whole lot less than I ever did before. In the past I would cook pasta or potatoes every meal. I don’t do that anymore because salad or fruit is just as filling.

I eat a lot less of everything than I did when I was super morbidly obese. The operative word here is “less.” Part of the issue with baking with processed sugar and flours is we eat more. The same thing is true of junk food, pre-packaged frozen foods and fast foods.

They are all geared towards making us want to eat more, so we buy more. However, we aren’t really eating more because we have stomach hunger. We are eating more because it is filling a different kind of void.

Emotional Eating

We have feelings associated with foods we remember as comfort foods like mashed potatoes and gravy, country fried steak, fried chicken, green beans slaughtered in bacon fat and ham, cherry cobbler with ice cream, homemade cinnamon rolls and anything else Grandma used to make. We remember the look of those foods, the smells, the tastes, the feelings of warmth and comfort associated with those foods. Our mouths start watering just thinking about them.

The costly nature of cinnamon rolls and other such tasty treats is not just in what we spend purchasing grocery carts full of empty calories, it’s also in the cost to our bodies.

We gain weight. We contract diseases because of the weight gain. You know what they are—heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer and many others.

Thomas Edison said it this way, “The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”

By diet he didn’t mean going on another diet. He meant what we eat. We are all on a diet right now. It might be all we can eat whenever we want it and whatever we want diet, but we are on a diet.

The biggest cause of most of our ailments stems from what we eat. Change what we eat and we can fix a lot of our health problems. Sometimes, though, we don’t know what we are eating. Even the fresh fruits and vegetables we eat, we aren’t sure whether or not they have pesticides unless we know exactly who grew them. And our meat is subject to what the animals ate.

One thing we know for sure, though, processed, pre-packaged, even canned foods have additional additives. If we read the label we’ll see things we can’t even pronounced. These are added to give enhanced flavors and prolonged shelf life.

They are added for the producers convenience, though they tell us it’s for our convenience. They do make it so we don’t have to do anything except take that frozen family meal and stick it in the oven for an hour and dinner is served.

The Cost of Convenience

Yet, what cost is that convenience? Many of these foods are high in sodium and sugar. Why sugar has to be added to chicken broth, I’m not sure.

These costs we absorb into our bodies. When our bodies break down, we wonder why. We go to a doctor who treats the symptoms but does not tell us the core of the issue. That issue is the supposedly cheap food we put into our mouths. But is it really that cheap?

Which costs more? One item for $10 or 10 items for $1 each? We can eat the one and be full and healthy or we can cram the 10 down and be overstuffed and have the beginning of a big problem.

Not only that, we now have an illness the doctor is treating with expensive prescriptions, but not really solving the core issue

Fix Me

Finally, the biggest issue is we want someone to fix our problem. It’s obvious the doctor isn’t going to do it unless you have an awesome doctor like I did who believed wellness therapy included educating his patients on the right things to eat and the right vitamin and mineral supplements to take to enhance health.

However, the most help I found when I was stuck in this endless weight gain loop was a group to help me untangle myself from the snare of addiction to the unhealthy foods I was eating. I had a mentor and an accountability group that led me on this journey.

And yes, I paid for the group. Through the years I had paid thousands of dollars for weight loss supplements, pills, plans, and programs. I had a closet full of such stuff and tons of diet books. None of these worked for me because I didn’t stick with them and didn’t plan to change my lifestyle to become more health-oriented.

I knew what I needed was a mentor to challenge me and hold my feet to the fire. I needed someone to ask me the tough questions. I had to begin to think about what I had done to myself and my body. I needed someone to help me begin a total lifestyle change. This is nothing like a diet, though along the way I had to understand what things I needed to stay away from because they were highly addictive to me and what things I could eat in moderation.

Understanding that I am a sugar and comfort food addict was huge for me. God had already told me to stop eating sugar and breads and to eat more meats, fruits, and vegetables. That finally made sense to me when I looked back over my life and saw all the times I tried to go on diets and lost some weight, but then gained it back when I went back to eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.

Not everyone is a food addict like I was and still would be if I were eating things made with sugar and flour today, but I know God has a lifestyle change plan tailor-made for each of us. Surrendering to His plan for us is where it all begins. Part of surrender is doing away with all the excuses we have as to why we can’t follow what God has laid out for us.

My mentor was instrumental in helping me make some monumental changes. I could only to that, though, by knowing that God was leading me all the way. Having a group that was on the same journey I was, also helped. We encouraged and supported each other. In the final analysis, what really made the difference for me was knowing I was following what God wanted for me.

Committed to Change

That’s why I began weight loss coaching. In Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy, I desire to work with those who are really ready to commit to change. Food is definitely not the only thing we work on in the group. I lead the members to understand how to develop their own lifestyle eating plan with God’s help. To some, this sounds frightening at first, but God really wants to be involved in every area of our lives—body, soul, and spirit.

Romans 12:2 MSG says: “Fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” That’s what Overcomers Academy is all about. It’s about putting God first. It’s about surrendering our food issues to Him. It’s about learning how to change and what’s so important about that.

Let’s figure out how to eat to fuel our bodies with the right kind of fuel. Do yourself a favor. Invest in you. That might be in changing the way you eat or getting some help on your journey. Whatever God is leading you to do, you, my friend, are worth it.

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

Teresa’s Books: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/books/

Marigold bars: https://www.marigoldbars.com/?ref=12

Episode 038--Grace Changed My World

Grace is this multifaceted aspect of God that defines His nature and underlies everything He is and does. It is the engine that drives His purpose here on earth to help us move at Grace Speed.

For at least 50 years I thought grace was just something that happened at salvation. If it is only that, it would be enough in and of itself. However, it’s even more awesome than that.

Grace for salvation

As a child, I stole candy from the grocery store which made me realize I was a thief or the “wretch” the evangelist hollered about during revival services.

I knew God was perfect and that no sin can enter heaven. I had knowingly committed sin. Therefore, I would not go to heaven unless I accepted Christ’s sacrifice for my failure. 

When I repented of my sin, which right then was stealing candy from the grocery store, asked God to forgive me and then asked Jesus to save me,  the power of grace did something truly amazing. It transferred me from the column labeled “Eternal Separation from God” to “Forever with God.”

I moved from destined towards a sure death to bound for an eternity in Heaven. Just thinking about that now is more than astounding; it is life-changing, but I was just a kid. I’d never known life without going to church every Sunday. So in reality nothing dramatic changed for me. I was just happy I wasn’t going to hell for taking the penny candy when my Dad wouldn’t give me a dime.  

Grace the foundation

Still that day God’s free gift of grace opened the door for me to have a close relationship with Him, one where I could walk right into the throne room and share my deepest thoughts, fears and concerns with Him.

Out of His great love for me, He covered all my failures, past, present and future. He did this so I would be free to follow Him.

It was a foundational relationship of love. He loved me and He desired that I love Him in return. However, it was not an obligation. I still had to make the choice to follow Him, but now I had His Spirit living in me and I was free to make that choice. His grace compelled me to follow Him, make right choices and do His will.  

Grace for failures

God knew my tendencies. He knew even before I stole candy from the grocery store, that sugar would be a barrier to following Him completely. Yet, when I came to Him He didn’t hesitate. With open arms, He gave me grace that covered all my failures past, present and future, (Ephesians 1:7-8 CEB). 

If I were God, though, I wouldn’t do it that way. I’d legislate that if a person says they want to follow me, they would have to show by their actions that they fully commit to following me. I’d have a period where they’d be closely watched and if they didn’t toe the mark and do what I said, they’d be out. 

God, though, doesn’t operate that way.  When I made the initial response to Him, He wanted my continued relationship to be my own choice. So He covered me with His grace in the midst of all my struggles to figure out how to follow Him correctly, how to honor God with my body, how to take care of the very temple of His Holy Spirit which is my body.

For many years, I felt like I was in a tug-of-war with God. I was still wanting to do my own thing and I thought He was pulling against me trying to pull me along and make me do His bidding.  That is far from the truth

Many times I was wanting His stamp of approval on what I wanted to do, how I wanted to eat, how I felt I needed comfort foods and sugar to get me through the day. I wanted Him to help me lose weight and eat all the things I wanted at the same time. 

He had already told me how to lose weight. He had shown me my issue was eating things made with processed sugar and flour and I needed to focus on eating meats, fruits and vegetables. He wasn’t pulling me. However, I was pulling against Him. 

His end of the rope was slack. He was not trying to drag me over to His side kicking and screaming. He let me play my own game until I finally became utterly exhausted, spent, at the end of my rope.

He was always there. Never judging. Never condemning. Always waiting for me to come home to Him.

Grace for reunion

Like the prodigal son, I looked around at the pigpen of my life and realized how much I needed the Father to set me right no matter what it took. It couldn’t be any worse than me living tired, overwhelmed and exhausted from carrying around 430 pounds plus tons of emotional baggage I didn’t know what to do with.

 I dropped the end of that rope I’d been tugging against and He welcomed me back with open arms. Just like it says in Luke 15:20 NLT. As I stepped closer to Him, He ran to meet me. I was never really alone. He was just waiting for me to come home.

He knew I was going to comfort foods, desserts and fast food for comfort and sustenance. He also knew those things were never designed to comfort me and will never sustain me. 

He knew my eyes were so blinded by my life-long struggle that I didn’t remember what it felt like to be comforted by Him, to fall into His arms and just be held.

Grace for the journey

So He embraced me and I remembered. I remembered what it felt like to be close to Him. I remembered what it felt like to be held close. I remembered what it felt like wrapped in His arms of comfort and love. Why did I ever search for that anywhere else but in Him?

Close to the Father, wrapped in the Spirit, led by Jesus —It’s from this foundation that my real journey began.

He pulled gifts from His huge storehouse. He lavished them on me. Gifts like prophesy, faith, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, kindness, love, hospitality and so many, many more. And just like Romans 12: 6-8 NLT says He gave me those gifts to do the things He wants me to do and do it well.

The particular, individualized gifts He chooses for me are not a reward, but a way to help me on the journey He knows I am now able to take. It’s a journey toward my destiny. 

Grace for destiny

God has big plans for me and for you. We know from Jeremiah 29:11 that they are plans for good and not disaster. They are plans for our future and our hope. Grace is an integral part of that.

Without grace, as a believer, my destiny would not be mine. If God legislated how I should act and what I should do in order to earn my future, I would be a robot to some kind of cosmic dictator.

A crucial part of God’s plan is also choice. He wants a people who choose to love Him, not who are legislated to love, 1 John 4:19 NLT. 

Grace allows that choice to be mine. I am free to choose. Even though I belong to Him, I am not obligated to choose God’s ways and thereby, try to earn my right to enter into heaven. It doesn’t work that way.

Grace for propulsion

I am thankful that there was a time when I chose to follow God’s ways. I finally realized that I didn’t have the strength to do what He wanted me to do. When I admitted my weakness and willingly surrendered it to Him, I found God not only met me there, but walked with me. He actually propelled me forward into greater abundance than I’ve ever known before.

He tells us like He told Paul. “My grace is sufficient for you. My lovingkindness and My mercy are more than enough—always available—regardless of the situation; for My power is being perfected and is completed and shows itself most effectively in your weakness,” (2 Cor. 12:9 AMP).

Paul finally understands what God is telling Him and says, “Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may completely enfold me and may dwell in me. So I am well pleased with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, and with difficulties, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak in human strength, then I am strong truly able, truly powerful, truly drawing from God’s strength,” (2 Cor. 12:10 AMP)

God is strong all the time, but when I stop trying to fix my own problems and agree to do things His way, His strength shows up big time. I am weak because I’m human. It’s in admitting that and understanding I have no strength, that I realize that what I do have is the supernatural strength of God, a power no human can match.

This still doesn’t mean all my problems disappear and everything magically goes my way, what it does mean is I understand how to me more connected to God. In that connection, I find my purpose spelled out in ways that continually blow my mind.

Paul explains God’s love even more when speaking to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 3:15-21 MSG, “I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! 

“Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” 

I so love Kris Vallotton definition of grace. He says,  “Grace is the operational power of God to do what you couldn’t do one second before.”

We are the hands and feet of God here on earth. We carry out His ultimate purpose, which is to bring all people to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. If we choose to follow Him, to surrender all our selfish thoughts, feelings and desires to Him, it simply shows Him that we love Him with everything that is in us. There is no greater purpose than that.

Grace is the foundational principle of the Kingdom. Grace is undeserved favor and at the same time it’s explosive power to change the world.

These days I’m more aware of that than ever before. It seems we are looking to solve the world’s problems with our own intellect, knowledge and reasoning. Once again Paul spoke out strongly about this same thing. 

“ We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments,” (2 Cor. 10:3-4 NLT)

We can’t fix what’s broken in our own lives or the world fighting with human weapons. We need to use God’s spiritual power to change the world. 

That power is grace. It’s an expensive mix of God’s Love that sent Christ to die for us and the explosive power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts.

All the ammunition we need is grace. It can change us. It can change the world. It definitely changed mine. Let me know how it’s changed yours.

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

Youtube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/teresashieldsparker1

Episode 037--What God Sees

Weight loss is the reason people come into Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy. However, I’ve really pondered changing the name to Overcomers Healthy Living Community. That is really more what I teach. However, the words healthy living really don’t trip the felt need trigger. It wouldn’t have for me when I weighed 430 pounds. All I wanted was to lose weight.

Truth is, I’ve not met many women who don’t want to lose weight even if it’s just a few pounds. 

Believe it or not, those who weigh 120 may hate what they’ve done to themselves as much as those who weigh a 420. When I look back over my life, I see this as more than true. I remember weighing 120 in high school. That’s when all the cheerleaders weighed 100 to 110 pounds. I thought I was fat then. 

I also thought I was fat in third grade when I first got glasses because a classmate, who didn’t wear glasses called me a four-eyed fatso. I look back on my third-grade pictures and see that I was not a chubby kid. The glasses could have been more stylish, but I wasn’t fat. I might have been a size larger than the other girls in my class, but I wasn’t round as a beach ball. Those words, though, defined how I thought of myself for years after that. I hated my size because I was not a petite little thing like the popular girls in my class. 

When folks come into any coaching program I lead the first thing I want to try to get them to understand is that God sees them as beautiful no matter what size they are. The woman who weighs 120 needs to understand this as badly as the largest woman I’ve ever had in my group. Yes, God wants us to be healthy, but He doesn’t condemn us for what we have done to ourselves. He doesn’t have to. We do that all by ourselves. 

Remember Romans 7:18-19 TPT? Paul sets up the scenario we all feel from time to time.

“The longings to do what is right are within me, but will-power is not enough to accomplish it.  My lofty desires to do what is good are dashed when I do the things I want to avoid.”

He goes on to say in verses 24-25, “What an agonizing situation I am in! So who has the power to rescue this miserable man (or woman) from the unwelcome intruder of sin and death?  I give all my thanks to God, for His mighty power has finally provided a way out through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! So if left to myself, the flesh is aligned with the law of sin, but now my renewed mind is fixed on and submitted to God’s righteous principles.”

This is really good news for us. He tells us there is a way out of our predicament. It’s not more willpower. It’s not hard exercise. It’s not eating all the right foods, it is simply submitting to God completely. When we do that everything else will fall into line.

The problem is we try to follow all the rules without totally submitting to God. This never works because we are once again following a law or a rule rather than submitting to Christ. 

The next verses in Romans 8:1-2 TPT really gives us a better understanding of all of this. “So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One. For the law of the Spirit of life flowing through the anointing of Jesus has liberated us from the law of 

We are FREE from the tempter’s pull when we are joined to Jesus. Why? Because within us we have the Spirit of life flowing through us. This is a really big deal, one we just take for granted.

Those who have not accepted Christ have to rely on their human reasoning to do right or wrong. When we accept Christ we immediately receive the Holy Spirit. That means we have a dunamis power. Dunamis is a Greek word from which we get the word dynamite. The Holy Spirit is dynamite!

If you are a Christian you have dynamite inside you. However, dynamite is useless unless we light the fuse. Until then, it’s just another stick lying there. It has no power until we light the fuse. That’s the dunamis power of the Holy Spirit. It lies dormant until we activate it. The fuse is lit simply by us admitting our weakness and asking for His strength because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. 

So how to put this power to work for us? First, we have to recognize the lies we are believing. One of the biggest ones for me was that I am a four-eyed fatso. I believed that even when I was a grown adult. The lies we believe about ourselves become self-fulfilling prophecies. 

The evil one is the Father of Liars. His currency consists of lies, which are half-truths that turn into full-blown lies. In my life, he set those lies in motion when I was in grade school and I believed the lie that I was a four-eyed fatso. 

Many people will tell you that it is of utmost importance what voice you listen to the most. However, there is one voice you will always listen to and that is your own voice. Want to change how you see yourself? Change what you tell yourself. You have more power over your mind than you think you do.

I remember the first time I realized I was living this self-fulfilling prophecy. I was an adult and had dropped the four-eyed term, but I regularly told myself I was a fat blob. That morphed into me believing there was no hope for me. Then, it would drive me to eat something to relieve my pain which usually was something decadently sweet. 

Then I’d reiterate, “You are a fat blob. You’ll never lose weight.”

I had told myself this for so long that I didn’t even know it was me doing it. It was just part of my everyday life. Then, I went to a seminar and heard that I didn’t have to listen to the voices in my head. I had the power of the Holy Spirit to change the narrative. I just had to activate it.

I needed to activate the power of the Holy Spirit. All I had to do was ask the Holy Spirit to remind me when I was repeating something that wasn’t helpful for me. There was one problem I had to overcome, though. The truth was I weighed 430 pounds so I was a fat blob. It didn’t feel like I was telling myself a lie. I was being pragmatic. I was being truthful. Wasn’t I?

How God Sees Me

However, truth is how God sees me. I knew my loving heavenly Father would never call me a big fat blob. I knew His Word says “man or humans, are the ones who look at the outside of me. God is different though. He looks at my heart. He looks at what I believe about me.” I needed to change what I believed about myself.

I decided to be brave and find out what God believed about me. So, I simply said to Him, “God, all my life I have believed I am a fat blob. I know I’m super morbidly obese. I don’t deny that. But God how do you see me?”

He answered me immediately with just a few words. “You, my Daughter, are beautiful.”

It really caught me off guard. The God of the universe thinks I am beautiful? If He thinks I am beautiful then I need to be telling myself that instead of I am a Fat Blob. It took some time, but every time I started muttering to myself or even thinking that I was a fat blob, I would say, “No, I am a beautiful daughter of the king.”

The first and foremost thing we must believe is that we are worth working on. God loves us like we are, but He also knows how we take care of our physical bodies, which are the temples of His Holy Spirit, will be a big determining factor in how long we are here on earth and how much kingdom work we can do while we are here.

He doesn’t want us to lose weight so we look better. We are already beautiful to Him. He wants us to eat healthy, exercise, get good rest and have a good mix of work and recreation so that we can fulfill the purpose for which He placed us in our bodies in the first place.

Seeing ourselves as God sees us takes tapping into the heart of God. It takes believing that He does indeed love us. It is not thinking of ourselves in a prideful way, it is simply seeing our lives through God’s eyes. 

What we should be asking Him is: “What is Your vision for me God? How can I do the things You have laid out for me to do? What is the first step?” For me that was simple. I knew God wanted me to write books. I also knew I had no energy, clarity or stamina like I was. I knew if He truly wanted me to be an author, I had to lose weight. That was my why which was totally connected to God’s why.

There were other steps along the way to losing the weight, but it had to begin there. It had to begin with I am worth it to God. No matter what it takes, no matter what it costs, I need to listen to God.

Ask yourself right now, What am I telling myself that is contrary to what God believes about me? Then, ask God, What do you believe about me? 

Make it your goal to catch yourself when you repeat the negative thing you believe and replace it with God’s positive truth about you. Ask God to remind you to do this. Take a few minutes and write out the positive affirmation about yourself at least 20 times. Then say it aloud that many times. 

There is something powerful about writing the words and then reading them out loud. Your brain needs to hear you say: I am beautiful. God believes it and so do I.

To get the free download of 77 Affirmations, go here: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/teresas-77-affirmations/

Episode 036--Discovery 2020

Discovery is the word God gave me for the year 2020. When He gave me that word, I knew it was going to be an interesting year. I just had no idea how interesting! Now, I realize how important the word discovery is for 2020 God is doing something really, really big for all of us to discover.

The dictionary definition of discover is an enlightening or astonishing disclosure or a revelation. Notice that word revelation! To see it in more exact words, a discovery is an act of communicating divine truth or something that is revealed by God to humans.

 All of that is in this little ordinary word, discovery. 

What the Scriptures Say

Two Scripture passages really stood out to me in regard to the word discovery. The Psalmist tells us that there is no end to the discovery of the greatness that surrounds the Lord, (Psalm 145:3 TPT). 

There is always something more we can discover about God. He is limitless. He is constantly creating. New people are born every day, new situations, new experiences, everything about God is all about creating something new for us to discover, especially about ourselves. Great doesn’t even scratch the surface to define God.

As awesome as that verse is, it was Luke 9:23-24 TPT that screamed at me the loudest. “Jesus said to all of His followers, ‘If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways.

“’If you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will embark on a discovery of more and more of true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.’” 

Discovery of Surrender

To go forward in our or weight loss and healthy living journey or just our journey to spiritual maturity learning to surrender what we want in order to receive His best for us is paramount.

What Jesus is telling us here is that if we choose to surrender our wants, desires and even the things we think we need to survive in this world, God will reveal to us what true life is all about.

In other words, when we fully submit to God we automatically begin a journey of discovery of more and more about true life. When we walk with God, He begins to reveal things we didn’t know before.

We may think we know all about the Christian life, but Jesus is saying that we haven’t even gotten started until we choose to give up what has been holding us captive to earthly things and keeping us from being all-in with God.

Surrender Brings Destiny

For me surrender had a great deal to do with learning how to give up certain foods I couldn’t seem to say no to. I was addicted foods made with sugar and flour. This also included any foods with high carbohydrate content. The higher the carbs, the more they captured me. To get free I had to give these foods up. 

A cardiac surgeon had given me five years to live if I didn’t lose the weight and keep it off. It should have been a no-brainer, right? But when you have mental and emotional strongholds, which haven’t been broken, it’s really hard to surrender the things you are physically addicted to. 

When I finally got through some of the big hurdles and decided to allow God to walk me through this journey to transformation, my life began to morph into one of purpose and destiny. 

When I weighed 430 pounds I kept trying to shoe-horn my life into a destiny I wanted for me. I told God how it would be great if I could do this or that, but nothing seemed to work out like I thought it should.

When I’d ask destiny-oriented questions, the only answers I would get from Him were what He’d been telling me for years. It was always about surrendering sugar and things made with flour to Him.  I thought He was ignoring my question. What did losing weight have to do with my life’s purpose?  I have discovered since that my destiny has everything to do with losing weight. There would have been no future for me if I didn’t lose weight. 

Follow Jesus

God used my biggest failure to teach me my greatest lesson. It’s a simple one really. I am just really stubborn so it took me quite a while to learn.

The lesson is just this: Follow Jesus. Do what He says. You’ll discover your destiny when you do that one thing.

I needed to do what I already knew He wanted me to do. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to give up sugar and flour. I wanted to eat all the delicious foods I had grown up with and lose weight too. I rebelled against what He wanted for me for years. I even thought it was impossible.

It didn’t seem to me like it was very destiny-oriented to have to give up things others could eat, but when I began walking through that process God began to teach me more and more about Himself. He was helping me discover more and more about how He and He alone has the keys to abundant living here and in the great Beyond. He was teaching me more and more about how to trust and obey Him.

What We Need to Discover

Remember, discovery is connected with revelation. In the year 2020, God is revealing Himself to us as the only One who has the power to fix what we have broken. We have broken His world and we can’t fix it. Only He can. We have to discover that one truth again.

It’s all wrapped up in this verse: “Lord, You are great and worthy of the highest praise! For there is no end to the discovery of the greatness that surrounds You,” (Psalm 145:3 TPT).

This is the quest we should all be on. This year He is highlighting that only He is great. Our jobs, money, churches, businesses, institutions and politicians are not what’s great. It’s God and God alone.

In 2020 God wants to refine and deepen our faith. I pray we get the lesson before it’s too late.

I know it’s difficult for us to see our world any other way than the land of the free and the brave where folks can accomplish the Great American Dream. Even though we may get back to something even better than that, we have to begin looking at our lives through God’s eyes. What things are the most important to Him? 

He cares about us, of course, but our ease is not His main concern. Loving all people is. Introducing all people to salvation through Jesus Christ is. We have to look at our world through His eyes of Love. How do we know we are doing this? When we share Jesus with as many people as we can. When we reach out in love to our brothers and sisters despite what it might cost us. 2020 is the year we discover what things we need to change in our personal lives. It’s the year of discovery of the deeper things of God. It’s the year we really, truly discover how to love one another. It’s the year we begin to discover who we are and why we are here.I’m not asking anything of you right now except to pray. Pray for our country, for our leadership, for those who have been oppressed, for those rioting, for lives to be saved instead of lost, for our hearts to be turned towards God.

Episode 035--Freedom and Destiny

Six years ago today, July 1, 2014, I began my first Christian weight loss coaching group. It wasn’t my idea to do Christian weight loss coaching. It was actually the last thing on my mind. I had written my memoir, “Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds and Stopped Trying to Earn God’s Favor.” 

It became popular and people who had read the book wanted me to tell them how to lose weight. Then, God called me to begin an online coaching group. I didn’t want to do it, but when I told God I didn’t have the compassion I needed to do the job and He gave it to me, I said yes. I started coaching that next month.

When people come into a Christian weight loss coaching program they do it because they want to lose weight. Little do they know what they really want and need is freedom from sugar addiction, carb addiction, overeating, binging or other food issues. 

They don’t yet recognize that these issues are holding them captive. However if they can’t say no to donuts, candy, cookies, brownies, chocolate, french fries, triple cheeseburgers or that fourth helping of lasagna, something is wrong. Likely this started from a lie of some kind that they began to believe in childhood which morphed into a stronghold and then an addiction. It might be something like desserts comfort me. Then it moves to I need more desserts to feel better about what I’m going through. After that it morphs into desserts are necessary for me to be civil to others. Then, desserts are all I want to eat.  Finally. it becomes even if God Himself asked me to there is no way I could give up desserts and things made with sugar.

We have been taken prisoner and we don’t even realize it. There is one sure way to know if you are captured or not. Have you been convicted by God that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and you should lose weight? Have you tried to give up certain foods or tried to lose weight and may have done that for a while, but always find yourself going back to it? Have you wanted to change, but no matter how many times you say you are going to, you find yourself right back in the same ruts?You, my friend, have been taken in by one of Satan’s destructive schemes. It happens so slowly we don’t even recognize it until we are so deep into it, we feel we can never get out. God, though, is the one who can lead us out of anything and everything even things that feel impossible to get out of. 

What I have learned from my own journey and now from coaching many women, and a few men, on their journeys is most all of our food issues aren’t really issues with food, they are lies we began to believe that resulted in us eating to try to deal with the angst those lies brought us.

That leads to food addiction, plain and simple. But we deny that it is even an issue, just like Sally said. If we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist. So we just keep eating and pretend it’s not a problem. We are FREE in Christ, so we can eat whatever we want.

And while that is true, it is also true that we are not living the overflowing abundant life that Jesus has in store for us. Satan has set in motion a scheme designed to kill us, destroy us and steal our destinies in God. Jesus has a different plan for us and it starts with not putting ourselves in an early grave just because we can’t stop eating ice cream!

If you aren’t honest with God, He will NOT help you change. Remember, He gave us FREE WILL. We have the freedom to choose. But let me ask you this, why would you willfully choose to be in bondage to a substance rather than being led by an almighty God who has your destiny already figured out?

When we are captive to a substance, we are not free to follow God. We are double-minded and unstable in all our ways as James 1:6 says. That’s because we are listening to the foods we love more than God. It’s a subtle thing that the enemy does. We all know we have to eat to live. But overeating certain foods is the first desire the evil one will try to use to get us to stop listening to God.

He did that exact same thing to Eve and then to Adam. They took the bait and look what happened as a result. But when he tried that same thing by tempting a very hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread, Jesus showed us the way out. He answered him with Scripture saying “People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Deut. 8:3, Matt 4:4) Then when Jesus had had enough of Satan’s temptations He ordered Him, “Get out of here, Satan!” (Matt 4:10). 

If God has been talking to you about any area related to food or weight, please listen. When He does this, He’s not mad at you. He’s madly in love with you. He wants you to live the sweet life, but that doesn’t mean eating all the sweets you want. It means living in communion with Him, getting so close to Him you can’t even stand it, walking with Him and following Him every day for the rest of your life.Psalm 119:45 TPT says it plainly,  “I will walk with You in complete freedom, for I seek to follow Your every command.”

We can only do that when we have enthroned Jesus as Lord of our lives. When we finally make the decision to put Jesus in His rightful place in our lives, in order to stay free we must follow what He shows us to do. That means we must be walking and talking with Him every day to guard against being taken prisoner again.

In Galatians 5:1 TPT, Paul says it this way, “Let me be clear, the Anointed One has set us free—not partially, but completely and wonderfully free! We must always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back into the bondage of our past.”

The same is true for us. If we’ve given allegiance to certain foods or certain ways of overeating or binging in order to just survive this world, we can’t continue to do that and follow Jesus completely, too. It just doesn’t work that way.I used to stubbornly refuse to give up the foods I thought I couldn’t live without. Now I stubbornly refuse to go back to eating those foods. I live a fasted lifestyle in that I give up foods made with sugar and flour. 

Giving up sugar and flour, though, is not a once and done thing. It’s a process that involves many layers. Giving anything up all at once when we’ve been eating it constantly for years will only make us crave it all the more. It’s really a process of habit change. 

Overcomers Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers-Christian-Weight-Loss -Academy/

Teresa’s Facebook Business page: https://www.facebook.com/TeresaShieldsParker

Episode 034--Boredom Eating

What is the biggest issue you have regarding emotional eating? I asked my coaching that question the other day. One woman answered: boredom. Then she asked, “Is boredom a feeling.” This was a very intriguing question to me. I’d never considered boredom a feeling. I have always considered it a reaction to circumstances. But then, maybe every emotion is at its core a reaction to circumstances.

Is boredom a personality type? Are there those who have a tendency towards being bored? Could all of these be just who we are or is it something we can change? And if we can stop being bored, do we want to do that?

I used to not manage boredom well at all. As a matter of fact boredom eating was one of the main causes of me gaining up to 430 pounds. Then after a certain point, a person’s weight fatigues them so much they can’t physically do much at all. However since we all have to eat, food becomes the only way we can think of to stave off boredom. Boredom then becomes a major issue in our lives. 

When we eat out of boredom we are trying get rid of the monotony of whatever state we are in. If we eat to get rid of boredom, we’re going to find ourselves using food as entertainment instead of fuel. Food is not entertainment. Maybe what we are craving is not the food, but the interaction with others. If you can’t go see them, call them. Send them a text. Write them a letter. Do something creative for them. 

On this podcast I talk about ways we can use to help us handle boredom without eating everything in sight. I also talk about how boredom can be a call to action or an impetus to do something with our lives. To find out more about Overcomers Academy, go here: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

To send us a question or suggestion for a future podcast, email us at [email protected]. Please place the word podcast in the subject line.

Episode 033--Hang On Tight To Jesus

On this episode I share transparently about some pivotal things that happened to me in my childhood. I know when I am led to share certain aspects of what I went through and how God used it teach me, it is because someone, maybe even you, needs to hear this. And if this isn’t for you, it’s probably for a friend or family member so feel free to share this with them.

I talk about my mother’s emotional illness and her subsequent recovery that included a very dynamic change point for her. Before that, though, we all walked through some difficult issues with her. We had all been continually praying for her and watched as God began to lead her to recovery.

Her journey included her understanding that Jesus is her only answer and hanging on tight to Him was her only way of her issues to a better life with more stable emotions. 

Years after her death, God began to reveal to me my issue that was causing my extreme weight gain. I was a sugar addict. I owned that and surrendered it to God. But then I knew I was going to have to walk out my journey, which felt like an impossible task. Then I began searching my mind for someone who had walked out their journey and remembered my mom. She had done it by hanging on as tight as she could to Jesus. I knew that was also my answer. After that God brought a mentor into my life to help guide me in how to do that.

After losing 250 pounds, Gal 5:1 TPT became a really important verse to me. “Let me be clear, the Anointed One has set us free—not partially, but completely and wonderfully free! We must always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back into the bondage of our past.”

I used to stubbornly refuse to give up the foods I loved. But those foods had become a stronghold that held me in bondage. Now I am indeed stubborn about approaching anything that even looks or smells like it is going to put me back in bondage.The best thing is, now I am completely free to follow wherever Jesus leads me. The devil may come knocking at my door, he may try to capture me in his sly schemes but nothing tastes as good as the freedom that Christ brings. Nothing!

To join Overcomers Academy, go HERE: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

To send a question or a subject you’d like for me to discuss on the podcast, send me an email to [email protected].  Please Put podcast in the subject line

Episode 032—What is the Color of Love?

There are some huge issues in the world today. To address some of those I sat down with my long-time friend, Sheila Ruffin. Sheila is a world-wide missionary and prayer warrior who has been instrumental in teaching me deeper things of the Spirit of God. 

She’s also a mom, grandma and pastor’s wife. Sheila is the type of woman that oozes the presence of God. When she walks in the room, people pay attention. It’s almost like she’s escorting God into the room or He’s escorting her! This is a special podcast in that it is longer than usual. We actually cut some to fit it into a podcast. It’s not on my usual topic of weight loss, but friends, racial issues and tensions in the world today are going to affect us in different ways. 

Understanding what’s going on in the world is so important right now. Loving our brothers and sisters is also important as is following what God wants us to do during this time to be peacemakers is of primary importance.

When I weighed 430 pounds, when I walked into a room full of people, especially a church, I would look around to see if I was the biggest one in the room. If I was, I would sit in the back where I hoped, despite my size, no one would see me, or I could blend into the wallpaper. There was a shame element to it.Sheila is not overweight, but she has the same experience only it was happening because her skin was darker than the majority of people where she lives in our town of around 100,000. She added that she also felt an element of shame for being different from others, for growing up knowing she couldn’t go to certain bathrooms, eat a certain restaurants or stay in certain hotels when they traveled to see relatives in Illinois.

She added, “When we walk into a room, we are looking to see who else of color is in the room or to see if I’m the only one and if so, there could be something going on here I’m not aware of. For us that is just normal. I’m either the only one or one of a few. I’m used to that, but some don’t like the discomfort of being the only one. Black people feel safe among our people. I can be myself. When I go where I am the only one, I don’t know if I can be myself.”

Over time God has encouraged her to be herself, but before that she said it felt like she was almost dying because she wasn’t being herself because, “I tend to be loud when I worship. But I was tamping that down.” Then she read 2 Samuel 6. 

In that chapter David comes into Jerusalem with those carrying the ark of the Lord. He is “dancing before the Lord with all His might” (verse 14).  His wife, Michal berates him for what he did and calls him a “vulgar fellow.” David’s response in verses 21-22 is, “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this.” 

After that, something happened in me. The presence of God said, “Sheila get over it.” I got up and ran all over that place. Then, during a time of prayer, a friend of hers, who happened to be white, told her, “The Lord says, ‘He made you that way and He likes it.’”  

At one point when she was headed into some countries of the world where fear reigns rampant for Christians, Sheila knew she had a spirit of fear within her that needed to be dealt with. What she thought might just be things in her immediate biological family, she began to realize went back generations.

“It’s a spirit of fear I have dealt with all my life,” she explained. “It’s the spirit of fear that has been put on the black community. It goes back to times when they’d lynch people across the street from the black community and leave ten men hanging there for all to see. It’s things like that that bring terror and fear. We’ve lived in fear for hundreds of years. We’ve heard these stories from our grandmothers or experienced them all our lives.”

She added that she had to forgive the court system and others all down through the generations. “The fear had roots in the hangings, in the terror at night when you didn’t know if they would come for you for no reason at all.”

She added, “I know as a Christian I need to forgive, even if you never say you are sorry. Even if the government never changes, I have to forgive. I have to be willing to give up that rage, no matter how scary it is. There has to be repentance on both sides. There has to be a recognition that there might be a problem here.”

The issues our nation is facing today won’t be solved by humanistic or political endeavors. They will only be solved by loving people, getting to know people who are different from us. “We need relationship,” Sheila emphasized. “If you don’t know any black people, if you haven’t talked to any, then you believe anything you hear and anything you see.”

In the final analysis only one thing will turn this country around and that is reliance of God. “We need to pray and fast and we need to do it together until heaven answers,” she added. 

This podcast ends with powerful prayers spoken to God between two women who want to see and understand the color of love.

To follow Sheila on Facebook go to: Sheila A. Kitchen Ruffin (https://www.facebook.com/sheilaakitchen.ruffin) To follow Teresa on Facebook go to: Teresa Shields Parker (https://www.facebook.com/TeresaShieldsParker)

To find Christian weight loss resources, go to: https://www.teresashieldsparker.com/

Episode 031—What's Eating You?

“What’s Eating you?” What is the thing that is bugging the daylights out of you? What makes you angry every time you encounter it? What throws you off course and causes you to cuss like a sailor in your head, whether you actually say it or not?

It’s the thing that, as my dad would say, “you about lost your religion over.”

When he said that he was basically saying that situation almost made a person cuss. Dad thought cussing was the worst thing a Christian could do. So if someone was cussing they were getting angry. That helped me buy into the lie that getting angry is not godly.

Most of us think yelling, screaming, waving our hands around, running amuck through a public place, throwing things or acting in any threatening way is not godly at all. As a matter of fact we see that as the furtherest thing from being godly.

What’s Eating Jesus? That was definitely something Jesus would ever do or was it?

Let’s read and see: “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables.    And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ John 2:13-16 NKJV

His disciples were probably whispering among themselves, “What’s eating Jesus today?”

Then they remembered a Scripture that put everything into perspective. It said, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up,” (John 14:17 NKJV). So, that’s what was eating Jesus!

It was the fact that those who were supposed to be God-fearing were actually far away from loving and worshiping God. They were making a mockery of His house. It makes most of the things that upset us seem miniscule in comparison. Anger has it place when it fuels a passion to do something about an injustice in the world.

How Do You Deal With Anger? Unfortunately our anger usually comes out in one of two ways: anger at ourselves or anger at those we love.

The anger at ourselves looks like any number of self-injurious behaviors. My self-injurious behavior of choice was overeating. Yours may be too. However, we are also good at overspending, overindulging in alcohol, prescription drugs or other kinds of drugs, gambling, or really anything that has become a way of escaping from reality.

We have discovered a myriad of ways to harm ourselves because some of just don’t like who we are or who we’ve become. Whatever is churning inside us is eating at us and so we do try to do something to silence it.

When it comes out as anger against those we love most, it tends to look like some or all of these things: yelling, screaming, hitting, controlling, bullying, manipulating, giving the silent treatment or cold shoulder or as the younger crowd says “ghosting” someone and any other number of things we would classify as demeaning if we saw someone else doing it to someone we care about.

When we try so hard not to be angry, we actually make ourselves more angry and that anger will come out in some shape or form. So how do we deal with it appropriately?

Tell the Truth Paul had some great advice on this topic in Ephesians 4:25-27 MSG. “What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.  Go ahead and be angry.

“You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the devil that kind of foothold in your life.”

There are several great pieces of advice here: First, Be honest. Speak the truth in love. Second, Don’t lie to others. It just fuels anger. Third, don’t let the anger seethe within you, boil over and create a big mess. Do something with it quickly. Fourth, know that it is alright be angry just direct it constructively.

Here’s What’s Eating Me

I could say nothing eats at me anymore, but that is really not true. There are so many injustices in the world. There’s even the current arguments about to mask or not mask, to have meetings in groups or stay isolated at home.

As important as these are what eats at me the most these days is seeing people who are struggling with issues that are literally eating them alive. Instead of knowing how to deal with them, they run to comfort foods. When they come out of the food coma, this overwhelms them even more when they realize what they’ve done to their bodies.

I have a feeling that I may be talking to someone right now who is in that situation. If so, it hurts my heart to see you feel like you are trapped and have no way out of your anger, your impossible situation or your overwhelming difficulties.

It eats at me to see you not connect to the only One who can help you through whatever you are going through. Instead of being consumed with anger, I’m letting it fuel me to talk about this problem. In my small way I hope that is helping you if you are at the place I was at years ago.

There is hope. There is peace. There is joy. There is love. It is found only in one place. It is found in our God who is ready to receive you, along with all your anger, frustration and screaming fury. He’s not asking you to set that aside. He’s asking you to give it to Him.

Let Him take it and fashion into passion for the things that stir His heart. Let Him equip you to channel the exceptionally strong feelings you have into an outlet for good in His kingdom.

If you need help with any part of your healthy living journey, join us in Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy. Here’s the link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/