Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 030—The Spiritual Hospital

Several years ago, a woman I was coaching said to me, “When you are hemorrhaging, comfort food is a tourniquet and eating healthy seems like a long ride to the hospital when you might die.” Ever feel this way? I know I have.

I understand what she means because when I weighed 430 pounds it seemed like I would never lose weight. Back then for me to even imagine myself losing what I’ve lost today, which is over 250 pounds, seemed impossible. What I needed was a spiritual hospital, but I thought I had God all figured out and it must be something else, like something physical that needed to be fixed in me.

I was in pain and I didn’t even know why. I was in physical pain carrying around that much weight, sure, but I was also in emotional, mental and even spiritual pain that I didn’t even recognize. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t do what my head wanted to do.

I felt there was only one quick fix that would work to solve my immediate pain and despair. That was doing what I’d always done—eat comfort food and plenty of it.

It was the quickest fix that I had that could make me stop feeling whatever negative emotion I was feeling at the time. When we don’t know how to feel our emotions or we want to stop feeling anger, frustration, despair, sadness, regret, shame, overwhelm, guilt and emptiness we will do anything to make the emotional pain stop, even if it only stops for a little while.

This is why we go to addictions. It’s why I went to my drug of choice—sugar and other foods with high carbohydrate content that turn to sugar quickly in the bloodstream. I call it the Christian addiction because very few Christians will admit that sugar is an addiction. Admitting that would mean they should give it up. 

The other quick fix of diets never worked for me either. I’d just lose weight and then gain it back again when I go off the diet. The thing that works always seems like the hardest because it is outside of our comfort zone. What works is if I make a choice to follow everything God is showing me to do to restore my physical health.

To do that I have to surrender to a total transformation. It has to involve my mind, my will, my emotions, my spirit, my body and my physical cravings. All of those things have to change during this process. The only thing that works is a total lifestyle change.

The beauty of going on this kind of journey is that this is what God wants for us. He wants to teach us where our disconnects are with Him and how we can transform spirit, soul and body. 

If you are hemorrhaging from emotions, physical pain and all that life has thrown you and you feel like eating healthy is like a long road to the hospital when you might die, understand this. That is a lie from the father of lies. None of it is true. 

Eating healthy and letting God begin changing us mentally, emotionally and spiritually is the only way to begin a permanent change physically. Total change begins when we fix our attention on God. Then we’ll be changed from the inside out. (See Romans 12:2 MSG). 

The safest place to be is following exactly what God wants for our lives. That’s why in my coaching program, there is more of an emphasis on understanding that what God really does want is for us to surrender everything to Him. 

It’s not easy and that’s why God six years ago God called me to offer an ongoing coaching opportunity. A coaching group has to be led by someone who doesn’t just have knowledge about what to do, but has personal experience of living that out each and every day. 

Coaching itself isn’t easy. I feel all the pain each member of my group feels. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. This is what God called me to do, though, and I’m giving my life to this cause.

It’s the reason I get up each morning. It’s why I pour my heart out in podcasts, blog posts, live videos and books. I believe this is the number one killer among Christians, and possibly, all Americans. Our diet is not just killing us, it is in control of us. It is our master.

In 1 Cor. 6:12 Paul tells us, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” For way too many years I allowed comfort foods to be in control of my life. Walking out that journey was not a quick walk in the park, it felt like my coaching client said, “a long ride to the hospital when you might die.” 

However, finally arriving at that hospital, feeling the healing touch of those who had been where I was and knew how to help me, drinking in their wisdom and following in their footsteps, saved my life. God knew exactly what I needed to rescue, deliver and transform me. All I had to do was climb into the ambulance and let God be the driver. 

I’ve mentioned what one woman said to me. Here it is again: “When you are hemorrhaging, comfort food is a tourniquet and eating healthy seems like a long ride to the hospital when you might die.”

What she found after coming into our group is that God’s spiritual hospital is the very, very best place to be when you need more than a tourniquet or a bandaid. 

Here’s the link for Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/

Here’s the links for some of the Free gifts on my website: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/blueprint, https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/kicksugar/

Episode 029—Hope for the Hopeless

I am afraid there is an epidemic of hopelessness that has been sweeping over the world in the last few months. Even as we begin to open our doors and peek out at the world, we are unsure of the future. We are unsure of what will happen next. It’s almost like we are just waiting for the other shoe to fall. 

Our nation and the world is reeling from the fact that we cannot seem to save people from this invisible enemy and so we stand with arms limp not knowing what to do, which direction to turn or where to go. 

We are hopeless.

All the while, the evil one sits back and laughs at us. Remember He has one objective because at his core he is a thief. He wants to steal, kill and/or destroy us and our effectiveness for the Kingdom of God. He wants to steal our impact on the world around us. He was to destroy our credibility. But more than anything he wants to kill us because that will take us out for good or so he thinks. 

HopeYet in that same verse, God embeds a whole universe of hope. Because God sent Jesus to the world with a different agenda. When He came He brought with Him the ability to give us everything in abundance, more than we expect—life in its fullness until we overflow! John 10:10 TPT.

Our Hope lies in Him and yet we run to so many other things looking for that elusive thing called hope. We hope our money will get us through. We hope our government will figure something out to protect us. We hope our doctors and scientists will find a cure. We hope we can hide long enough so this plague can’t find us. We hope that eating all this food will make us feel better.Although many of those things may help us temporarily, our real hope is found in the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He has a plan and His plan will be carried out. Nothing will stop it! The evil one will try, like a villain in some world-wide video game. The problem is he has never been able to understand that there is a Maker of this game called life and in the final analysis, God wins. 

The Marathon Called Life

We follow God because He already knows the plan of our lives. He not only knows it, He tells us that the plans He has for us are plans for good and not for disaster, to give us a future and a hope. Jer. 29:11 NLT. 

In Hebrews 11, the writer goes through a list of great men and women of faith. Then Hebrews 12 starts out “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

We are in a marathon race and there are things that hold us back from running the race. I always saw the word “weight” as related to me physically. I can’t run a race if I am carrying 50, 100, or 200 extra pounds. 

When I weighed  250 pounds more than I do now I could barely walk, much less run any kind of race. I could still be wallowing in that issue and difficulty, but I know and I even knew and believed then that is the Jesus the Author and Finisher of my life and had a different kind of story He wanted me to live. I just needed to get on board with the script He had already for me. I needed hope.

The word “hope” today has come to mean wishful thinking. I hope this virus won’t come to my family. I hope we have enough money to make it through this crisis. I hope we can get groceries. 

However, the biblical definition is something entirely different. It is the confident expectation of what God has promised. The strength of that isn’t in what I believe. It is in God’s ability to be faithful. 

The Lie I Believed

When I was a kid I heard my mother and grandmother talking about how much weight I had gained and how they kept just having to buy me bigger and bigger clothes.

“It’s like she can’t stop gaining weight,” my mother said. She was frustrated at having to buy me new clothes with a small budget. “I can’t lose weight” began to take root in me as a truth.

I had allowed this emotion of hopelessness to become one of my core life values.  When the feeling of hopelessness came, there was only one recourse for me. I would eat, preferably something made with sugar and flour, something like my grandmother would have made.

I Am Weak

The reality of how to stop eating sugar was the challenge, though. I was, and still am, like Paul. I have a weakness. Scripture doesn’t tell us what Paul’s weakness was. It does tell us he asked God three times to remove it.

Paul says, “Then He told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’” 2 Cor. 12:9 MSG

Paul learned humanity has limitations. Those limitations, though, are not reasons to quit. They should lead us to understand, the weaker we get, the stronger we become, when we rely totally on God’s strength instead of our own.

As I surrender to God each day, I find renewed hope in the grace and strength that He pours into my life.  Whatever He calls me to do, I can do it because it is not my strength I’m drawing from. It is His.

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

Episode 028—Worrier or Warrior

It goes without saying that we all would rather be a warrior for God than a person who is a worrier. A worrier is trying to use their own resources to solve problems. A warrior knows she has to use God’s divine weapons. There is nothing else that will work. And yet, we still try to solve our own problems. 

Overthinking

When we worry we are actually praying to ourselves. We aren’t asking anyone else to help us. We are going over and over and over the problem we have and examining it from every angle.

We’re definitely going to the wrong source to fix our problems. We know the right source, but for some reason we feel like we have to fix whatever issue we are overthinking.

When we worry we are dwelling on troubles that we can’t solve, but we still try to solve them by continuing to rehearse the situation over and over and over in our minds.  

We are trying to change what either is happening or has happened or what we think might happen, but of course we can’t because most of the time it would involve someone other than ourselves doing something different. No matter how much we worry about that situation, if it’s already happened then it will not change. If it hasn’t happened yet, then why are we taking up valuable brain space worrying about it in the first place?

What Is Worry?

Before delving into how to do that, we need to understand a few basics about worrying. Worrying is not in and of itself an emotion. Worry will cause us to have emotions like fear, frustration, anger, guilt, shame, regret, hate, sadness, loneliness, disgust, even rage. Any one of these emotions can also cause us to worry.We can also worry about things that are usually considered positive, like planning a huge anniversary party or the wedding of one of our kids, especially the first one to get married, or even how to help our senior graduate. All of these are especially worrisome in the midst of a massive shut down such we are experiencing now. But even in regular times, We worry about all the details. This can be true of any new thing we are stepping into like a move to a new house even if it’s just across town, making a huge investment in a new business, starting a new career. If you are a worrier you may stress about everything that could go wrong with what might well be the best thing that ever happened to you or your family.  This kind of worry heightens our emotions. It may cause physical reactions such as a racing heart, increased sweating, rapid breathing, fatigue and headaches. 

As a result, we resort to alternative solutions such as overindulging in our favorite foods or sweets to comfort us in our despair over what should be a perfectly happy situation. It doesn’t really matter if our worry began with something positive or negative, it still is not really worth our time to indulge it and yet, we still worry.

Five Steps To Stop Worrying

So how do we stop worrying and step more into the reality of the present. God gives us His plan for getting away from worry. I see it as a five-step process. Most of this process is in Philippians 4:6-8, however one step is in 2 Cor. 10:4.Step One—Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious about anything. Don’t let worrisome thoughts even have a foothold in your mind. Thoughts aren’t you. You don’t have to continue to think about them.

Step Two—Pray about everything. Tell God every detail. Tell God what you need and thank Him for what He has done. If we are doing this we shouldn’t need to worry.

Step Three—If you do steps one and two then Phil 4:7 kicks in. “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” Remember peace is integral to being a warrior for God.

Step Four—Guard your hearts and minds by taking thoughts captive and demolishing arguments you might have against God or in opposition to God as 2 Cor. 10:5 NIV tells us.

Step Five— Instead of thinking of everything that can go wrong (which is one definition of worry), we need to think on the awesomeness we see all around us. 

I go into depths about each of these plus I share an excellent example of someone I know well who implemented all of these steps. 

Worry can really damage our lives and keep us from the best that God wants for us. The evil one uses worry in our lives to accomplish what he has set out to do which is to kill, steal and destroy us. If we let our thoughts take us over, he has won.

But Jesus has a whole different agenda. He has come to give us everything in abundance, more than we expect—life in its fullness until we overflow! As it says in John 10:10 TPT.

I don’t know about you but I’m ready for the overflow! It’s out of His overflow that I can be a warrior for Him instead of a worrier.

I know worry is a big reason why many find themselves overeating and not knowing why. So let me help you with that. Doors are open now for Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy. Go here: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/.

Episode 027—Susan Keays: Giving Up Sugar

Susan Keays, a school bus driver, wife, mother and grandmother is my guest on this week’s podcast.  She is a member of Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy who has lost 80 pounds by owning the fact that she is a sugar addict, surrendering sugar to God and learning how to walk out her journey.

Giving up sugar for good isn’t an easy process for anyone. It was 20 years ago when God showed Susan that she needed to do just that. At the time she told some people in her Bible study that she felt like that was what she was supposed to do. They said, ‘That’s crazy! How would you do that?’” Susan said, “I don’t know, but it’s like an addiction to me.” 

Susan shares that when they said that to her, she actually thought she might be slightly crazy. “So, when I came into your Overcomers Academy and you shared that sugar is addictive,” Susan said, “this peace came over me and I thought, I’m not trying to manufacture something to excuse my behavior.”

That was the start of owning her sugar addiction, she explains. “I knew that circumstances from my past helped cultivate my seeking food for comfort and even making food my god,” she said. “But I needed to take ownership of my issue. I am a grown woman. Regardless of what went on before, God is calling me to not eat sugar now. I got peace in hearing that you understood and that it was a real thing.”

In the three years Susan has been in the group, she has learned how to rid herself of sugar through a process we teach in the group. It’s the way to stop a bad habit and start a good one. The basic premise is to put firm boundaries around the bad habit a person wants to stop and focus on the good habit they want to start. 

Susan said, “When you introduced that tool I was fascinated. Instead of doing what I’d done before and saying to myself over and over, ‘I’m not eating sugar. I’m not eating sugar. I’m not eating sugar.’ Instead my start was fixing three healthy meals each day that did not include sugar. This gave me a doable plan to focus on. “I prayed as I was planning my menus and asked God what I should do. It kept me from eating sugar. Instead I was finding ways to have a healthier taste of sweetness like putting fruit in every meal. It gave me such encouragement and thankfulness that God was walking me through this and was using you to show me.”

Susan says she hasn’t eaten sugar since she began her journey.  She adds, “But I’ve had days when my meals weren’t as healthy. You keep encouraging us to tweak those things. Learn from them and not beat ourselves up about them.”

One of the things that really helped her, Susan says, is seeing what hope looks like. “When I came into this group, I saw women who had victory. God showed me that’s what hope looks like. I didn’t have any hope. Coming into this group and seeing women who had victory, were fully engaged and going forward helped me see your hope wasn’t in you, but in God taking you on your journey.”

There is hope for anyone wanting to step out of a bad habit and into a lifestyle change. Join me and Susan as we learn together. Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy doors are open now. Go to https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers-Christian-Weight-Loss-Academy/.

Episode 026—Peace Amidst Confusion

I think the state I am currently living in is the state of confusion. If you are like me, I don’t do well in confusion. I like to be decisive, to make a decision and stick to it. But these days no one wants to make a decision that goes past tomorrow at the most. We feel like we can’t plan for the future so we are living in this never-never land of being perpetually on hold with most everything. That really goes against my nature so there is turmoil and confusion rolling around inside me. 

Confusion means having a lack of understanding, uncertainty, a breakdown of order, doubt, skepticism, indecision, perplexity, upheaval and a general feeling that everything is a giant disorderly jumbled up mess.

Paul tells us in 1 Cor 14:33 that God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. I’ve known this to be true in my life. When confusion hits, that means God is not in that decision or choice.  So, how do we even know that we are in confusion instead of peace and how can we find peace in the midst of these topsy-turvy times?

For 20 years we took care of mentally challenged foster teens and young adults. To say they lived in confusion is an understatement. Each one we took care of had different diagnoses and issues. But one of the biggest things each of them had was a tendency to misuse food. 

One of our foster sons tried to eat everything in sight even if it made him sick.  Several foster daughters would carry off bags of chips or cookies or anything they could find to their room and eat them in the middle of the night. However trying to eat away their confusion and turmoil never worked for them and it won’t work for us either

I have a feeling there are many who are trying to do some of these same things. Like my foster son you are trying to hoard food and other items that for some odd reason you think you can’t do without. If this crisis had happened when I was super morbidly obese, I’d be freaking out. I couldn’t let there be any vacant space in my pantry, refrigerator or freezer because I didn’t want to chance being without food. To me that would have been the worst thing in the world.

Some of you are like the foster daughters I had and are sneaking food so others can’t see what you’re doing. Not that they would care, but if they did see you then you’d have to be accountable for what you are eating.

It’s interesting to me that we don’t want others to see what we are doing, but what we are doing will eventually show up on the scales anyway. Why do we play this game of if no one sees me eat it then it doesn’t count? The biggest thing we have to learn on the journey to healthy living is personal accountability first to ourselves and then to God. We cannot be accountable to God if we are constantly lying to ourselves.Lying to ourselves means we aren’t keeping track of what we are eating. It’s like if we don’t know how many calories we are eating in a day then we don’t have to worry about it. And if we don’t step on the scales then our weight will just magically stay the same.

There are many things that we like to bury our heads in the sand about and pretend they will just go away. For many years I would pray that God would just magically remove the weight from my body without any effort on my part.

What I learned is God will do His part, but only when I surrender my right to eat whatever I want whenever I want it. I have to be willing to surrender the foods that are making me unhealthy. When I finally made that commitment, God led me on the wildest journey to transformation ever and all at the courtesy of His matchless, powerful grace. He will do the same for you.

In this podcast I continue to talk about how to discover God’s peace by going through Romans 7:19-Romans 8:4 TPT. I also talk about 3 John 2 AMP and Philippians 4:6-7 TPT. Be prepared for some deep revelations and personal challenges.

If you are interested in joining Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy, doors are open now. Go here to join or for more information: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/.

For those who want immediate access to my Blueprint for Losing Weight and Living Healthy, go here: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/blueprint/.

Episode 025—Verna Laboy: Healthy Is the New Sexy

Verna Laboy is the health educator for Columbia/Boone County, MO, public health and human services who runs the Live Well by Faith program. She is an advocate for how health needs to be woven into our everyday lives. Through various classes and programs, she helps women learn how to change their lives by incorporating ways to cook, eat, exercise, garden and live healthier. 

“I tell women, healthy is the new sexy,” she declared. Since heading up this program, she herself has lost 40 pounds and lowered her A1C to a healthy level simply by diet and exercise. 

She continued, “I have to be authentic from inside out. People have to see that what I’m teaching is really working for me. I’m taking the medicine that I’m spoonfeeding others. I don’t want to just put makeup on and feel good. I really want to be good at the cellular level.”

Her goal is for women to begin to take a stand for their own health. “You have to be a little selfish. You have to learn that you are worth fighting for. In this day and age when health insurance isn’t all it used to be, we need to do things differently. We have to give our minds, bodies and souls an opportunity to heal. We don’t have to live our lives traumatized and on a roller coaster. We can say enough is enough.”

The fact that individuals are now living longer is another reason we should be especially concerned about our health, Verna explained. “Who wants to live a long life in a nursing facility or having to pay anyone to do anything for you because you can’t? I want to be able to get out and do yard work, plant flowers and enjoy my garden and go for walks. 

“I’m a grandma,” she continued. “That means I need to do stretching, exercising, strength conditioning because I’m not 18 anymore. I don’t want to be limited in mobility because I’m eating a bunch of junk and destroying my organs.”

God cares about our bodies, Verna explained. “Our bodies are His temple. We cannot carry the mantle of the assignment on our lives if we are sick. There are foods we eat in this country that are banned in other countries. Not everything we eat that tastes good to us is good for us. It’s time for us to open up to the information that will save our lives and our legacy that we are leaving our families.”

Verna explained that obstacles to the health journey are everywhere. One obstacle is cultural foods and foods others in our homes want to eat. However, she feels the biggest obstacle to eating healthy is “feeling alone while doing it, especially when you have never really taken a stand for yourself before. 

“It is very lonely to be quite honest unless you become a part of a community,” she added. “That’s where Live Well by Faith is strong. We are building a community of like-minded individuals where we are coaching one another. They are using new language and they are talking about their health.”

 All too often those with healthy living or weight issues use food as an emotional support. This is another reason to have a community where individuals encourage and support each other.

For those interested in joining an online healthy living teaching and support group, Teresa’s Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy is open now. To join, go here: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com.

To get in touch with Verna Laboy, go to the “Live Well By Faith” Facebook group or email her at [email protected]

Episode 024—Follow Me As I Follow Christ

“Teresa inspires me to believe that change is possible with God’s grace and help and the support of others. I hope to follow her as she follows Christ.” That’s a review that Star 1978 wrote regarding Sweet Grace for Your Journey podcast.

But when I read the last line, my tongue about caught in my throat. My first thought was what an honor that you would say that about me. My second thought was what a huge responsibility to live up to. And my third was this is what we should all be doing as Christians.

These words appear in 1 Corinthians 11:1 in the Modern English Version of the Bible. When I first read them years ago, my immediate reaction was that Paul was being pretty haughty to say that to the Corinthians.

However, Paul wasn’t being haughty when he said those words. For many of the churches he was writing to, he was the only example they had of someone who was walking in the footsteps of Jesus. 

If we go back to 1 Corinthians 11 we can see some of the issues in which Paul was asking the Corinthians to follow him in. One of them happens to be about food. 

What Paul was addressing had to do with the way the church was handling the Lord’s supper. 1 Cor 11: 20-22, 33-34 MSG. What was happening in their day was that the Lord’s supper had ceased to become a way to remember Jesus and had become a free-for-all, food extravaganza or gluttonous feast for only those who could afford to bring food.

Today we don’t celebrate the Lord’s supper that way. It’s a sip of juice and a cracker. However, as I read that passage I couldn’t help, but think about how I felt when I was focused on food and nothing else. I was focused on what I was going to eat that would fill my cravings. Going to a church fellowship dinner, potluck supper or carry-in brunch was all about the food. Just provide homemade goodies and I’d be sure and be there. 

After losing more than 250 pounds and placing good boundaries around what I eat, these dinners don’t make me act like a starving maniac anymore. At 430 pounds, it was embarrassing, but it seemed I couldn’t help myself. I was like a kid in a free candy store. 

One big issue is that I had made eating the comfort foods I loved more important than anything in my life. It’s that old Phil 3:19 issue. I had made my stomach or my appetite my god instead of relying on God almighty. When we get to the point where certain foods have become addictions or strongholds in our lives, we have elevated them to the status of a god in our lives.God tells us in Matthew 6:24 NLT that “ No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.” He’s talking here about being enslaved to money, but this pertains to anything that we allow to master us, such as food.

Later on, in that same chapter, verses 25-34, Jesus tells us not to worry about our lives including what we eat or drink or what clothes we will wear. The birds don’t worry about what they have to eat. The flowers don’t worry about what to wear. 

Then, Matthew 6:33 TPT adds, “Constantly chase after the realm of God’s kingdom[ and the righteousness that proceeds from Him. Then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.” The issue for many of us is that we do not see food, shelter and clothing as less important. Our minds haven’t made the shift to what God wants us to understand. He wants us to see that it’s not our bodies we should be concerned about. It is our souls. 

Phil 3:18-21 NIV gives us an even closer look at what He’s saying. He tells us our citizenship is in Heaven. It’s a citizenship that is valid right now. Then, in the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:10-13 TPT, Jesus tells us each day we should ask that God’s every purpose be fulfilled here on earth just like it has already been fulfilled in Heaven. 

Our hunger is not physical. It is spiritual. Until we understand that, take our failures and fall headlong into the arms of His sweet grace, we will always be struggling. Spiritual nourishment is found only in Jesus Christ. 

Lifestyle change is a difficult process, but it is 100% possible when we tap into what God wants. And it is a whole lot better if we do it with others. Star 1978’s review reminds me anew to be sure I am leading well. I always do try to point people back to God and His Word. If we are all using that as our main guideline our lives will be aligned correctly.

In the end we just need to know three things: 

1. We can only serve one master. Let’s make sure that is the God of the universe and not the foods we love to eat or the money we think we need.
2. God will provide everything we need in this life if we put Him first. We have no need to worry. 
3. We are citizens of Heaven right now. We must agree for His will to be done on earth just like it has always been done in Heaven. 

I am not as bold as Paul to flat out tell people to follow me in everything as I follow Christ, but I can be a mentor, coach and guide on the path to weight loss, even extreme weight loss, and healthy living because God has already led me down that path. I am thrilled that many hundreds have joined my coaching groups in the last six years and many thousands have taken my free KickSugar video course. 

The doors are open now to Overcomers Christian weight loss academy. I followed what God told me and opened them for those of you struggling with food addiction during this time. I will keep them open until He tells me to close them. Those who join now, can take advantage of our current free bonus. 

To find out more about Overcomers Academy or to join, go here:  https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy.

To take advantage of my Free course, KickSugar, go here: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/KickSugar/.

Sweet Grace for Your Journey.

Episode 023—Delivered by His Strength

During this crazy time we are in and leading up to Easter, we need more than ever to understand that we need a deliverer! 

“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it,” (Isaiah 30:15 NIV). Or as it says in the Holman Christian Standard version, “You will be delivered by returning and resting; your strength will lie in quiet confidence. But you are not willing.”

God gives a great equation here for being delivered by His strength. However the children of Israel weren’t interested in following His simple and direct method. They didn’t want to do things God’s way. They wanted to do it their way.

I totally get how they felt.  I lived there for way too long. I wanted to believe that eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it was something I could do. After all, everyone else seemed to be doing it. So I lived in this fairy tale world where I told myself that one day everything would magically fall into place without any effort on my part. Of course that didn’t happen until I listened to God and allowed Him to deliver me.After a lot of hard work and years of finally following what God wanted me to do, a really good friend of mine was talking with me about the years I wallowed in food addiction. She said that another friend of ours told her she should talk to me about eating so much candy when I said I knew I needed to stop. She knew I was gaining weight and she wanted to help me, but she admitted was scared to say anything lest I get mad at her and stop being her friend. Then with tears in her eyes, she said, “Would it have made a difference if I had said something then?”

I thought about it for a while and replied honestly, “I don’t think it would have. Confronting me would have just made me more determined to continue on my own reckless course.”  I know that is true because God Himself had to intervene to fully convict me that what I was doing was wrong. It was sin for me to harm my body. But at the time I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to believe nothing bad would happen to me and I’d just continue indulging in the foods I felt I couldn’t live without.

I finally did turn around, however, part of the motivation for that can be found in what God told the rebellious children of Israel.  I needed God to catapult me out of the path of destruction I was on and turn me around to head me towards health and wellness. I needed to be delivered by relying on His strength.

On this podcast I go more in depth about how we can do that. I also share this equation. 

Repentance + Resting in God = Deliverance.

Quietness + Trust in God = Reliance on God’s Strength to carry out what He wants us to do.

What part of this equation do you feel you need the most: repentance, rest, quietness, trust, deliverance or strength? Share that in the comments or in a review. Then share this podcast. Someone who needs it may listen and be changed. That is my prayer for each and every episode.

Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy doors are open now. God really let me know that during this crazy time we’re going through many of you need the resources we have available in Overcomers Academy’s one-of-a-kind video library. We have over 200 video lessons divided into 25 courses and five stages of the weight loss journey.

Overcomers Academy also includes a private Facebook group where we concentrate on  one course, with a lesson each week to discuss and implement together. We also have a live monthly Q&A call where I answer questions and lead individuals to breakthroughs. It’s my favorite time of the month. I’m also offering a limited time bonus for those who join now. For more information or to join go to: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers-Christian-Weight-Loss-Academy/

Episode 022—Emotions and Trust

Are you an emotional eater? Back when I weighed 430 pounds and all the way leading up to that time, my first response when I felt any emotion was to eat something whether there was a real crisis or not. I ate something like a dessert, fast food, chips or anything I could stuff in my mouth that tasted good to me. I never wanted salads, carrots or broccoli during these times of heightened emotional feelings. I wanted something to stop making me feel angry, sad, lonely, frustrated or any one of 1,000 other emotions.

However, if you would have asked me if I was an emotional eater, I would have said no. I felt that way because years ago I determined that I was not going to be the type of person my mother was. She had an emotional illness that caused her to be crying or sitting staring at the wall one day and dancing the jitterbug in the kitchen the next day.

That was all too much for me to understand and comprehend as a kid. During my growing up years, nothing worked to get her to express anywhere near normal, somewhat even-keel emotions. I hated the out-of-control feeling that her emotions brought to our entire household.

I was determined though that I would not be that type of emotional mood-swing person. I would manage my emotions. It was really my Grandma who unknowingly taught me how to wrongly manage my emotions. She was a great cook and any time we went to her house we could eat whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, as much as we wanted.

The foods were high in carbohydrates because Papaw was a farmer and needed that energy to get through the day. As a kid I could manage to eat those things and not get too large. However, when I grew up and moved away from home and from Grandma, I remembered how those foods took me away from all the bad stuff happening in my life. It was my way of escape. It was my way of not having to deal with any negative emotions I felt. So I ate and I gained weight. But now the habit was firmly ingrained in me.

On my weight loss journey of more than 250 pounds, I eventually learned that I have a relationship with food. Now, we aren’t really supposed to have a relationship with food. We aren’t supposed to get emotionally involved with food. Food is for fuel. It’s not something to help ease our emotions.

I eventually came to understand, though, that certain foods, especially those made with sugar and flour, had become a companion when I felt lonely, a comforter when I felt sad, depressed or just needed to feel rewarded, a provider when I felt needy, a protector when I felt fearful. 

We cannot eat our emotions away. They are never gone completely. They have just been placated for a while. At some point they will be triggered again and we will need to throw more food at them to keep them quiet again. This is what helped me gain up to 430 pounds. Unraveling why I was doing that and turning myself around became a process in and of itself.

This whole shelter in place scenario is scary for many. That means a lot of time on our hands so what do we do? We go back to old habits. We eat! We’ve all seen the memes on FB that show a person blown up like a balloon and says this is what we’ll all look like when the virus scare is over. That’s really not too far from the truth unless we begin to embrace our emotions and let them tell us what we are really feeling. 

This may be a really scary concept for us if we have always tried to shove emotions down or not feel emotions. So how do we begin the process of actually feeling our emotions without being a basket case?

In this episode I give tips on how to stop eating our emotions and actually begin to feel them without them overwhelming us. We can’t feel our emotions if we constantly push them away and try to cover them up by eating and eating and eating. This will eventually lead us to trusting God to help us, rather than relying on food.

Emotions are not wrong. Emotions make life enjoyable. So let’s learn how to really embrace those emotions and allow them to help us live that abundant life God promised us.

Overcomers Academy is now OPEN. We also have a special limited time bonus available. For all the details, go to https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers-Christian-weight-loss-academy/. I’ll see you in the group.

Episode 021—Towards Peace

With everyone in panic mode, peace seems like a forgotten commodity. We are like Martha, we are worried and upset, we are concerned about many things. We are, as Grandma would say, stuck in the weeds. 

It’s not so much that we are worried about contracting the virus, but we are worried about the economic impact on us and our families. We are worried about what it will do to our jobs. We are worried about being isolated from everyone we know. We are worried about how to deal with our kids while they are at home. We are worried about not being able to see our grandkids. We are just anxious, fearful and worried.

I don’t believe God sent this COVID-19 virus, but I know it did not take Him by surprise. The devil unleashed a plan to wipe out a big portion of the world and God unleashed His plan to draw us closer to Him. That will be the only thing that brings us peace.

Yet, we search for peace in so many things other than God. One of the biggest things we turn to is food. We find ourselves eating outside of the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves. We find ourselves stress eating. In this episode, I talk about four things that will help you get back on track or stay on track with your healthy lifestyle change plan.

More information about this is available in my free course #KickSugar. Go here to get immediate access: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/KickSugar. We will be opening the doors for my one-of-a-kind coaching group, Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy soon. There will be a few changes I’ll be announcing to help more people join, so get on the waitlist to get that information first. Go here: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers-christian-weight-loss-academy/