N is for No, Never Again ~ by Brenda J. Wood

Many years ago, author Kimberley Payne kindly interviewed me about gluttony and with her permission, I share part of it here. I’ve included my truth as a bulimic. 

I am an internationally known motivational speaker, a former TV and radio hostess, author of more than fifty books, but I am also a recovered bulimic. 

The dictionary says gluttony is an excess in eating, filling beyond sufficiency. And just plain old greedy. Almost every one of us falls into that sin at one time or another. We go to fancy buffets and think, “Look at those fat people They’re such gluttons.”  But then there’s a guy who weighs one hundred and ten pounds, his plate piled high and refilled eight times. He, too, is a glutton. Gluttony has nothing to do with how full we feel. We use food like other people use drugs or alcohol.  It prevents us from facing pain we can’t deal with. In my case it was childhood abuse.

God says we have self-control. In 2 Timothy 1:7 says, he did not give us a spirit of timidity but of power and love and a common well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.

We feel we’re not good enough and less than. And we act like it and then eat worse than we did before. Until we understand how much God loves us, we will struggle with all sin.

Thank God, bulimia no longer controls me. It’s good to look back once in a while. How about you? What is your never ever again?

ME: My body is blubber, my dieting weak. I’ll never be thin like that size 10 I seek.

Oh God how can you love me? I’m concerned about self. 

I’m disgusting the way I gobble food off the shelf.”

GOD: “No, you don’t understand child. My son died for you. 

He demonstrated a love that is beyond self and true.”

ME: “What’s that you say God? Jesus died for me? But you don’t understand 

I’m not up to much. I fail, and fall and falter and such. You surely don’t want me.

I’m worthless.  I sin. I’m human. I’m weak. I’m not even thin.”

GOD: “No, you don’t understand child. You’re not worthless to me.

I give you the reason to live and to be.”

ME: “Look up to you and know my own worth? You love me that much no matter my girth? 

Why God is it possible that you died for me but now I see. Now I see, now I see.”

I documented my recovery in Meeting Myself, snippets from a binging and bulging mind. The podcast is no longer available, but the full interview is available by contacting kimberleyjpayne@gmail.com

 

Brenda J. Wood has authored more than fifty books. She is a seasoned motivational speaker, who declares the Word of God with wisdom, humour, and common sense.