Pondering, Thinking, Dreaming

I've been doing a lot of soul searching lately. I've continued to read the book Women Food and God. I came upon one of the very last chapters and it just spoke to my soul! Here is another expert from that book:

It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels.

This too was very powerful to me:

The most challenging part of any system that addresses weight-related issues is that unless it also addressed the part of you that wants something you can't name- the heart of your heart, not the size of your thighs- it wont' work. We don't want to be thin because thinness is inherently life-affirming or lovable or healthy. If this were true, there would be no tribes in Africa in which women are fat and regal and long-lived. There would be no history of matriarchies in which women's fecundity and sheer physical abundance were worshiped. We want to be thin because thinness is the purported currency of happiness and peace and contentment in our time. And although that currency is a lie-the tabloids are filled with miserable skinny celebrities- most systems of weight loss fail because they don't live up to their promise: weight loss does not make people happy. Or peaceful. Or content. Being thin does not address the emptiness that has no shape or weight or name. Even a wildly successful diet is a colossal failure because inside the new body is the same sinking heart. Spiritual hunger can never be solved on the physical level.

I knew that even if I were to lose weight, if I didn't change something on the inside I would still be unhappy. In pondering this principle I wondered what it is that I am trying to mask when I eat. What emotion am I afraid of? What feelings drive me to eat myself into a numbness? The other day I figured it out.

For several several months now I've been doing everything the church has asked me to do. I have been reading the scriptures(even in the summer) every morning with my kids, having morning and evening prayers. I even started kneeling down individually with my kids to help them with their own prayers. We have FHE regularly, I attend the Temple once a month and I've even started studying my scriptures on a daily personal level. So why is it, through all of that hard work that my children still fight? It's at this point that I feel like a complete failure as a Mother. That's the feeling I'm trying to mask. Failure, utter and complete. Even before all my efforts, I feel like this emotion is what I've been trying to avoid and hide.

This is where satan is trying to tear me down. This is where he inserts lies. This is where I need to start inserting truths and hope. My children are still children. They will still fight. No matter how many proper principles I teach them. They still have their agency to choose to fight. Just like in Heaven, a 1/3 of the host of God's spirits chose to follow Lucifer in His presence. Does that make God a bad Father? NO!!!! Does my children fighting make me a bad mother? NO!

This is where enduring to the end makes all the difference. I need to keep on keeping on. Fighting the good fight. Keep my chin held high.

Of course I want to be thinner. A dream of mine is to be a size 12. But I feel to get to that number I have to change myself through love. I can no longer force myself to eat the way I hate. Learning to love and accept myself for the person I entered this Earth to be. Learning that it's okay to understand what my talents are, to use them and to share them. In so doing I'm not being prideful, boastful or egotistical. Telling myself that I am a good mother is also okay to do. Despite of the fighting and the constant bickering. If I remember correctly, I too fought as a child. In the end, I still love my parents and my siblings. Once I start believing the truth, I will start treating myself with love and respect.