What To Do?

Tonight I have been peeling back more layers.  There are regrets I am still carrying from my young adulthood.  All the hopes and dreams I had for myself that were never realized, some other decisions I made that I deeply regret, and what I now see is that I have never really forgiven myself for any of it.  God has.  Why can't I forgive myself?  This is part of my weight issue.  I don't love myself very much sometimes and so I take it out on my body.  And as I started to reminisce tonight about some "old stuff", I wanted to eat.  Anything and everything.  I opted for some cantaloupe, but at the first sign of discomfort I wanted food like a crack addict needed her fix so she does not go through withdrawal. 

I always wear a smile so people do not know I am not happy.  But weight on the outside is the physical manifestation of a different kind of weight, spiritual and emotional weight, pressing on the inside, whether it is lying dormant or rearing its ugly head.  So this is going to be the real challenge, my friends.  To let all of that go once and for all.  Once the weight has been lifted on the inside, the weight will begin to roll off on the outside.  It is going to take dying to self daily.  Multiple times daily.  Forgiving myself for being too much of a coward to stand up for what I wanted in my young adulthood.  Forgiving myself for my actions that came out of some decisions that I did make in my young adulthood.  Realizing no matter how miserable I make myself, I cannot change the past.  I can, however, effect the future.  Of my life in Christ, to be sure.  That is really the only life that matters.  And the Christ-lives of my children.  This is the stuff true success is made of.  My prayer is that I can become a role model for my own daughters so they do not go through this lifelong battle like I did.  Most of my yoyo weight behaviors I learned from my mama, and she learned them from her mama.  But you know what?  The cycle ends with me.  The future women in my family will not have this struggle.  Not if I have anything to do with it.  This I know for a fact - I am learning as I continually peel back the layers on my internal onion and uncover another mess, I will give my younger self a hug, tell her it is okay, that she did the best she could with what she had to work with, and then ask God to forgive me and turn it over to Him, knowing he will scatter it as far as the East is from the West.  PRAISE GOD!