Weaknesses

Thank you to everyone who commented or reached out to me yesterday.  It really helped and reminded me that even though I do not have people around here that know what I am going through, there are others online that I can reach out to for help and support.  One of the things that was recommended was for me to watch a mini series of short videos that was put out by my church on addiction.  There were 12 videos, each one talking about a step in the addiction recovery program and each one had a story from a different person.  Almost every single video was about a drug addiction and listening to these people's stories and the struggles they went through and the fight they went through to overcome their addictions really touched me.  I realized that my trial could be a lot worse.  When I binge on sugar I don't like the person I become.  I become cranky, mean, short tempered, tired, lethargic, and of course bloated and sick and I get bad headaches and stomach aches.  I don't like that person.  Being on sugar changes the way I act, albeit in a smaller way than being addicted to drugs. 

While I haven't eaten any candy or desserts over the past few days I have eaten chocolate chip pancakes and some pumpkin spice popcorn.  For now it seems, I've been able to regain some mental clarity.  Sometimes all you need to do is talk about your problems.  To reach out to others and feel like you are not alone.  I've been praying very hard as well for strength, for help.  Several of the videos talked about offering up your weaknesses and offering up your addictions to God and letting him take them from you.  Surrendering yourself to his will, confessing you have a problem and that you cannot do this on your own.  The idea of offering up my addictions was a new idea to me.  The idea of saying "here is this problem I have, please take this and give me the strength to overcome."  But not just offering up your weaknesses, but also asking for the very desire for that thing to be taken away.  It doesn't mean that you won't be tempted, after all every time you take a step towards God and towards righteousness, Satan doubles his efforts to drag you back down.  But you will be given strength to overcome Satan, you will be given strength to overcome weaknesses.  After all we are promised in the scriptures that God can make weak things strong.