Momentary Re-lapse of Judgment

January has been a particularly hard month for my family. My step-mother, paternal grandfather, maternal grandmother, and step-grandmother have all been hospitalized this month for a variety of conditions. Thankfully, my step-mother and maternal grandmother have been released from the hospital and are recovering well. My step-grandmother has been moved to a research hospital for more extensive medical attention, but showing great signs of promise. However, on Saturday, January 11, 2014 my paternal grandfather went home to be with the Lord. To say the least, our family has been in need of prayer this month and still requires a great deal of prayer to deliver us through the rest of this trying time. During this period of time I had the darkest day of my weight-loss journey which left a stain of shame and guilt on my life that I have had to learn to overcome.

Through God’s grace I have been able to maneuver through countless weddings, my birthday, Halloween (my favorite holiday), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s successfully and have been given many opportunities to share what I was being taught about my journey and how I had planned to have success throughout all of these events. However, something I could have never planned for, and that would teach me that I still had plenty of room to grow, was the death of my grandfather. I had just completed a very successful workout with my personal trainer, Ben, and was headed home for the evening, thoughts of healthy dinner options waltzing around in my mind. As I drove home, I listened to the messages that had been left on my phone during my work-out and found an unusual one from my cousin’s wife. She explained that our grandfather had been found unconscious, had been taken to the hospital, and would not “make-it.”  I originally misunderstood this message to mean that my grandfather had already passed away. I unashamedly broke-down into the “ugly cry” and became rather inconsolable for what I can only hope lasted no longer than thirty minutes time. Ashamedly, however, I had my first relapse in six months that evening. I whipped my car into the McDonald’s drive-thru and ordered myself the eight-piece chicken nuggets, fries, and a coke. When I received that McDonald’s bag I held it in my arms much like Smigol did his “precious” in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Four chicken nuggets, a handful of fries, and about a half a coke later I snapped back to reality and slowly felt the sting and pain of the guilt and shame which come with a relapse. I thought to myself, “Nothing I eat will truly soothe my pain. In fact, it will only make me feel even worse than I already do. Nor will it bring my grandfather back.” I realized that I was better than this and was definitely stronger than this, too! Having pulled myself together I realized after reviewing the message again that he was unconscious, but still alive at the moment and I wished to be by his side so I promptly deposited the fast-food in the closest trash receptacle and sped towards my hometown to see him.

The lesson I wish to impart with this blog post is this: Sometimes life throws us legitimate curveballs and it is in those moments you get to see what you are truly made of. Life taught me that I am still a food addict and during a time of grief I turned once more to my drug of choice. However, the silver lining is that I stopped short and corrected my behavior once I realized the damage that I was doing to myself; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. To me, I consider it a triumph that I stopped short of finishing the fast-food meal and did not turn to a Chinese buffet as two personal triumphs, but I still desire to handle life’s curveballs in a better manner. Please pray for me and my journey, that God will continue to teach me, grow me, and help guide me through this journey – making me strong and wise through himself. Thank you all for coming along on this journey with me and as of the writing of this post, I have gotten rid of a total of 133 pounds.