[Oh My God, E-Pop; to listen see embedded link at the end of the post]

Prepare yourselves for a doozie... this one's gonna be an epic post.

First, the obvious-- a new theme.  As you'll read later, things are getting a fresh start in my life so I figured Foode Fight could use some changes.  It's not merely a makeover- I totally redid stuff,  like tabbed links at the top.  Some stuff I can't keep due to the limits on the theme and my own lack of CSS experience, but I think it's freakin' awesome!  Hopefully you do, too.  I plan to eventually add some missing stuff back, like before pics (you can still visit the original post) but I've wanted to create a slideshow for that anyway so it can wait a bit :)  That said, if there was a feature you loved that's gone, let me know... the only one I don't think I'll put back intentionally is the top commenters.  Hopefully that doesn't offend anyone, I just don't think it's necessary.

Ok... into the meat.  Tonight I went to church for only the third time this entire summer.  When I was on bedrest throughout all of June it made sense.  Anything since then, however, has mostly just been me being lame.  I have had real pain, but here's the rub: if I can go to an American Idols concert on Saturday then there's no reason I can't be at church on Sunday (that happened in mid-July).  Instead of using the massive amounts of free time to get closer to Jesus I ended up sacrificing most of it to my idols.

Tonight's sermon was from chapter 2 of the book of Jonah.  Pastor Mark is in Australia, on vacation with his family before a huge preaching tour (well, huge as in tens of thousands are expected to hear him preach 30 sermons in 11 days... nuts but totally awesome), so the lead worship pastor, Tim Smith, preached.  His main focus was on the issue of idolatry that led Jonah to flee God in the first place.

The basic premise of Jonah, for those unaware, is this: he was a prophet, enjoying a place of status among the Israelites near modern-day Tel-Aviv.  God said to go to Nineveh, an Assyrian city near modern-day Mosul, Iraq.  Jonah went the complete opposite direction, sailing as far away as he could get, toward Tarshish which was in modern-day Spain.  A huge storm hit, he was tossed overboard, a giant fish swallowed him, and after 3 days/3 nights it spit him up on dry land and he went to Nineveh, preached a half-hearted sermon, saw a huge revival happen, and the story ends with him basically a bitter complainer.  Not exactly a hero... that said, the level of detail in the book leads most theologians to believe that either he wrote it or spoke it first hand to the writer, and that he eventually repented which was what allowed him to share his story in a way that gave glory to God and showed how pathetic he was... someone still steeped in pride would likely struggle to be so honest about their own depravity.

A few things really hit me in the sermon, but the main one was this: I am an idolator who desperately needs Jesus Christ.  An idol is anything that I worship instead of Jesus; a good definition Pastor Tim gave is from (I think) Tim Keller, pastor of what sounds like an awesome church in Manhattan.  It's this: an idol is a good thing that becomes ultimate.  To clarify idols are (very, very) bad.  But a good thing (say, food) that becomes ultimate, consuming, and becomes an object of worship is an idol.  Obviously, I idolize food.  But I think that my primary idol is me.

I am consumed with myself.  Since I haven't worked in upwards of 10 weeks I have had almost no daily obligations.  My typical day is this:

• Get up when I want to.
  
• Spend time on the computer, doing whatever I want.  Mostly Facebook (yeah, it's a noun and a verb now, like Google).
  
• Read my Bible and pray if I want to... most days I don't.
  
• Eat whatever I want, as much as I want, when I want, and more if I want to.
  
• Watch whatever I want to on TV, for as long as I want.
  
• If I want to, shower.  If not, don't.
  
• Be loving toward my husband if I want to.  Be grouchy and argumentative if I want to.
  
• Blog if I want to.  Otherwise, don't.
  
• Make what I want for dinner, as much as I want, when I want to.
  
• Do whatever I want for as long as I want and go to bed as late as I want even though I know it bothers my husband that I force him to go to bed alone.
  

Surely you see the pattern here.  I am not exaggerating- literally all day every day is completely determined by whatever I want, and it has been all summer... even before it was pretty much this, only I went to work 40 hours a week so my cater-to-me time was limited, which just made me even more selfish with "my" time whenever I wasn't at work.  There is literally no discipline, spiritually, physically, emotionally... I am just nice enough to others to feed my own needs for companionship and love.  Sure, I love other people and care about them... but I am entirely consumed with me.

God wasn't subtle on this one.  As Pastor Tim was getting to this point of idolatry I was sitting there thinking these utterly self-centered thoughts.

I am the fattest person in this room of probably a thousand people.  Everyone around me is probably so painfully aware that I am in front of them.  Idols?  Yeah, everyone knows my idol.  It's right out there, all 350 pounds of evidence.  I wonder if I look any less fat if I put my arms to the side, since fat people always cross their arms over the top of their bloated stomach... hmmm, nope, they just balloon out farther when off to the side.  Oh, how sweet that Jason just put his arm around me!  I hope that people can see his wedding ring, so they know he actually married me and that even fat people get to be in love... they probably wonder what he sees in me... maybe I'll flash my ring, because the rock is sizable enough to show he loves me more than a little... ok, that's stupid.  Hmmm, my ring is tighter than ever and my left hand kind of hurts.  I wonder if we should just get a 99 cent item or two for dinner when we get Frosty's since we'll be too tired to cook and it will be late... my right foot really hurts.  Man.  I'd like a baked potato... I think those are a dollar at Wendy's.  I wonder I can get it with cheese sauce and broccoli there... that sounds good.  Maybe I should try to make a cheese sauce at home... a rue is just equal parts butter and flour, at least I think it is, but then you add cheese and we only have slices and I'd have to cut them and they'd likely stick together.  Meh.  I dunno.   Idols... I wonder what my deepest idols are.  Jesus help me to stop thinking about me so much.  I can't focus... making a cheese sauce couldn't be too hard and we have potatoes... I guess I'll see what Jason says... we could barely afford it anyway, I bet.  Idols... I idolize food, and that's obvious.  I wonder if people to the side of me can see how flat my profile is.  How embarrassing.  I hate how uncomfortable these chairs are for my fatness.  I wonder if my shirt is pulled up in the back and if my skin is showing... I am sure no one behind me wants to see my rolls forcing themselves out the gap between the seat and the back... 

Seriously, at least the first half of the sermon, probably a good 30 minutes, was spent like that.  I heard bits and pieces but mostly just constantly worried about myself.  What others think.  What I think.  So when Pastor Tim started hitting the points home, hard, I didn't have to wonder what my primary idol is.  I am a good thing, a creation of God, a daughter of the King.  But I'm not supposed to be ultimate.  Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, His Word, and what He wanted to speak to me I was only able to think about me.  It's rather sickening.

I could say more, but I'll get to the meat here: I need discipline in my life.  I choose to worship idols- yes, I have a sin nature, but my sin nature doesn't force me to sacrifice (my time, talents, money, worship) to idols.  Satan doesn't make me, demons don't make me, my childhood doesn't make me... yes, I am tempted with lies from Satan / demons / my sin nature, whatever, but I choose who/what I worship. It's all me, and I cannot displace the blame.

It's absolutely disgusting that I put my faith and hope in created things.  Jeremiah 44 goes on at length about how utterly ridiculous it is to worship idols, and the hardest hitting verse there says that the person looking for sustenance and satisfaction in idols "feeds on ashes" for "(her) deluded (heart) has led her astray".  That's me.  I think I'm helping myself by worshiping me, but all it has gotten me is insecurity in relationships and habits that have me in a  350 pound body as I kill myself.

One thing that hit me yesterday, as a result of a book that I have been reading, is that much of my blog is written in a passive tense.  It's first person narrative, but it's a lot of "haves" and "did" and very short on the "am".  Were it a college paper I'd be so full of red ink for all of the passivity that I'd be long-flunked out of the class.  To an extent, it's just my style.  But... it doesn't sit well with me, that so little is concrete.

This brings me to confession time: I've been reading a few other weight loss blogs and one is a woman who has been a rock star and gone from like 280 to 215 in a year.  She's so solid, always eating well... but as of late she's been bingeing like it's her Olympic sport.  I realized that this is somehow comforting to me, that even the best fail.  It makes my failure (be it primarily for lack of trying) so much more palatable, expected, even.  Her weight gain makes my lack of loss feel better.  I don't really want her to fail... but, for now, I can keep on not changing because if she can backslide that far, this woman who has been so strong for so long, then why would I even bother?

I don't want to change.  It's too hard.  I hate exercise and I can't seem to stop making poor choices re: food. So I say I want to change, but really... I just want to want to change, without having to do any work.  Thus, the highs and lows on here... I won't post links, but if you've been reading for any length of time you know that a bad week almost always follows a good week, and that bad week stretches out for a few weeks until I suddenly realize that I suck and I make a commitment to recommit.  And I do ok for a day, maybe a week, and then the cycle begins again and I feel even more foolish the next time I commit to recommitting so I make it a point to say that this time- well,  THIS time it's real!  I'm always infinitely wiser than I was last month or last week or yesterday and believe you me, I'm changing!  Then, I slack off and we start all over.

I get entirely too worked up about making commitments and not keeping them.  No one- myself at the top of the list- who blogs about this stuff (weight loss, sin, whatever) wants to be that chick who never changes.  What's the point?  Seriously- how long will you keep reading if all I ever do is have huge epiphanies that will change my life and then the next week I'm telling you about last night's binge and purge?  I'm so desperate to not be that person, the non-committal dedicated weight loss blogger, that I try to convince you all that something changed... and then I stay the same, repeat the cycle.

Tonight's sermon brings clarity.  I am worshiping me.  I overeat / am lazy / have no discipline (plus a myriad other sins).  I know the Bible truth, that because Jesus Christ has saved me I am sealed with the Holy Spirit and have all of the power of the Trinity to rely on.  But instead I cling to excuses that allow me to forfeit all of that power; blaming my sin nature is a big one.  Yes, I am a sinner.  But I also am indwelt with the Holy Spirit and have every weapon at my disposal to flee temptation and overcome sin.  I have two choices- to obey my sin nature or to obey Jesus Christ.  As I said earlier, I choose.  No one forces me either way.  It's all me.  And it's not like the two opposing forces are of equal stature and strength-- the power of the living God is infinitely more powerful.

As Pastor Tim put it, it's like a guy in the military with the most amazing weapons and armor in the world that literally make him invincible... and then he strips them off and goes out to battle, laying himself splayed naked across the ground and hoping to overcome the enemy.  The opposition, of course, plows over the guy every single time they go out to battle.  Sounds ridiculous, right?  Who would do that?

Pick me.  I do this- I try to battle sin without relying on Jesus Christ, without spending time in His word, and without believing that the same Holy Spirit that kept Him perfect and without sin actually has the power to do the same in me.  The crux is that I never will be perfect and will still at times give into the enemy... but that is a horrible reason to keep going out to fight the enemy naked and defenseless.  I may suffer some blows later so I might as well just let myself get totally beat up now.  Because that makes sense.

I have long feared making a real commitment to change.  I have said I would change, yes, but in my heart I was already certain I'd fail.  I just tried really hard to make you all believe in me because maybe then I could convince myself.  I slapped Jesus' name on a lot of stuff when my surrender to Him has been nominal at best.  I have chosen again and again to revert to the altar of self when confronted with the choice between discipline and comfort.  Hate this fat body and neurotic personality as I may, it's always been so much easier to just keep being who and how I've always been.

No more.  The Tami that I worship must be cut off from all nutrients, because she must die, and a Tami who is disciplined and surrendered to Jesus must be continually nourished so that she can grow and live.  With the power of the Holy Spirit I must be the one to make this choice.  I do make this choice.  I spent a long time on my knees at church, praying to and meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that I never have before, and I know that this is it.  I must choose Jesus.  No more excuses, no more regression.

Interestingly enough, It Ends Tonight (The All-American Rejects) just came on my iTunes.  Be it 5:30 in the morning, it is night enough for me since I haven't gone to sleep.  When darkness turns to light, it ends tonight.

I don't have much of an opportunity to sin between now and when I go to sleep.  I am not going to eat and it doesn't make sense to do the stuff that I need to do to be disciplined this late, save for blog about it.  But when I wake up tomorrow, my life is going to be different.  I will clean this apartment, I will give myself time limits for things like computer / TV, I will take care of life stuffs that I put off constantly (like bills), I will spend quality time with Jesus in prayer and in His word (not just reading my Bible to feel good about being able to check it off of my obligatory list of what I should do to be a good Christian), and I will be disciplined and prayerful about every single bite of food that goes into my mouth.

I won't pretend I am not afraid to fail.  I am.  I remember saying things about repentance and having what I thought were spiritual Ebenezer stones (monumental changes in my life) and telling you about them before.  And I failed.  That is exactly why I must change now, and with full reliance on the Holy Spirit to get it done.  True repentance brings life change, so though I tried before, I can't say it was a genuine turning of my face toward God and my back to sin.  It was various degrees of a quasi-turn, where I kept the sin in my peripheral vision and eventually went back to it.

True repentance requires discipline, so there are a few ways I will make myself accountable.  First, you might have noticed that one of the tabs at the top is for a Foode Log; that is where I am going to start posting what I eat and I'm going to do my best to give the full on account, replete with calories/fat grams/protein/fiber, etc.  I'm pretty sure that I've seen someone else who has a tool that let's them enter stuff into a table, so I will try to update this daily, maybe even mid-day, whatever makes sense.  Additionally, I am going to join LA Fitness in September, barring any financial barriers, so I can start swimming and get myself exercising (my foot and back simply cannot handle any impact... I'll write more about this in a later post because, to be frank, I am tired.) so I'll write about exercise there, too.  Maybe even daily schedules of how I plan to spend my time and if I stuck to it... not every day, but often enough to track whether I'm staying disciplined or not.  Those who are hard-core Foode Fight Fans can keep up with me there.

Additionally, there is a tab for Spiritual Foode; there I will specifically write about what I am reading in Scripture and what Jesus is teaching me.  Just as I'll likely mention food(e)s I eat, exercise I did, and  whether I stayed disciplined with my time here on the main blog I'll still have a whole lotta Jesus talk up on here-- would you have it any other way?  Maybe some of you would :)  Foode Fight itself won't really change, I'm mainly just adding stuff to keep me in line and those of you more inclined to want to know what Jesus is teaching me can keep closer tabs when you so choose.

I am making this choice to surrender to Christ and see true life change for myself, for my husband and my family, and ultimately for Jesus Christ.  I maintain that even if no one came here or left a solitary comment I would keep writing and trudging on.  That said, you all have full license to call me out on things.  If I don't post my foode log for a few days, get on my case.  Don't accept excuses.  If it's clear that I'm slipping back into Tami worship at the temple of fatty food and Facebook (yep, alliterated on purpose), tell me that I'm a flat out hypocrite slandering the name of Jesus Christ.  Ultimately it's on my head, but don't worry about being nice.  We're all far too nice as we watch the people we love speeding toward an eternity in hell.  I choose to change.  I must change.

With that, I'm tired.  It's going to be hard to have a productive day since I'm going to bed at 6:20 am. But this needed to be written, this morning tonight before I have to chance to take it all back.  I can't remain paralyzed by fear of failure... my odds for success get a hell of a lot higher when I actually start changing.

I apologize in advance for the utterly (tacky?) cliche phrase I am about to type; I'm so tired that my teeth are chattering (I'm not even cold) and I can't think of anything more original:

Today I am waking up to the first day of the rest of my life.

Listen to the song embedded below... it starts slow but you won't regret it.

I love you all, and good night.  You won't recognize me tomorrow.

[I just realized something-- I cannot believe the utter awesomeness that my next post as the changed me will be #100; sure, it's just a number, but it's still pretty freaking cool, and absolutely unintentional on my part.  Also, forgive the (presumably) high number of typos.  I've been typing insanely fast so I can just get it all out and go to sleep.  I'll edit tomorrow and alert you if I make changes other than editing typos]