Time Minus Nine

This week has been a really really hard week. A LOT harder emotionally than I anticipated. I've been really really emotional, and my tolerance level for anything has gone right down into my boots. I've been swinging wildly from feeling ok to feeling really really desperate and I can only put it down to my surgery getting closer and closer.

Every day I feel like I climb Everest, only to know there's a new Everest to climb the next day - and the next day - and the next. After a while, its exhausting! Every single day I am inundated with thoughts and cravings for things I just can't have, and it scares me because this is what my life is going to be after the surgery too - always craving what I can't have. I keep wondering whether I am just too messed up to have this surgery - but then I think to myself that this is just part of the process that I have to go through, to change these thought patterns and of course that's not going to happen overnight after a life of relying upon food to make me happy.

I have to believe that I can do this. I have to believe that there's a better life out there for me. And most of all, I have to believe that I can change and rise above the bull!@#$ that my father put on my shoulders. This is the time for me to show that I'm more than my history.

And so I keep telling myself that - every time a craving hits, every time my mind wanders to what real food would taste like, every time I mourn the loss of being able to eat what I like, when I like, that this is my one shot. It's not just 6 grand out of my pocket, its not just appointments and blood tests and pain and self control - its the fight of my life. If I dont do this, my life will be a short one, a sad one, and one half lived. I cannot possibly live with myself if there was something I could do to prevent reaching my Lord Jesus and having to justify living a half life and not fulfilling the purpose He has for me.

And so today I dutifully get up, take my optifast, eat my vegetables and try desperately not to think of the food I was once permitted to have. I have a limited amount of patience and tolerance right now, but I can live with that :) Because I know I WILL live - a long long time :)