Joy in Overcoming: Finding Value Beyond the Scale

Ever found yourself squirming in the doctor's office chair, feeling like every inch of you is under a microscope? That's where Christina found herself recently, and let me tell you, it sparked a cascade of self-reflection and a quest for deeper understanding. Our latest episode is a candid heart-to-heart about the intersection of health, self-worth, and our walk with Christ. We unravel the tangle of emotions that doctor's visits can provoke, confronting the discomfort head-on and embracing the transformative power of mind renewal. 

Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of body image and self-worth, all stirred up by the seemingly mundane act of stepping onto (sitting in? 😜) a scale. Christina shares her personal story, touching on everything from the emotional fallout of weight gain to the resilience required to realign with God's truth. We delve into the importance of not letting these moments define us and finding our value beyond the physical.

Wrapping up, we look back with a light-hearted touch at the lessons learned from these poignant experiences. Our tales aim to be a beacon of hope and guidance, affirming your worth and the joy of overcoming life's little trials. So, settle in and join us for a journey that promises laughter, revelation, and a dose of Godly wisdom. And remember, you are far more than a number on a scale.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hi, welcome to our podcast Revelation Within on the Go. I'm Heidi Bilesma-Epperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the Revelation Within ministry.

Speaker 2: 0:12

And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within. We are so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within on the Go.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Oh y'all, we've got a fun episode for you. We are going to talk about the dreaded doctor's appointment.

Speaker 2: 0:42

No, not the doctor's appointment.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 0:47

Is there anything worse? No, nothing.

Speaker 1: 0:50

I had a doctor who I referred to as Dragon Lady, because the way she would handle yeah, especially the weight issue was when my weight was fluctuating a lot. When hasn't my weight fluctuated a lot? So it's like I don't get on a scale. I don't know what it was, but there, he always wants you on a scale, don't they? So tell us. I don't even know if it has to do with a scale. Your story doesn't have to.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Well, it's kind of. I'm kind of embarrassed to share it. I mean, I'm a coach after all.

Speaker 1: 1:20

Well, bring it into the light, girlfriend. That's where shame cannot exist. It runs like cockroaches when the light is turned on.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Yes, well, and as you all know, we cannot be perfect this side of heaven, and so Heidi and I are on this journey, just like all of you, all the time.

Speaker 1: 1:41

We're constantly proving that you can't be perfect.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Yes, yes, I'm proving it all the time. One of the things that draws me to people is when they tell their stories, and so what I'm hoping is that this might encourage someone out there for me to tell my embarrassing doctor's appointment story. Yay, yes, and I was going to say is it as bad as the dressing rooms in the department store with those horrible lights and mirrors? I think it's worse. I think the doctor's office is worse.

Speaker 1: 2:14

I agree, because there's another person there with you, the doctor or the assistant or somebody.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Yes, I know, okay, okay. So many of you know that I have chronic Lyme disease and so I have a special doctor in Denver that I go to several times a year and I've been going to him for many years, so I don't have any issue with that. Going to him has become old hat. It's very easy for the most part. Sometimes I am feeling anxious about my treatment and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 2:47

But as far as a scale or any kind of mention of how I'm doing with my weight or anything like that, that's really non-existent with this doctor I have in Denver, years ago I started saying I don't use a scale. I weigh the same, about the same, and they always just put the same, and I know his assistant so well now we're like old friends. She doesn't even ask me and so I love that, and so I haven't been to kind of a regular doctor in a while, and for a while it was years, which I'm not saying that's good or anything. I'm just saying that's how it is because I go to the doctor up in Denver so often. That's about an hour away. But I thought I might have a case of shingles and it turns out that I did and I felt like I needed to know if it was shingles or not. So about a week ago I went OK, so I'm going to skip, and then I'm going to go back. So I'm going to skip to yesterday. So yesterday, I'm thinking what is going on with me?

Speaker 2: 3:59

This was after the doctor's appointment, right, yeah, so the doctor's appointment was a week ago, so I'm going to fast forward to yesterday and then I'm going to go back. Ok, so yesterday I am thinking something has changed with me, something is going on. I am so discontent, I am so uncomfortable in my own skin and I am so drawn to food I just want to eat all day. That's what I was thinking and I thought what is going on with me?

Speaker 1: 4:32

This is not my normal, it's not At first of all, I just have to say before you keep going this is awesome. I love your process that something was off and, rather than just get angry about it or throw up cares to the wind, you stopped and looked at what is going on with me. That is one of the best questions we can ask. Even if we're midway through a binge, we can ask that what is going on with me? And there's no condemnation in asking that question. You can invite God to show you what's going on with me. What is moving me to feel like I need to eat right now?

Speaker 2: 5:06

So way to go. High five for that. High five, thanks, heidi. Heidi is my forever coach. She was my official coach almost 10 years ago when we started. She's my coach forever.

Speaker 2: 5:21

So, yeah, that's how I was feeling. I was feeling like this does not feel like me. I don't like this. I'm very uncomfortable, this is not OK. I did.

Speaker 2: 5:32

I went to the Lord and I asked him and at first I didn't really get an answer. Kept going with my day, asked him again later. I said, lord, it's worse now. It's worse. I just want to eat everything. And what is going on with me? And why am I keep looking in the mirror and why am I uncomfortable in my own skin? What is going on? I've dealt with all this stuff already. Ok, so that's how I was feeling yesterday. So let's go back to the doctor's appointment now. On the way in, I mean, I even remember how I felt on the way in. I was like. I was like I'm OK, you know, totally comfortable in my own skin, if we're going to kind of look at comparison. I was feeling totally fine about my body, about, you know, food and eating. Everything was kind of normal, peaceful, not perfect, but just fine, and I wasn't thinking, oh, I don't want to go in, and oh, this and that I wasn't. I didn't have any of those thoughts.

Speaker 1: 6:37

And you weren't dreading being weighed or anything like that.

Speaker 2: 6:40

I had a plan for that I had a plan and the plan fell apart. So I'll tell you that's part of the story. Okay, I had a plan for that and so I thought I'm good to go. I'm going to do what I do at my other doctor's office and it's not going to be an issue that. That was my plan and so I'm walking in. There was this wonderful guy at the reception. He and I are joking around. I love this guy. It was like this was great, it was fine, and I was just going to have this doctor who I really don't know she's new to me look and see if I had shingles, that's the whole thing. And then I was just going to get up and leave and you know, see what her opinion was and that kind of thing. I was not even concerned, I just went. Okay, so I get in there and there's this crazy looking big chair and you're supposed to sit in it and it's going to lift up and weigh you, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Have you ever seen that before.

Speaker 2: 7:44

Heidi.

Speaker 1: 7:44

No, no, oh my gosh what is this?

Speaker 2: 7:48

I'm thinking there's going to be a scale that you step on, like all the other scales I've ever seen in my life, and so I didn't know that. It was just kind of a big, strange looking chair. So I've got my boots on it was a cold day I've got my jacket on, I've got a lot of clothes on and I'm not thinking about anything like that. So I'm sitting on this chair and the assistant comes in and says don't be surprised, the chair is going to lift up and weigh you.

Speaker 1: 8:19

And you sat in it not knowing that's what was going to happen.

Speaker 2: 8:22

No, I didn't know and I thought what this is a scale.

Speaker 1: 8:30

I have to just say I would feel massively betrayed by whoever invited me to sit there, because you don't set me up to be weighed and pretend it's not what's happening.

Speaker 2: 8:41

Well, I don't know if she was pretending, she probably just assumed that I knew somehow. I have never seen this was so strange, this big weird chair, and later you know you can like the chair can go back to turn into like one of those examination tables, kind of seriously.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Yeah, it was weird, okay. So I'm sitting here and I'm like speechless, like what? My whole plan just fell apart. I was going to say I don't use scales and this. You know, I'm like I what? And it just, she just did it. She pushed the button and the chair lifted and I was weighed. So I thought, okay, I'm, I've got this. And I said I don't want to know the weight, I don't use scales, I'm just about the same as I've always been, or as I've been for a long time.

Speaker 1: 9:41

Okay, so wait, let me interject here for just real quick. Why don't you use scales? Somebody listening may not have heard that before, so we'll come back to your story, yeah so I have been, you know, in a dieter my whole adult life, over exerciser.

Speaker 2: 10:00

I have had a very, very unhealthy, really toxic relationship with the scale since I was a teenager and I went back and forth using it, not using it, using it. When I learned how to renew my mind and think my thoughts after the Lord after the Lord rather than after the world I decided you know what, I don't want this anymore and I really felt like God was calling me at the time. My scale had broken. I threw it away. This was 10 years ago. I threw it away and I did not buy a new one, and I've not had a scale in the house since then. I have weighed a couple times at different doctors over the years and at my neighbor's house a couple times, but it has never served me, not once. You know, if I'm up a little bit, I can tell by the way my clothes feel and the way I've been eating.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Yeah, yeah good, yeah, so I've really and I have to admit, you know, some people say they're totally at peace with weighing and I'm just going to admit I'm not, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:07

I'm not. I don't know how anybody could be at peace with something that's tormented them for years, if it has. I mean, I'm the same way I, just I wish that that was an area where I could be free to get on or off. And no, no, no, don't be giving me a chair to sit down in and tell me it's going to weigh me.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Oh my gosh, this was another. It was like that day at the water park. Yes, Tell us about that real quick. Okay, just the short Reader's Digest version. So I had given up the scale I just, you know, mentioned 10 years ago. It broke. I did not buy a new one, and so I was basically eating intuitively between hunger and fullness.

Speaker 1: 11:49

The five intentions of spirit-led eating.

Speaker 2: 11:52

Yes, and giving all of my emotions to the Lord, working things out with Him, that and renewing my mind constantly.

Speaker 2: 12:00

And months had gone by and my mother in law had passed and we were burying her ashes in Wisconsin, and my kids were little and they all wanted to go to a water park, and so we all went to a water park and they begged, me and their dad, to climb up, like 200 steps, this huge slide, so that, you know, we could all just experience this amazing slide, which was a tube slide, and at the very top there was a scale. It's still capitol and I just, I still can't believe this story. I can't believe it, 10 years later, that there was a scale and every single person had to stand on the scale before they went down, and huge red numbers, huge, and if you were too small you would get stuck in the tube because you wouldn't go all the way to the end, and if you were too large it was like you'd blow out the side or something. Charlie in the chocolate factory no, because it was actually a closed tube.

Speaker 1: 13:00

Yeah, you'd blow out the side, You'd break the tube apart. Okay anyway.

Speaker 2: 13:07

So with the end of that story was I was within the range which most people were. I went down the slide and I realized that I had released quite a bit of weight and I hadn't even known or had been focused on it.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Yay, happy ending to that story. Okay, so now we've got to come back to the current story, since that was like a flash from the past.

Speaker 2: 13:32

Yes, so instead of a scale at the water slide, it was this big, weird chair in the doctor's office. Okay, and so I come down on the chair and remember I have not taken my jacket off, my boots, anything. Okay, so I come back down and she's typing on the computer. The screen is away from me and I say I don't want to know the weight, it's not something that I don't use a scale. And so she said, oh, okay, because I was just about to tell you. And so she leaves.

Speaker 2: 14:07

And all of a sudden, seriously, sitting in this big weird weighing chair, I, all these lies are flooding at me and all these thoughts that I used to have all the time to be on. It's like making me tear up to think about it. And I thought, wait a minute, this is not truth. And then I turned to the right. I'm still sitting in this big chair. I turned to the right and there's a mirror, yeah, a big mirror, and I'm looking at myself. And what happened? So I had told you that when I was walking in, I was fine, I was cheerful, I felt comfortable in my own skin. All of a sudden, I'm looking in the mirror and I am so uncomfortable and I see, it's like I'm seeing myself differently, totally differently.

Speaker 1: 14:59

All because of this evil chair.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Yes, well, there's more Okay. So I'm looking in this mirror, I'm sitting in this awful weighing chair with my boots on and my jacket and the doctor walks in and I'm feeling totally uncomfortable in my own skin. The doctor walks in and she says looks like you've gained a few pounds.

Speaker 1: 15:56

That's what she said to you.

Speaker 2: 15:57

first thing, First thing, she says it looks like you've gained a few pounds. And I thought, oh my gosh. And I just it like brought me right back, right back. It's like no time had passed and all the work that I have done within within, now, revelation within and the renewing of my mind, it like it all was gone in that moment. And it wasn't, of course, but that's what it felt like. And she looked at me, like what are you going to say about this? And I just thought I don't know what to say because I was fine before I got here and I was just quiet and she said, okay, well, let's talk about that in a minute, let's go back to why you're here, let's not and say we did, yeah. And so she looked. I had the shingles are on my, on my leg. So she looked at them and we talked about those. And yes, it was shingles, and we talked about that. And and I was secretly hoping that we would never get back to the other topic- yeah, we mission accomplished.

Speaker 1: 17:06

I'm out the door. See you next time.

Speaker 2: 17:08

Nope, nope, nope. And so she said, you know, she started talking about numbers and I thought, oh my gosh, I just felt so not equipped, so not equipped for this, you know, like I had been thrown in the spotlight and I just didn't. Yeah, it was awful. And I thought, oh my gosh, christina, here you are, your revelation within coach. What is your deal?

Speaker 1: 17:34

You're human. You're human and you have been traumatized.

Speaker 2: 17:37

Yes, and so, basically, there was one thing that she said to me and I did not realize that it stuck until yesterday. She said to me you're in menopause and if you exercised 40 minutes a day, you'll be fine. And I was just wanting to get out of there. I just wanted to get out, I wanted to run as fast as I could, and she said please do this blood work on your way out. I want to check your blood sugar. And I said, okay, thank you very much, and I left. I did not get blood work done, I just went to the car and left. Okay, so on the way home, I'm like trying to get myself together and it's like, okay, christina, you know what is true. And I'm like I'm going to renew my mind and I'm going to take this to the Lord. And I did, but it was definitely something that was going to affect me the rest of the week.

Speaker 1: 18:45

Good job going to the Lord first thing. High five for that, christina. High five, thank you.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Anyway. So right after that I had to go get my driver's license renewed. So my mind was on something else completely. I totally got distracted. I went and did that and, by the way, the picture was horrible on the driver's license, which did not help, but it was just my face.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Okay, you have to tell them an updated weight.

Speaker 2: 19:15

Oh yes, that's right. Oh, I didn't even think about that, but of course that was tied in and so I put down. I put down something that was less than what was at the doctor's office. Yeah, I did. I just remembered that. Did they tell you?

Speaker 2: 19:32

at the doctor's office the number. Oh, okay, I forgot that part. Okay, so, as I was getting ready to run out the door still have my boots on, still have my jacket on I'm going to run. As soon as she says we're done, she hands me a paper that has the number on it with my weight and so I can see it, and then she says it out loud and talks about it and the whole thing. Why would they?

Speaker 1: 19:59

do that.

Speaker 2: 20:00

Well, I guess the question is, why wouldn't they be? Because our culture is so focused, the medical world is so focused on these numbers and these charts and the BMI and this and that and this, and that's all you know. There's this huge focus on that, anyway, yeah, so after that, so I was distracted, and then I came home and I had work and I had my husband and my daughter and things happening, my daughter's friends, and the week just kept going. So I didn't really realize how much this had affected me and I decided to kind of, you know, I prayed about it and let it just try to let it go, but it didn't. I did not let go and I didn't realize this until yesterday.

Speaker 2: 20:45

Okay, so the week goes on and I am feeling out of sorts, really unsettled. I'm feeling shaken and I'm thinking it's just because I don't feel well, I have shingles and I'm sick, and you know, I'm just, it'll be all right. And then Heidi and I had this amazing visit planned and it had to be canceled because Heidi and her husband were sick and I thought, okay, you know, it'll be fine, we'll reschedule. But that really shook me too. I was just really sad about that and disappointed. So I'm going along and I'm doing my week and just not feeling very well and I was blaming how I felt about my body and myself on that until yesterday. Now we're back to yesterday again and I had a little bit of time alone and I went back to the Lord again and I just said I'm a mess, what is going on, what am I doing? And then he showed me that for the last six, seven days I have been doing some kind of exercise for 40 minutes every day. I didn't even realize it.

Speaker 1: 22:01

My jaw just fell on the floor.

Speaker 2: 22:03

I didn't even realize it. But here I'm. I have shingles here. I haven't been feeling well and I have been feeling very much driven to go get a walk or do an exercise video in the house or a bike ride or something. And I'm not feeling well. It's too much for my body. No wonder I'm struggling. And so God showed me that.

Speaker 1: 22:32

And no wonder yesterday was a really bad shingles day.

Speaker 2: 22:35

Yes, yes, yes, I know. So very gently and lovingly he started showing me things like. He started shining the light on things like the way I've been eating in the last few days. It has gone back and forth from not eating very much at all, even when I was hungry, to eating way too much, like I've been all messed up in a way that I have not been for a long time. Not this extreme. I felt like it was one extreme. You know the pendulum, one extreme to the other, and then this pressure to exercise that you know. I just have not been in this place for so long and here I did a whole week and didn't even really realize what I was doing. Wow, wow, yeah. So that's, that's kind of. It's like embarrassing, it's like, oh, what am I doing? In a way, it's so good because it reminds me how easily I can slide into believing old lies.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Yeah, what can you do to look and learn with this?

Speaker 2: 23:43

Yes, well, tell me what you mean by look and learn, just in case no one has heard that term before.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Look and learn. In the old days it was called observation and correction. We believe in revelation within that. We're not going to be perfect the sight of heaven but we can learn to fail well or to be imperfect perfectly, by learning from our missteps, our falls, our failures, our, you know stumbles any of that? And so, since this was a big I'm not talking about the weight gain or whatever, I'm talking about the response to it. That was a stumble. Your piece was driven out, it was gone, your confidence was gone and that, in a very real way, is a stumble for you, because I know you well. So what can you do to look at the situation and learn from it? What would God have you do differently the next time you have a strange, mysterious chair that weighs you and your stuff, with a doctor who is clueless and tells you how much you've gained? Oh, my gosh, my gosh.

Speaker 1: 24:54

It's not telling me what you were wearing and the purse you were probably holding and the jacket you were probably wearing yeah, as I was getting ready to run out the door into the snow.

Speaker 2: 25:05

You know, heidi, that I mean. We talk about look and learn. It is gold. Look and learn is gold because it will take any stumble, any Mess up, anything where you feel like you have wasted time or gone backwards in your journey somehow, which is not true. It takes those things and turns them into something very, very valuable, and it's God who does the teaching. This is so, so amazing when I, when I think about this okay, so I get while I'm talking to the Lord about this, I get a text and it is from one of the ladies that I've coached in the past and she says Christina, I've heard you talk about Waiting on the Lord.

Speaker 2: 25:50

She said will you explain to me what that looks like in your life? I thought, oh my gosh, this is totally you, god, because this is exactly exactly what you want me to look at and think about and do, and this is what I've gone away from this whole week. I have not been waiting on the Lord, not in this area, you know. I just kind of went back to the whole dieting mentality. So I thought about that and I Prayed about it and I said, lord, what does it mean to wait on you? And I asked a couple of other people that I coached, just because it was a great question, and I thought I'm gonna get some more wisdom and some from other people. And I realized you know what this is exactly. This is it. This is what I have learned how to do that I love so much. I love waiting on the Lord, I love asking him and listening to my body and just that's it. That's how simple it is, you know. Just waiting and Not having to have a set number of minutes every day where I do this or that, or don't eat these foods or eat these, or Don't have so much or don't have so little. It's just waiting on him and letting him lead me. And Wow, that just blew me away and I realized what had happened.

Speaker 2: 27:16

And I looked back over the whole week and God just showed me. Like I said, he shined the light on what I was doing and why, and I felt so much better After that and there was no condemnation. Like you said, heidi, that's not of God, condemnation is not from him. I did feel shame, but I got rid of that real quick because I thought you know what? This is my journey, my whole life. I am looking and learning and loving it, and so, yeah, I sent the enemy away with that shame as quickly as I could.

Speaker 2: 27:49

There is so much freedom in Just waiting on the Lord and looking to him for what my body, with very Specific issues, needs. That other doctor, she had just met me. She didn't know what my body needed, she couldn't see inside my body like God can, and, of course, my whole focus had switched to myself Rather than the Lord and boy. That's convicting, and conviction, of course, is loving correction from the Lord. It's loving, it's gentle. I, I need not to be afraid of it. In fact, I want to embrace it. And he showed me, your focus went back to where it used to be, christina Mmm, that was that felt pretty bad, didn't it Like?

Speaker 1: 28:39

yes, it felt awful. So, practically speaking, what would you say? The lessons that have come to you out of this are Well.

Speaker 2: 28:47

I know that what I need to do is, if I have another doctor's appointment, I need to prepare. I need to not walk into it with some kind of I don't know Just a being oblivious to what might happen, or that thinking oh, I'm good, I'm good, I need to be ready, and that might look like well. Certainly it would look like inviting God in ahead of time, spending some time before him, spending some time in his truth. What is true about my body, about, you know, things that might happen during the appointment? What is true about how God sees me? What my value is? Is my value in those extra few pounds that showed up on that weird chair scale? You know what is my value and how does God see me?

Speaker 2: 29:39

Yeah, I would need to be have my mind Really renewed before I did that again, and then during I could renew it again. You know there's always an assistant that takes your vitals and then there's the doctor. So during that time, instead of looking at myself in the mirror and just Thinking now you know negative thoughts, right I could have spent that time renewing my mind with God's own thoughts, and then after as well, and then the next day probably too, and the next day and just making sure that I was asking God what, what do you have for me, what are you calling me to? And I'll do that. I'll wait on you, turning my focus back on him.

Speaker 1: 30:24

You sound like you're at peace with what happened in the aftermath and all of that. Is that accurate? I mean, are you feeling pretty okay?

Speaker 2: 30:33

about it all now. Yes, I feel so much better today. I could tell, I could tell the difference the minute I got out of bed. I mean, I'm not feeling very well today because I've still got this shingles thing going on and the Lyme disease Right, so I don't, I don't feel very well, but I have been able to, you know, put that in its place. I, you know, and the emotional piece and the spiritual piece, that is all settled, and so that makes me feel better in every way. So, yeah, I just feel like this huge weight has been Lifted off of me in a way.

Speaker 2: 31:11

You know, at first I was kicking myself because I'm like, seriously, christina, how could you fall into that trap again? But you know what, like you said, heidi, we're just human. We're just human. And what does God have for us? Compassion, kindness, wide open, ever lasting arms. You know, he just wants relationship with me.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Right, absolutely, that's awesome, you know. It just made me think back to the days when my weight was all over the place and I had this female doctor. Not that that matters, but she, yeah, it did in this case, I'm convinced. Anyway, she was one of those runners, the ultra marathoners who run 100 miles at a time, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 31:59

And I had horses. I had just moved to the country and she followed up with me and she said well, since the last time you were here, you've gained. And it was a lot of weight. It was a lot of weight, and then she said you're poor horses.

Speaker 1: 32:18

No, she didn't she really did and I have not been able to shake that out of my head. Of course, back then I dealt with it because I was not yet practicing five intentions of spirit. Let, eating faithfully, I would have been on a diet pretty well, deprivation, I'd say and then was gaining back. So I was in the process of you know what happens after a diet Kind of going nuts, and had not yet started faithfully practicing those keys, those intentions that ultimately made a huge difference for me and do today. But boy did she nail me.

Speaker 1: 32:54

I began to be very aware of, okay, my poor horses. She's right, she's got a point. One of them was really small and he was the best horse to ride, and they say that there's a certain percentage of weight that a horse is supposed to carry of his own body weight and so, calculating that out, I yeah, I was over that even bear back riding him. But I dealt with it and moved on from there, but it's still. It plagues me to this day, to this day. It didn't help what happened at the stables in Colorado when you and I went horseback riding, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Another day. I wish that I could somehow erase what happened. I don't know, I just oh, you might have to just tell it real quick, Heidi.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Well, no matter what size a person is, we don't know the shoes they've walked in, we just don't know. And I had been struggling with all kinds of health issues and whatnot, and although my size was down like 50 pounds and I'm only mentioning that because it shows what a significant drop there had been they brought me a horse named Big Bertha, and that was mortifying. It was mortifying. It was mortifying. She was the biggest horse they had. Don't name her Big Bertha, and you know, that's not. I would have been fine with a big horse.

Speaker 1: 34:23

I love riding big horses and always have, no matter what size I've been, I love riding big horses, but anyway. So, whether it's a water park or horseback riding, get up or whatever it might be, a doctor's office visit, whatever we have to be renewed. Our minds need to be renewed and our responses to those awkward situations, you know, because for me, I go into anger mode. It's like I get defensive and then, rather than feeling heartache and pain and put down and not enough, I want to come up with my Duke swinging. I was ready to write a scathing letter to the whatever you call a string boss, whatever they call those, the person in charge of the horseback riding, anyway, and instead I think God would have me say you know, lord, help me to just remember my value is not attributed to me by anybody but you.

Speaker 1: 35:17

You are the one who has attributed to me worth beyond measure. I am your masterpiece and there's nothing I can do to change that, nothing I can eat to ruin that. No size I can beat to disqualify me from being your masterpiece. Because I am a masterpiece, because you are the master and you may be so anyway. I hope there's something here that you all can enjoy or benefit from or be reminded of that is good and healthy and happy and godly.

Speaker 2: 35:52

Yes we are so glad that you've been here and, yeah, I hope my embarrassing story helps you in some way, and Heidi's too, and we're sure that you probably have a story as well. Yeah, you are God's masterpiece. You are God's masterpiece no matter what, and we hope that you will join us for our next podcast Revelation Within on the floor.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Go, go, go. All right, bye for now.