When Sorrow and Self-Discipline Collide

After the death of a child, holidays are just hard. So, when facing Christmas alone last year, I came up with this brilliant plan: comfort food every hour, on the hour. I made a plan for titillating snacks, sweets, and entrees that made my heart sing with delight. I planned, shopped, and meal-prepped to binge, y’all. While most of my beautiful Christian sisters were meal-prepping healthy foods and making plans to navigate the season of feasting responsibly, I was drooling over every page of the Southern Living Cookbook I inherited 20 years ago from my mom, wiping my mouth in sweaty anticipation of the coming gluttony.

I was going to do more than survive Christmas; I was going to LIVE.

It worked…sort of. The deep ache was still lingering behind the pecan pie and pretzels with beer cheese. I finally actually could not fit any more comfort down my face, and now the sorrow had the added tinge of shame for being so irresponsible with my health.

Lamenting my lack of discipline to my cousin, she made my head explode with this simple truth bomb: “You can’t have feelings and discipline at the same time,” she said, noting that I was actually a very disciplined person going through a very difficult emotional journey.

I had to think this through. Of course, when you are going to the gym when you don’t want to and eating beneficial foods that you don’t really love, you are putting your feelings about it aside to do what is right. When your feelings are overwhelming, discipline is not an option. Those feelings are just bearing you along on the waves, and finding an anchor to cling to can be elusive. Try as you might, powerful feeling will not be ignored and stuffed down into submission to discipline for very long.

You just can’t self-discipline your way out of a heart issue.

What you can do is cry out to Jesus in the understanding that when you exercise faith that He will rescue you, it invites grace to work in your life. When standing in that grace, you allow suffering to become a tool that produces endurance, and endurance produces character. The Apostle Paul outlines this miraculous transition from sorrow to character in Romans 5:1-5. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

I made the decision in January that I would follow a simple meal plan that had everything spelled out for me so there was no thinking involved, and forgive myself immediately when I had a little deviation from the plan, because Jesus loves me unconditionally through this process. I was able to give up gluten, dairy, sugar (mostly) and processed foods, and have lost 20 pounds and 4 inches from my waist. This is not me! I would never in a million years have thought this even possible, let alone enjoyable! I feel better physically, but more importantly, have been able to attend to the sorrow with the grace that comes from exercising faith.

Exercise in the gym, however… that’s a journey I’ll start when grace releases me to do it joyfully, and not out of shame. It’s coming. I do have hope, after all.

Reflection

What areas of self-discipline would you be doing if you had no obstacles?
What thoughts overwhelm you when you consider the things you know you are undisciplined about?
What is the emotional history behind these thoughts? Are they new thoughts, or have you struggled with them before?

Goals

Name one thought you can share with Jesus in prayer, and exercise faith that He will give you grace for it:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:1-5 ESV)