Sometimes I hate epiphanies. Usually because it means that there’s something I need to change or fix about myself or do. I know there are some people who love becoming more self-aware and epiphanies are something good and wonderful for them. And I too have had these experiences where you are struck by something you didn’t know before, either about you or someone you know and it’s great to think that you are more equipped than you were two seconds before.

The times in my life when I’ve been most excited about learning something that is potentially life and paradigm changing is when I’ve been struck by a new realization about God and his interaction with his people and the world. Today was not one of those instances. It did involve God, this newfound knowledge of mine, but it was more about me and my approach to God.

As I’ve been sharing a little about lately, I’m going through some internal changes and the desire for discipline has been settling upon me for a long time. One of the last vestiges of that is having to do with me physically. There has seemed to always be a disconnect in my head about the body as part of the triad, mind, body, and spirit that makes us up as human beings. These three are integrated to make the whole and lately I’ve been realizing that this is not a trinitarian relationship in my mind.

Looking back on my history, I see that somewhere along the line ingrained in my psyche is the idea that the body is lesser, to be used and sometimes abused for the sake of the mission and nothing else. Caring for the body, apart from basic  maintenance and upkeep, is indulgent and not holy-minded. The body is the vessel and therefore, in my head, detached from who I was spiritually, unless I take into account sins accomplished with the body that imprint on the mind and soul. I wonder how many people have this in the back of their mind, worried away in their subconscious, that the body is of lesser importance. Maybe it goes back to the Greek idea that the things of this world are flesh and the more desirable things are those of the mind and spirit apart from the flesh. It’s the flesh that gets us into trouble, after all, isn’t it?

So, with my body as a tool I was able to disassociate what I did with it, to some extent, for many years. I’m not speaking of certain sins, like sexual or abusive sins, but those sins that are not frowned upon in many Christian circles. I was using my body for permissible rebellion. I would rebel against all sorts of things by telling myself “don’t exercise, be kind to yourself and just relax” or “you’ve had a hard day, have the chocolate/chips/name your poison.” I wouldn’t classify myself as having an eating disorder but the more I delve into this process I realize that I was, at times, using food in a socially acceptable way as an idol.

I don’t worship food. But food was taking the place of God at times when I needed support or de-stressing, or just feeling like I needed a joy boost. A little chocolate or chips here and there wouldn’t hurt, would it?

My epiphany came as I was under directed meditation by a godly friend of mine. God and I started talking, mostly about the stressful week I had with my husband being away and taking care of 3 kids on my own. My eating habits had gone to pot. I realized that this was because I was seeking joy and relief and all of those emotions and directing it toward food instead of relying on God.

I had taken God out of my coping equation. When times were stressful or boring or just in need of a little joy, I would soldier on and carry on, making do and coping. All without God. As I lay in the silence of this God asked me a question.

“Then what do you need me for?”

There was my epiphany. In my independence and subterranean rebellion I had started to use God as a resource and not the source. God was someone I went to in order to pray for others, to get help, to get knowledge but I mostly just coped. You do, you know, when you don’t think that you really need God for everything, just for some things like salvation and forgiveness of sins.

What did I need God for? What is going on that I can’t just muddle my way through on my own.

God and I sat in that for a while, like those times in a relationship when one person has dropped a bomb on the other and you don’t know the next move or what you think or where to go. What did I need that my own muddling could not get me? Where do I fall short?

Admitting I fall short was and is the first step. Realizing that there is a place where my resources end and I still have to love people and care for kids and function. Where can I get bubbling over joy instead of settling for contented peace? Where can I get control over those habits that I can’t seem to break? How can I be less of the bad parts of me and more of the good?

That’s what I need God for. I struggled with him for a while because the word submit kept coming up and that sometimes leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.It does when you’ve been unfairly asked to do it because of something like gender. In place of that God gave me another word.

Seek

He told me to start seeking him. Seeking him in those moments of stress, of contentment, of boredom, of loneliness. Seek him and let him prove himself to me. I am not enough for me so I’m taking him up on his offer and there’s a tendril of hope growing inside me that I will become dependant on him. That I will see him in the everyday. That he will become my “fount of every blessing”. That I will seek and find him.