Christ's Healing Touch

Ok, what would you do?

A woman tells me she is trying to lose weight (she weighs about 280 lbs.) as she downs a protein shake. She continues to explain how difficult it is to do . . . afterall "it's not fair that her family ended up with the bad genes that makes them heavy-set." She can see it in her son and her brothers . . .

". . . and people can be so cruel, so cruel and nasty;" she has been hurt so badly; she ends it with "I don't like to be hurt; I've been so hurt!" "It's not how much I eat, but I'm trying to change what I eat." This woman tells me this over and over again as if she wants me to respond. I listen in silence because I am terrified to speak.

If I say "that's great that you are trying to lose weight" or "that's sounds difficult" I'm afraid she will take it I am agreeing with her that she is fat and her whole family is.

Can I agree that her family has bad genes? And what about people, like myself, who don't know what to say when she blames her health problems on her weight? They end up hurting her when they agree with her because, in her mind, they are affirming that she, indeed, has a reason for self-consciousness and shame? It takes a unique relationship with someone to talk about weight difficulties in this culture.

Not only with her, I never know how to respond to people who are talking about their desire/efforts to lose weight because I get the sense that they want people to know they are doing something about it, but really don't want those people to acknowledge that it is a problem. Maybe I am wrong, but I am uncomfortable all the same. And my experience is that most people are uncomfortable talking about their weight problems. The closest people get is when they share their excitment over a new gym membership or diet.

I would love to lose 15-20 lbs right now, but I put the blame on my gluttonous eating habits. And quite frankly, my shame is not that I am overweight for my size/height, but that am gluttonous when many in the world don't even get full meals a day.

What a culture to live in! I would love to know what is polite to say in such situations. Instead I just listen as a reminder of my own weakness, all the while praying and praying and praying for a heart of compassion. As I hear the Lord say, "if you really love the least of these, you will eat only what you need" . . . I confess my own sin of gluttony. Never mind that I am living in a culture that consumes astronomical amounts of food, fast food, diet food, international food, etc. How can I live in a separate Kingdom where I see my actions impacting my brother and sister in Sudan or Indonesia? How can I develop and articulate healthy practices which demonstrate more than just self-control, but also a concern with excessive consumer spending and exploitive market practices? I need healing from these cultural traps because I believe they are sicknesses that keep us in bondage.

So in the end I'm trusting for Christ's healing -- a healing that can minister to the hungry in this world, but also a healing that extends mercy and forgiveness to the gluttons like me.