Emotional Flood

"How do you handle an emotional flood?"

This question was posed by one of my favorite links--the Women of Faith website (www.womenoffaith.com)--and touched my heart. This year has been a year of tremendous emotional flooding, but I am here in the middle, still swimming, treadwater style, with energy to spare because of the fact that I can remember God is there to hold me up every time.

In January my husband went to the hospital--again--for stomach pain radiating to his back. Long story short: we have been dealing with the language of ulcers and stomach acids for a couple years and know when there's something amiss causing his level of pain requiring hospital intervention. That January hospital stay resulted in an ulcer diagnosis with follow-up treatment and medication. Things were quiet for a couple of months. The end of March then resulted in similar symptoms and back to the hospital he went. "Here we go again", I thought. After a week of testing, probing, poking, questioning, prodding and more testing, we were blindsided by the new result which was not an typical stomach ulcer this time---it was cancer.

Yikes, the 'c' word. This new reality resulted in a new level of puzzle-solving; the cancer diagnosis explained all the unexplainable issues and symptoms over the past several years. The cancer is a slow-growing type which was finally discovered and now it's time to tackle the thing.

Emotional flood? You betcha. In the middle of it all, I still have my faith, though. There's a song with the lyrics "On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand..." Those lyrics have reminded me, almost daily, that I have a place to stand in the middle of this treadwater status. A rock can appear under my flailing legs and help me to stay still and stay safe. What I also realize now is a new twist to the sinking sand metaphor (the second part of those lyrics). If I am on sinking sand, like I feel these days, only by staying still can I get help. If I flail and work and fight to get out, I will only sink deeper. Staying still, and being on that rock, makes the emotional flood or the sinking sand be minimized into a simple setting of my current life, not the definition of it.

I am grateful for Christ, my rock.

On that rock, and that rock alone, can I stand to move forward in the middle of crisis mode and continue with healthy eating, weight loss goals, and self-care. I am committed to continue on this Gain Faith, Lose Weight journey in a stronger way and refuse to give in to the 'oh well, it's not important' attitude about watching my own food issues in this emotional floodwater. Hey, it's the emotional eating that got me to being more than 100 pounds overweight, and it's the lack of emotional eating that will keep me healthy and fit. I need that rock of Christ to stand so that I can simply eat for sustenance and enjoyment, not emotional-stuffing. He comes through every time I stay still and look up.