Saturday, July 4, 2009

God Grants Grace, not Guilt

I spent a lot of time yesterday and today exploring a lapband website. There's a religious forum with a page for Christians and there's a 12-step forum with a few threads for those attending OA (Overeaters Anonymous) and FAA(Food Addicts Anonymous.) After reading many of the posts I came to a not-so-surprising conclusion. Guilt and shame are a way of life for people suffering from food addiction. People seem to be heaping guilt either on themselves or on others.

Christians accuse themselves of gluttony and beat themselves up over that. Other Christians really do say horrible things to them like, "Why are you getting that surgery, why don't you just pray?" Many Christian weight loss groups can have so many rules to follow that most people are bound to fail heaping guilt upon guilt.

OA and FAA attenders get accused of taking the "easier, softer way" if they get lap band surgery for which they beat themselves up. They also suffer attacks from the food nazis who have taken over OA and FAA and and who are addicted to adding food restriction upon food restriction and enforcing rule upon rule.

Guilt and shame have a horrible history of sabotaging recovery and driving people deeper into the food (or any other addictions).

Whether you believe addictions are sin or not (I believe they are brain-based disorders, not sin, that came into this world as a result of sin and that under their influence people do commit sin), beating yourself up over them is a sure-fire path to relapse.

Serenity is extremely important in recovery and those consumed by guilt and self-blame have no serenity.

We need to break the bondage of guilt. Especially unearned guilt and shame. God gave us the gift of grace, not of guilt. I like to say I gave up guilt for Lent.

As far as the rigid rule makers and enforcers--most of these people have simply replaced one type of food obsession with another and their rigid adherance to a code is all they've got. They transfer their internal shame and need for control onto others. It's just another insidious form of this disease. They don't know grace, and hence can't grant it.

Someday, Grace will come again and banish all guilt. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Come quickly Lord Jesus.

Amen. When I picked up my Quest study bible and looked in the category search to find words on guilt guess what topic was listed at the very top....GUILT. I'm guessing that's not a coincidence. Thank you for the thought-provoking words.