From Madelynn:  Today we have Jamie Kay sharing her story from Israel.  Yes, Israel!  WSWE made it to Israel, Ok, well, I knew her before she moved but still she is on WSWE in Israel!  That’s love and dedication there!  I remember Jamie writing to me about her weight and I was blessed that she was willing to open up and share her heart.  I saw her two weeks ago and she looks great!  I was so proud of her…I couldn’t wait to have her share.  Everyone meet Jamie Kay…

I was both inspired and convicted by Madelynn’s blogs for “What Size Was Eve.”  Here is my story:

               My problem with food appeared early in my life in the form of anorexia. My ballet career began at age five, but as I started to mature physically, I realized my body type was “too curvy” for professional ballet.  I struggled with “allowing” myself to eat.  I can remember going two to three days on only a piece of toast and some nuts.

At the ripe old age of 21, I made the healthy decision to walk away from ballet. That decision granted me significant freedom and confidence in the area of self image.  I started to eat regularly, and healthy, for the first time in my life. For the next decade I maintained healthy eating habits. To keep fit, I became hooked on training for and running marathons.

Fast forward to 2011—During my senior year of studying Bible/Theology at Moody Bible Institute, I heard the call of God to go to Israel… The Lord did several beautiful things at once in my life. Aside from the call to full-time ministry overseas, He also “introduced” me to the man who would become my husband! It was an exciting time to say the least.  My husband is an Israeli, Jewish believer.  I had experienced my personal call to Israel AND I knew that God had provided David as both a husband and a partner in ministry – It was His grace not to send me to Israel alone! Exciting, right?

Well… That is the fairytale side of things—my call and my husband both became clear to me at the same time—we share a passion to serve the Jewish people in Israel.  But when we got engaged, the reality of the life-long changes that were about to occur started to bear down heavily upon me. How did I respond?  I started binge eating in the middle of the night.  Because I had been basically “fit” for so long, I don’t know if anyone really noticed that I had gained about ten pounds throughout the engagement, which probably doesn’t sound like a big deal. Instead of correctly processing the fact that I was not going to be a “typical” missionary (meaning a 2 or 3 year trial run in a foreign country, maybe come home to the States, maybe go elsewhere, still referring to the States as “home”, etc.), I just stuffed my emotions—with deep dish pizza.  God was literally calling me to marry Israel and never come back…ever. That’s when I started waking up in the middle of the night and eating instead of waking up in the middle of the night and praying!

Having already been a “workout girl”, I could sort of damage-control my eating with working out. But this was all a much deeper symptom — I was scared to death and felt alone. I struggled spiritually, feeling that all of the apparent losses were too much for the Lord to ask of me! How could I NEVER celebrate Christmas again and NEVER observe Easter with my kids etc.? Well, I turned to Doritos and Dairy Queen for comfort–not believing that the Holy Spirit’s power was sufficient for this transition. And that was just the engagement…

A month after the wedding we moved to Israel. Sirens and rockets went off the first night we arrived! Within the first two months of living here, a massive military conflict erupted between Israel and Gaza. On top of all of this, I was a new wife trying to make dinner for my new husband and came home from the grocery store in tears because I couldn’t read any of the food labels or ask anyone anything because I didn’t speak Hebrew yet. I had no friends for the first 5 months in Israel.  We didn’t have a car yet, and the whole country shuts down to rest for Shabbat, so every weekend we were just stuck in our house with nothing to do and no-one to do it with —so I gained 20 pounds! I thought I had great excuses!

But even in the midst of all my complaining and my glorious pity parties—the Lord was SO GRACIOUS to me.  He provided the funds to send me to Hebrew school. The Lord enabled me to start speaking and understanding Hebrew, even though learning languages is not a strength for me scholastically. He started giving me Israeli girlfriends. He even gave me a Tuesday night prayer meeting of women who are fiercely dedicated to the Lord. Because my church in the States held a Tuesday night prayer meeting that I had loved so much, I laughed in sheer delight and newfound faith, understanding that He truly does replace and restore all that you leave behind in order to serve Him – even to the day!

“What Size Was Eve” inspired me to realize that there was yet one more thing the Lord wanted to restore to me—faith and self-control! To kick-start a healthier lifestyle of discipline and self-control, David and I trained for and ran the Jerusalem Half-Marathon. In order to run a race, one MUST eat correctly.  But even deeper than food, I started to use my training time to pray over Jerusalem as I ran.  I began to fall in love with the Lord and my call to Israel all over again.  On race day as I ran through the streets of Jerusalem I could feel the Lord speaking peace and love and hope and joy and courage and POWER to preach the gospel to His covenant people. He literally connected my heart to the Land, through my feet, fitted with the gospel of peace!

Over the course of the last eight months, I have lost almost all of the extra weight I had gained.  But most importantly, I feel much closer to the Lord.  I am no longer debilitated by fear and grief. Instead, I am overwhelmed by God’s grace and power.  In my heart, I knew my problem wasn’t weight gain—it was a loss of faith that expressed itself through a loss of self control with food. Yet even in my weakness, the Lord is faithful Faithful FAITHFUL!!!! Whether fulfilling His particular call on our lives, or empowering us to be good stewards of our bodies through healthy eating and exercise; He is faithful to equip us with everything we need for life and godliness!

Thank you for Madelynn for sharing your journey with all of us—it has powerfully impacted mine.

Be encouraged today…We can do this…The best is yet to come!

Madelynn

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32