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Michelle Elam
 I praise God for the chance to give Him the glory that he has allowed me to have a testimony due to His great mercy.
Before Weigh Down, I thought about food, calories, and exercise nearly all the time. I would under eat some days, then stuff myself painfully the next. It was a horrible miserable cycle! I was over 35 pounds overweight although I exercised for 2 or more hours each day and counted every calorie (except when I was binging!). What I could and couldn’t eat consumed my thinking, and this left very little time to think about anything else. I had also been a very anxious child and finally teenager. I was on anxiety medication for the day time and sleeping pills at night. I was the fourth generation in my family to do this. My doctor told me it was hereditary, and I would probably always need them. While they helped, they didn’t provide peace, and I never had restful sleep. My insomnia was so bad that often it wouldn’t even respond to the drugs. (I now see that God didn’t LET it respond!) I was constantly crying out to God during this time to heal me of this and set me free from the consuming thoughts of worry and anxiety. I worried over how I looked, food, exercise, what people thought of me, and pretty much anything else that had to do with me. My life was centered around food and whether I had slept the night before, and whether I would sleep the next night.
I also was a slave to the fear/phobia of many things, especially germs, as I was terrified of getting sick. I wouldn’t swim in oceans or lakes and refused to help care for someone if they were sick and the least bit contagious. I was obsessed with reading novels (hours and hours and hours at a time) as it was a way to escape reality and my anxiety. I was extremely selfish and even from the time I was a child, I would pout and slam doors when I didn’t get my way. I was a rebellious teenager and very hurtful towards my parents. I was rude to my bosses and teachers. My close friends I was told that I was a pessimistic person and always complaining. I wanted the world to center around me and felt like everyone else needed to change.
I was very unhappy and in so much pain; yet I told my parents that I wanted to be a missionary in China and began going on various mission trips to prepare for this. I wanted to obey God so badly and felt like this was the only way to accomplish this. I felt that if I was overseas talking about God, that it had to be right, whether God was calling me to it or not. I went to Paris and Las Vegas as well as other places with various ministries. I also loved the praise of man associated with this and the self-sacrifice of giving up "my time," not to mention how excited I was by the food associated with each trip.
Through the Weigh Down Bible study I was able to find God for the first time in my life. It was this truth that taught me that it was ME who needed to change; not the environment, not the food, not my friends, and not my family. I felt true conviction and was able to gain the tools I needed to change my heart to line it up with the fruits of the Spirit. Before this, I never knew that we were supposed to have ALL of them!! I thought if I had one or two that I was doing great. Many things that I always thought were “quirks and personality traits,” like impatience, self-centeredness, anger, and worry were disappearing, and they were being replaced with the true fruits of the Spirit. It was scary for me at first as I had never felt these things from the heart before. True joy was so freeing. I felt peace for the first time in my life and stopped taking the anti-depressants and sleeping pills.
I started eating real foods like hamburgers, pizza, and brownies, and stopped the over-exercising. I was able to focus off the food and lose weight at the same time. It was amazing! My thoughts were now on God and so full of praise for him. I began to see him in everything he created and I wanted to pray, talk with him, and be with him no matter what I was doing. All of a sudden he seemed to be everywhere! The Bible began to make sense to me beginning with the first class and I started to yearn to read it. That’s when I realized this message was the true path to freedom. Anything that could get rid of the anxiety, self-centeredness, and food focus while replacing it with a true relationship with God was what I had been searching for my entire life! I was experiencing answered prayers and a heart pounding, head over heels love for God. Although the Bible states in nearly every chapter that we are to have no idols other than Him, I had never heard that before. I was so EXCITED that I could finally STOP sinning and love God with a fully devoted heart!!
My life AFTER: I am now FREE from the anxiety medication and sleeping pills. My sleep is sweet and the only anxiety I feel is when I fear that I am outside the boundaries of God. Obedience to God is everything to me now!! Looking for God's approval, not man's, is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and doing His will is truly my Food!! I no longer have irrational fears or phobias of germs, lakes, etc!! I have broken free from generational strongholds. I now love and honor my parents and boss and love to serve all authorities over me. I have lost over 35 pounds with NO more exercise! My life and thoughts are now for God and his kingdom. This minute by minute obedience has led to answered prayers daily, and I love to be awakened in the night to be with God and read his Word with no anxiety. I have been able to take every thought captive and line it up with Jesus Christ, and as a result, I no longer focus on myself all day long. Thinking about God, praising Him, and praying over everything consumes my thoughts, and I cannot imagine life any other way. Serving others over myself is now a joy! I have seen that when I focus on God and others, my needs and desires are taken care of by God Almighty. I am still learning more and more about God's personality and how I can change to be more like Jesus Christ, who obeyed God's will, not his, in everything. This life is the most FUN, interesting, and AMaZinG!!! I find more joy every day!!!! All that to say, the blessings in my life of making God, the true GOD, and denying myself have been UnReAL!!
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