Chapter Four (cont)
So, what I did was, I came into agreement with Him. His Spirit wanted me to be the temple so that I could get around better. So, I tried some diets, all kinds of diets. I did Weight Watchers and other diets when I was trying to break the cycle, and admittedly, I had a problem. Stomach for food and food for the stomach, which is idolatry, gluttony. To continue to do something that you know is not good for you is idolatry. I had to face the facts, and it wasn’t pretty. I had to become accountable for what I knew, and I asked God to help me break that bondage, and it indeed was bondage. He said, “Give Me some cooperation, Kitty, and I’ll give you some change.”
I have always been one that if God just tells me what I need to change, I will make the adjustment. Sometimes it’s just a minor thing, like tuning the dial of a radio a tiny bit more to get that clear sound. That’s what it was like. My frequency was turned up so that I could hear a clear sound. So, the next thing He said to me was, “Ask Me for your goal weight.” Well, when I went on this journey, I was 230 lbs. at 5’2″ and He told me my goal weight was 130 lbs. I didn’t go there overnight, and I didn’t go there in 5 years or 10 years. I waited 20 years before I was willing to give Him my appetite.
In that course of time, I met and married Russell Walden, and everything began to be in the sweet spot, but I still would hear the song every so often, “I Surrender All.” When I asked Him for some help, He said again, “Give Me some cooperation, Kitty, and I’ll give you some change.” About that time, Russ and I were hosting a conference, and we had asked this one gentleman to speak. This man and his wife were old friends of ours. She had been like 230 lbs. overweight, and she’s not even 5 feet tall. She was a very big girl, a big short girl. She had heart trouble and had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Both she and her husband had needed gastric surgery because he was a very large farm boy. They showed up at the conference, and she pulled me aside. I was just standing with my mouth wide open with surprise. I was in awe because she looked good and healthy; her cheeks were rosy. She could get around just lickety-split. I tried to picture myself, tiny and thin, because it’s good to get a visual.
One day the Lord gave me a dream. In my dream, I was a petite little gal, and I had a nice trench coat with cute little heels on. I was walking down the sidewalk with an over strapped purse, and I was in Europe. I had that visual for almost 20 years. God gave me something to look forward to. About 8 years ago, Russ was sitting next to me at a prophetic conference where we were not the speakers. He leaned over and said, “I just heard the Father say, one day they are going to call you the incredible shrinking woman.”
One day came, and I asked for permission to pursue a gastric sleeve because I had tried a whole lot of other things. I knew we were going places, more accelerated, including Europe and Ireland. I knew I had to do something drastic to get the weight off so I could be perkier. I checked with the surgeon in town. Dr. Burpee – funny name for a gastric doctor, but he talked to me about the sleeve. He said, “Kitty, it’s like this, your stomach is about this size, and I’m going to take away this much. So, you are going to eat small meals for the rest of your life. You won’t have a choice. It’s not a gastric bypass that has been so hard on so many people because they just blow back out. There is nothing left to blow out from this surgery. He said, “you will eat protein first, every meal, four times a day. Then you can have a couple of bites of a vegetable, a bite of fruit, and one bite of a desert, maybe two. Then chew it real slow, take your time.”
Well, the pounds melted off, just like Russ said, “the incredible shrinking woman” happened. God honored my prayer. I gave him some cooperation, and He gave me some change. It means something to Him that we do the best we can with what we have. Now, my insurance wouldn’t cover it. We talked to the insurance company because I was 100 lbs. overweight. We thought they would help, but they said, “No, with your body mass index, you would have to have diabetes, a heart condition, something wrong with the kidneys, and then your insurance would cover it.” I said, “well, thank God I don’t have any of those. I just have some fat on my little body. I said, “I’m so big, I’m beside myself, and I needed help.
