The 5oz Foodie

Yesterday I spoke a little bit about uncovering some past hurt and today I think I need to explain it a little further... I have said this before but it bares repeating... Parents you need to teach your children that words hurt... Calling another kid; stupid, ugly, gay, fat, whale, grouch, I think you get my point, is unacceptable... They are especially unacceptable coming from you... Words like that stick with children... Around the third grade I started emotional eating and thus began gaining weight... By the 8th grade I was 185 pounds... I was called fat, whale, lard ass, you name it... I didn't wear jeans until maybe my Junior Year in High School because they didn't make them for plus size girls back then... Thankfully or maybe unthankfully, I grew up with a very outgoing personality... So any pain I experienced from the names was buried down beneath the food and the fat and I became the funny, crazy girl... I realized early on in life, if I was the center of attention, ...

So back to last night... We all gathered in a conference room over looking the ocean and sat in a huge circle. There were My mom and I and 22 youth and 13 leaders present. It was sharing time for the week. You see the youth group traveled for over 20 hours in a charter bus from St. Louis to Daytona to come to Church Camp. When I was a leader with the same church group, we had made our first trip to Daytona in 2005. Now, over 7 years later I am back in a room that is familiar with a group of kids that aren't but they are excepting me being there as if I have always been with them. The night was full of emotion for everyone. These sweet teenagers opened their hearts out and weren't afraid of what people would say. It honestly blew me away, some of things that were shared and it made me hurt to know that they had carried this around with them for so long. Yet, I related to many on what they have been feeling and thankfully they are crying out now, while they are still young, s...