If you've spent years cycling between dieting, emotional eating, body dissatisfaction, or trying to "get it together" with food, it's easy to believe the struggle is simply about eating. But over the years, I've begun to wonder if food has often been pointing me toward something much deeper.
I don't know about you, but the tension between self-sufficiency and relying on God feels like a dance whose steps change every season. Just when I think I've learned to trust Him in one area, another season arrives and reveals another place where I've unknowingly slipped back into relying on myself. Apparently, this dance has more steps than I realized.
For me, self-sufficiency doesn't always look like fierce independence. More often, it looks like overfunctioning, running on automatic pilot, or trying to manage my own distress. Another way to describe it is carrying more than God ever intended me to carry.
Over the years, those responses became almost automatic. One of them was soothing myself with food. Since I was a child, when uncomfortable emotions or distress surfaced, food often felt like the quickest way to find relief. Over time, a familiar pattern emerged:
distress...food...relief.
Before long, it became my default response.
Looking back, it's humbling to realize how often I expected food to do something only God could do. Food wasn’t the deepest issue. It became one way I tried to soothe, control, or carry what felt too heavy. The more I've reflected on my own story, the more I've realized my struggle wasn’t only about food. I was struggling to trust God with places that felt uncertain, overwhelming, or painful.
God designed our brains to create pathways. Neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to form new pathways—has fascinated me because science continues discovering what God has known all along.
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."
—Romans 12:2
Notice Paul doesn't say, "Renew your mind once." He speaks of renewing—an ongoing process.
Someone once described renewal as a renovation, and that picture has stayed with me.
Have you ever lived in a house during a renovation? Nothing feels settled. There's dust where you don't want it. Walls are open. Furniture is moved. Life feels inconvenient. Even though the end result will be beautiful, the middle is messy.
When I stop and think about my mind being under renovation, it gives me a more patient perspective. Maybe there's room for a little more grace while things still feel unfinished.
I wonder if my resistance to the renovation is revealing where I've misplaced my trust. That's not always an easy realization, but it's been a freeing one.
For me, that has often been certainty, control, and the desire to know.
When I think about diet culture, I realize it promises many of those same things.
Diet culture whispers, "Follow these rules. Control your body. Then you'll finally feel secure." No wonder those promises feel so compelling when life feels uncertain. They offer the illusion that if we can control our bodies, life will finally feel manageable.
If I'm honest, my desire to always know, always have a plan, and always feel settled can unknowingly become a counterfeit savior.
Ouch. That’s a hard sentence to write.
I don't want certainty to become the place I run for security. I want that place to belong to God alone.
I wonder if God, in His kindness, uses the distress we inevitably experience to reveal where we've been placing our trust. I'm not suggesting He creates our suffering. But I do believe He lovingly meets us there, revealing where we've misplaced our hope and inviting us back to Himself.
Renovations don't happen overnight, and neither does the renewing of our minds. Most of the time, it's one finger at a time. We loosen our grip just enough to discover that God really is faithful. Little by little, we learn that we don't have to hold everything together ourselves. Thinking about it that way helps me exhale a little.
And then...life changes again.
Before long, I notice my shoulders inching toward my ears. My jaw is tight. My neck aches. My body is telling me something long before my mind catches up.
Maybe our hands have found their way back to the steering wheel...
I've driven enough snowy and icy roads to know what white-knuckling feels like. By the time I arrive, my whole body is tense. I've been gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I've completely lost awareness of my body.
Author Aundi Kolber describes white-knuckling as ignoring the warning signs from our minds and bodies in order to survive overwhelming situations. Often, overfunctioning isn't something we choose. It's something we learned.
What if noticing our white knuckles isn't something to shame ourselves over? What if it's simply an invitation—to pause, to breathe, and to ask, "Lord, what am I gripping so tightly right now? This renovation isn't mine to complete. It belongs to you, God, I belong to you.”
My invitation is to participate—to notice when I've slipped into old patterns, bring those places into the light, receive His grace instead of my shame, and let Him tend the places that still reach for control, certainty, or food whenever life feels overwhelming.
And slowly—much more slowly than I'd probably prefer—He's teaching me a different way.
I'm beginning to think God has been renovating more than the way I think. He's also been renovating the way I trust.
When I went back to read Ephesians 6, I saw something I'd somehow skimmed over before. Paul begins by saying, "Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power." Not mine—His.
Then he tells us to put on the FULL armor of God and STAY ALERT.
The enemy would love for us to believe we're on our own—that if we're going to find freedom, it'll be because we finally found the right plan, tried harder, or exercised more self-control. When we believe that lie, our white knuckles simply find different things to hold on to.
Mine have tightened around food, overfunctioning, certainty, and the desire to know.
When it comes to food and body image, white-knuckling can look like:
· Emotional eating
· Chronic dieting
· Body checking
· Overexercising
· Trying to eat "perfectly"
The behaviors may look different, but beneath them all may be the same longing—to feel safe, in control, or okay.
And they all invite us to ask the same question:
What am I trusting to hold me together?
I wonder if that's why this dance keeps changing with every season. Each new season seems to uncover another place God wants to renovate—another place where He's inviting us to trust Him instead of ourselves.
The renovation isn't finished yet. Mine certainly isn't. The renewing of our minds is God's ongoing work in us, gently revealing the places where we've learned to depend on something other than Him and inviting us into greater freedom.
Maybe freedom isn't found in never reaching for an old coping strategy again. Maybe it's found in recognizing it sooner, allowing God to meet us there, receiving His grace instead of our shame, and choosing—again—to loosen our grip and trust Him.
One renewed thought. One surrendered grip. One season at a time.
Because every room God renovates becomes another place where we discover His faithfulness.
What old strategy do you notice yourself reaching for when life feels uncertain or overwhelming? Where might God be inviting you to loosen your grip and trust Him? What would it look like to participate in His renovation with grace rather than trying harder?
Lisa Crowder
Daughter of the King. Wife. Mom. Christian coach. Highly sensitive soul learning to love the woman God created me to be. Recovering emotional eater. Lover of mountain walks, deep conversations, and connecting the dots of God’s faithfulness. Passionate about helping women become who God created them to be. Overcomer.
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