Lucy Armour

I was brought up in a Christian home, with wonderful parents who lived out their faith, but I still learned some very bad habits regarding eating during my childhood. The worst one was that sweets and chocolate were a reward. When I was a teenager, I would often sneak out to the shops when my parents were out and buy two or three chocolate bars and eat the lot. I had no problems with my weight until I had my first child, then I struggled with my weight for more than 8 years. I tried diets, slimming clubs, behaviour modification, teaching tapes, books, you name it, but I always either gave up in the first few weeks, or put all the weight (and more) back on again. When I started to go through problems in my marriage, my weight soared even higher. I was working nights at the time, and would eat all night, even sending out for takeaways just for myself. God did a wonderful healing in our marriage, but the bad eating habits remained. I have known for a long time that my overeating got worse when I was not walking closely with God, and this was where I was at before I came to TLT. I had come to a point of desperation, and God met me there. He led me to TLT in a miraculous way, and I knew straight away that He had graciously given me a way out of my bondage to overeating. I started the course with great hope, knowing that if God had started this work in me, He would be faithful to finish it. I greatly enjoyed the Bible studies, and they brought me back to that closeness with Jesus that I had known in the past. I kept on feeding on Him, and with some wonderful encouragement from my mentor, I learned how to walk in victory over gluttony, and God took off 13lbs of weight from me in the process! As soon as I stopped trying to do things the worlds way, and let God show me His way, He did what I couldn't do in eight years of trying - what a wonderful God!

I wrote this testimony when I finished TLT, and since then I have also done Phase 2 and the mentorship course, and have been greatly blessed by both of them. I reached goal weight four months ago, losing 26lbs in total, and have stayed within 3lbs of my goal ever since. This was something I could never do before, and is all down to God's grace. As long as I stay close to God and put into practise what He taught me through TLT, I continue to eat with discipline. A couple of times, I have allowed other things in life to distract me from God, and straight away I have noticed that my eating habits deteriorate. Before TLT, I would have carried on getting further and further away from God, and putting on more and more weight, but the great thing that doing the course has taught me is that these are the times to run straight back to God, repent, and allow Him to forgive me and set me on the right path again. Thank You Lord for your grace, and thank You for using the ministry of SCF so powerfully in my life!