The Snare of the Fowler

  "This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; for He is my God, and I trust Him. For He will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease." Psalm 91:2-3

  Depending on the Bible translation, "trap" is written as the "snare of the fowler." Fowlers were people who hunted birds. Snares can be a particularly nasty way for an animal to be caught. They are made from a loop of thin rope or wire set to quickly grab hold of the prey's neck when it passes through the loop. This grants the animal a quick and merciful death as the wire tightens with each struggle to break away.

  The thin wire doesn't always end up around the neck.  When a wing or a paw is caught, the animal ends up trapped until the hunter comes to check his snare line. That's why there's laws in place to make sure a trap or snare line is checked every day. If a hunter hunts with snare, gun or bow, the object is to take the animal with minimal suffering. Sadly, not all hunters are this ethical.

  My friend and I took photos of each other on Sunday. They are done weekly to keep a visual record of our progress while on the Gina Livy program. I am down thirteen pounds which is significant! My clothing size no longer has a number before it which is a huge milestone for me.

  However, when I looked at the picture, I felt the fowler's snare tighten around my neck.

  Yesterday, I went through my summer clothes. Many of which are too big!

  However, when I looked in the mirror, the fowler's snare got even tighter.

  What did I see? I saw a women who is still overweight. I saw a woman whose face is deeply etched with the trials her life has brought: lines of sadness, anxiety and suffering are there for all to see. My ex's term about such women leapt to mind, "She's a hard chore." On the heels of that, I couldn't believe how much I looked like his mother whose hard life was one of trauma, trial and bitterness. She, too, was someone her son would call a hard chore. 

  There isn't an official definition for this cruel Irish expression which is decidedly sexist in nature. A hard chore would be a woman who wasn't physically attractive. It would take hard labour to love them because they have zero sex appeal. They are worthless and contemptable because they fail on the sex appeal/beauty barometer. 

  

  I watched a gray haired, gray bearded man in the parking lot of a nearby store. A slim, younger woman approached him on her way to the entrance. He looked her up and down. When she passed him, he turned around and scoped out the view. Twice. I could have lost my S*** on him but he was too far away. In those few moments under his gaze, she became an it, a thing, an object. It gave me the creeps because this is what my ex used to do all the time with other women then make crude and cruel jokes about their appearance.

  Is this what my fowler's snare is made of? The echoes of his voice, his ridicule, his cruelty?

  A snare is firmly tied to an anchor. It could be a wood or metal pin buried deep in the ground or the branch of a tree or bush. My ex's snare was anchored in my childhood understanding that I was far too imperfect to be ever considered beautiful. He simply picked up where others had left off and used it as a weapon of control. How lucky was I to have someone like him love me!

  Yah. And I believed it. (Thank You, once again, my Lord, for setting me free! But, Lord, I want to be even freer!)

  I also believe that's why he got involved with me in the first place. Abusive men always look for women who have been abused. It makes taking control over them much easier. 

  Let's back up a bit and think about why I am doing this program. Because God wants it for me for sure but I think I need to want it for me just as badly.

  First of all, I do not want to be sexually appealing to anyone. I don't want guys like the parking lot creep to do the same to me. Been there, done that and it sucks. I don't want to lose the weight as a form of revenge for all the insults of the past. I don't want to lose the weigh to try and prove my worth in and to the world.

  Oh, Lord, I am very confused this morning. (Smile.) I guess the snare has blocked some of the blood flow to my brain. So maybe I need to ask You, when I look at You, what do You see?

  Determination. Your face reflects how much we have already overcome.

  Grace...the parking lot creep is likely trapped in his own sexual immorality. 

  Sigh...Lord? I wish sometimes You wouldn't help me see Your perspective so quickly and just let me stay ticked off for a bit. And maybe ticked off is the wrong expression. I was deeply troubled by what I witnessed and by the ghosts it stirred up.

  

  Hold on a minute, maybe I don't need to lose the weight to try and prove my worth after all because measuring up to a worldly bathroom scale is the antithesis of everything I believe. 

  I need to lose the weight because I am a child of God. Just as my face displays the scars of the past sin in my life, obesity reveals my sins around food. So often, food was used as an anesthetic to numb the loneliness, appease boredom or to try and comfort my soul. 

  Food has denied my need for God when I turned to it instead.

  Forgive me, my Lord, for all of this.

  I will get thin and in shape because I want more of God in my life. Every single day.