I wanted to do this episode because I have been saying in our community that weight loss is not a virtue issue, it’s an unmet need issue. And one of our members questioned that, she said, well, what would you give as an example of a virtue issue? And so I realized that that’s probably not really true.

Like weight loss, and I think like everything in life really is a virtue issue. I mean, I think we could probably make a case that there isn’t one thing that occurs in a human life that is not a virtue issue. Today I want to start this discussion about virtues and weight loss and I hope that you hear the Lord’s truth and love come through in my voice and over and over in my prayer life.

When I pray for you, when I pray for our podcast listeners, when I pray for the women in our community, when I pray for the women who don’t even know that we exist yet, who the Lord hasn’t deemed her ready to do this work, what he always tells me is tell her the truth. Tell her the truth. And I think he tells me that because I can worry about being liked, I can worry about feeling too hard or putting you off or not being the weight loss message that you want in terms of macros and keto and carnivore. 

And that’s just not what he created this work for. That’s not what he created this podcast for. It’s not what he created me to do. And it’s not been the story in my life. He wants me to tell you the truth. 

And so today I hope you hear that. I hope you hear his love. I hope you hear his tenderness.  Because all of you listening right now want to grow in virtue. All of you want to get to heaven. A hundred percent of everyone listening wants that. And when we look at weight loss, we talk about it with regard to the virtues.

And I hear people talk about needing to grow in temperance or self control or, you know, confessing gluttony. All of those are real things; all of those are sins and is sin just defined as something that takes us farther away from the Lord. But I have observed that many of the ways that we try to attain virtue with regard to the weight loss world and the women that I’m working with, we’re trying to grow in virtue in a way that’s actually taking us farther from the Lord’s truth.  

That’s  taking us farther from knowing him. That’s actually causing more separation and we’re only doing that because we just get really confused in the weight loss world with the messages that are out there. And so at this point in the podcast, I want to talk to you about how you can grow in virtue in a way that brings you closer to the Lord that actually leads to lasting weight loss. 

But before I did that, right when I was getting ready to record this podcast, I was scrolling through the pictures on my phone to organize something else. And I saw this picture and it was a screenshot of a message that the Lord had given to blessed Louisa Picareta, who is, if you know anything about the gift of living in the divine will, she is the woman that the Lord had appeared to and taught her all about this gift.

She is blessed now and all of the works and all of the writing have been given, whatever is supposed to be given, by the Pope that there are no errors, that it is totally in line with all of the teachings of the Catholic church. And I find this, her work, to be somewhat in the same vein as St. Faustina.

And I think we’ll eventually look at it in that way because you just hear the way that the Lord speaks to her and he gives her these, some people might call them messages. I like to call them lessons. And I feel like when I read an entry, it’s like he’s giving me a lesson. And where I’m going with this, is that the lesson today, or in that picture that I’d screenshot that I can’t even remember when I’d screenshotted it. 

It was called “truth places the soul in order.” And what I’m going to be reading from you is from the book of heaven. And the date is August 18th, 1899, and it says “the truth places the soul in order” because I believe that is the reason why we are creating more separation from the Lord in our attempt to become more virtuous. We just have a disordered or out of order view of weight loss. 

The world has really confused our brain in believing, and this is just an example before I read this, I’ll just give you an example of how it has become so out of order, in an attempt to grow in temperance or self control. We have started erasing entire food groups from our meal plans in our diets. We are living in extremes and deprivation. 

Instead of in a more ordered way, allowing ourselves to enjoy food and addressing the disorder that we have for food. And what I mean by disorder is that we’re just using food for reasons other than what it was created for. We’re using foods to get through stressful times or to make us feel better during uncomfortable emotions. 

So instead of working towards reordering our relationship with food, we’re simply trying to live in the world’s extremes, deprivation, white knuckling. Another example of how our weight loss attempts in the world’s way has become so out of order, disordered. The word disorder for some reason doesn’t feel good to me.

It feels really like shameful and like we’re doing something wrong. That’s what it feels like in my body. So I’m using the word out of order and of course it’s out of order because we’re looking to authorities, worldly authorities. We had no idea that these worldly authorities were creating so much confusion in our brains.

So I’m not saying that anyone has done anything wrong. I just hope that I can shine the Lord’s truth on this whole concept, which is the title of this entry to Luisa Picaretta, “Truth Places the Soul in Order.” So let me give you a few more examples of how our weight loss attempts in the world have played out.

Become just so out of order. And that’s why it feels like it’s taking us away from the Lord. So we’re trying to grow in virtue, but we can’t because we’re using the world’s ways instead of the Lord’s ways. Another way is that we think we need to have more fortitude, more self control,  and one of the ways we’re doing that is through this really shameful, mean girl voice and motivating ourselves under the guise of motivation. 

But that’s not the way the Lord would do it. The Lord would say, hi, I love you. Let’s learn to take care of you. And he would do it in a really tender and loving and gentle way. Not in this, we’ve got to like be really hard on ourselves and point out all the negative things. The Lord just wouldn’t do that. 

Another virtue is trying to grow in honesty. And I find that what ends up happening is where we’re doing my fitness pal or counting our macros down to like grams of this and grams of that. And it’s using this world’s definition of perfection. I’m good. If I’m doing this, I’m bad.

If I’m doing that, I’m right. If I’m doing this, I’m wrong if I’m doing that instead of really leaning into honesty with our own needs, honesty, with what our true needs are with foods that we like with realizing that the Lord created us with unique tastes, with unique rhythms, with whatever aspects and characteristics you have in this season of your life and opening our eyes, being honest there, getting to know you, the precious daughter that he created. 

And that’s what I mean. Instead of telling the Lord who you should be in the way you should be,  why not go to him and ask him how he created you, what he wants for you. And finally, the last  place that we want to grow, I mean not that this is the last place, but one other example of how our weight loss attempts have become so out of order, is this concept of growing in courage and fortitude and perseverance. 

And you can even hear in my voice, it just sounds like, ah, you just want to run from me, right? It just feels so hard. We just need to white knuckle through things. Just don’t eat it. Just stay on track. It’s discipline. But it’s not like holy discipline. It’s not like a holy constancy. 

It feels really hard and you should do this and you should do that. And if you’re not, then, oh my gosh, you’re wrong, you’re bad. And I think what the Lord is asking us when we look at weight loss is to grow in the courage to sit with uncomfortable feelings. To grow in the courage and fortitude to show up every single day, to wake up in the morning and say, Lord, what do you want for my life?

The courage to surrender, the courage to learn new things, the courage to endure uncomfortable feelings of learning new skills that you’re not good at. And I guarantee that a hundred percent of the people listening to this are used to being really good at things. You’re a high achieving woman and the courage to not be good at something. 

The courage to see yourself do things that you’re not pleased about. And instead of sweeping them under the rug in shame, you’re willing to bring them into the Lord’s light of truth so that he can reorder them. So I think this is a good time  to read what the Lord wanted me to share with you. 

The entry is in the book of heaven, August 18th, 1899. The book of heaven free PDF is available. Just Google the book of heaven PDF and you will see it “Truth places the soul in order”.  I’m just reading some excerpts.

And Jesus said, my word is not only truth, but also light. And when a light enters a dark room, what does it do? It dispels the darkness and makes one, whoever seen the light, that’s you,  distinguish the objects that are in there. Whether there is order or disorder, whether they’re ugly or beautiful. 

And let’s just put if we say order or disorder of God or not of God. This has been super fun in my life recently being able to say what is of God and what is not of God. It just feels so simple and anytime we feel simplicity and peace we know it’s the Lord. 

When light enters a dark room, it dispels the darkness and helps you to sing, distinguish whether there’s order or disorder. He goes on to say, now the human life is the dark room and when the light of truth enters a soul, it dispels the darkness. That is, it makes her distinguish what is true from what is false. 

What is temporal from what is eternal in such a way? Oh, I love this, you guys listen to this, in such a way that she casts vices away from herself and place the order of virtue within her.  What? Like literally this just came to me. I had, you guys, I have five pages of notes. Five pages of handwritten notes that I wanted to share with you today.

Five pages. And I sat down to record this podcast. And this is the message that the Lord was like, actually this is better. And I love anytime I read anything that says vices, because I feel like, oh yeah, this is me because I need to share this with her. Because, you know, I really believe that whether it’s cigarettes, alcohol, crack. Other people’s lives, food, social media. These are all the vices that we use instead of going to the Lord. 

Do you guys like how I put in other people’s lives? Yes. Being over consumed with other people’s lives is a vice. It’s a way of buffering. It puts a distance between us and uncomfortable feelings. Let me go on. So the Lord says, I’ll review.  The human life is a dark room and when the light of truth enters the soul, it dispels the darkness.
That is, it makes her distinguish what is true from what is false. The temporal or like temporary  from the eternal in such a way  that she casts vices away from herself  and places the order of virtue within her. In fact, Jesus goes on, since my light is holy, it is the very divinity.

You guys, do you see how his light infuses divinity and truth in you so that you can then cast out vices and virtue comes into you? He goes on, he says it, meaning his divinity. His truth cannot communicate anything but sanctity and order. There’s that word again, order. Order. That is the only reason why weight loss has felt so confusing and so unnatural and so hard is because it has been so out of order.

But his ways bring in order. Let me repeat that. My divinity and my truth, he says, cannot communicate anything but sanctity and order. And so the soul feels light of patience, of humility, of charity. And I want you to imagine that when you hear his truth, he’s shining these lights, these beams into you, these golden rays, the light of patience, the light of humility, the light of charity and the like. 

And then all of that comes out of you, patience, humility, and charity. So he infuses his truth and you exude his virtue. I just think that is just so amazing. He goes on in this passage, this lesson, this message to pray for you. Jesus prays to God the Father for Louisa, but I want to give you this prayer rewritten for you. Rewritten so that you can say this, praying to God the Father for you so that your weight loss attempts can be ordered to Him. 

And I’ll put this in the notes and it goes like this or you can say this however you want to. Holy father, I pray to you for myself. Let it be that I fulfill your most holy will. Perfect in everything. Let it be, oh, adorable father, that my actions are so conformed to yours that no one can distinguish me from you so that you may accomplish what you have designed for me. 

That’s it friends. That’s literally it. That we ask to hear the Lord’s truth. That we ask  to be able to distinguish what is of God and what is not of God. Be able to distinguish the Lord’s voice. The Lord’s voice is gentle and tender and uplifting. Even when he asks us to do hard things, we’re willing to do them and it feels good. We know it’s for our greater good and it will all be worth it. 

What’s not God’s voice is confusing and chaotic and critical. That’s not God’s voice. What’s happening though is we have so much confusion around food and weight. I feel like the Lord is speaking to your heart in a really  profound way right now  and He’s just going to work on your heart. 

That’s another thing that the Lord told me a lot in my prior life. That’s not true. He tells me a lot when I sit down to create programs or a podcast or, you know, something for our members,  something for the women in weight loss with the Holy Spirit community. He says, Denise,  you only have to teach her how to get to me. I do the rest. 

Isn’t that crazy? And I’m like, you’re right, Lord. All I have to do is get her to you. And you do the rest. And I hope this podcast has brought you to his truth. I hope this podcast has helped you start to give you a few ideas of what his voice is and what it’s not  so that you can clearly distinguish what is of God and what isn’t.

And this is a practice, friends. You’re not going to be good at it, and that’s totally fine. In the next podcast, what I will do is lay down  some examples of truly how to grow in virtue. That brings you closer to the Lord. That doesn’t take you away from him. That doesn’t cause you separation. That doesn’t give you an idea of what he wants for you.

That is not what he wants for you. So over the next week, let’s do this. Let’s have you say that prayer. I will say it one more time. I’m going to say that prayer and then your work this week is to just open your eyes on your life, the way that you talk to yourself.  The way that you’re looking at food and weight loss.

What is of him? What isn’t of him? What feels aligned with him? What does not feel aligned with him?  What sounds like his voice? Gentle and peaceful  and natural  and true  and simple.  What is not of him? Chaotic and confusing  and critical 

In fact, you might even want to keep a little notebook this week. Be his secretary. Invite him in to reveal to you what is of him in your life, especially with regard to food and weight loss and what isn’t. You don’t have to go looking, my friends. Just be willing to write it down. Maybe a notebook that has a line down the middle that’s of God and not of God. 

Just see what you get this week. All right, from this prayer, actually, if you don’t mind, I really want to read the whole thing to you one more time  because, well, that’s what he’s telling me to do. 

I want to read this whole thing  and I want to read it as if Jesus is speaking directly to you. And Jesus says, My word is not only truth, but also light. And when light enters a dark room, what does it do? It dispels the darkness  and makes you distinguish the objects that are in it. 

Whether they are ugly or beautiful, whether there is order or disorder. Now, your life is the dark room. And when the light of truth enters your soul, you It dispels the darkness. That is, it makes you distinguish what is true  from what is false. What is temporary from what is eternal in such a way that you cast out vices away from yourself and place the order of virtues within you. 

In fact, since my light is holy, it is the very divinity you. It cannot communicate anything but sanctity and order to you. And so your soul feels the light of patience of humility and charity coming out of you. gosh, you guys, he loves you so much. And so this week, let him work on your heart. Here’s the prayer that you will pray. 

And I suggest you also keep that notebook to let him speak to your heart. 

Lord, Holy Father, I pray to you for myself. Let it be that I fulfill your most holy will perfectly in everything. Let it be, oh adorable Father, that my actions be so conformed to you that no one can distinguish  us from each other. So that you may accomplish what you have designed for Me 

I want to acknowledge that your human brain is having a tantrum about the first part of that which is I pray for myself. You guys, you are asking the Lord to reorder your life and you know that it is fine to pray for you because there are things that are out of order in you. And you are asking that he shine his light of truth in you, that you can become like him. 

This is not selfish. This is holy. This is having the courage to feel uncomfortable saying this prayer and still doing it because you know it’s of him. 

Come back next week after you’ve done your seven days of exercise, of knowing what is of him and what isn’t of him. And I will talk to you more about how to grow in virtue in your weight loss journey.

All right, everybody have a blessed day. Thank you for listening.