I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:4
My journey with anorexia started innocently enough. I was 18 and had started getting serious about working out. Drinking the now illegal ephedra drinks to help me lose weight and running helped me to shed some teenage pounds and become really fit. I started to get attention for my new look from guys I had once thought out of my league and enjoyed the new dates and power I felt that I had gained. The world approved of me and I fit into the box that said I was now the right size.
Having experienced that taste of attention and enjoying the perks it brought, I feared gaining the weight back. I made sure that I ate a certain amount of calories a day, many times as few as 800, while running 5 miles each day. And it started. I became a slave to anorexia, a slave to the scale. As long as it said I weighed a certain weight, I was happy. I was in control. But that number on the scale kept getting lower and the lower it went, the more in control I felt.
Many people don’t understand the mechanics of anorexia. They can’t understand why you can’t just eat. But I fully understand it. I was anorexic for eight years and know how the fear of gaining weight, of not being enough, of losing control can force you to go to bed starving, ignoring the hunger pains that you don’t even feel as much after time, and tell your body that it must ignore the red flags it sends begging you to rest and eat. Sadly, anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder including depression. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders states that every 62 minutes at least one person dies as a direct result of an eating disorder.
My entire life revolved around my anorexia. I could hide it from my family and now husband because they believed I just really enjoyed working out and being healthy. Although I was really thin, they still saw me eat on the nights I allowed myself to, my binge nights, and therefore thought I just had a great metabolism. But the truth was that I needed that control, I had to have that control. At my lowest points, I counted the calories even in gum and considered suicide, holding a knife to my wrist.
While on the outside I appeared to have it all – an incredible job, wonderful husband, etc…On the inside I was sick, feeling weaker each year that went by, getting sicker and sicker. My front tooth even died turning gray. I had to miss work at times due to “my allergies” as I told everyone. They were terrible, as we all know living in Texas, but not the real reason I couldn’t work.
In the back of my mind, I heard that little voice telling me why I was so sick. I had even heard the Lord one morning say,” that if I humbled myself before Him, He would heal me”. However, I didn’t know exactly what He meant by humble myself, and I also didn’t want to admit that I needed healing. At this point, I had been a believer walking close to Jesus for a few years. I had a relationship with Him, often spent time with Him, and had surrendered my life to Him. Except for this one area. I couldn’t trust that He wouldn’t have me gain weight and lose that control. And even though Jesus continued to whisper gently to me, asking me to let go of this, I chose to ignore Him, not able to face the fact that I would have to give up this control and face my fear of gaining weight and ultimately not being enough.
But God didn’t give up on me. One day, as I was at home from work not feeling well due to “my allergies”, I received a call from my sister in California. She told me that she had been in church that past weekend and felt that God told her that it was my eating (or not eating) that was the problem with me. I immediately felt the conviction and threw my phone against the wall in anger. I fell to my knees in despair and finally listened to the Lord. Did I want to continue down this path that would lead to sickness and death or was I ready to get well? Did I want to get well? I got on my knees, threw up my hands in surrender, and asked Jesus to please help me. I told Him that I couldn’t heal myself, that I needed His help. Please…
What happened next is still a mystery to me. I fell on my bed and went to sleep for about forty-five minutes. When I awoke, I went downstairs and made myself a peanut butter sandwich which I had probably not eaten in 8 years due to the amount of calories. I continued to eat this way from that point on, stopping the calorie counting, and even eventually stopping exercise to allow my body to heal. My sister was kind enough to set up some appointments for me with a therapist but after a few visits and the dramatic progress I had made she felt she no longer needed to see me. I told her quite plainly that Jesus had healed me of my eating disorder to which she looked at me like I was crazy but couldn’t dispute the fact that I was meeting her challenges of eating french fries and other foods head on and gaining weight without anxiety.
I was healed. I was whole. I had given that one area of my life that I had been holding back finally to the Lord. And He had graciously freed me from my prison! I had finally humbled myself before Him and He had healed me! Just like He had promised! I couldn’t believe how well I started to feel again, the joy that flooded my heart, and the amazement I felt that He had healed little old me.
Being healed and feeling so well, I desperately wanted others to experience that same freedom. But God couldn’t use me yet. Not until I dealt with the underlying reasons as to I had turned to anorexia and felt that need for control. As a wise friend told me, my anorexia was simply a symptom of a greater problem. Until I figured out what that was, I wouldn’t be completely healed.
And so while the Lord had healed me dramatically from my anorexia by helping me be able to eat without fear and opened up the prison door, there was still work to be done. What was the root issue as to why I would be willing to starve myself and treat my body so badly? Was it a control issue? A fear of gaining weight?
Only God could help me discover the answers to those questions. As I sought the Lord in my quiet time each day, I came to know His personal, incredible love for me even more deeply. And I discovered the lie I had been believing. A lie that I think many of us still struggle with today including myself at times. The lie of not being enough, not measuring up, of having to earn other’s approval to matter or have worth in this world. I also saw how I craved control because my life had been out of control for many years,and it gave me some sort of satisfaction to have what I thought was control over this one area of my life. However the truth was that I was a slave to anorexia, to the approval of others, living in a prison that no amount of self-help or self-medicating would be able to truly free me of.
How did the Lord not only heal me of my anorexia but also of the reason why I turned to it in the first place? By showing me what I meant to Him and how He saw me through His eyes. When I started to care more about what God thought than what others thought, then I started to experience true freedom. God’s love freed me from my fear of gaining weight, of not being enough. No matter what others think, God loves me and I am worthy in His eyes regardless of my size, looks, ranking in this world. I don’t have to fit in the world’s box and I no longer even desire to. God made us to stand out, to be different, to no longer conform to the world’s standards but to live by His.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
The Lord desires that each of us come to see ourselves through His eyes, to know how precious and loved by Him we are. He wants us to know and believe that His love is truly so great for us that He would send His Son to die on a cross for our sins so that we may enjoy eternity with Him. One of my favorite and first verses I memorized was the following:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you….
Isaiah 43:1-5 (Emphasis mine)
Anorexia may not be your issue but perhaps some other fear is weighing you down, stealing your joy, even leading you to a slow death. Maybe instead of controlling your eating, you are filled with anxiety about everything being perfect in your house and your life. Perhaps you use alcohol to numb your emotions or to quiet the fears in your mind. Maybe instead of not eating, you use food for comfort over indulging and paying for it with health issues. If there is a problem or fear that you haven’t released into the Lord’s Hands and asked for His healing, you will most likely move from one temporary comfort to another seeking the freedom that only Christ can give. As one who has seen a psychiatrist for help, I definitely encourage reaching out to get professional help when needed. But please don’t neglect the most important healing. The healing of the soul that only Christ can give through time spent with Him.
Each day as I met with the Lord, I came to know Him more deeply. I discovered His personal love for me. I realized that I was wonderfully made in His eyes and that truly what He thought was all that mattered. Not that I didn’t have those feelings of wanting to fit into the world or be admired for the way I looked, but over time those feelings weren’t as strong. I cared more about what God thought than other people. He said I was beautiful, that I was enough because of Him. He freed me from my identity being found in my looks to my identity being found in being a daughter of the Most High God. I was no longer a slave to anorexia or to what anyone else thought. I was His and He was enough.
For the One:
I may have wrote this blog for just one person to read. But please hear me when I say that you matter to God so much that He would have me spend this time for you to know that He still hears your prayers, sees you wherever you are, and is still the God who heals. Reach out to Him. He is waiting with open arms.
Michelle
For the One 