When Anna asked me to write for the blog, she asked that I share some wisdom that God gave to me through a particular season of life. One time in my life instantly came to mind - it is my story of struggle with body image and food. But I want to first address just a few things. First, I feel the need to make a disclaimer: this is not a story about an eating disorder. Eating disorders are real, clinically diagnosed illnesses that may need treatment. An eating disorder is not a punishment for a lack of faith in the Lord. If this is you, rely on the Lord but also seek help; do not go it alone. I hope my story can be of some encouragement but remember it is not one of a diagnosed eating disorder. This is just my personal story of struggling with food and body image and the process of how the Lord healed me and my mindset. Second, when we talk about past seasons of faith, they can seem neat and put together. I have a tendency to share this story as if there was a clear start and end to it, that I was broken and now I’m healed and that problem is “solved”. But healing is hardly ever linear or fast, and frankly, hardly ever complete on this side of Heaven. Also, I would be lying if I said the wisdom I’m about to share was all acquired during this season; much of this was graciously given to me by the Holy Spirit many months after this season of my life. Lastly, I want to clarify that this story is shortened- there is a lot more I could say, but to be honest, a complete and detailed story of my own is far less important than what the Lord taught me, and that is what I hope to share more than anything else.
It was the fall of my senior year of high school when I made the decision to cut pretty much every meal I ate in half. Insecurities of mine that had been growing for a few years finally manifested themselves in an obsession with controlling everything I ate. I began losing weight quickly, and I genuinely believed I was doing it in a healthy way, and so did everyone else in my life. On the outside, my new lifestyle could be seen as “normal”, but what I kept ignoring was that my mind was anything but healthy. I am not exaggerating when I say that nearly every free moment I had was spent thinking about the next meal and how many calories it would cost me. By February, I noticed that I had skipped my period. Initially, I wasn’t really concerned. But, with each passing month– still no period. And healthy girls don’t lose their periods for months at a time. I waited, prayed, worried, attended doctor's appointments, took hormone treatments, and began eating more, and after nine months– and gaining a few pounds back– I finally got my period back. This process slowly brought me back to reality; the Lord had begun to show me and I began to acknowledge the real reason I was unhealthy. The physical problem was just a symptom of the underlying cause: I did not believe my identity and worth were defined by being a daughter of Jesus Christ. I was a believer, but I was not daily giving this particular area of my life into the Father’s hands.
It was the gradual, sanctifying grace of Jesus that gently saved me from the ceaseless and evil thoughts that controlled my mind daily. It was so slow, in fact, that I remember one day just realizing that I hadn’t counted calories in a while. I realized that I hadn’t pre-planned any meal in a long time. So what was it the Lord showed me during that time and the months that followed that gradually healed my mind and heart?
First, the Lord drew me in. As a believer, I knew His love for me. I knew He had compassion on me. Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (ESV). Jesus’ message of love and rest and freedom reminded me to draw close to Him. There was great comfort in knowing my Savior knows the human heart and has compassion for me in my weakness– “As a Father shows compassion to His children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14, ESV). Jesus’ heart breaks over the insecurities of women. He hates the lies the devil convinces us are true. He longs for us to look to Him, to allow Him to show us His Truth and love.
As the Lord drew me closer to His heart, He was so kind to expose the pride in my own heart that led me to believe I was capable of making myself be “enough”. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (ESV). This sounds harsh because it didn’t feel like pride- it felt like incredible weakness, like a form of humility because I didn’t really love myself. And I want to acknowledge that not everyone who struggles with eating and body image necessarily has the same cause/root sin that mine did. But I had to realize that any form of seeking worth within myself rather than Christ is pride, and calling it what it was– sin– helped me gradually leave behind self-pity, and instead, repent and begin the process of true healing in Christ.
Jesus was kind and gentle as He reminded me whose I was– a daughter of Christ, chosen and accepted and forgiven by my Heavenly Father– and this reoriented my perspective on how I was created to live. He clearly showed me the way out– Ephesians 2:4-5 states, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (ESV). I am saved because of His grace, and I have hope for healing only because of Him.
Ephesians continues on in this passage, saying, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10, ESV). There is incredible freedom in believing this verse, that I am God’s “workmanship” simply because I am a daughter of Christ. When I am walking in obedience to the Lord, doing the good “prepared beforehand” for me by my Savior, I am living out my purpose. Absolutely nowhere in the Bible is my mission or ability to do God’s work ever connected to my appearance. Isaiah 64:8 states, “But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we are all the work of Your hand” (ESV). God’s design for me is good because He does not make mistakes. The Potter knows what is best for the clay. And only my Maker’s gets to determine my value. No one or nothing else– no boy, no amount of comments on a social media post, not even myself– gets to decide my worth. This is so hard for us women to believe; we are wired to want to be seen as lovely, to be considered beautiful, to fit the image we think is most desirable to others. But this truth– this incredibly hard truth– that God Himself determines my worth, that salvation in Jesus Christ is the reason I can walk this life in confidence, must be desperately clung to. And I have to choose over and over to believe these things before I feel them as true.
Proverbs 31:10-31 depicts what a woman of God truly is. She is trustworthy and loyal; she is hard-working and cares for those around her; she is wise and she does not fear the uncertain days to come because she knows God Himself holds her future. She is mission-minded and focused on the Lord and others– implying that she is rarely focused on herself. “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”– Praise the Lord for how intentional He is to include this verse! He is gracious to give us proof that beauty and charm are completely unrelated to our worth in His eyes and our mission in this life.
Looking back on this season, I can confidently say that losing my period was God’s sovereign way of saving me from my issues becoming any worse. I was not yet someone who could be diagnosed with an eating disorder, but, given more time, it could have gotten to that point. This is a beautiful picture to me of God’s grace in my life. While I was a believer during this time, I was still a slave to food, a slave to my image before others, and a slave to lies. God used this brokenness of mine to re-teach me His beautiful gospel, to remind me that my identity lies outside of myself and in the hands of my Creator. I have a steadfast hope in my Savior and the perfect grace He gives, that while on this earth I still struggle to a degree with the same sins and insecurities, in Heaven I will receive ultimate and final freedom from it all.
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