My Story I - Beginning the Journey

Now comes the personal anecdote. It is all well and good to talk about society safe upon my high horse, but to actually be involved??? Battle...weight issues? Oh, yes, my friend. Here is one Fair Lady who struggled for years with this. Thus, I shall try to make this practical, bring it down to a concrete, real-life story, by sharing what I did. Friends who know me well can guess what I am going to say, yet I may as well give my little tale to the World Wide Web while we are on the subject, then I can drop it. I do this just in case someone else is where I was a few years ago: making a decision, whether they know it or not, to either be a tool of Satan by giving in to their own desires or to glorify God by being, well, not perfect (according to the world's standards). So, this may be a bit long, but in the future I hope to mince my words a little more...mincingly.

So, let's travel back about a year to see where I was in life. That would be October of 2010...I wore baggy clothes, mainly because I wanted to hide my shape and needed the extra cushion those sweaters provided. Otherwise, people would comment about how sickly thin I looked (I, to the contrary, avoided mirrors because I could never see myself as skinny) and it hurt to come in contact with anything hard, like a chair. My hair frizzled and limped from my head. My skin wavered between an ethereal yellow, sallow orange, and pale gray. Eyes hollow, fingers and lips blue from cold, hair bronzing from malnutrition. Let's just say that, physically, I was not the greatest thing out there. 

The Waif Last Year

Not the loveliest picture of me, I know, but it gets the point across! 

How about spiritually? I think I felt the same way as I did physically. Limp. Dank. Cold. Now, that was way, deep down. On the outside, I tried to be - and believe myself to be - vivacious, happy, and useful. I convinced myself everything was alright. Perhaps my body was ill, but I was being a "good girl." At home I clawed in a scarily OCD fashion for control, thus becoming snappish, exacting, and plain old obnoxious. Towards friends, I attempted to appear genial and relaxed. On the one hand, all the relationships within my family were edgy, while, on the other, I tried especially hard to be nice to outsiders. When it came to God, I also tricked myself. In the depths of my being, someplace where I had buried the person into whom God was molding me, I knew I had abandoned my Father. I knew, somewhere along the way, I had seized the reins from Him. However, I duped myself in to experiencing "heartfelt" yearnings for all things Spiritual. My devotions went on for hours and a good portion of my time went to counseling friends. At night, though, I couldn't sleep due to sobbing over my hypocrisy. And that is something I need to drive home to you: the two-facedness of living for man's expectations rather than God's expectations. All I was is a facade, and that is all you will be, too, if you decide to live for the approval of yourself and society rather than for the smiling face of God. And we slip in to it so subtly. That is why we have to be tenacious in keeping ourselves away from worldly thoughts. In the last post we saw how difficult that can be. But back to me, you can sum up my position by stating I was genuinely hoodwinked.

But God had gotten a hold of me long ago, and He was not about to go back on His word. 

I cannot really say what gave me a desire to relinquish control and live for God. I think it was a combination of things. First, I was so sick. Obviously, all the nutrition information I found online was a hoax. I followed the directions to a T, if not more severely. I stumbled across some blogging crazy homeschool mamas who touted fat as good for you, who said the "Diet dictocrats" were wrong, and who applauded a life altogether different from the one I had been living or seen encouraged. And they looked content, at peace, even beautiful! So, there was some portion of my Worldview being chipped away. 

Then, my family drew me to sanity, too. They knew what I was really like. Looking back, I see how they knew me better than myself because they saw me clearly, whereas I saw myself through a fog. Daddy stayed up many a night just talking with me, praying with me. My brother helped me get through the ups and downs of it all - you know, the muscle cramps, the mood swings, the insanity. I finally understood Mumsie's pitying looks and encouragements to eat more. It is as if I woke up one day and decided not to be offended at them. 

But it was not an overnight change at all. The main loadstone for this girl was her Heavenly Father. He used the means of my family and others, but above all, He used Himself. And I think that is what it takes to get over something like anorexia - or anxiety, or depression, or anything else we come up with these days. It takes an encounter with God. Not merely a one-time experience where you feel all warm and cuddly, but a true realization of Who God is and What you have been messing with when you try to put yourself in His shoes. Once that humbling takes place, He can mold you. He can make you His. That is what He did for me.

It was a major turnaround. Do you see how, in my case, eating that spoonful of fat is tantamount to surrendering myself to God? It is a relinquishing of all my values, rules, and desires, to His. Maybe putting it that way will better explain why this issue of food is important to me. Right now, it is the most obvious way I can conform to His will for my life. There are many areas which need conforming, to be sure, but this one is huge. Read on to see just how extensive the consequences of Food were, and are, in my life.