I was only 11 years old the first time I forced myself to throw up. I remember thinking at the time that I was clever, that I had “discovered” the solution to my problems. My home life was out of control, my own trauma and pain began to cripple me, but this… this I could have control over.
Control… what a funny thing to believe… because the decade to follow would contain anything but control. The harder I tried to fix myself, the tighter the noose of this disease became.
“I will stop when I reach the perfect weight.”
“I will stop when other parts of my life get better”
“I will stop tomorrow; this is the last time”
These wishes of healing and desperation were never to be fulfilled on my own.
When I truly found the Lord in early 2018, He instantly delivered me from many things, but bulimia stuck. I abstained from my compulsive eating behaviours the best I could, but I soon learned that abstinence did not mean healing. Every few months for the first few years of my Christian walk I would find myself in full blown relapse, and with seemingly nowhere to turn. I felt ashamed of my disorder before I became a Christian, but it couldn’t compare to the shame I felt now. I was involved in ministry, I was applying to Bible school, I knew I was called to be used by the Lord all my life… But I was completely and utterly broken. I wanted to tell someone, I wanted to reach out for help, but the deep neural pathways of, “I can fix it” felt impossible to shake. If I told my pastor, would he tell me I couldn’t minister? Would I need to go away somewhere to find recovery? Would people see me differently? Would my parents feel as though they failed? Would my friends wonder why I never confided in them?
I felt like I was such a deep failure to God and those around me. I even felt like a failure at my eating disorder… my weight was all over the place… Could I not even succeed in this? I was full blown bulimic, and you would never be able to tell by looking at me.
These are the thoughts and internal processes that this page will be chronicling, along with the journey of true freedom I have been able to step into because of God’s extraordinary love and discipline. It is my heart that my own transparency would lead to an understanding that you, the one stuck in what I have described now, are NOT alone. I am incredibly excited to unpack all that my journey has and will entail. Vulnerability is the first step to true healing. Vulnerability with others, but most of all, vulnerability with God.
So today, I ask you this: What struggles are you not being completely honest about in your life? What are you trying to hide from God and others? Take a step into vulnerability with God even now, and begin a dialogue of honesty, however that may look. Tell Him where you’re at. I can assure you that He already knows everything and has been waiting for you to come out of hiding.