II Weight of Glory Initiative II Emily's Story II

By the edge of a lake up North, my Dad pitched a tent for my sister and I to sleep in under a summer sky, during a family trip. The excitement and musty smell of blue tarps and rough ground encased us with sheer walls and "shhhhing" of the reeds beyond. I zipped my sleeping bag on the hilly slant and felt the firm ground under my back.

The night changed as a rainstorm began. A river formed and flowed through the tent, right between my sister and me. The water ran down the hill to the lake, gliding right into us on it’s way, ruining my sister’s books and our night in the tent, which was becoming uncomfortable and scary, pitched so close to the lake of choppy black waves.

A couple years ago, my mind became like that tent. Upside down, flooded with cold water, confusing, unpleasant, howling winds, watching my parents try to stop a current they had no control over. I did not recognize beauty correctly. Out of fear and a low sense of self-worth, I began to take inward pain out by physically punishing my own body. I staked my tent on dangerous ground and when help came to uproot the pegs, I shoved the stakes deeper into the earth with fists. “NO, I don’t believe that.” I told truth. “NO. I’m fine.” I told concerned faces.

I stopped eating properly,

afraid of my weight.

I began working out many more hours than necessary,

afraid I wouldn’t lose enough.

I began covering my eating patterns,

afraid of being called out.

I began thinking I wasn’t lovable

the way I was.

God doesn’t really love me.

Eyes. My own eyes, blue, green grey, impressionable, opened as I walked down the long hall across glossy floors which seemed to stretch farther than they ever had before. Beckoning me past sanity with warped truths, a lie said something better was almost in reach. My body barbed wire. Twisted, bare, thin, hurt.

False conclusions and judgments in my head. My head, my head, apart of me, the tallest part of me, was weak and malnourished, under a stream of muddy thoughts. Above the door at the end of the long hallway, a word labeled a side of this destructive obsession: GYM. My long lasting pattern of harm was broken in upon by the voice of Truth.

Truth. Life and whole and holy. I was halted in my path.

You love the gym more than you love me.

I stared at the sign.

You’re right. I do.

I saw the destructiveness

of my sin and in this place it scared me.

I am so sorry.

But how could I say sorry and keep doing this?

Sorry without change is not true repentance.

Sorry without change doesn’t release chains.

Curse these chains.

Slowly, links of lies repeated that the cross, that hope, the way out, was further and further away. I was tempted by each bend and twist of truth, always a restless, nagging tirade of don’t, can’t, worry, FEAR.

Each day, harder to fight- deal blows- to death blows. Fight? I’m fighting myself? Which part of myself? Another punch from thoughts I believed could never go away, ever go away, ever go, ever go, ever go, forever go.

I want them to go. I can’t remember what it was like before. I’m afraid. I’m so afraid. Hope. What am I hoping for? I don’t know anymore.

0.0lbs

My worn out shoes are kicked to the floor. Take them off. Jacket off. Shoes off- off- any extra weight off.

One frightened step. Numbers blink high, low, high, low- worry heightens as the screen goes blank for a split second- then freezes on my weight.

Again, there is less. More numbers fall off the scale but the falling numbers don’t give me the satisfaction I thought they would. So now I’m there- lower- but there is still no peace. I’m worried it will come back. I’m worried it will change. Less, less, less and less… will counting backwards ever be enough?

Every spoken remark exposed struggle, shadows, shame a little more and I couldn’t escape the comments or respond truthfully.

Lifted into air, feather-like and easy, “You’re so light,” mocks me when I realize I don’t want what I thought I wanted at all. Let go of me. I don’t want to be touched, any touch on my shame.

We hug and her hand lingers on my shirt, on my ribs, on my protruding spine.

“I can feel every bone in your back,” she says, eyes looking shock, worry, fear, blue, grey, at me. Her hand traces up my arm, on my shoulder. “You need to eat…”

I pull away.

“I am.”

I am not.

Not fully, not enough.

All bared wire and lies.

It’s a quiet room with a window, and the Doctor speaks in a gentle voice when she looks inside

my eyes. "You need to gain weight.” This medical perspective is startling me and grabbing my slipping brain energy and attention. “I’m going to give you the name…” Where will I get help? “…nutritionist…” Do I need an intervention? “She can help you gain weight in a healthy way.”

I tuck the pamphlet in my bag besides a severely limited source of food I’ve rationed. She shows me a graph displaying the range of a healthy body weight for my age and height. Do I see what she sees? “This is where you are.”

I’m far- too far off the graph. Yes. This is where I am. This isn’t how I should be. What am I doing? I read through the lines and stare at the possibility of loss, and now I join the water around me. If I remain off the graph much longer, permeant damage is possible.

Sterile, may even gone, like the empty cases and black tips of disposable needles on the wall.

My body is starting to shut down.

I want to be a mom someday.

. . . . .

After all the tiring hiding and covering, I know the way to get out is to open. I tell a friend. I share again. It's hard and good. And still, the battle is less than I let on. Each time a faithful friend lifted a candle of truth and held light to the lies, offered prayers, I was lifted, helped, encouraged, and desperate to remember and act on the truth. However, the fullness of hope came later.

At the bottom of it all, uncomfortable to admit what he already knew, uncomfortable to say help, unsure of his response… I need to talk to you.

He sits in the chair, head resting heavily on his hand. Flames dipped and flew behind the glass case around the fireplace while I waited for him, for myself, to find words. I am not worthy of love.

Empty. I don’t know where to start. I am cold.

I prepared for judgment and harsh rebuke. That’s what I need, isn’t it? To be yelled at? Told I’m terrible? Then, after heavy silence pulls down the weight all around me, he speaks and it isn’t at all what I was prepared for.

“I know what it feels like to be so depressed.

I remember what it feels like for everything to lose its flavor.”

Salt. My cheeks taste like salt.

I had not been prepared for a quiet compassion, reaching out to my heart with love.

Silently all expressions, guilt, shame, fear, sorrow, wash down my face.

“I don’t want you to kill yourself.”

Fear rushes around me as hot as the flames from the fireplace.

I don’t want to die…how can I get out of here? I don’t want to kill myself. I don’t want you to watch me die.

Truth spoke again: but Satan does. “The thief comes only to steal and destroy…” John 10:10

Cracked my voice

open wide in a

broken cry I’m helpless. The thoughts are not stopping.

“I keep praying and asking God to help me with this, to help me stop thinking these things that aren’t true, but it keeps happening! Will you pray for me?”

“Yes, I’ll pray for you, but you have to DO something.”

Prayer alone wasn’t going to refill an empty bone frame. Neither was trying to change by myself, faith requires action.

“The Lord is near to those who call on Him, to those who call on Him in truth.” Psalm 145:18

“You HAVE to eat. I don’t care if you don’t feel like it or think you need to.” His eyes look pained. His voice extended to me again and this time, -thank God this time- it broke past the lies. The severity of where I was had not gripped me like this. This time, living words arrived upon my exposed, beating heart and shifted the thoughts.

“Faith for you right now looks like eating a full meal. Keep telling yourself that.

And have some ice cream, too, because your body needs the calories.”

Faith for me right now looks like eating a full meal. Faith is eating and believing what God says is true. Faith is obedience, even though the lies inside my mind scream against this.

“Take every thought captive to obey Christ.” 2 Corinthians 2:5

He hugs me tightly. He still loves me. I hold on.

Hold onto me, says the Lord. Because He Loves me.

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10

I can surely count the ways I’m broken.

Jesus, the one at the right hand of the Father God, counts my abundance.

“Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let me come to me and drink.”

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:37

He came for every soul – my soul- on the brink of starvation.

The devil, the accuser, the father of lies comes to cut, destroy, and leave souls strung out like barbed wire, forgetting the rich promises of God. He opposes God, who is life and truth and love, in every moment.

I have seen the weakness of my heart and mind. The damage of my sins are nailed to the cross. “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. By grace you have been saved.”

Ephesians 2:4-5

Jesus sets me free. I am forgiven and alive in Him. He helps me fight temptations and walks with me daily. He helps me meditate on the hope from Him when I’m tempted to be highly self-criticizing and doubt his love. I am a new creation called to LIFE in Christ.

“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises.

So that through them you may become partakes of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:3-4

Months and years pass in seasons of frustration, celebration, and thankfulness. My shadow passed by a pale pink rose. In the center of colorless leaves hiding the cold earth, the sun dances around the colorful petals.

I sit in a quiet room, waiting for the same Doctor as before to come in and see me. What do I see? Every pound lost and more has been regained in marks across my skin. Emptiness is redeemed, reclaimed, Holy Spirit living inside me.

I need Jesus to depend on, Jesus who gives me faith to believe truth because I can't on my own. I remember where those lies took me before. I remember the voice that drew me out of the deep waters. “Abide in me and let my words abide in you.”

A knock on the door, the waiting is over. My body is healing. Quiet turned to joy. I’m alive!

She enters and sees what she can of change. “Look at you! This is amazing! This is amazing. Your body is in a healthy place." She smiles at me. I smile back.

. . . . .

The unfolding of your words gives light;

It imparts understanding to the simple.

Psalm 119:130

Keep steady my steps according to your promise,

and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

Psalm 119: 133

I follow my Savior’s footprints back to the edge of the lake, where I had pitched my tent of unbelief. And there in His company, I thank Him for saving me.

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II Weight of Glory Initiative II Emily's Story II

Sunday, February 26, 2017

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