by
S.M. Britt
elementary | high school | university | breakthrough | steps to freedom
Breakthrough
At the end of my second year of university, I had had enough of trying to fight this eating disorder on my own. I had fought with every weapon I knew and nothing ever succeeded for long. By now, I had been struggling with food addiction and low self-esteem since early high school and I was sick to death of being surrounded by worries, fears, doubts and obsession.
I tried dieting, I tried exercising compulsively, and I tried starvation and laxatives. I tried quick fixes, control, and determination. All these things failed me.
Someone to turn to
I couldn't be helped by others because I was not being vulnerable enough to share with them. Reading books never helped either. But who else was there? I had nowhere else to turn. I couldn't afford to go to a counselor. So, who then? What about God?
You see, I had known God my whole life. I had a relationship with Him. Throughout my family struggles I leaned on Him, and I had given my life over to loving Him when I was young. But, in this area in particular, I never let Him help me. Despite that I believed He created the universe, that He sent His son Jesus to die for my sins, and that the whole Bible continually talked about God's love for me, I still didn't trust Him with this area of my life. Why?
Perhaps it was because of my shame and fear. Perhaps I thought that God wanted me to stay this way. After all, I had prayed and prayed, asking Him to take this struggle away from me and He hadn't. I had asked Him to make me thin and promised Him I'd be 'better' if He only helped me lose weight. I prayed to be sick so that I would lose weight and asked Him to make me not be able to afford food so that I would be thin again. He never answered these prayers.
So I gave up asking Him to help me do things my way.
This time I said to God, 'Show me what YOUR way is. I want to be free from this through YOUR means and not mine. I am sick of trying and I screw up every time. No more diets, no more obsessing, no more guilt and shame.'
Freedom: First steps
The first realization that I came to was that this was not going to be easy. There was no quick fix and God wasn't going to just miraculously make weight fall off or change my belief systems. I had to walk, journey, and move towards experiencing freedom.
In the Bible, God freed the Israelite nation from slavery under the Egyptians. Although He allowed the Pharaoh to free them from the chains of slavery, the Israelites also had to walk towards their freedom to the 'promised land.'
Like the Israelites, I too had been a slave. I was a slave to my body, a slave to food, and a slave to my physical desires.
But, I was not meant to live like this.
The Bible says that, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery," Galatians 5:1. The blood was already shed on the cross to save me from this burden, but now was time for sweat and tears.
Journal entry:
All this time and all these years I have cried out to God to remove this burden and to remove this issue. But I don't believe it's His wish for me. He wants me to walk. To walk in His victory, to walk with Him, to walk away from the valley of sin and bondage, from Egypt all the way to the promised land. The Israelites had to walk and have faith in God. They had to do it His way in order to have victory, didn't they? Why would He give them freedom to just let them sit in Egypt where they were once slaves? They couldn't just remain there. 'But the distance is so far,' I say. But God is near, He is near and He is walking with me.
Taking it to heart: looking more deeply into the issue
I began to investigate my heart. With help of the Bible, I compared what I believed about myself to what God said about me. I asked myself a lot of questions.
Food was not the issue, it couldn't be. It never was. Just as with success, relationships, money, and other addictions to any sort of substance, the 'thing' is never the problem.
I started asking questions about what I believed. Did I believe it was better to be thin? Did I believe that I had to be thin to be loved? Did I believe that God loved me? Many issues came up that I had to start understanding. I had to start replacing the lies I believed with the truth of what God said about me in the Bible.
Fear
Journal:
I don't understand myself. I ate a lot of pizza with a group last night. This was mainly because people were there and I couldn't resist. I don't feel guilty, but I realize the consequences in how I feel this morning.
When I woke up, I seemed to think about food right away. I don't understand why. It's like a panic that comes over me, 'I have to eat as soon as I can.' But I am not hungry this morning! I ate late, so I'm not even hungry. So then why the fear that I have to eat right now? Why don't I just eat when I am hungry? Do I always have to always feel full?
I thought I had to eat constantly. There was a fear in me, a fear of starving. But, the feeling of hunger wasn't terrible. Why did I fear it so much? Why couldn't I just eat when I was hungry? Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never go thirsty" (John 6:35). The Bible also says that God will satisfy me, that He is with me always, and that He will never leave me. What did I have to be afraid of if I believed that God would take care of me?
Working through heart issues -- love, acceptance, shame, unbelief and fear >> 1.2.3.4.5
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