keep walking

There are so many unknowns right now. Every way I look I see mountains...every path seems to bend in a way that limits how far down it I can see. So many decisions feel out of my control...and the ones that do feel like are in my control are actually the ones that are controlling me. Everything is spinning. I hit a wall...the edge of a cliff...the bottom of the well. My resources and my plans have failed me and like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden...i find myself hiding from the only one who can save me. He is all I have. He is my only hope of freedom. He is the only one who moves mountains. He is my Father, my provider...He is the one who gave me life. So I'm terrified but in that there is some sort of peace because i have nothing left in me to try and figure it out. I have no more doors to pry open. I have nothing left to trade or barter. I am out of control...out of energy and out of the parameters of my plans. I had a hard conversation today...many hard conversations today. But one of them in particular left me feeling the weight of the situation more than any others have in the week or so. When everyone has stated their opinions. When everyone has picked their side. When everyone has gone back to living their own lives I sit face to face with my maker...so clearly in need of a savior. No one understands me the way He does. No one knows my heart the way He does. No one knows the plans of my life like He does. No one is always with me like He is. I don't want to be in charge any more. I don't want to be the one making the big decisions. I want to be the child for once in my life and allow someone else to keep me safe. That doesn't negate my responsibilities. That doesn't negate my choices. But it allows me to hand over the map I created for myself and start following the map He has made for me. I'm not one to learn lessons quickly. My stubborn pride and determination can be my biggest enemy. So it has taken me coming to a point where I no longer have any idea of what to do. I feel like the Lord has said to go to Selah House. I really thought that is what I was or am hearing. But I am taking a step back and handing that back to the Lord. 50,000 is a 50% discount. Oh my goodness. Thats alot of money. You see people think going into inpatient treatment is an easy option. Putting your life on hold is never easy. Swallowing your pride and admitting you are out of control is never easy. Having someone watch every move you make is never easy. People going through your things and telling you what to eat and what to do...not easy. Its humiliating. Its embarrassing. It is at times unbearable. But it would at least be safe. I know there I will be taken care of. I know there I can heal. So maybe I made that out to be my savior. I honestly don't know. But the only way to know for sure is to hand it back to the Lord and trust He will give it to me if its His will and in His timing. I have nothing left to do but trust the Lord. I have no other options other than to walk where HE leads...because standing still is sure death and I have no resources to carry out my own plans. My strength has failed...so I have to walk in His. Its a painful blessing to receive...you never want to hit rock bottom...but there is a hope in knowing you are no longer the one calling all the shots. I was never created to be self sufficient. So I have to keep walking. Eyes closed listening for the voice of the Lord to lead me...I take each step...believing this must be the path to freedom.

shiny paper

Years ago I heard a story in a sermon at church about a tribe of people in Africa that consider money brain to be a delicacy. Its awful, I know, but there is a point to me repeating this, I promise. Well the story went something along these lines...The people who were the hunters of these monkeys had discovered a very interesting trick to capturing them. They would dig very narrow holes in the ground that were deep and wider at the very bottom...just big enough for a monkey to reach their hand down into it. Inside the holes they would put a few pieces of candy and some shiny paper...and then they would leave. Once they left the monkeys would come out and find these holes and reach down into them and grab onto the shiny paper and candy. The problem was that when they made a fist their hand was to wide to bring back up the narrow part of the hole. So instead of letting go and walking away these monkeys would hold onto this paper and candy even to the point of the hunters walking right up to capture them. Their fists would be bloody from trying to pull it up for so long and yet they held so tightly onto something that was empty to begin with. They walked right into the hands of the hunter, holding so tightly on to something that was only, in the end, going to destroy them. Sound familiar? My shiny paper looks better, or so I think. Beauty, control, self sufficiency...they are so much more then just a shiny piece of paper...or are they?
This week I went to see Tiffany on Tuesday and she told me she would like me to go into the hospital on Friday to get nourished and hydrated. I smiled at her, in my mocking sort of way, and told her that was impossible. I had to work this weekend. Things weren't that bad. my weight wasn't that low. I wanted to lose weight and there was no way I was going to go sit in a hospital bed for my weekend when I could be working. The week passed in slow misery as the long days at work sucked all energy from my body. Depression came in as an intoxicating smell willing me to lay down and stop fighting this terrible thing others call life. I talked to other people in my life and tried to be honest with them about the depth of the struggle I was facing...and yet even my optimistic honesty left people telling me I should submit and eat and that I was on the right track...to just keep going. Discouraged I wondered if this was it...maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe this is fighting and this is how it feels to live life. Maybe I am fine and this is what other people feel but it doesn't feel this way to them...I am just freaking crazy. Two weeks ago the Lord started to stir the idea of inpatient treatment. I laughed thinking that was clearly a tactic of the enemy...because that would be choosing the "easy" way out...and as Christians are we supposed to do the hardest thing possible at all times? But then the dreams continued...I would pray and pray and they would just keep coming. So I finally started praying about inpatient and asking the Lord what in the world He was doing...and He led me to the website of a place called Selah House. Its crazy. CRAZY. I would never in a million years tell you this was what I should be doing right now. I have a million reasons not to and very very few reasons why I should...so I prayed about it. I decided if this was the Lord that this place I had randomly found would resonate with others...the first two professionals I talked to said they LOVED Selah House and that it would be their first choice for me to go there. Still I thought...this is weeks and months away...i have so much time to get my crap together. So I met with Tiffany on Friday and through the eyes of a concerned mother she pleaded me to go into the hospital that day. I asked her her thoughts about selah house and she told me to call them that day. So I did...and they were amazing. The problem comes into place with money. Its really really really expensive...and I don't have any way to pay for it. I would be lying if i told you I knew exactly what to be believing the Lord for. I don't know if He just wanted me to walk in obedience to just call them...or if He actually wants me to go there. All I know if that I have been holding onto shiny pieces of paper for a really long time watching as the hunter came closer and closer...but terrified to let go and lose what was in my hand. The tricky part of an eating disorder, or most addictions that have gotten out of hand, is that stopping isn't as easy as just not doing it. Hence the word addiction. I can't help but place a link to the addiction dance from a few seasons ago on so you think you can dance...it in so many ways perfectly describes the battle within me everyday. .
There have been times in my life when I feel like I wake up from a long confusing dream and find myself in a place I didn't even know I was in. I look at my hands and the chains around my wrists and wonder when I allowed myself to enter such bondage. the enemy has wanted me to believe the answer is to simply go back to sleep and keep dreams...but I am seeing that the Lord is saying its time to wake up and face the reality of the chains... seeing that I didn't get there overnight...and that getting out might take some time. I don't know where the Lord is leading...but I know that the way things are going isn't going to lead me to life. I have watched the hunters approach for far too long and the decision of letting go of the shiny paper has to be made. Sometimes the best way to let go of control is but relinquishing it to someone who won't let you return back to the shiny paper in the ground. Treatment isn't a quick fix. Its the beginning of a journey that will equip you for the battle. I don't know the road before me. I just know that the road I am on is certain death. And the reality of that hit me hard this week. I have to go a new way...I don't have a choice anymore. Please be praying for me. I need a financial miracle. Literally. I know the Lord will provide for the path He takes me...but I would love for you to partner with me in faith.

John 15:5-17

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.

reflections in the mirror...

I keep waiting to write...thinking there will be a day when the edge wears off and the soft whispers of joy emerge. EMDR has proven to be quite emotionally challenging. Its as if you invite a nightmare to come and willingly walk into that which torments you the most. The problem remains that I can't will myself to stay in it long enough to benefit from it...only long enough to torture my mind and my heart. Tiffany says that sometimes it just takes time...and i try to believe her and allow hope to continue to be stirred. EMDR is not my redemption...Jesus is...but i do believe this is something He is going to use...if I let Him. Its tricky because in some ways its a battle of time. Trying to get in enough EMDR to help before it makes things bad enough that my mind becomes a maze of fun house mirrors and smokey haze...eventually the haze becomes normal and you become desensitized to your limited vision. Is it about choices? Of course it is...but as I was talking to someone today, someone who totally never reads this blog... that the EMDR causes things to shift. There was a game I played when I was younger where you stacked marbles on top of all these sticks...and slowly each person had to pull out sticks hoping not to make any of the marbles shift and eventually fall through. The sticks have been the dam that I have built over the years and as we pull at the sticks things shift. All the stuff on top was the reason I started falling into an eating disorder to begin with...so when I feel it all shifting and falling I hold onto the thing that has always been my constant...at times tighter then I ever have before. With great pain reflecting through the grasp of my hands I beg life, willing it to leave me be. This world can take away my purity. This world can take my family. This world can take my dreams but you see it can't take away the security of an eating disorder. It can't take away that control...though i know the very essence of what it is has stripped me of the very control i think I have. Smoke and mirrors. Recalling the nightmare and choosing to still let go of the way I have known to live life feels virtually impossible. It feels like you are asking me to breath without air...to run without feet...to talk without a voice. I KNOW I have a God, a Savior, who overcame death. I know I have a relationship with the one who walked on water. So I KNOW nothing is impossible. NOTHING is beyond the power, the reach, the will of the Lord. The is no temptation that is greater than the creator of life... but my heart has stopped feeling...stopped knowing how to imagine the truth as truth. I long for my mind to connect with my heart and to resonate with the love that has already set me free...but with a blank stare i search my own eyes for any trace of life inside the stone cold walls that stand tall, guarding the reflection...the image in the mirror that moves when I move...that breathes in air each time I do. I'm not without hope...for we are never without hope. The day that Jesus died on the cross we lost our excuse to have no hope. Our hope just doesn't play out in the trappings of this world. So I feel stuck. Battling the raging war going on for my mind knowing that what I see isn't what is real...knowing the things which I feel can't be trusted. Praying that the day for the Lord's healing is today. My pastor frequently says that Jesus always speaks with a "go" word. He never tells us to sit still. He would heal in the new testament and then tell them to go and show themselves to the priest or to go and sin no more...there was always a voice that called for action. I know I have to fight...no one can fight for me, people can only fight with me.
On Friday I was incredibly blessed to spend the day with my babies, ask the kids I used to nanny for. I was so so happy to just be with them...and I realized that the thing that I love so much about kids is that they don't know to care about the physical appearance. They didn't even see the tube on my face. They didn't notice if I had gained or lost weight. They didn't see my lack or my strength...they only were able to see me. Parker a few different times just stopped and looked up at me and would say, "Hey Beffy?" I would respond, "Yeah Peanut?" And with those big blue eyes he would just say, "I love you." I couldn't have asked for a more rich and expensive blessing then that. For someone to see me...not the me I present or the me that comes with make up and cute clothes. He was able to see me...and love me. Such a gift from the Lord of a perspective we so quickly lose as we grow up. His view of us. His love for who we were made to be...and for that to be enough.

the waves of emotions

This has been one of those weeks...the ones where you look back and wish you were actually clinically crazy just so you could have a good explanation for your behavior. If you are wanting a happy story I would stop reading and reference another one of my posts. Today all I have to offer is a vulnerable acknowledgment that the choices I have made have not been ideal...and the dwellings of my heart have not been pretty. There is an expression that I have related well to this week. Its something along the lines of "The lights are on but nobody is home." That's how I feel. I am here and alive and going through out my days...and yet I feel empty, hallow.
I have done alot of thinking this week...wondering to myself why I do the things I do. Why I have such a hard time hooking up to my feeding tube at night. Why I have such a hard time putting food in my mouth and eating. Why I have such an incessant obsession with losing weight and being thin...when it long ago stopped mattering to me how much i weigh. These are the weeks that are hard because I am reminded that this all is not about the size of my jeans or the number on the scale. This isn't about getting a boyfriend or even finding a husband. Its in those moments where there is a desperation to block out these feelings that are rising up and in shame and desperation you run to your vice, your drug of choice, and breath deep the power of making yourself numb. There is guilt that follows. You look back and tell yourself to suck it up and stop being a child. You tell yourself you know better...you know truth, you know there is accountability and relationships...but your flesh and your fear of facing that which seems so powerful that it just may destroy you, takes over. You give in and for a moment you can breath...and if your honest, really honest, for a moment it was worth it. The relief is worth it. But of course we say its about food. Of course we say its just an addiction to our drug of choice. We say its an attempt to be cool, be beautiful, be alive...because to admit our desperation to be free of the deep rooted devastation would be vulnerable... would open us up to the very thing which we are running from. Its so much easier to be obsessed with a number...to root it all back to the size of your jeans and the reflection in the mirror. Because wouldn't that in theory be easier to overcome in the future? Wouldn't it be easier to minimize and rationalize just not eating to be thin because you know its nothing more then just a bad habit. That works wonderfully until the day when you stop caring about the drug...but only care about the feeling it produces. I know the truth...or should I say I logically understand the truth...but this week my heart has decided it doesn't want to listen. My heart doesn't care what is true...it only cares that it doesn't want to feel. I know each day I am only one choice away from getting back on track... and that its a choice only I can make. So my prayer right now is for the Lord to change my heart and renew my strength...my prayer is that this week is that hope would be restored and love would be courageous enough to stop resisting the provision of the Lord, and instead I would embrace it.

running

"I run my life
Or is it running me?
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems"

These words from the popular
Lady Antebellum song I run to you , resounded deeply with me on Friday. I sat down in my Therapists office shaking, knowing that we were going to start a new type of therapy that day...once which would make me do the very thing I have been running from for as long as I have had a will to carry me. EMDR, short for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a relatively new type of therapy that is supposed to help reprocess trauma to make it less debilitating. Its a type of therapy that doesn't make you talk in detail about what happened...which is what sold me...but it does make you look at it with rather brutal clarity and feel it as though its happening all over again...or so they said. BUT, its supposed to have amazing results that offer freedom from what has kept you bound. It sounds great...until you actually have to do it. Those lyrics replayed in my mind as i drove to her office thinking to myself that the greatest lie I have convinced myself of over the years is that I am the one running my life. I sold my life away to an illusion of control...to a voice that promised me beauty, admiration, and control. It promised me predictability and protection. Operating in my violated trust of a world that seemed so cold and heartless, i gave in. "I run my life, or is it running me" amplified a reality i had been trying to close my eyes to for so long. In the quest to control my life I lost the very thing I was after. "I run from my past, I run too fast. Or too slow it seems." I ran so hard and so fast in an opposite direction of my past that I got caught up in the trappings of anorexia...until the past had time to keep pressing forward and caught up to me. It always catches up to you...you can't out run it or out smart it. It just is what it is. There is healing from it. There is beauty that can grow out of it...but ignoring it will only leave you running in circles...all the while it slowly and steadily catches up to you.
I am so thankful that no matter how dark and crazy and painful life gets I have a God who never is caught off guard. That even when I find myself at the end of a street that had a posted sign that said dead end like two miles back...even then God isn't at a loss of what to do. He makes a way. He takes my mistakes and missteps and failings and makes them into a work of art...that brings Him glory and is for my good. It won't be easy. It won't be fun...and trust me, Friday was not fun. But I believe He is leading me somewhere. The people He has placed in my life right now are amazing...it shows me He must love me...or really not like them too much : ). One of the two.
I wish I felt that way though...I wish those words I just typed about the goodness of the Lord felt as true as they are. They don't. I must be honest about that. They feel about as true as the fact that I am going to be free one day. But what hope would I have if I stayed in what I felt? What hope would I have if I believed that my life would never amount to more then a desperate addiction to numb out the pain of the past by meeting the standards of the thin ideal? What if I believed that the Lord of the universe wanted nothing to do with me or with my mess? I wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't have the strength to wake up each morning and share the truth I do have with a world who needs the hope of a savior. Because I believe that even in the pain of what life is right now....I still have something to give...I have the hope and the truth of Jesus. I would rather walk through this pain and have the chance of being able to tell someone who is lost and really does have no hope that there is a love that is so much greater...love that overcame death and sin so they could spend eternity with their maker. They are worth this. They are worth me believing what I KNOW to be true instead of believing what I FEEL to be true. There is a song my friend Kaleena told me about this last week. It is called Times by Tenth Avenue North. That song has been what has carried me through this weekend. Listen to it. Soak in the honesty of our humanity and the response of Jesus to it. He is good. He is so good...even when we don't feel it.

Times

I know I need You
I need to love You
I love to see You, but it's been so long
I long to feel You
I feel this need for You
And I need to hear You, is that so wrong?

Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.

Now You pull me near You
When we're close, I fear You
Still I'm afraid to tell You, all that I've done
Are You done forgiving?
Oh can You look past my pretending?
Lord, I'm so tired of defending, what I've become
What have I become?

Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.

I hear You say,
"My love is over. It's underneath.
It's inside. It's in between.
The times you doubt Me, when you can't feel.
The times that you question, 'Is this for real?'
The times you're broken.
The times that you mend.
The times that you hate Me, and the times that you bend.
Well, My love is over, it's underneath.
It's inside, it's in between.
These times you're healing, and when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you're falling from grace.
The times you're hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry, and are tempted to steal.
The times of confusion, in chaos and pain.
I'm there in your sorrow, under the weight of your shame.
I'm there through your heartache.
I'm there in the storm.
My love I will keep you, by My pow'r alone.
I don't care where you fall, where you have been.
I'll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends."
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.
Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh.

something about dancing...

Contrary to popular belief I was never a dancer. I played competitive sports from the time I was old enough to follow rules and continued to do that through high school...I even played some hard core intermurals in college : ). So I tell you all this because Jesus these days enjoys speaking to me through pictures...or to be more specific...through dancing. I know, I know. Trust me, I know. But after thinking about it for quite some time I have decided that its actually pretty smart for God to communicate with me this way. Here is why...I don't know if any of you are like this but I tend to like to explain away things I think I have heard or seen because they don't fit in my normal category of what is acceptable to hear or see. I convince myself I had jut been thinking about this or that and God wasn't really speaking to me...it was just my thoughts or my feelings or whatever...which I am sure some of the time it is. BUT, I don't think in terms of dance ever really and so its pretty hard to explain that one away to me coming up with it on my own. So, i just had to preface this way because if you have read my other post about the backpack you might wonder what my deal is with dancing with Jesus and start to think I am a little on the crazy side...which again, could be accurate.

Anyway, so the other night I was at frontline ( the young adults group at my church) and they had some time where they felt like we all needed to just go and get still before the Lord. So often we are so busy filling all out alone time with the Lord with words and songs and requests that we don't give the Lord any room to just BE with us...speak to us...share His heart for us. So I would be lying if i told you I had had big expectations going into the night. I was a little on the sleepy and annoyed side and didn't think I could hear from the Lord even if i tried. But as soon as I got still before the Lord and closed my eyes the dance started. If Jesus wasn't being so stinking sweet I would have rolled my eyes and asked Him what the deal was with people dancing in night gowns. But, considering this was my time to be still, I simply watched. The first scene, if you will, was a little girl in a beautiful night gown going to bed in a beautiful 4 post bed...which was in the middle of the stage. As she closed her eyes and went to sleep. When her eyes closed this man appeared looking as if He was watching the room, protecting her from the scary things of he night. He danced all around her and yes, he even had those twirler flagish looking things...and He just danced with great joy all around her as she slept. He was protecting her, keeping her safe. Well in the next "scene" something had changed. The little girl was a few years older and there was fear written all over her. The child like joy had disappeared and a heavy anxiety had replaced it. She was constantly looking all around as she got into bed. She looked around to make sure no one could see where she hid it, but she pulls this horrible big knife/saw/sharp defensive object and held onto it for dear life. She sat up in her bed constantly looking all around...trying to protect herself from anything that might hurt her. There were times the only way she could fall asleep was by comforting herself knowing she had this knife to protect herself. But the problem was that she would fall asleep from pure exhaustion and inevitable she would awake to find that the knife had cut her as she slept. As time went on the damage done was worse and worse and it became clear that the knife was doing way more damage then even the false sense of protection it brought her. The whole time, when she slept, the man still came out to try and dance over her but all He could do was sit beside her...and he wept. He couldn't protect her from the harm she was doing to herself...which was the greatest of all true threats that she faced. She was clinging so tightly to the knife that night by night she was causing herself to bleed to death. Jesus was showing me that the man was clearly Him and that through all the years He hadn't left my side...He just couldn't protect me from what it was I was inflicting on myself. The eating disorder by nature has consequences to my physical body, to my emotional well being, and to my relationships...my relationship with Him included. He wanted to protect me. He wanted to dance over me...but He couldn't dance over me as I was self destructing...He wouldn't dare be that far away. He showed me that as I have been set on protecting myself, I have in some ways tied His hands Him protecting me...because I am the one doing damage to myself. And He has protected me in so many ways...giving me relationships and family and support...therapists and dietitians...He is good. I don't always feel it. I don't always see it...but I KNOW it.

I want to know this side of the Lord. I want to know the protector...the one who weeps as I am broken...the one who never ceases to stay by my side. So if the Lord communicates to me right now through dancing...I am so thankful. I am thankful for any way the Lord chooses to reveal Himself. Because the way to freedom is not to just strive towards alleviation from an eating disorder...the way to freedom is through seeking and finding the true heart of Jesus.