seeking the healer...not the healing

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. Every time the wind blows I jump, thinking its the Lord moving and doing something. Which often times it might be. However there are other times when I jump at what looks like it must be from the Lord...and don't bother to ask him before I run at the chance of my miracle. I layed in bed last night thinking...a very common thing for me to do these days. Sleep is miles away and my mind races, as if thinking more about things is going to solve the mountain of questions that stand before me. It was then that I felt it. Not shame. Not anger. But the still small voice that came in the quiet of the night...sad, maybe even hurt...asking me why I was seeking the miracle instead of seeking after the one who holds the world in the palm of His hands. Conviction. At some point my desperation stopped being for the Lord and started being for what the Lord could do for me. Seeking a miracle wasn't wrong by any means...but seeking the miracle instead of seeking the Lord made my perspective get lost. The Lord knows better then to provide the miracle when that alone is what we are seeking...because when the miracle has come and gone our hearts toward the Lord aren't any different. He knows that HE is what will give me lasting freedom. Not a treatment center. Not a certain amount of money. Its Him.
He reminded me of a word He gave me a week or two ago. And in looking back I can see that He wasn't talking just about Selah House. He was wanting me to expect from Him the true character of who He is...and to believe Him for the desires He has for my life. So, I thought I would post that word as a reminder to me...to remind myself to seek after the healer instead of the healing. To remember that He is always good and is always in control. That nothing is outside of His reach....and that I am HIS beloved.
So in the midst of a hard week and the probability that this next week will bring with it inpatient treatment I choose to fix my eyes on Jesus.. Hebrews 12:2 says
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

So, I end with the word I felt like the word so clearly spoke to me a few weeks ago and change my gaze from the promise to the one who loves sinful men enough to give HIMSELF as a ransom. He alone is what will change us. He alone is what will heal us. He is faithful. He alone is our hope and our reason to live.



The Lord brought me to Exodus 14:13-16.

13"Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." 15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground."

And then this is what I feel like He said...

My provision isn't inadequate. My supply is rich, full, abundant. It is time to stretch out your hand over the sea and speak that it will part. I didn't lead the Israelites over muddy swampy ground as they crossed the sea- they walked on dry ground. Hold fast to me. I have placed Selah House on your heart for a reason...there is a way. Though it seemed impossible to Moses as He stood at the banks of the red sea I knew the way. Have faith. Know that I see where you are and have not forgotten you. You are at the edge of the sea and it seems as though you are cornered in...but its time to stretch out your hand over the water and watch the sea part before you so that you can cross on dry land. The journey won't be easy. It won't be a quick fix...it will require facing things that will break you...but I will be there weeping beside you. Holding you. You must let them in. You must open your heart and trust me, and trust the process. Tiffany will be here. She will be a part of this for a long time...so don't shut her off when you leave. She loves you...embrace that. Love her...its okay...it won't hurt her. The vulnerability required through this whole process will be painful...but they will walk with you. Be ready for the sea to part...be ready and expectant of dry land. Walk forward knowing that everything about the way you have done life until this point will be changed for the good. No more will you walk around this same mountain. No longer will you fall to this place. You will struggle but you will be equipped to fight and you will be surrounded by warriors who will fight with you...people who are willing to fight with you even until death if ever necessary. You are so loved. This isn't you running. Its following my leading to a place of healing. A places where the busyness of this world will fade away. I love you enough to give you a place of rest. I don't require this to be done in the most challenging "be strong" "barley survive" sort of way. My burden is light...I am giving you this as a chance to heal in safety because it is what is best for you...and as a protective Father I want to give you good and plentiful abundant gifts. You deserve a chance to heal. Money is no obstacle. You are worth all the money in this world. You are a gem. A princess...my daughter...who I will lavish with my care. Stretch out your hands. Pray in faith. Believe this week mountains will move. All you need to do is be still and believe."

So Tired

Have you ever had that feeling in your stomach...the one where you feel a little short for oxygen and your heart is beating real fast? That me, right now. I am laying in bed and for some reason I just realized that going back into treatment isn't just a thing im considering or a fleeting thought out in the future...its most likely a reality that is coming sooner than later. I remember that day when I got on the plane to fly to remuda ranch, scared to death, regretting the decision to board that plane at all. I cried for days. I remember getting to make a phone call to let my mom know I was there safely and just sobbing telling her I changed my mind and I wanted her to come get me. I thought I had just entered hell. So as the reality of the situation and the location of treatment gets settled and figured out...narrowing it down one by one...i get a little short for breath. The reality of the situation laying heavy on my chest...knowing that choosing to give up all control is the hardest decision I have to make...and to me, control is everything. So I sit thinking all this through...Im going to pay some people ALOT of money to hold me ransom, make me gain some weight, and take away the thing I have used as my life vest all my life. Its scary. And the craziest part, to me at least, is that I have convinced myself that I am totally ok. I convinced myself that everyone around me was making a bigger deal out of things then necessary because i somehow gave them that impression, which is my fault of course. But now everyone is concerned and worried and desperate for me...and I realize that I have been basing everything on the wrong picture the whole time. Its scary what the mind is capable of when the reality of what is is too much to contain...so I guess you create a way to make it more manageable.
People think treatment is the easy way out. People think that it is an easier choice...and in theory it is in the moment...because it is a delay...something off in the distance that makes me now crawl out of my skin right now. But then there comes this day when you think to yourself, "crap, what have I done?" I always taught when i got to this spot I would be able to reason with myself and say ok, now lets just eat and go on with life." So I get to this spot where I am like oh, yeah, treatment is expensive. Its scary. I have to leave all the people I know and love and who support me and go live with strangers who want to get me nice and yes, the "H" word. Healthy. In the mind of an anorexic its the code term for fat...its like we think they trick us into being what sounds like a good desirable thing and then the moment someone compliments you on how healthy you look you get tears in your eyes and you are reminded that you have lost your life long companion. Its a loss like any other...its painful, its scary, its lonely...but it does get better. Or so I have been told. An abusive relationship is replaced by health friendships and life becomes green and beautiful. But still, its unknown...so its hard to let go of what is when its all you have ever known...and to reach for something that you have to believe in faith is better than the life I have now. I can hear my words and vows I made with myself years ago...promising I would never need anything from anyone so that when those people left or died...nothing would change in my life. I was my stability...and all these years later I regret that more then I can express. Because now I stand before major life decisions, wondering when I will walk into a treatment center and give up my life to find healing unto a new one. I guess that feeling in the pit of my stomach is good...because it means the winds are changing...just like you feel moisture in the air before it even starts to rain...this feeling eludes to a great life shift at hand. Its scary...I'm not sure I am brave enough to keep walking...so I have faith for what will be as if it is already here. I believe the Lord when He says we will reach the other side of the sea... and I learn how to take off the heavy burdens I have carried for so long and walk in the strength and mercy that is new each morning. If only my heart could feel the truth instead of having a death grip on what it feels. My mind never has been good at convincing my heart of much up until now...but I guess there is always a first time for everything.

Hold on, Help is coming.

I haven't been blogging much these days...probably because i run from the idea of getting any more introspective than i already am. I am constantly thinking about the daunting decisions I have that stand before me as a intersection in my path. So many choices, different paths to take...with only one common thread...staying on the one I am currently on isn't an option. I don't do well with too many options. I will sit and think about each one forever and before i know it some have passed me by while I have been laying out the pros and cons of each. Life is exhausting...that I know for certain. But that's not where we end. Life isn't a streamline of days crawling along just so we can get to the next one. There is more...of this I have to be certain. I feel like I may have written this before but a mentor of mine the other day jokingly told me I just have a higher capacity to hit rock bottom then most. The good news is that the quality or lack there of that allows me to get that low is the same determined stubborn quality that can get me out. There have been numerous days when giving up was far more attractive then pushing forward. After all who wants to face a past that seems to have buried burdens hiding all over it? But isn't that such the tactic of the enemy? Isn't it so him to make us think that out past is going to be our future and by facing what was we are only going to relive it in what is right now. I'm scared. Don't get me wrong. Im not a sudden enthusiast for diving into trauma and pain...but what I am seeing more and more these days is that love wins. Hopelessness didn't win those thousands of years ago. Jesus wasn't just nailed to a cross to die and stay buried in the ground. Love won. Love wins everyday. And when we start to feel like there is no reason to keep pushing forward the Lord will, if we are willing, wrap us in his arms and surround us with His love through His people. I have never felt more loved then I have in the last week...which is odd because I have also never felt as overwhelmed and broken as I have in the past week. Interesting, isn't it? That in the time when I am the most broken and the most bound and helpless and hurting...its then that the Lord brings in more love and care then I have experienced in my entire life. He meets our needs...just not in the way we expect it. We expect so often for Him to remove the pain or prevent the painful situation...the illness, the death, the abuse, the heartbreak. But so often those things come as a result of our freewill. People's sin doesn't just touch them...it spreads and bleeds out entangling all of humanity and sickness and disease and abuse and heartbreak runs like streams through all of our lives.
This last Friday Rachel was talking about suffering at frontline. Not my favorite topic, I won't lie. But she was talking about those moments when we sit totally broken before the Lord and in total anguish look to Him and beg Him to save us. Beg Him to heal us or our dying loved one. We say God, you can totally do this and we believe it...and He with tears in His loving eyes says no. What then? I wished i couldn't relate to that. I wished more then anything I was wondering what that must feel like or how one would respond to that sort of seemingly apparent abandonment...but I understood. The answer is that God's provision doesn't always come in the form of stopping the pain from hitting us...often times it comes in the form of comforting us within it. I have a therapist who is truly amazing...such nurturing and gentle acceptance from the Lord. I have roommates who would walk to the moon with me if i asked them to...who never give up and always take every opportunity to serve me. I have friends who war with me and believe in me...never for a minute wavering and wondering I am worth the challenges and pain of walking through this. I have mentors who LOVE me with everything in them. They hold me when I cry and push me when I am wanting to stop. I have moms who check in on me and coach me when I have no idea how I will take the next step. I am surrounded...and the most amazing part is that all of it turns me back to the Lord is awe. This week I was driving in my car talking to the Lord in tears asking Him if He loved me this much to surround me with everything He has...when I have done nothing but screw up and fail and fall and walk away from Him. The thing that I don't even have capacity to believe is that He loves me more.
So its been an awful week. I lost my job. I have no money and need like 30,000 dollars to get life saving treatment. My dad's dad, who i can't stand, is dying...which just stirs up so many feelings from my past...and raises the question of why He is still alive and not my Father. I have been passing out and they think that's going to keep happening...its just alot.. I am at capacity. I really am. BUT, the Lord is good. I say that and actually mean it. Its not just words of encouragement because its the right thing to say...its the truth. I have spent more time at the feet of Jesus then I have in the last year combined. And not only do I believe He is going to provide...I believe He is providing. I see No way but I know He is the way. I know He knows I need treatment and I know the responsibility in some ways now rests on Him. He is my Father. I am just the child. I am in His hands...
All those years ago Love won. So, this is the worst its ever going to get. Life on earth is as bad as it gets...its not our home. But He created us to live this life with joy, and with abundance of His grace and His mercy. He made us with plans to reach the lost...so that more may come to know Him. So I keep walking. I walk and live each day only with the strength He gives me, because in my flesh I am exhausted. At the end of the day I have to step back and even when tears are rolling down my cheeks, say to myself, Love WON. He will never leave or abandon me. He will never walk away or tell me I am too much. He says He came to save the least of these...the worst of all sinners...the outcast and the forgotten. So I know He has me. I qualify.
I am surrounded. The mountains He moved this week were primarily the mountains I had blocking my perspective. I was afraid of that. But nevertheless, I now see love. All around me. The word I felt like He gave me this week was this..."Hold on. Help is coming." Think of the impact of that. I just think of those times when people are holding on for dear life and they lose hope and think no one will find them or see them or save them...and they give up...right before they are found. If someone would have told them to just hold on, that help was coming, wouldn't that have given them the courage to fight through another day. Its a total change in perspective. This battle isn't going to stay like this forever. It was as though He was that voice in the wilderness shouting out to just hold on...that He was help and He was on His way.
He sees the pain I am in. He sees my heart and my dreams and my desires and he hasn't forgotten me. He hasn't stopped looking or fighting. He simply says to me,
"Bethany, hold on. Help is coming."

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.