No Longer a Slave

This is something I never thought I would share with too many people, especially beyond my closest friends. It's embarrassing, it's weird, and it's personal. But the Lord is too good and too faithful for me not to talk about what He's done. Eating disorders are more common than I thought; I struggled with one.

On the list of hardest seasons of my life, this summer was one of them. I moved 5 hours away from the only city I have ever lived in and left all of my closest friends (including my best friend, my mom) to Pawley's Island to work at Chickfila with two friends whom I wasn't that close to.

I am a routine follower, plan maker, and control freak. I eat oatmeal everyday for breakfast and live by 2 different calendars. Some call me a mom for always having gum, Advil, and anything else one might need. I love knowing what I am going to do each day in advance and I am usually always on time if not early. I am a very determined person and that determination can be taken too far because of my tendency to obsess. Yes I am a freak I know but all these areas were tested when I moved. I had no control over so many areas in my life and the devil found the perfect opportunity to attack and tell me so many lies, many of which I believed.

Working 40 hour weeks meant my schedule was decided by someone else and was different every day and every week. Being completely on my own financially meant half my paycheck went to rent and the other half to WIFI, water, electric, food, and gas. I've never lived from paycheck to paycheck but let me tell you that it's stressful to only have $10 left the day before you get payed. Away from everyone closest to me meant I had to find my comfort somewhere else. Oh and something else about me is that most people know me as a health nut/ exercise addict.

You may be able to put the pieces together by now but my size and how much I ate and exercised was the only things I could control. When sandwiches and grits are cheaper than eating out and eating less means the food lasts longer, I now see so clearly that what should have brought me fully relied on the Lord, instead brought me to myself and the belief in the devils lies. Lies that smaller is always better, the less food I consume the more self control I have, and if I don't exercise everyday then I have no self discipline. Food and my size controlled my thoughts and everything I did revolved around when I could get an exercise in. Eating scared me and the thought of gaining weight was terrifying. My self confidence was also brought so low for many reasons. I was finding my worth in my abilities and my own standards for myself rather than in who the Lord said I was as his child. Something I now know by experience is that when someone says with disgust that "You're too skinny" it feels the same as someone saying "you're too fat." Both are attacks on someone's image and personally, drove me further into my obsession. I know all those comments were because I was loved by those around me and they were concerned, but the remarks still felt the same. It wasn't what everyone else thought of me because to them I was too skinny; it was what I thought of myself and that all was determined by how many miles I ran and how few calories I ate. After starving myself, binging was inevitable and that would leave me feeling guilty and like an absolute failure. In my pride I forgot the grace of God and thought I could be perfect.

I knew I cared too much and kept trying different things to deal with it on my own. It was not something I wanted to tell anyone about because I thought no one else struggled with the same thing. I thought i was alone and was crazy to struggle with something so stupid. There's another lie straight from Satan himself. Praise the Lord that he kept convicting me and those whispers from him became shouts until I could no longer ignore them. One night after looking up the meaning of anorexia, what I read was like looking into a mirror and when the scale said I was under 100 pounds, I could no longer deny that there was a serious problem. I finally shared with Kayci, one of the girls I was living with, what was going on. Not only had she noticed but she was more than willing to help me anyway she could, including encouraging me to meet with another girl we knew who had struggled with the same thing. Turned out I was never alone and the Lord tells us to carry each other's burdens for a reason. I soon realized his amazing blessings in how he places people in our lives at just the right time.

The Lord began showing me the freedom I had in him. Just like the children of Israel, He had set me free from bondage. I was not a slave to food or exercise and through him I would have victory. One thing that scared me was my love for food. I mean lets be honest, food is GOOD... especially ice cream and all things chocolate! I think this was one of the reasons I was so determined not to gain weight, I had a past of going in the other direction and eating too much. I was worried that if I started eating again that I would go the other direction and start eating too much again; I have never had a healthy relationship to food. Through a dear friend who became my mentor for the summer, I was shown Isaiah 43:18-19, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!" The Lord showed me that I did not have to return to old habits; He was going to do something completely new in me!

He soon showed me that he made me a woman and curves aren't a bad thing. I realized that I can consume food and actually enjoy it without it consuming me. I had to eventually take a break from exercise and slowly let it be something that I enjoy again rather than what my day revolved around. I learned to start really thanking him for the food I ate and asking him before each meal to teach me balance. I was right, I could not overcome this obsession, but he could and I knew he would bring me to victory if I surrendered to him.

A song that spoke so much to me this summer, also the title of this post, is "No Longer Slaves" by Bethel. The chorus describes the freedom we have in the Lord and how he has rescued us from slavery.

"You split the sea so I could walk right through it. All my fears were drowned in perfect love. You rescued me so I could stand and sing, I am a child of God. I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God."

So where am I today? Still learning. Still praying and asking the Lord to help me continue to leave the old and embrace the new. I would love to say that I only eat when I am hungry and that I never overeat but that would be a lie. As long as I am on this earth I will never be perfect but I can now say that I am no longer choosing bondage when the Lord is holding his hands open to give me freedom. I no longer need to binge or over exercise to make up for what I ate the night before. The Lord continues to show me victories in him and the power that he gives me over sin. I am constantly being amazed at his love for me and that I will never be perfect and he loves me anyway. I'm not a slave to food, running, numbers on a scale, or clothes that don't fit. I am not a size, a weight, or a victim of a thing called anorexia. I'm no longer a slave; am a child of God.