Oh, how far I've come!

These days, I am often reminded of how far I have come in my struggle with body image.  Just today, I had on a beautiful sundress and found myself thinking how sexy and beautiful I looked in it.  I have been at a healthy weight for several years now and am no longer enslaved to hatred of my body and a need to loose weight.  What an absolute joy it is to see the work God has done in my heart and mind!  Only five or six years ago, I was walking on a thin line between life and death, cycling between anorexia and bulimia, filled with self-hatred, and almost succeeded in killing myself on one occasion.  My life today could not be further from that nightmare.

I was recently looking back through one of my old journals from the height of my eating disorder, and I was filled with sadness at the depth of pain and despair I lived through, but I was also filled with complete joy at the way God has used this struggle to develop me into the woman I am today.  I wanted to share an entry that highlights how deep my internal conflict was and just how difficult an eating disorder can be, but also shows the hope of a woman who was embracing the fight.  This entry was written about a year after my second hospitalization, a time when I was beginning to really fight the disease and not just give in to it.  In this entry, I mention a friend who was not doing as well as me and I have changed her name.

January 23, 2005

I am really discouraged today by the changes in my body.  I know God has called me to healing and He is working amazing miracles in my life to make that happen, but living every day feeling utterly disgusted with yourself is draining.  My prayer, everyday Father, has been that You would change me.  Help me to accept my body.  Help me to see it as something other than my enemy. 

There's hardly ever a day that I don't wake up and, before anything else enters my consciousness, I think and feel that I am fat and disgusting.  In those moments, I hate my body and my heart sinks as I awaken and realize, once again, I have to get up and endure the horribleness and the hatred and there's nothing else I can do about it but just live with it.  I don't want to wake up and feel good about my body.  I just want to wake up and not think about it at all.

Eve is loosing her battle.  She is not able to live with these feelings and so she acts on them every moment of every day.  While she still has some life in her body, it has all slipped away from her spirit.  Her words, her face, her eyes are slow, sad, and empty.  I fear for her.  I ache for her.  I hate this eating disorder that has done this to her.  I clench my fist, shake it at the sky and yell to satan, "You cannot have her!"  But I am helpless when it comes to Eve.  The tears, grief, and the anger that are with me now for Eve must, tomorrow, be for Jessica when I wake with fresh disgust and hatred for myself and my body.  My mornings, my days, my nights DO NOT belong to this eating disorder.  They do not belong to satan, and indeed they do not even belong to me.  I am the Lord's--I have been bought at a very high price--and tomorrow morning, when I am so disgusted with myself that I can hardly stand to be one more moment in my skin, I will clench my fist and my teeth and I will echo what God has been declaring on my behalf since day one of this battle, "YOU CAN NOT HAVE HER!"