Saying goodbye to Ana

            She was my best friend.  I spent all day everyday with her.  We were practically inseparable.  She understood me in a way no one else did.

            Her name was Ana.

            Nobody told me that giving up an eating disorder would be like losing a best friend. Nobody told me that without Ana, I would often feel empty, abandoned, and alone.

            After four years of struggling with anorexia, I didn’t think that freedom was possible…or at least not realistic.  It felt like Ana was a part of who I was.  Although I longed desperately for freedom, Ana was familiar and I didn’t know if I could survive without her.  Even after I stopped exercising obsessively and started eating regularly, freedom was an abstract concept to me.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

            This verse talks about freedom – freedom that is true, complete, and worth fighting for.  It wasn’t until I finally found this freedom that I realized the extent of slavery I had been living in.  Pursuing freedom in Christ and fighting against the slavery of my eating disorder took blood, sweat, and tears.  But I can now tell you that every tear, every sleepless night, and every silent battle was worth it.  Because freedom is worth it – if it weren’t, God wouldn’t have died to bring it to us.

            This week has been an incredible time for me as I have opened up with you, sharing my story and my testimony.  I have seen God answer my prayer that this would be a time to glorify Him and bless others.

            I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 1:4, which says that God “comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  It is because of the comfort and freedom I have found after my eating disorder that I can now comfort others and point them toward the same freedom.

            So tonight, as National Eating Disorder Awareness week comes to a close, I just want to leave you with that one word. Freedom.

In Christ, I have the freedom to be me – the woman God created me to be.  The freedom to be real.  To be honest.  To be happy.

            If you are reading this post and feeling like that is something you desperately want but haven’t found, turn your eyes to the cross.  As Jesus was raised on Calvary, he spoke three final words.  It is finished.

Let that be true of your struggle and slavery.  Bring it to the foot of the cross and let God speak His healing freedom over it.

            It is finished.

Broken mirrors

She was standing before me in jeans and a tee shirt.  I studied her carefully and as I did so, anger began to rise within me.  I hated her.  When I glared at her in hatred, she glared back.  When I balled my hands into angry fists, so did she.  When I leaned forward and braced myself on the bathroom sink, so did she.  I willed her to leave me alone, to go away and never come back, but every time I looked into the mirror, she was still there.

I moved to the bathroom scale and stepped on it, closing my eyes and dreading what I might see.  Then, peaking at the scale from behind my fingers, I sighed with relief.  I had lost another pound.

But if I was losing weight, why was I still so fat?

The problem wasn’t my weight.  The problem was that I was searching for my worth in the mirror and in the number on the scale.  I didn’t realize that when you search for your worth in anything other than Christ, you will be disappointed (at the very least), and devastated (at the most).

In Jeremiah 2:13, God says, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

The difference between a fountain and a cistern is that God’s fountain of living water already exists in His presence.  You only need to arrive in order to enjoy it.  But a cistern is made by hand.  Hewing a cistern is a hard, laborious task that gives little profit.

The difference between living water and the water in cisterns is that living water is deeply and eternally satisfying.  But the water in cisterns is shallow, unsatisfying, and easily drained.

When searching for my worth, I had two choices.  I could have chosen to search for it in God.  All I needed to do was ask Him to fill me and sustain me.  But instead, I chose my own broken cistern – or rather, broken mirror.  It was painful to strive after this broken mirror, but I believed it would be worth it.  I believed that being skinny was better than whatever God had for me.  And in the end, after painfully striving after Ana, I found that I wasn't the least bit satisfied.  On the contrary, my broken mirror had drained me of my joy.

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. (Mat 6:24)

I tried to serve two masters.  But you can’t have one hand in sin and one hand in the church and still expect to be satisfied.

Broken mirrors only have the potential to bring temporary happiness, whereas God’s fountain brings eternal satisfaction despite temporary circumstances.  It’s time to choose your master and be completely devoted to Him.

“Too broken,” “not enough,” and other lies from the devil.

            The stadium lights glared bright and strong in the darkness of the clear Arizona night.  Behind me, the bleachers were packed with fans cheering for the CFHS football team.  I stood on the sidelines with my cheer coach and the other JV cheerleaders as we watched the Varsity girls performing complicated stunts for their half-time routine.

They’re perfect, I thought to myself.  I will never be that good.

That night, after the game, I looked in the bathroom mirror and the only thing I saw was shame.

Not pretty enough.

Not skinny enough.

Not strong enough.

Not fast enough.

Not good enough.

Not enough.

Not enough.

Not enough.

From that moment on, I believed I would never be enough.

Years passed, and every time I looked in the mirror it was the same.  Not enough.  Not enough.  Not enough.

Finally, I came to another conclusion.  Not only was I not good enough, but I was also too messed up and too broken to be loved.  Day after day, those were the lies the devil threw at me.  But God’s Word has something different to say.

In Him you have been made complete (Colossians 2:10)

In God, there is nothing too broken to redeem.  In Him, there is nothing too empty to fill with His love.  His healing takes even the most broken parts of our lives and makes them into something more beautiful than we could ever imagine.

Isaiah 61 tells us that Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted and to free the prisoners.  He comforts those who mourn, He gives people beauty from their ashes, He repairs what has been ruined, and He turns people’s weariness into praise.

Not only that, but He uses former brokenness to turn us into oaks of righteousness that glorify Him.

As difficult as it can be to talk about my eating disorder, I know that it is worth it because through my brokenness, I can openly glorify God and His beautiful redemption in my life.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners…to comfort all who mourn…giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. (Isaiah 61)

The Idolatry of Anorexia

            Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen smiled up at me from the glossy pages of Cosmo Girl magazine.  I pulled the magazine closer and studied the two of them.  MK’s lilac dress showed off her perfectly thin arms and Ashley’s legs were simply to die for.  Looking at them, I wondered if anyone in the world was as beautiful as them.  I doubted it.

            Taking my scissors, I cut out the photo and placed it on top of a growing stack of magazine clippings.

            The next page in the magazine was a swimsuit ad.  The blond model had glowing tan skin and a gorgeous body.  My eyes moved from her flat stomach to her bright smile.  She looked happy and beautiful.  If I were skinny, I would be happy too.

            When I finished cutting out all the pictures of beautiful models and celebrities I could find, I moved to my bed and pulled out my laptop.  Opening google images, I typed the word “thinspo” and watched as hundreds of images popped up on the screen – girls with gracefully thin arms, rock hard abs, and the ever-elusive thigh gap that I so longed to see in the mirror.  In another window, I typed “pro-ana” into the search engine and flipped through list after list of tips for how to ignore food cravings, how to lie to get out of eating, and how to make it through a 7-day fast without giving up.  I clung to every picture and every word as if my life depended on it.

            When I’m thin, I told myself, I’ll be happy.  I’ll be in control.  I’ll be perfect.

            Idolatry is a strange concept in the 21^st century.  The word usually conjures up images of golden calves and people bowing down to statues.  But the bottom line is that an idol is anything that takes the place of God in your heart.  For me, “Ana” – the representation of all things thin and (in my mind) beautiful – was that idol.

            The book of Hosea tells the tragic story of God’s people.  It was God who had always provided for the Israelites.  It was He who gave them grain, wine, oil, silver, and gold.  But the Israelites abandoned Him and chose to seek their needs in idols and false gods.  God was deeply pained to see His children turn away from Him, but He didn’t force them to return to Him.  He waited patiently for them to see their need for Him.

            I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me. (Hosea 5:15)

            Throughout Israel’s disobedience and idolatry, God showed His people tender love as He gently pursued them.

            Therefore, behold, I will allure her…and speak kindly to her…I will remove the names of the Baals [idols] from her mouth, so that they will be mentioned by their names no more…I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice.  In lovingkindness and in compassion, and I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness.  Then you will know the Lord. (Hosea 2:14-20)

            It is startling to look back at my eating disorder and realize just how much my story resembles the story laid out in Hosea.  It was always God who had provided for me.  But I stubbornly insisted on pursuing anorexia instead of Him.  I needed love.  I needed acceptance.  I needed sufficiency.  And in my sinful mind, I thought it was Ana who could give me those things.  It took pain and affliction – more pain and affliction than should be possible for a teenage girl – for me to come to a place where I could earnestly seek God.

The Bible promises that “you will find [God] if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut 4:29).  Sometimes you take the long rout getting there, but know that He is patiently waiting for you, ready to bring you into His righteousness, His lovingkindness, His compassion, and His faithfulness.

Letter to my 16-year-old self

Dear Erin,

            The definition of beauty doesn’t include the word skinny.  I know that’s not what the world says.  It’s not what the media says and it’s not what guys at school say, but it’s what the Bible says. It’s what God says.

            The Bible defines beauty as a gentle and quiet spirit.  First and foremost you are beautiful on the inside.  The Bible also says that you are beautiful because God formed every part of you in His image.  Yes, every part of you – even the hair you think is too frizzy, the skin you think is too pale, and the thighs you think are too big.  He made it and He loves it exactly the way it is.

            I know that right now you’re hurting and struggling and barely hanging on by a thread.  I know that the idea of showing people who you really are absolutely terrifies you, but it doesn’t have to be this way.  You don’t have to hide and you don’t have to pretend everything is okay when it’s not.  God gave you friends, family, and an amazing church so that you don’t have to do it alone.  Don’t be afraid to be real and vulnerable with the people who care about you.

            And don’t worry quite so much about numbers.  The number on the scale, the number on the tag of your jeans – they don’t matter.  If you insist on thinking about numbers, think about the number of people who love you and care deeply about you.  I know you don’t think that’s a very big number, but it is.

            And most importantly, seek God.  Seek God with every ounce of strength you have.  Only in Him will you be able to find peace in the midst of the storm.

Running from myself. Running to God.

            Nothing existed except the feel of my feet pounding against the track, my breath coming in short painful gasps, and the feel of desperate exhaustion spreading through my entire body.

            Just one more lap, I told myself.  Just one more lap.

            Closing my eyes against the swirling darkness that was fogging my mind, I put on a burst of speed and finished the lap.  But I couldn’t stop.

            Just one more lap, I repeated and kept running.

            Numbers ran through my mind.  Cereal and milk – 150. Granola bar – 200. A handful of grapes from my friend’s lunch – 50.

            400 calories!  How did I let this happen?  I pushed myself harder still.  I had to burn those calories.  Would 3 miles make up for it?

With the last bit of strength I had, I sprinted toward the finish line.  The moment I crossed it, I dropped to my hands and knees, gasping.  My heart was pounding in my ears and the black fog was starting to take over.  I forced it away, refusing to pass out.  When I finally was able to stand again, I pushed my hair out of my face and looked up into the stadium bleachers behind me.  I had just enough time to do a stadium workout before cheer practice.

            I spent a huge part of my life running.  And I don’t mean running the school track or the desert trails behind my house.  What I was really doing was running from my problems…and running from myself.

            I hated my body, I hated my reflection, and I hated the person I had become.  And all I could think to do was to run from it all.  I don’t know if I would have ever stopped running from my problems if it hadn’t been for my high school youth group.  Nobody there knew what I was going through, but they stopped me from giving up hope during the hard times because they taught me how to keep my eyes on God and how to run to Him.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)

            The more I ran toward God, the more I desired to throw off everything that hindered me.  Even though I struggled to untangle myself from the sin of my eating disorder, I learned to seek God and persevere in the midst of it.

            I wasn’t always good at it.  I still tried to run from my problems and I tried to run toward “Ana” more often than not, but it was God’s strength and love that got me through.  It was when I focused my eyes on Him and His love – love to the point of death – that I saw His hope for a better future.

Lies and deception. Truth and redemption.

I sat alone at the kitchen counter and glanced nervously at the clock.  12:30.  Lunch time.

My mind raced.  How was I going to get out of lunch today?  Everyone would be home any minute and I needed an excuse by then.

            “I don’t feel good” … “I’m not hungry” … “It’s that time of the month” …  No, I had used all of those recently.

            The sound of a car engine in the driveway startled me.  Time’s up, I though as I frantically cast around for ideas.  Then it hit me.  Leftovers.

            I hurried to the fridge and grabbed last night’s styrofoam Chinese takeout containers.  Smearing cashew chicken sauce and a little rice onto a clean plate, I stuffed the containers back into the fridge and deposited the plate by the kitchen sink.

            When they came in and asked what I wanted for lunch, I motioned to the sink and said simply, “I was hungry, so I dug into the leftovers.”

I held my breath, wondering if my lie would work.  Nobody questioned me and as I turned away, I wondered what lie I would tell to get out of dinner.

            That memory is only one in what seems like a million memories of the lies and deceit that I once used to cover up my eating disorder.  When I wasn’t lying about what I had eaten, I was putting on a façade of a sweet albeit reserved girl with no problems.  My goal was to trick people into believing that everything was okay, when really I was falling apart.

            Yes, Erin, but that was 10 years ago.  Why are you bringing it up now?

            Because eating disorder awareness is the only way to bring the hope of redemption into the hopelessness of eating disorders.

            Eating disorder awareness to me is primarily about 3 things.

1.      Bringing awareness to people who are struggling. Looking back it’s easy for me to realize how deeply I was involved in my eating disorder.  Even though I was restricting, fasting, religiously counting every calorie I put in my mouth, looking at thinspo, and subscribing to every “pro-ana” blog and tumbler I could find, I never thought I was skinny enough to have an eating disorder.

2.      Bringing awareness to others.  Because eating disorders are clothed in lies and deceit, many people have no idea that their loved ones – children, sisters, cousins, friends – are struggling.  People need to know that this is real, possible, and even common.  They need to know the warning signs and how they can help.

3.      Anytime something is brought from darkness into light, it glorifies God and blesses others.  That’s what I recently told one high school girl struggling with bulimia.  (Dang it! Now that I’ve said it out loud, I have to keep myself accountable to it!)

God directly commands His children to tell others about the redemption He brings to their hopeless situations.

After safely crossing the Jordan River on dry ground, the Israelites were commanded to take 12 stones from the middle of the river and set them up as a testimony to God’s faithfulness and provision.

Let this be a sign among you so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ then you shall say to them… ‘the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty’ (Joshua 4:6-7, 23-24)

If you only get one thing out of my blog series this week, let it be this: the hand of the Lord is mighty.  Mighty to heal.  Mighty to redeem.  Mighty to love.

            God wants us to tell our stories of how He brought us from where we were (slavery, lies, and deception) to where we are (freedom, truth, and redemption).

My goal this week is to tell my story, to bring eating disorders from darkness into light, and (hopefully in doing so) to glorify God and bless others.

Not Everyone with an Eating Disorder...

Not everyone with an eating disorder is underweight.

Not everyone with an eating disorder gets diagnosed.

Not everyone with an eating disorder stops eating.

Not everyone with an eating disorder is a teenage girl.

Not everyone with an eating disorder knows they have one.

I didn’t know.

Even when I was skipping meals, exercising for hours on end, counting calories, counting bites, losing weight, and even losing hair…I still didn’t know.

I remember feeling completely and utterly alone, but being too scared – and too stubborn – to tell anyone what I was going through.

That’s why I’m writing this blog post – because I refuse to be scared and stubborn anymore.  I refuse to stand by and let others feel completely and utterly alone just because no one’s talking about it.

So let’s start talking.

National Eating Disorder Awareness week starts tomorrow and in honor of it I will be blogging every day for 7 days about eating disorder awareness and about my experience with anorexia.

#breakthesilence

#speaktruth

#NEDAweek

The Tears of Abuse - Elsie's Story

7^th grade Elsie has a smile that lights up her entire face.  She is so beautiful and so full of joy. But not today.  Today her face is buried in her hands as she sobs – unable to hold back the tears.

“Pa kriye, cheri,” I say, rubbing her back.  “Don’t cry, my dear.”

As tears stream down her face, she chokes out her story.

Only 6 months ago, she lived with her father – an angry, abusive man who took his anger out on his daughter.  One day in a fit of rage, he grabbed Elsie’s report card (a very important document in Haiti) and lit it on fire.  He then took her school things and broke them to pieces before throwing all of her clothes into the yard and telling her to leave and not come back.

My heart brakes for Elsie.  Such a young girl forced to grow up too fast.  Forced to find a new place to live and a way to replace her school things, despite the fact that she is living in abject poverty.  Even sadder still is the fact that this scenario is not uncommon in Haiti.

But praise the Lord this is not a story of utter despair, but rather of hope and continued healing.  As soon as Elsie’s aunt heard what had happened, she came to take Elsie away to live with her.  Elsie now lives in a safe home where she is loved.  Her aunt also continues to send her to the Kids Alive school.

Elsie is still hurting.  The memories of her father’s anger and abuse still plaque her and she still feels alone. But day by day, she is trusting in God.  As we sit in my classroom, I look her in the eyes and remind her that even though her earthly father was cruel and hurtful, she has a heavenly father who loves her, who hears her when she cries, and who always answers her prayers.

“I have already seen Him be so faithful in answering my prayers,” she tells me when her eyes have dried and she has gained her composure.

“Continue to trust.  Continue to pray.  And continue to find your hope in Him – the only one who can heal and redeem,” I say, and I know that as she does so, she will be okay.