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.