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Recently, I was honored to write a series of posts for Revive Our Hearts, a women’s ministry dedicated to helping women thrive in Christ. Their mission is close to my own, and I’m so thankful I could write about body image and eating disorders for their audience. You can read the posts by clicking the links below.
(Have ideas for future articles? I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email or leave me a comment below!)
This may be the most important and more personal piece I’ve written yet—my story of anorexia recovery and now a healthy pregnancy. Head on over to Health.com to read the full piece.
We are 2 weeks away from getting married as I write this post. I've lost all hope of focusing on anything else during the next 14 days. We are so very excited and cannot wait to be husband and wife.
According to most bridal magazines, women's websites, and social media influencers, I should be hard at work to make sure I'll look my very best on the big day. I should be amping up my workout routine, focusing especially on my arms, shoulders, back, abs, and butt. I should be changing my diet, eating "cleaner" and preventatively dropping the weight that I'll surely put on as a newlywed. By now, I should have already considered fillers for my forehead lines, chemical peels to eradicate any acne, and regular facials to ensure my skin is on-point.
Oh, and one week before my wedding, a popular beauty magazine instructs that I should:
Okaaaaay then.
I should feel completely overwhelmed with the number of to-dos I'm supposed to be managing.
Praise God, I don't.
I have adopted a waxing schedule, and I've been getting regular haircuts. Other than that, I haven't done much outside of the ordinary. I definitely felt the pressure when we first got engaged to start working on myself. I'd be lying if I said I don't want to look my best on June 8. I want to look and feel my most beautiful, of course!
Today I feel the most beautiful I've ever felt, and I've done the complete opposite of almost all the "suggested" courses of action. After years of struggling with an at-one-point life-threatening eating disorder, I've experienced healing and restoration in so many ways. The thing that could have derailed my entire life is what God used to set me on the right track. His track.
Since moving to Nashville a year and a half ago, I feel like I've been coming back to life. I never expected to move here, but God plucked me out of NYC, brought me here, and connected me with the most amazing eating disorder dietitian and counselor. He placed me at an incredible church, grew my relationship with Charles, and brought more freedom into my life than I knew was possible.
If you go back to 2015 and read this blog when I first started, I think you can see it. This blog was my diary of sorts. it still is, but today God gives me the words from His word. I was a different person at 25... and certainly at 24, 23, and 22... than I am today at 28. The woman I was then was not in a place to get married. Today I am prepared and beyond excited to make this covenant with Charles. God has grown me in amazing ways.
For this growth to happen, I've had to let go. one of the biggest things I've had to let go of is my weight. Surrender my weight and that number, surrender my jean size, my food choices, my grocery list, my exercise routine, my innate tendency to be go go go. I've had to give up the things I held tightly to for so long and things I let define me in many ways.
I liked when people said, "You're so skinny," and "You could be a model" and "I wish I could look like you. What's your secret?"
My secret was a life-threatening eating disorder called anorexia.
I held those affirmations very closely. That was part of my identity.
But when Jesus enters your life, there's no room for double identities. To know who I am, I have to look to Him. This isn't something that happened overnight. This is years of God knocking on the door of my heart:
Slowly, I gave Him pieces of my life. Leaving NYC and the active lifestyle that helped keep me at an artificially low weight, as well as an environment that rewarded that, was a huge step. Now, my recovery is the best it has ever been. I know the Lord has been building me up, and the only way I've begun to be the woman He's designed me to be is by gaining weight.
Weight restoration has brought life behind my eyes again. Weight restoration has cleared my brain fog and provided clarity in my thoughts. Weight restoration has given me confidence, self-esteem, and empowerment. Weight restoration has brought joy to my life. It has prepared me to be a wife to Charles—to serve him and serve God, not be mastered by the eating disorder. Weight restoration is setting me up to hopefully have a baby and be a mom one day.
So today I'm not losing weight for my wedding. I'm restoring it. I'm putting on any of the weight I was always designed by God to have. I'm continuing to push forward in my recovery even when the world is telling me to to do the opposite. And it's tough! But I know He didn't create me to be obsessed with my body, my plate, my wardrobe. He created me for far greater things than that. My pride pales in comparison to the beauty God has in store.
I believe I would never have experienced this abundant life without saying to God,
When I stand next to Charles and before Christ on our wedding day, I will praise Him for the eternal life we have in Him. We have a great hope and a future that's secure—that has nothing to do with my body size or shape.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.
A few friends have recently disclosed to me that they have friends or family members in the midst of a struggle with an eating disorder. Hearing this breaks my heart. I wouldn't want anyone to go through that struggle, and I know it has to be so difficult looking from the outside in at someone you love in such pain.
I want this blog to a be a place of encouragement and hope. Not because of me and my words, but because of Christ. So a major part what I can do—really the biggest thing we all can do—is pray. Prayer moves the heart of God and moves our hearts. Prayer keeps us in tune with what He's saying to us. Prayer reminds us of our need for Him.
If someone close to you is struggling with mental illness, pray for them. Pray that God would heal them fully and provide recovery in a way that only He can. Pray for patience and trust.
I wrote the short letter below for a friend of a friend who is wrestling with an eating disorder. If you, too, know someone who's hurting, will you send this to them?
They can read this note and they can read my testimony, but mostly I hope that they read God's Word. The Bible is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path. It directs me, teaches me, and sustains me every single day. I'm not writing this to you as a woman who's 100 percent healed and who never deals with a negative thought about food or body image.
I'm writing this to you as a woman who's seen what Satan is capable of, who's played around with darkness, and who's been radically saved from death by the grace and power of Jesus Christ. I'm writing this as a woman who wants everyone to taste the sweetness of a relationship with God. It will change your life.
How are you?
I want you to know you are not alone in this fight. I've shared your same struggle for years, and I understand what you are feeling and going through. More than that, Jesus understands. He knows your pain, your hurts, and your frustrations. And He can provide comfort the way no one else can.
Someone recently shared insight with me that I never thought about before. In Genesis 3, sin entered the world through an apple, through a woman taking a bite of this forbidden fruit. Sin entered the world through food. Think of how many women today struggle with food and their bodies; that's the sin nature within us. But how sweet is God to redeem this! To invite us into communion with him, to feast at the table of the lamb. Our story doesn't stop with Eve in Genesis. We now have a great hope in the resurrected Jesus.
He's reminded me that the testing of our faith produces endurance (James 1:3). That trials help refine us and make us more like him. He is the vine; we are the branches. He is continually pruning us.
“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Are being transformed. That's present tense. That means it's happening now. I just love that. We are not perfect, but we serve a God who is. He has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) We can run to Him and trust that He hears us!
When we accept Christ, our identity is completely changed. We were dead, but we have been made alive with the Messiah. Saved by grace through faith. (Ephesians 2:5) He brings us back to life. His Holy Spirit lives within us. I cling to that truth whenever I feel shameful or guilty. I pray we live as men and women who are free because we are in Christ Jesus.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look new things have come. Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”
A new creation. That is how God see us and wants us to see ourselves.
Hold fast to the Truth. Ask God for full healing from the inside out. Surrender to Him on a daily basis, and never forget that He loves you and is faithful.
If you want to talk more about Jesus Christ and faith and what-the-heck-is-all-this-stuff, shoot me a message. I love meeting new people, whether virtually or in person, and gabbing about life.
And if you'd like to know more of my story, you can read my testimony here.
Truly, He makes beautiful things.
