1 Corinthians 10:13 No Temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide away out so that you can endure it. ( NIV )
The problem began when I forgot His promise. I turned from the father and his faithfulness and took my life into my own hands. I chose to travel back into the disorder he rescued me from over 20 years ago. I know, it is a crazy as the Israelites, choosing to wander back into the dessert instead of enter into the promise land, but that is just what I did. All be it, not intentionally. Allow me to explain.
An eating disorder was apparently not just a phase of life for me. It was something that at times I managed, and at other times it has managed me. It began this time as an innocent flirtation. I am older and wiser. I am in control. It is something belonging just to me. It is like a secret I am keeping to my self, yet it is breaking a confidence to my self at the same time. So, honoring myself by keeping this secret becomes the ultimate betray of my body and soul. I feel clever and deceitful at the same time. It is a dark abyss plagued with contradictions. I won't let it go too far this time. Just far enough. The problem is I didn't pay attention to that warning in my soul telling me to step away from the edge. My, how absurd of me to not realize that the eating disorder has a strength of its own. It sits like a predator in the shadows waiting to pounce on me just as the very thing I thought I was turning to for power, weakens my strength. So, I gave it the opportunity, and it has taken on a life of it's own. It has made me sick. It has made me tired. It has left me void and vacant. Yet, I can't let it take my life. I must take my life back.
Vacant: Without occupant or incumbent. That about sums it up for me. Somewhere along the way my mind, my soul my being checked out. It left a feeling of vacancy in my body. I have left a little bit at a time allowing a hollow space where I had dwelled and existed. Since I have left, why tend to the body where the soul had dwelled? Why should I throw wood on a fire that has already burned it's self out? I look in the mirror and I see me, but I look through me. I am like a special effect in a movie. I am no longer solid. I am a vapor that can be seen, but not touched or held. I am a wilting flower that has been left to water it's self from the dust under a dessert sky. A sky that is unable or willing to yield the rain that I so desperately crave. I desperately need.
I am in a field where thin and "fit" are admired. My self-denial and self-discipline are applauded and even envied. This feeds my eating disorder while I can't feed myself. So I am left feeling like a fraud. Health and fitness.! If only they all knew the truth. I am not strong. I am weak and have been subdued by the standards of this industry. The distorted idea that thin equates heath and fitness has a place to flourish. However, it is a quite dysfunctional and dishonest place.
I feel the soul. My soul beginning to stir. It desires to return home. I see just a flicker of her in my eyes. I need to tend to that home. I need to make it welcoming, strong and secure. A place of warmth and refuge. It should be beautifully prepared as my home or cottage would be for guests. Can I tend to that dwelling place in time for my soul to return home? I know that Jesus has gone ahead and prepared a place for me, but I am not quite ready to go home to the place he has prepared for me.
And I remind my self that He can "make beautiful things out of the dust" (Gungor)
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