I sit watching the sun continue to rise over walloon, knowing that I will return home for a week or two before I will see the splendor of God's gift of this place once again. I was hoping to catch up more on my blog so that I could start writing in the present. The real miracle is that I am here at all.
I had hit the point of utter despair as each and every day I expected to feel better, but did not. I began to really question God. I was a woman of faith that was quickly losing her faith and basically losing it all together. Had God abandoned me? Was he punishing me? Was this my own doing by stepping back into the eating disorder? Maybe the physical symptoms were a result of starving and asking to much of my body? Was my mind causing my symptoms because hidden deep in my psyche was the fear of the weight and recovering? Somehow I made it through day after day wanting to just curl up, go to sleep and never wake up. By the end of September I was able to pull off my teaching in both the classroom and the gym, but behind my closed doors, I was falling deeper in to the depression, anger at God and myself, and my therapist insisted that enough was enough. She asked me to please go on meds, and if I was suicidal. " No" I told her "I really don't think I could take my own life, but was ready go home to God if he would take me." I am not sure how convinced she was? I agreed to try the meds again.
I just wanted to feel well, feel normal, eat without fear of the discomfort, and with out the fear food because of the eating disorder. I felt like I was in a place that I wanted to be done with the eating disorder, and now it physically hurt to eat. Then as I was shaking my fist at God, it dawned on me that Satan is real and he wants to throw stumbling blocks in our paths. In my case it felt like boulders of granite, not mere blocks. But I had no idea how to fight this physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
It was around the end of October that, as I was reaching the end of my rope. The Wellbutrin was taking the desperation down to despair, but the meds prescribed to take the edge off of what they were now calling irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, made me feel like I was in a drug induced stupor trying to fake my way through the day. Needless to say, I went off the drug. I'd rather be curled up in pain than live disconnected from myself and the rest of humanity. I seriously felt like driving into a wall, or calling the squad to come get me before I hurt my self. Yet, the slow death of the eating disorder was somehow okay? Although it wasn't like putting a gun to me head, or slitting my wrists, the end result if not physical death, is hardly living!
I was starting to see that this was not just a physical battle but a spiritual battle. I needed help beyond cognitive therapy, or medication. I needed and advocate to show me how to fight my life long demons and lies I believed about myself. I began sharing with a friend a the club. I knew she was a believer, and I knew he husband pastored a church, and had lead Young Life with my father when I was a child.
She suggested I sit and have them pray for me. I expected a simple prayer of healing and I would be on my way. What I received was a safe loving couple that cared for me and began to show be that God was in this from the day I was conceived. He loved me and would work this for the good. I was, of course skeptical. I had been a Christian for years, but my view of who he was, was tainted by the way my parents had treated me. How Could the God of all the universe love and care about me, when my own parents didn't seem to love and cherish me.
I felt abandoned and punished. Yet, I didn't know why. I told my pastor and his wife words that I felt God had given me as I cried one morning begging for God to heal me or take me home. Keep in mind, that I wanted to physically and emotionally be healed, but wanted to hold on to my frailty. "Patience my child. I will take care of this. The time isn't right. There is a reason it is still and deep. Trust me. Just be. When you are stronger."
"Liz, look at he Petoskey stone I sent you. It is my promise that you will be okay." Said the Lord.
I answered, ''Lord, it would be such a relief to just trust you, to just be......I look at he Petoskey stone you sent me. I love that it is oddly shaped, but somehow reminds me of a throne and its' edges are jagged. It is not perfect, or polished like the ones for sale in the stores. No, it is like me; incompletely formed. Its' design only seen when moistened with water, like you life giving rivers of water. John 7:38 "Whoever believes in me, as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them" It is the Lord's river of living water that flows through me revealing my intricate design, and my purpose. "Believe this Liz!' And by the way, you are more solid thane you think. Look at the stone, feel the weight of it, hold it in your hand. See and feel it. That is you. And even though the base is uneven, see how it sits and doesn't tumble. Notice that it wobbles. but only in one direction. It doesn't move from the other side, Which direction are you focusing on, the weak or the strong?"
So, I began meeting with My pastor and his wife at least once a week. They began to love me and think of me as one of their own. Both also felt(feel) that god will completely heal me. I worry that I won't live to see the healing of the eating disorder, the depression, of the IBS. I can't count how man times would call him in tears fearing I was not going to make it. If God didn't take me home.......
well?????
I was afraid, Kurt was afraid that I would implode and not purposely take my own life, but in one of my melt downs of despair hurt myself beyond repair. We spent most of the fall and winter walking a thin line between life and death. If the eating disorder itself didn't take me out, my reaction to my physical discomfort would. I was counting on God to heal me, or to take me home.
Every day was a struggle to eat by faith even when I was fearful and in pain, but I fel that this what God was asking of me.
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