Disrobing

Disrobing


Matthew 10:29-31 "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your fathers care.   And even the very hairs of your head are numbered.  So, do not be afraid; you are worth more than sparrows.

I have the strong sense that my days of growing darkness are numbered, as are my days of shrinking away leaving me just a shadow in the light as it shines on me.  As God speaks to me he confirms that it is time for me to step out into the light and allow myself to take up space and to shine. Just as he has numbered the hairs on my head so has he numbered the days of my darkness.

I left my last therapy session feeling hopeless, defeated, and though not intended, like a faceless being as she read her notes from the last session to me.  I got in the car and allowed my tears to flow as I asked God "What now?"  There is something I am missing, or that she isn't getting.   Then, as I was driving down the road I had a clear vision of God coming into the car and hearing the sound of a zipper, and it was in that moment that   I knew I no longer was holding onto the hate and self loathing that I had carried around for most my life.  It was if I physically shed a cloak that I was never meant to wear.  By disrobing this cloak from by body I could feel God's love for me like I had never felt it before. I even feel this new sense of love of me, who I am, who I was meant to be, and who I am yet to become.  My brutal emotional and physical self inflicted wounds seemed to fade like images in my rear view mirror.  I had a swelling desire to live the abundant life I was meant to live.

I begin to pray for God to allow myself to see my physical body more accurately and he began to reveal it little by little to me over the past few weeks.  It is in a picture from Mitchell's senior day that I see that I am still shapeless beneath the baggy sweater and jeans that once fit me like they were made for my once "perfect ass'. Those aren't my own words, but those of friends and fellow gym rats.  Trust me I never thought of any part if me as perfect, but I have to admit it wasn't too hard on the eyes.  Then I see my reflection as I walked, ironically, through the buffet line at a recent benefit for St. Rita's School for the deaf surrounded by mirrors.  Wait, God is that really me?  What happened to my perfect 34 B cup breasts that still stood upright on their own?  I see that I am not scary skinny as I was 2 years ago, but I am much smaller than the body I remembered and was pleased with at one time.  I ask for just some confirmation that this image staring back at me is what I really look like?  I walk into church the next day after the benefit and Tree looked at me and asked me if I was okay.  "You have just been on my heart.  You look so thin."  It was as if this is some form of confirming that the image staring back at me is accurate and slow coming into focus.

He even allows me to become aware of the way my bones especially my ribs are felt even through my clothes.  Only the Lord would give me more than I asked for.  I only asked to see, but he allows me to feel it.

Somehow I make it through the benefit without purging.  Surprisingly it doesn't even cross my mind until I get home and realize I ate pecan pie with ice cream. Was it just that I was enjoying myself, or that somewhere inside I felt that if these children struggled everyday to make it in our hearing world not by their own choice and I essentially choose to hurt myself, and then I found myself thinking "what the Fuck was I thinking?"  It was too late to purge.  I just had to sit with it and surprisingly I lived to tell about it; my jeans still fitting just as they did the day before.

My week passed by in a blur as I continued to eat by faith, even as my gut still ached at times and I was exhausted from long days of work, classes, and meetings.  I was doing it all one day at a time and there was a shift inside that I still can't put into words, but my pastor notices it right away.  "There is a lightness about you that I haven't seen before." He tells me. And he isn't talking about my physical presence!  I tell him about my preceding days, and the shedding of my cloak of self hatred and loathsomeness.

Then as easily as I don't purge the past weekend this weekend I purge, and I think I can even connect the dots on this one.  I start to feel the disappointment and shame rise once again.  I am sure I wear it like the cloak I have just shed, but then I hear God speak through his words.  Psalm 34:5  "Those who look to him are radiant; Their faces never covered in shame."  God doesn't want me to cover my face in shame even when I mis-step with my food or purge as I  did last night.  Yet, he doesn't want this for me either.  He wants me free from it; all of it.  So, yes I am disappointed in my self, but shame?  Shame would pull me back down into the depth of the eating disorder.  Shame would tell me you'll never be free.  Shame would tell me to surrender to the eating disorder instead of God.  Shame would tell me I am weak, a loser, but God tells me "oh no, you are my child, and you are radiant as you keep seeking me.  I will bring you out into the spacious place in my timing because I delight in you, and in your weakness I am strong and using all of this to bring you from glory to glory.  So, get up, hold your head up and thank me, worship me and bring me your praises as you rest and refuel in me.  Your brothers and sisters in Christ are waiting for you to join them in worship.  Do not stay away from church today because Satan would have you believe you failed and are filled with that shame.  By my blood you are my daughter.  You are redeemed.  I love you!"