Radiant

Radiant

Psalm 34:5 "Those who look to him are radiant; their faces never covered with shame"

God again uses the image of light to reach out and comfort me.  So not only does he delight in me, he now sees me as radiant.  I believe he wants me to see past the shame I have carried that feeds the eating disorder, as well as the unique shame that comes with the eating disorder itself.  It is a viscous cycle that I want out of, but just can't quite figure out how extricate myself from the behaviors that, as I have said before, seems hard wired into my brain.  It is like skiing a black diamond from top to bottom.  My heart races, not from the physical exertion, but from the adrenaline and dopamine flooding through my body. I am going way too fast on a slope that is way to steep, but somehow I make it down.  My legs quiver from fear and my lungs burn from breathing quickly as if to keep up with the racing of my heart.  I take a quick inventory to make sure I am really still standing and in one piece.  I am frightened, I am tired and know I was lucky to escape unharmed, yet I get back in the lift line, knowing that I am pushing my limits.

That is what the eating disorder is beginning to feel like.  It is scary, dangerous, and I am lucky to survive, but I keep going back to it again and again even though I know that it is always that one last run that takes you out.  Last year at this time I could have cared less if I died on the steep slope of the eating disorder.  I didn't care if it hurt me or I hurt myself, but I am shifting as God reveals more and more of himself to me, and that he loves me, delights in me and now I am radiant!  My pastor asks me to look myself in the eyes everyday and say "I love you Liz"  "Really?  I am not sure if I can do that.  It feels, well, contrived and unnatural.  I know that God wants me to love myself as he loves me, but I am not sure I can do this.  I am not sure I believe it,"  I say back to him.  It is easy for me to look in the mirror and pick myself apart and tell the woman staring back how much I hate her, but tell her I love her; I am not so sure.  He encourages me to just try it.  If I could scream the lies that Satan would have me believe, how much more would I be able to believe the truth about the woman God loves and delights in if only I would speak it to her.  I agree to give it a try and find that each time I do the haze that I see myself through is starting to lift like the fog off the mountains that take my breath away.

I have used my dad's death as an excuse to flirt with the eating disorder.  At least that is what I thought I was doing since I had been feeling so much better and stronger. I believe I am in recovery.  I just don't feel "sick" anymore, and really don't think I look anorexic or too thin. My therapist disagrees.  She spends much of the session pointing out each piece of the eating disorder that is still alive.  She pulls out her notes from my last appontment and reads them to me.  I am not sure if it is to make me feel better or worse, but I feel worse.  I am not sure if it is what she reads or the clinical way that the notes are written.  It was like listening to someone describe the results of working with a chimpanzee for research.  I felt hidden behind the illness even as I believe I am starting to emerge.  I feel the tears beginning to well up, but it is almost time for me to go so I draw in a long breath allowing God to hold them again. This felt safer since he has no time limit.   I think she sees the despair on my face. She hugs me and says "The eating disorder is BIG, but you are doing great, you really are!" I leave feeling defeated, hopeless, and too weak to keep pressing into God and recovery.

I felt old and childlike at the same time.  That familiar feeling of shame starts to rise like bile in my throat, and that is when God reminds me that as long as I keep looking to him I am radiant and released of my shame.