Options?

Options?


Isaiah 58:11 "The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

I last purged the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and for once I am  aware of why I default to the eating disorder.  I have faced so many changes in the past few months.  Some are happy and some are sad, but they are all changes that alter the road I am traveling.  Brad and Kelsey are now married and the wedding will always be one of the greatest days of my life.  Although I am still his mother and always will be, he now has a wife and a home of his own.  He is a good man like his father and we are both proud of the man he has become.  My dad is gone and like Obi-Wan Kenobie said in Star Wars "I felt a strange disturbance in the Force.....I fear something terrible has happened"  Something terrible has happened and the void he leaves behind feels as big as Space itself.

The uncertainty of the holidays looming before me leaves me feeling like I am approaching a bend in the road, and although I am confident that I am still on the road, I have no clue what lies around this bend.  The road I am on feels scary and unfamiliar.  I am feeling lost and out of control.  I need something to stay the same, something to feel familiar, so I purge.  It is something that feels familiar.  I don't plan to purge it is a spontaneous reaction that somehow comforts me.   When so much is changing around me this is the one constant I have always had to fall back on.  I hear God speak to me through this verse.  "Liz I will always Guide you.  I know you feel so very lost on this new road that unfurls before you, but remember I love you and you are not walking alone.  Keep your eyes on me"

Each time I purge I hate admitting it to Laura, Rich, and especially Kurt.  It is just one more piece of evidence that means I am still sick and not doing as well as I think I am.  I hear something on the radio about approaching marriage with the idea that divorce is simply not an option.  At first I find myself remembering that this is exactly how I had approached my marriage; divorce is not an option. Then a second thought pierces spirit.  Could it be that God is using this to relate to my purging?    I can no longer look at purging as an option.  I decide that this will become my  new mantra "Purging is not an option, purging is not an option!"  Finally I have something to replace the mantra the pulled me back into the black hole of the eating disorder, "nothing taste as good as skinny feels."

I speak this new mantra to myself over and over again these past few weeks as I am faced with parties, weddings, and holiday celebrations  all which include food.  I think out loud "really, the holidays, why did you have to pick now to change things up?"  If not  now, then when?  When am I going to do it?  So I approach the weekend fearfully as I have three nights in a row of eating out with little control of what kind of food I will be served, and purging is not an option.

The first night I find myself reciting the mantra repeatedly in my spirit.  I am somewhat careful about what I take in, knowing it isn't coming back out.  I am anxious and uncomfortable.  I am also admittedly somewhat distracted my vigilance around my food and honoring my promise to my self.  This is somewhat frustrating because I thought by surrendering the eating disorder and the purging, I would be more present and engaged in even  the fleeting moments of my day.  What if I lost track and consumed more than I had planned?  I try to rest in the fact that God is using this to strengthen my frame,  not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.  I also rest in the fact that I am teaching an 8:45 am spinning class the next day.  Ah, it is always fun to make my students pay the price for my perceived gluttony.  I make it through and eventually settled in and pay more attention to the people than my food.

I wake the next day and see that I am fine and survived without relying on purging as an option.  I am fine.  Ok,  I am a little hung over from too much wine, but the friendship and laughter was worth it.  I choose not to step on the scale that tugs at me like a puppy playing tug-o-war.  The harder it pulls, the harder I have to pull.  I am tired of it winning, so today I pull away with everything I have.  I feel fine, I don't look any different than the day before, and I don't want some number on the scale to dictate my food for the day, or how I feel about myself.  My day is already going to challenging enough as I have to take my mother to get her cut just days after a horrid phone call from her.  I have great plans for my evening.

My second night out is to a wedding and yes there will be great food and plenty of it.  As I am getting dressed I wonder "can I really do this two nights in a row and not purge?"  I repeat once, maybe twice as I slip into my heels, "purging is not an option,"  I add a little post script to my thought "You still look skinnier than you feel."  I toss on my faux fur sweater and glance at my reflection and head out the door.  The wedding is beautiful and I become engrossed in their joy.  My face actually hurts from smiling.  I find myself talking to a few people who ask about, about the eating disorder, but don't really think about it. I am hungry and a grab a plate of a little of this a little of that.  I eat what I want and feel satisfied.  Purging doesn't cross my mind.  On the table in front if me 2 cupcakes appear.  I have a choice to make chocolate or vanilla?  I, of course, choose the chocolate.  Yes, that was my initial thought!  It wasn't whether or not I would have the cupcake, but what flavor did I want.  Something feels like it is shifting, and even though it is for the good as these words fall onto the page I realize it is scary.  Maybe I am taking this bend in the road too quickly?  Am I ready to change up the eating disorder since so much has changed already this year?

Maybe God has already strengthened my "frame" more than I realize.  The third night is at Stumps, my husband's men's club.  This is normally not an enjoyable night for me, but I go because it is important to him.  I hope that the old man that thinks it is a game to get a picture of me isn't there, and God spares me on this one.  Again I am at the mercy of whatever "down home" cooking that is put before me, and remind myself the "purging isn't an option."  I leave feeling full and proud that I somehow manage to not purge,  I lift my praise to Jesus Christ who must have strengthened me because I have made it through these days, achieving, for me what seemed impossible.

I am so close to recovery, I can almost taste it (so to speak).  I don't want to settle for "out of the woods" I want to live.  I want it gone for myself, but also to be a walking testimony of God's glory; That he has transformed my life into something worth living.  As I write this a wave of fear and sorrow washes over me.  Why the fear and sorrow?  It is the backwards glances and I realize how very close I came to losing my life to the eating disorder itself, or somehow taking my own life.  Either way I would be dying by my own actions.  Really that is what an eating disorder is, a long lonely walk down a road that leads to death.  First the spirit goes then, the mind, then finally the body succumbs beginning to feed on itself until it is no more.

The Scarlet Car

The scarlet car sits silently in my driveway.  I can sees it from my window, where I pray, where I write.  There is no one in the driver's seat.  There are no passengers.  It is my riderless horse, fireman's last call, and soldiers empty boots.  It is my father's car. I have allowed myself to look at it from a distance as it holds so much within.  It is solemn, sacred, and although empty, it holds precious memories locked behind its doors.  Most are joyful, but some are painful.

It is almost Thanksgiving and as I drive down to the lower driveway, I see the scarlet car.  I feel an unexpected wave of grief rise within me.  For a moment I wonder "why is my dad parked down here?" And as quickly as the moment comes I remember he is not here and he will never be here again.  I walk slowly past the driver's side, and pause for a moment brushing off the snow that sticks stubbornly to the glass.  I peek through the window and suddenly the car is filled with life.

I cannot even count the number of times I leaned into this same window smelling the sweet fragrance of the tobacco wafting  from a pipe dad wasn't supposed to smoke. I sees the packages of spearmint gum resting on the center console.  I close my eyes and inhale deeply.  I can almost smell them both on his breath as I did every Thursday when he came to take my boys to lunch.  I carefully instructed him on what they could eat and when to have them back to school.  He would grin and wave as the power window slid up and into place.  Then he would drive away with his special lunch dates.

I can see them laughing at silly jokes, and hear the laughter resonating through the frosted windows.  It was in the scarlet car that priceless relationships were forged.  I see the trips he made to school to deliver forgotten homework, medicine, or money for lunch because they new he would be there in a flash.  They knew that I, on the other hand, would have let them learn from their zero, or figure out how to eat lunch off their buddies cast offs.

I continue to gaze into the window and see their muddy footprints on the mats of the scarlet car after a lacrosse game in the rain.  Never once would dad complain about the dirt and grime they left behind.  They insisted on riding with him even when I was there.  I know it was in the scarlet car that they shared there hopes, their dreams, their fears and heartaches.  He was the confidant every child needed; knowing that Bop would share only if it endangered them or some one else.  It was an unspoken agreement between my dad, their grandfather, and each of the boys.

He in turn shared with them his successes, failures, and how to know God's love for each of them in a personal way.  It was in the scarlet car the he drove to our families' baptism in the neighbors pool, and to his own in Walloon.

The scarlet car, it was Santa's sleigh. Each year, as they read the Polar Express the boys would catch a glimpse of Santa through a frosted window much like the one I am looking through, and in the morning would find their jingle bell.  I wonder if the sleigh ever brought Santa to Ian, his youngest grandson and my tears begin to flow.

It was Bop that picked them up when they got sick at school, and Dad that brought his forty something "little girl" crunchy ice from Frischs' drive through when she was sick.  It was in the scarlet car that I revealed that I was sick again, scared, and this time I needed more than crunchy ice.  I needed him to step in and be the hero that I always thought he was, but it was too late.  His greatest asset had become his tragic flaw.  He had trusted and tried to help out the wrong people.  He confessed and asked for my forgiveness.  It was from this car that I exited with a tear stained face, and realized he had noting left to give.

Two years later with my hand on the scarlet car, I let it all go.  Then I sit and watch the snow melt, washing the scarlet car and I hear God speak.  "Come now let's settle this," says the Lord.  "Though your sins are like scarlet I will make them white as snow."(Isaiah 1:18)  And with that I scrape some snow off the roof of the car allowing it to melt in the warmth of my hand, remembering  that I too am forgiven and washed as white as snow.