Strike

Isaiah 43:1-3(NLT). 1" Do not be afraid for. I have ransomed you.  I have called you by name; you are mine.

2When you go through deep waters, I will be with you, when you go through rivers of difficulty

You will not drown

When you walk through fires of oppression you will not be burned up

The flames will not consume you

3For. I am The Lord your. God

The holy one  of  Israel, your savior.......

I read and re-read this, trying to figure out when I will be plucked from the water! or pulled from the flames.  I do feel,like I am drowning and gasping for breath, or that my lungs are filling with smoke so that I can no longer breath. I am being consumed.

I see the word ransom and wonder why I am still held captive if He has ransomed me?  I am a hostage so I may as well go on a hunger strike until I am healed or dead.  I am not sure if it is the eating disorder rising or the fact that I am so disgusted and disturbed by the symptoms I am enduring right now, I have little or no appetite.  My lines are blurred as they were when my father died.  Is it just an excuse to flirt with the eating disorder or a typical reaction to an atypical symptom.  I think the difference is that with my dad my heart was heavy with grief, this time I am not sure I care if I live or die as I can't live with the symptoms much longer.

Sometimes I feel like I am trying to hold God hostage or manipulate him; because that is always a good idea when dealing with the creator! (Insert sarcasm ).  I know this isn't the way to demonstrate faith only desperation.  I cry myself to sleep, and wake up hoping for relief only to feel the strange sensations that have taken over my body and therefore my mind.  They are un-relenting as they rip and tear through my body and mind.  I wonder if this is what Jesus felt like as he was whipped until his flesh hung from his frame.  It is by these "stripes"  I am told I am healed, yet I have not had that sudden healing! 

I find myself listening to Jake Hamilton's Just Beyond the Breaking   "All I can offer is skin and bones to the greatest love I have ever known"  And I wonder if through this, that is all I will have left to offer him will be skin and bones as eating has become more and more difficult as the depression from the affliction takes over.  There are days that the symptoms cause me not to purge, but vomit from disgust and pain.  Maybe that will be my legacy.  She loved the Lord, but trauma, eating disorders and this heinous affliction brought her down.  And maybe just maybe it will lead to more research into all of the above.  Am I supposed to die in this all to help others?  I keep hoping not, but I wouldn't be the first He used in death for others to live.  After all God didn't spare his own son.......

Keep in mind I don't want to die, I just don't want to live like this!.

Suffering and fear

Revelations 2:10 " Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.  I tell you the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days.  Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victors crown. (NIV)

2Kings  20:1-6  "about that time Hezekiah became ill, and prophet Issiah son of Amoz went to visit him.  He gave the king this message: 'This is what the Lord says: Set your affairs n  order, for you are going to die.  You will not recover from this illness.'
2When Hezekiah heard this, he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 3'rmember your, O Lord, how I have always been faithful to you and have served you single-mindedly, always doing what pleases you. 'then he broke down and wept bitterly.  4But before Isaiah left the middle courtyard, this message came to him from the Lord:  5 Go back to Hezekiah, the leader of my people.  Tell him, this is what the Lord, the God of your ancestors David , says:  I have heard your prayer and seen your tears .  I will heal you, and three days from now you will get out of bed and go to the temple of the Lord. 6 I will add fifteen years to your life......"

Almost three years ago to the day I walked into a new therapists' office just to have someone to touch base with as I was beginning to hear the gentle whisper of the eating disorder calling for me, little did I know then that it would be just the first of many whispers that would crescendo into deafening roars.  Just as one roar was silenced another would rise up from a low guttural growl to a full fledged roar.  What the hell?  I found myself, and still find my self thinking is going on that I can't seem to find my way out of this lion's den?  Why isn't God coming into this den and plucking me out of my suffering?  When will I be healed and receive the victors crown?

I have to believe he is up to something, because this has been a long fucking journey, uphill, and against the wind, and just when I think the worst is over I discover that what I thought was the peak
indicating the culmination of my climb, was  just another switchback. I can only climb so high before I give up and roll back down hill into the full blown eating disorder, or jump off the ledge completely.  My, how much easier the eating disorder was compared to the nerve pain I am suffering through right now.  At least, to a certain degree, I was in control of the pain and suffering of the eating disorder.  This I have no control over and I do fear it will send me rolling back into familiar eating disorder just to feel like there is something in my life I can control.  And I know that this is a lack of faith that God has me in the palm of his hand, but I feel like it is this or jump.  Maybe the jump wouldn't be so bad of it were a leap of faith, but I am having so much trouble finding my faith. I am just tired of working so hard for everything I do and truly the eating disorder is easy and distracting.  Or, at least it's was distracting. I am not sure, if it would actually distract me anymore as it is so effortless to starve.  I am not sure what the purpose in beating the eating disorder is, if I am going to live in a state of pelvic and of other discomfort the rest of my fucking life?

 I thought I was doing ok and then all the symptoms came swooping back in like a flock of vultures waiting to pick me a part.  Unfortunately they didn't have to pick me me apart because I fell apart.  First the tears, then the crying out for mercy, asking why, then the anger.....I never had anyone that had my back as a child and thought I was worth the effort and now I feel like God has left me hanging as well.  Then there is the ever present guilt the rises as I remember that I did get in to see the specialist, and I am going back in a month.  Grateful, yeah, I guess, but I am still amazingly pissed off the He has allowed this infliction to begin with.  I am paralyzed by grief, fear, and anger.  I know I am not in this entirely alone as I have the most patient saint of a husband who feels the worst of my wrath aimed really at myself, since I am still not convinced that this is indeed some sort of punishment.

I cry, scream, pound things and crumble.  I spy my vision board in the corner of my closet, fuck my vision!  I rip it up.  First into big pieces, then smaller and smaller until my "dreams" are just scraps.  Scraps that I toss up into the skylight and watch filter down in the rays of sun finding some irony that there is little light in my life right now.  Having nothing in my control, I take back the eating disorder for the last 3 days.  I restrict, I purge, if my body wants to betray me fine, but I will have some say in it. It isn't like I can get much food in anyways as the throbbing symptoms make me gag.  And I know I am playing with fire this time, but I don't give a shit.  I begin to wonder if maybe I really was meant to die in the eating disorder because this is not living.

I grieve my life and the life that sucks for my husband.  This isn't how he deserves to live; with a sick, angry, despondent wife.  God, do you see my tears my face turned to the wall?  Do you not remember how I seek you and love you?  Where is my healing?  Where is my miracle?  A friend is riddled with cancer.  She is prayed for and over.  The surgeon opens her and closes her as there is no sign of the cancer.  "A miracle" is all he can say.  Another needs just the right amount of money for a flight.  She is offered a free ticket.  "Oh God is good and supplies just what I need."  She sings in praise.

Not only that, but where are my "pink" ribbons, my walks of awareness, someone to see how my husband is suffering along with me?  People rally around Brad's in laws because his father in law has Parkinsons.  They ask his mother in law "how are you doing?  How are you holding up?"  My husband, he walks alone carrying first the burden of the eating disorder, and now this, with symptoms too heinous to speak of even though they aren't my fault.  I, no, we are lonely we are scared, and I am losing ground.  I was winning the battle, I was stable physically, emotionally, and I thought spiritually.  I don't understand any of this except for the fact that I am all out of fight.  I am no longer crazy, for the record, this illness is crazy, and that, my friends, it what makes me feel crazy!

Long Months of Drought

Jeremiah 17:7-8 " But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and their confidence.  They are like trees planted along a river bank, with roots that reach deep into the water.  Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought.  Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit."

I truly felt that God sent me this for a reason, to remind me that no matter what comes I am rooted in him, but now I am not sure.  Maybe it was to tell me that my roots are shallow and that the "heat and droughts of my life will cause me to wilt and die because my faith isn't what I thought it was?

Here is a message I felt that the Lord revealed to me as I was listening to a Christian radio station and they were talking about near death experiences, and I was thinking "I sometimes wish I could have a near death experience as opposed to the Job like experience I feel like I live day after day.  I am tormented and see no end.  I hear God saying "Was not your last year close enough?  You were so close, closer than you know.  You are here, does that not confirm my power, my love?  You have been close enough for now.  rise in faith, grow in faith.  Keep on seeking my face.  Live! Live! Live!  Peace rests on you hearing my words, for you were spared for a reason.  Take no credit, give me the glory.  Let it all go.  Weep!  It is coming, in fact it is almost here.  Bear it carry it, but not alone.  For now that is enough.  Share your story.  Be my witness."  Yet as I sit hear today, I find myself questioning and doubting that I will ever be okay.

I have been moving through one stumbling block after another.  Just as I see the light at the end of the tunnel revealing a pathway cleared of debris, the light begins to illuminate new hazards of shards of glass leading to boulders and blocks.  Three weeks ago I was praising the Lord for my continued movement through the eating disorder, and more good gut days then bad, now I am pleading for mercy and healing once again.  I now am struggling with some symptoms from either nerve damage possibly
piriformis  syndrom, or maybe hormones? I even wonder if they are a result of some yet to be discovered childhood trauma.  I prefer to not elaborate on the symptoms as the are unpleasant, uncomfortable, and leave me feeling tainted and disgusting. The truth is not one doctor I have seen can tell me anything.  Even my female gynecologist suggests "it is in my head" Really?    It has me at the end of my rope and I am slipping back to that place I didn't want to go again, ever.  The place of thinking death would be a better option.  Maybe it really all is in my head?  Yet, that is not where the symptoms rest.

I sometimes wonder if God wants to set me free?  I know he can, but does he want to?  As I read the scripture I feel both inadequate and abandoned because I am not standing up very well in this, yet another drought.  Inadequate because I am wilting under these current conditions because my roots must not run deep enough, and abandoned by being set in this dessert in the first place.  Yes, yes, I know I am the one that started into the dessert of the eating disorder all on my own, but how could I know then that it would destroy all of my joy, and lead to one thing after another?  I find myself pleading for forgiveness like it is something to be earned even though it is not.

For the past two nights a wake around three in the morning.  The first night in excruciating  unrelenting pain.  I cry, pray, and wander the cottage in search for Advil, Aleve, or anything to stop the searing pain.  The pain brings me to my knees, but actually prefer the pain than the other discomfort I have been feeling.  This  morning I awaken to an email from my pastor.  He was awake at 3A.M.  and as he was praying for me God gave him 3 scriptures for me.  I try to focus on them, as each one was related to keeping my eyes on Him and finding my hope in Him.  I want my hope to be in him.  I want Him to be my rock, my refuge my strength, but it is so hard to keep believing when I keep getting knocked down and around.

I am at least heard by my family doctor and she agrees to make some phone calls for me on Monday when offices re-open.  I don't honestly know how long I can hold out before I end up in a hospital setting.   I don't know what would be worse for my family, knowing I am crazy, or grieving me and getting along without me.

So, I continue to wander through my days existing, but not really living.  I have little incentive to continue to recover from the eating disorder if I must continue to live in pain and disgusting discomfort. I seriously can't think of any worse symptoms than the one that torments me day after day.

I am questioning God and my faith daily.  I am tired and try to focus on God's strength because I am out of strength.  I am tired of working so hard at my faith, my eating disorder, my gut, my marriage, my anger, and now fighting to pretend that I am fine.  I am not fine.  I am desperate.  2Timothy 1:2 "I am suffering here in prison, but I am not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust and I am sure he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him."  Although I am not in a physical prison, I am imprisoned by my discomfort, and this prison I am in brings me shame.  I try to remind myself that this is a physical condition of which I have no control, but it is insanely  difficult.  Shame, "those who look to him are radiant there faces never covered in shame."Psalm 34:5 (NIV), I wonder if God is wanting me to deal with shame or guilt over something, over what I am not sure? Is it a trust issue?  I trusted God each time I was pregnant and still lost 3 babies.  So yes I have trust issues.  I want to trust, but God is going to have to show me how.  I need a revelation and soon.  There isn't enough pink lipstick to cover this one.

Tired and Bored

Tired and Bored

"Man I'm tired, I'm just tired and bored with myself." (Bruce Springsteen).

 Usually I find my writing coming from the words God sends to me through scripture or sometimes just to me through prayer and writing.  Today I find the words of the "Boss" reflecting how I have been feeling the last few days, and wonder, "if I am tired and bored with myself, I can only imagine what those living with me or around me must feel?"  I am sure they are thinking "get on with it already!  We are tired of waiting for you to let go and get over the eating disorder.  Frankly Liz you are boring us to tears."  I am in a slump, and find it easier to succumb to purging over the weekend, then fight the good fight.  Last weekend I had the strength to fight the desire to get the food out.  I also had a little heart to heart with God as I was trying to decide what I was going to do with the food.  He had my back, and as promised, gave me the strength and courage to keep the food in.

Last week I was with my son viewing his award winning artwork.  We took him out to dinner and I was filled to the brim with pride.  This was his day, and I believe that God knew I would so regret the stain purging would leave on it, so he short of sent me an audible saying "DON"T DO IT, DON'T DO IT!"  I listened and in the end knew that by taking the eating disorder and laying it as his feet, he gave me strength and peace.  As I drove home that night my pride in my self for heeding God's warning was eclipsed only by the pride I felt in my son.  It was in his pleasure and genuine surprise at this award that I not only saw what joy looks like, but felt it pricking at my heart.  I love that God is using the everyday things that I once missed to reveal the joy he intends for me, for all of us.  I find that trying to stay "in the moment for me" takes practice and training just like running a race.

I feel like I am in crisis of faith season.  One when I ask why, where is God, is He who he says he is, and if he is there, then why am I here?  Why am I still entangled in this mess?  Why do I even have to sit and debate with him as I stare into a toilet basin to vomit or not to vomit?   The next time the media throws a waif like model in your face, remember how many of us throw up to measure up.  Yet do not be deceived, it really isn't about the weight at all.  Although I say it is my body image that seems to be my final strong hold, it is really my self-image.  It is what, in my opinion, all of us who battle this illness becomes the real battle.  We find ourselves not fully knowing who we are on the inside so we keep trying to perfect the outside.  When reach the ideal image of body and beauty, but still don't find our true identity, we find ourselves identified by the eating disorder itself.  Somehow this becomes better than no identity at all.  Maybe that is why recovery is so long and arduous.  Finding yourself means losing the one thing in which you have finally found your identity and replacing it with your true identity takes faith and courage to believe you really are unique, special, and more than okay.

I know that God wants me to find my identity in him and the person that he created me to be, to see me through the eyes of an adoring father that created me to love and be loved by him.  This week I allow the eating disorder to speak louder than God's voice again.  Two weeks have passed, and I step carefully on the scale at the gym hoping that no one is around to witness this sacred moment. I hold my breath as I move the scale to 117lbs and slowly bump it down one pound at a time.  My weight is down from 116lbs, almost 117lbs, to 114lbs.  I would love to say that I am disappointed, but I am not.  I am not entirely honest with my husband or therapist as to how relived I am to have lost and not gained. I imagine this would probably not surprise my therapist; after all she is the professional. My husband, I am not sure?  I don't mean to be deceitful.  Both seem to think I am doing much better, and I am, but maybe I am not as far down the road as they think.  Maybe I am not as far down the road as I think.

This weekend I am out for dinner and instead of laying down the eating disorder at God's feet, my mind keeps going back to setting my feet on the sacred altar of the scale.  I have plenty of wiggle room.  So what if I move back towards 117lbs.  I was okay there, but not quite comfortable.  A friend, a comment from someone at the gym, feeds the eating disorder this week and I lose the battle once again, as I sit and enjoy my meal, I become aware of how much food I have taken in.  Did I really need the bread? Will this one real meal with the bread send my weight right back up?  Who the hell cares? I sill do. Before I can think about it, I panic and purge.  "Dang this stupid illness!” That is what happens time and time again when I forget Psalm 46:1 "God is my refuge and my strength, always ready to help in times of trouble" (NLT) I get sucked back into worshiping the sacred scale instead of my sacred father.  I am tired and bored with myself.  The eating disorder finds an opening and I let it right back in instead of taking it back and handing it over to God. 

I must have said fifty times in the last few days that I didn't think that I'd be dealing with this at the age of fifty.  "I am too damned old for this!  How can this middle aged woman keep fighting?"  Somehow I find the answer to this in his word.  Joshua 14:10-11 "Now as you can see the Lord has kept me alive and well as he has promised for all these forty five years since Moses made this promise - even while Israel wandered in the wilderness.  Today I am eighty-five years old.  I am as strong as I was when Moses sent me on that journey and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then." I try to remember this after I purge this weekend.  Even though I feel old, weak and helpless, maybe there is some more fight in this old dog.  If only this old dog would remember the strength of her master Jesus Christ.

Twice in three weeks I have purged, and it cuts me to the core.  I beat my self up with a vengeance.  At least this time I leave my hands off my own body.  I am overwhelmed with; you name it, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation, anger, disappointment, and regret.  I am sorry and sad I have let myself down as well as God.  He has kept me alive for a reason.  He cannot fulfill that in me if I keep chipping away at myself.  So I just come straight with him that I am helpless right now.  "I don't know how to do this!!"  "That's okay" I hear him through scripture. I will not only be your refuge and strength, I will teach you. Psalm 143:10 "Teach me to do your will for you are my God, may your gracious spirit lead me forward to firm footing." ( NLT ) I don't need to know how to do this; He will teach me if I yield to his will.  

Labor

Labor

John 16:21 “it will be like a woman suffering labor pains of labor.  When her child is born her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into this world”

The last couple of weeks have been difficult as I admit to myself, my therapist, husband, and pastor that I spend so much mental, as well as physical energy on the eating disorder.   There is part of me that feels so defeated, and child like as I recognize the parts of the eating disorder that hang onto me as I am trying to let it go.  I hate it, I really do.  Even with words it is hard to describe how small and child like hanging onto being small makes me feel.  And then there is that look of pity that is thrown my way.  Pity is for the pitiful.  I am not pitiful.  The eating disorder, it is pitiful.  I am brave to wrestle with a beast that has the highest mortality rate of any other mental illness.  I am brave as I let go one finger at a time.  Releasing each symptom one at a time, and replacing it with more of me, more of who the Lord intends me to be.

It is hard to fix something you don’t know is broken, or remove something when you don’t see it taking up your space.  That is why this painful realization holds hope for me.  I have at least acknowledged uninvited distortion of what I see in the mirror, and the exhausting mental gymnastics.  Maybe now I can begin the process of ushering them out of my head, leaving room for my authentic self to unfold.  As I allow myself to unfold I hope to embrace the woman I see in the mirror, connect with her and know her.  The woman in the mirror still seems a little like a stranger to me because the parts of her that are emerging have remained dormant for so very long.  Some are good, some are bad, happy, sad, funny, and beautiful and some are downright ugly, but they are all a part of her, a part of me.  They are all okay.(I think?) 

I feel like a baby must feel like when they begin to walk and talk.  They are awkward clumsy and you never know what will come out if their mouths.  I am trying to become comfortable with so many things.  I am learning to be comfortable with feeling full and keeping in the food and my weight shifting here and there as my body re-sets itself.  I am also trying to be comfortable with all the parts me.  The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly can all exist in this beleaguered body, and a brain that hurts from thinking.

As I think about how spent I am, I remember how tired I was when I was pregnant as it takes a lot of energy to grow another human being inside of you.  Sometimes I feel like, in essence that is what I am doing.  Growing a new person……me and laboring to give birth to the person I was intended to be.

It is not fair that at 50 years old I have to work so hard to rid myself of the burden of this eating disorder, but what other burden would I prefer?  There are so many choices.  As I am transparent in sharing my story, struggle, my burden (like people couldn’t see it), I find that no one escapes burdens in this life.  There is no “charmed” life being lived out there.  Some people like myself are just better concealing there burdens and pain behind pink lipstick a wink and a smile. I am tired of hiding behind the barrier of the eating disorder, so that is what causes me to be appropriately  honest.

All of us fear the protective wall, whatever it is made of, crumbling down around us exposing who we really are, and what goes on inside our walls.  So we are constantly getting out the bricks and mortar to repair our walls, or keep them from crumbling in the first place. It is exhausting, endless work.

So I ask myself again, “What do I want to trade my eating disorder for?”  Hey, at least it is fashionable.  It isn’t ugly like alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, but just as painful, seductive and deadly.  If my eating disorder were a drug addiction, I would have overdosed a long, long time ago.  Maybe that is why the weight of this burden is as fair as any other.  God gave me the burden that I could battle, grow from, and ultimately come out on the other side looking like, and feeling like the best me I can be, and that will just have to be enough.  

Burdens

Burdens

Ecclesiastes 3:10-13  “I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.  11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.  He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so. People cannot see the scope of God’s work from beginning to end.  12 So I conclude there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.  13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

I have grown weary and tired of bearing the burden of the eating disorder.  It steals my mental and physical energy from things that are much more productive and joyful.  It is in my prayer and study time that God speaks to me through his word and through my writing.  I somehow feel the scripture he leads me to addresses both my burden of the eating disorder as well as my desire to feel joy, true joy in my life once again.  I find it so intriguing how many times God uses food, thirst or taste to demonstrate his love. 

He also seems to have a clear message for me as I run on a cold, but beautiful sun drenched day.   I almost audibly hear “two weeks” and I see it before as though looking at a calendar.  What the heck does this mean?  I am pretty sure that God is asking something of me, but I don’t get it until I begin to write and the words flow from pen to paper.   “Your transformation isn’t by your power Liz, it is by My power that the way you think will be transformed.  I will transform the way you think about your weight and your body.  Begin by staying off the scale for two weeks.  Two weeks, that is all I am asking for now.  I do love you, but I need you to trust me.  I am not into punishing you for not trusting me, but you will receive so much more if you do.”  Ok, I get it now, but I am not sure I like it. 

A sense of panic came over me as I basically weighed my self on three different scales within a day or two.  My weight is all over the place.  This even includes my doctor’s scale with clothes on.  Which one is right?  How do I know?  Maybe I should get on all three in one day to figure out which is right?  It is in this moment that I realize how much of my time I give to the eating disorder, time that I could give to God or relationships.  As it consumes my thoughts it takes me out of the moments with my family, friends, and God.  So, two weeks I will stay off the scale, and just like the purging, weighing in isn’t an option. (For two weeks)

Recovery is such a fucking tedious process.  Yet, it is the details that I let go of one at a time that I will find freedom once again. Surrendering by faith that God’s plan may just be better than mine.  It actually feels safer loosening my clenched fist I have wrapped around the eating disorder one finger at a time than just opening my hand and handing it over. I get the sense that God is okay with this, and there is a reason it is a slow healing instead of the sudden healing I desire.   This is especially true right now when I have the uncertainty of Brad and Kelsey’s starting a life of their own unsettling my heart, as well as Mitchell's future plans and discussing how I want to celebrate my 50^th birthday with my twin, or on my own. All beautiful and positive changes, but changes for my life non the less.

A sandwich?  It is just a sandwich, but to me it must mean so much more.  Why can’t I eat or finish a whole sandwich?  I can eat a banana after part of the sandwich, or even a small treat like a square of chocolate, but not the whole damned sandwich.  My therapist suggests it is because of the parts of my life that are out of my control right now. Like the baby, my relationships[s with my siblings, turning fifty, and wondering if I should keep working or not.   I think it is possibly a remnant of fuck you to my mom forcing me to be a member of the clean plate club even if I was full or just not fond of the food before me.  Actually, other than fruits and veggies, since I have been on my own I never finish off any food.  Even if I plan (which I seldom plan it) to purge I still don’t clean my plate.  A sandwich used to be one of those things that I could eat in its entirety. Now it feels like climbing Mt, Everest.  Like I can make it almost to the summit, but settle for just looking at the peak.

I continue to try to process what this means.  Is it my fuck you, my fear of letting go and letting God?  Could it just be my new normal?  I have no clue and am tired of wasting time on it.  I decide it may mean nothing at all, and try to think about anything that doesn’t relate to my weight and food.

Even though I battle the desire to remain small every day, I am still staying a head of the eating disorder by not dropping wait.  It is the small battles won that in the end wins the war.  Letting it go by opening one finger at a time I trust that God will transform my heart and how I see my body as well as the fear of the weight just as he has done with the purging.  My desire to purge has drastically decreased.  I am grateful for this.  And just like he has changed my desire to purge over time, I trust he will do the same with the remaining symptoms.

“I am tired of being patient in affliction.”  I find myself saying this daily, but it appears to be my only choice.  I am tired of the eating disorder.  I am simply tired.  I worked a long day and wanted nothing more than to go home and rest, but felt compelled to haul my butt to the pool and get my planned 2,000 meters in.  I was going out to dinner and knew this was a better option than risking a purge.  Do I wish I could take a break to honor my physical fatigue?  Yes, I wish I could do this, but the mental gymnastics I put myself through doesn’t seem worth it.

I share all of this with my therapist and how I am tired of it sucking away so much of my time.  Somehow this appears to be a huge step.  I am not sure if the amount of time I spend on it has increased, or if I am finally recognizing how much time I have wasted on wasting away.

Many Gifts = One Body

Many Gifts = One Body

John 14:12 (NLT)  “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done and even greater works, because I am going to be with the father.”

I look back on my past three years and know that God has saved my life for a purpose.   It is in this that I put my hope and continue to eat by faith despite the fear of the weight and the constantly changing image I see in the mirror.  One minute I see that I am thin, the next is see a bloated grotesque creature, ironically, neither of which I recognize or connect with as me.  Yet God must see me, recognize me, and needs me to somehow be his hands and feet to those around me.

I find myself less frequently asking why me; why do I have to bare this burden, and more frequently asking why has God saved my life?  What are the “works” he has spared my life to do in his name?  Greater works than he has done because he has gone to be with the father, that is what he has promised.

“Greater works” I say audibly to God and myself.  “What is my gift?  What works have you equipped me to do?  When I think of greater works and spiritual gifts I often want my gift to be something huge ,one of the biggies, like prophesy, or sudden healings as I lay my hands on the sick and the wounded.  How do I expect to heal others in his name when I myself still struggle to be well?  Do I doubt when there is no sudden healing?  Yes, I do doubt, but then he brings to mind the small miracles that have occurred when laying my hands on the sick, the wounded, the dying.  I remember Elizabeth writhing in pain, begging for pain meds that she couldn’t take for another hour.  She was crying, her mom was crying, I put my hands on her calling on the Holly Spirit to blind her to the pain.  I left the room only to have her mother tell me “I don’t know what you said, but she is calm, she is quiet.”  Wow, he used me to do this, to ease her pain just as he used me to comfort my dying father, and build up a friend whose husband had left her.  Small miracles?

This week, my hands and prayers may not have performed sudden healings, but they began a process of healing the beautiful people of Belize moving them towards health and wellness.  It may have been treating an actual physical illness.  It may have been healing their hearts and souls, as some seem to come just for a touch of compassion, to feel a connection to another human being, to feel a connection to God.  I hope that I showed them this.  There is nothing more powerful than feeling that you are valuable and feeling someone not only touches your body, but your soul.

One of the greater miracles of the week was that I survived conditions that would usually repulse or scare me.  I even survived sharing my room with a tree frog, geckos, and odd looking bugs that prove to me that God must have a sense of humor in his creativity.

He allowed me to look past the grimy hair, the rotting teeth, and people that rarely bathe wearing clothes that never get washed.  Most of the time I wasn’t even aware of how bad these people smelled.  Every once in a while God would send me a quick whiff to remind me of what he wasn’t allowing me to smell.  I was struck by the universal want and need for the love and touch of other people.

 They are people that really work so hard for so very little, while we, in reality work so little for so much.  Not that we in the US don’t work hard, but we take so much for granted in our surroundings.  Our schools keep our children warm in the winter, and cool in the spring and fall.  We have doctors to go to that specialize and practice in real offices.  Yet we complain when we wait too long, or the office is too hot, too cold, or crowded. These people arrived in the early hours long before we did waiting with the patience of Job as they were moved from station to station like the cattle being herded in the farm next door. Some, never even made it inside the gate. I reminded myself of this as I complained of no hot water in my hut like room,  yet I at least had running water.

San Victor, I am one of the few that don’t mind this village.  Maybe it is because I had no preconceived notion about it.  I felt useful in the mundane, like holding a door closed so that a young boy could be thoroughly examined to make sure he wasn’t being abused.   I had the honor of praying with a little girl and rubbing her back as the doctors performed surgery in the field on a previously botched surgery.  I like that I could freely pray aloud in the spirit as there were many languages spoken in the same room, and that God could utter through his spirit the words I didn’t know to say.  My tears of compassion flowing like the words from my lips.

She was muy bonita, her long shiny black hair clinging to the sweat and tears on her face.  Terry was amazing, looking into her eyes to calm her cries of fear and pain.  I took at least four of us to hold her tiny body down and when her aunt couldn’t bare it any longer she handed me the leg she had been holding away from the “sterile field.”  I was keenly aware of the universal heartache of watching a loved one in pain or suffering.  I was ashamed that, because we treat so many, we sometimes loose track of their humanity.

The doctors were impressive and all of us felt a little like McGyver setting up a make shift OR using a table from the alter to lay her on, any flash light we could find to illuminate the field, and a roll of paper towels to support the damaged leg.

By then I had dried my own tears, realizing that I had shifted in the past year by allowing myself to feel more on this trip, no longer numb from the eating disorder.  I cried for this precious child, her pain, her fear.  I thanked God for all of our gifts.  Maybe we had pulled off “sudden healing” by using our individual gifts? In this moment there was not one gift that was greater or one that was less.  We were all working together as one body…The body of Christ.