(I originally wrote this for Bedlam Magazine on June 29th 2015)
“You could be skinny. You don’t have to eat.”
Those words were all it took.
After listening to those words, I spiralled down into 5 painful years of anorexia. I could have said no to that taunt in my head but I didn’t. I started cutting out more and more food until I was terrified to eat anything at all. Anorexia took over and I lost control. I have lost a lot more than just control during the past years. It sounds cliché, but I lost myself. At the time I didn’t mind, at the time I was pursuing only one thing and it was everything to me. Nothing else mattered.
When I missed most of my last two years of school and failed my exams, when I missed every big event, birthday parties, prom, holidays–I didn’t care. I didn’t stop. I still didn’t stop when I got to my gap year. I couldn’t. So instead I missed out on spending a year away in South America and instead wasted a year alone and completely miserable. I let anorexia rip everything from me and plunge me into complete misery and despair.
I had a choice and I made the wrong one. Before I got sick, I loved Jesus and was preaching (quite literally…I was that kind of teenager) that God knows what is best for us. I would tell girls I mentored how much God loves us and how He will always lead us the right way. “Just trust Him,” I would say. But I didn’t live like that. I thought that being “skinny” and “in control” would make me happy. I thought it would sort out my low self-esteem; I thought it would heal all the childhood hurts in me. I thought people would like me more; I thought I would be unique and respected and loved and strong.
As I got worse, people started to fight for me: My youth workers tirelessly sought to show me there was a better path than starving myself. They sat with me for hours just trying to make me eat, trying to understand what I was doing and going through. My parents worried and my friends had no idea how they could help. I went to various Christian festivals while I was ill, at every single one God used a more inventive method than the last to convict me. People pointed me to Bible verses to encourage me out of it. Complete strangers had words for me, telling me to stop and turn back to my Father. Friends pleaded with me and told me that I was hurting myself.
Throughout the entire 5 years, my heavenly Father fought for me, asked me to stop, sent people to tell me what I was doing was wrong. I knew perfectly well that God did not want me to take that path. I just didn’t care. I ignored Him and shouted at Him for not caring about me. My prayers were angry and I felt God was trying to take something good away.
Then I learned my lesson: My Father was trying to help. He saw what was coming and He was pursuing me to spare me. He didn’t want me to have to go through the pain that I did. As I was shouting at Him for not caring, He was graciously fighting to turn me back from a path of self-destruction. I wish I had listened to Him. Anorexia is not ‘fashion.’ It Isn’t cool or impressive; it doesn’t make you unique or strong. It doesn’t give you control or make you pretty. It gains you nothing but suffering.
I have worked with so many young girls who “want” anorexia. They pursue it for attention, approval, appearance, love, and care. Whatever the reason, it’s as ignorant as pursuing cancer. It hurts. For anyone that needs to hear this: you are worth more. You really don’t want to go there. Your heavenly Father doesn’t want you to go there, not because He is unloving but because He is loving.
Why do we find it so hard to believe God wants the best for us? Hasn’t He proved Himself? What more do we want than Him sending His son to die painfully on a cross that was meant for us? Did He not show He is trying to protect us by pouring His wrath out on His own son to save us? Why do we seem to demand more from Him than His own death?
The Bible says “In ALL YOUR WAYS submit to the Lord and he shall make your paths straight” (proverbs 3.6). Personally, after 5 years of what felt like hell, I am finally finished having my proud little tantrum, and I am ready to apologize and give God control. Full control. He can have every second of my life. Like a 3-year-old trying to run across a busy road, I do not know what is best for myself.
Instead, the Creator of the universe, God who holds human history in His hand, God who is eternal, who spans time, who knows every star and every ant, God who knows the hairs on my head, who sees every sin I commit against Him and yet says I am worth more than anything, God who was tortured and died for me. He can have control.
Surprisingly–or maybe not so surprisingly–God really does know best.
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