My story on health is not something I typically like to share. It is slightly embarrassing, and puts me in a place of extreme vulnerability. But at Training Camp, I learned that it is best to be brave and vulnerable.
When I was around the age of eleven or twelve, I had whooping cough-which basically means you cough until you throw up. I lost a drastic amount of weight, starting out at 5’8, 135lbs., going to 5’8 118lbs.
The process of recovery took about 6 months all together before I was entirely healed.
Afterward I was put on medication to help my body heal. When I was in 8th grade I went from 125lbs.-165lbs. in the course of one year. The combination of entering middle and high school, stress at home, medication, and poor eating habits impacted my body in a way that obviously was not beneficial.
I was so embarrassed about my body at such a young age. I had friends who made fun of me, guys who bullied me because of it.
For years I carried shame in my heart about how I looked compared to how the world said I SHOULD look. Even when I lost weight later and felt good physically, my heart never changed in the way I viewed my body-I still felt like my physical appearance was not good enough.
I became obsessed with magazines, sensual music, working out, going from extreme weight loss, back to gaining 10-15 lbs. My entire focus was on selfish ambition, vanity, and conceit.
I cried out to God everyday to help me lose weight. To forgive me for my lack of self control. For my portrayal of my body and health being an example of my walk with God. Going from extreme discipline, to extreme lack of caring.
Over the course of the last year God has really challenged my view on health. Why did I want to lose weight? What was the root cause of the weight gain and weight loss that made me so desperate for affirmation?
There is only truth in the statement, “It is not about what is on the outside, but the inside that matters.” I wholeheartedly agree! Also Proverbs 31:30- Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
YES! These verses are truth!
But God also ask us to be good stewards of what He has given us-such as our bodies and health.
Up to the past 6 months, I have not stewarded my body well. My focus was on how my body looked, and not on my Creator, and His commandments.
Titus 1:7-For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant, or quick tempered or a drunkard, or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.
Before training camp, the Lord had been working on my heart about taking CARE of my body in ways that are honoring to Him. Not in vanity or conceit.
It is about being a good steward in what the Lord has entrusted us to take care of. At training camp the Lord confirmed this to me. Not because I was begging for weight loss to feel beautiful. I am beautiful, because that is how God created me, and because I am saved by Him.
It is about allowing our health to be a testimony and witness of the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Self control, discipline, even a way the Lord commanded us to love ourselves.
God has placed in my heart a love for activity, sports, recreation, and He is now placing in me a passion and heart for health and well being. He was establishing this before Training Camp for the World Race, and affirmed and confirmed this in me at Training Camp.
This blog is not meant to put shame on anyone! I have walked in enough shame (Training Camp story) to go around. He has set me free from shame! I am, you are, a child of God! And He has not called us to live in timidity, fear, or shame over how we physically feel, or look.
This is an invitation to you guys to partner with me in going on a journey WITH THE LORD to walk in health. It is not about us or how we look. It is about pressing into the Lord and allowing Him to work in our hearts to bear fruit that is honoring to Him.
Please pray for me the Lord continues to establish me in this journey of health, and bear fruit in me that is only honoring to Him, not myself.
Blessings to all of you!
-Ariana
