Freedom.
Ugly Me: The back-story. . .
For years I suffered with disordered thinking and disordered eating. At first, it started as I decreased the amount of food I was eating.
I was pursuing the world- modeling and a boy. I desired to be beautiful in his eyes and worthy in the eyes of the modeling agents. After I had lost 10 pounds I felt great about myself! I weighed 142. But then I spoke with an agent who said, “Models your height weigh 132 at most. You have 10 more pounds to lose before you will be acceptable, but that should be nothing. You can do it.”
Unbeknownst to anyone else, I began limiting my calories to 1000 per day. My morning ritual- wake up, stand naked on the scale, shower, measure the circumference of my waist and thighs. I was trapped in a prison. I was not free.
I lost 17 more pounds. At my smallest I weighed 125. I am 6 feet tall. My parents would make comments that I ignored.
They must have been praying for me.
I stayed small heading into my senior year of college. But as the year went on, I gradually started to gain some of the weight back (still not accepted by any modeling agency.) A new pattern developed. Instead of limiting my calories to 1000 a day, I began feeling powerless to say NO to food if it was in front of me. My pendulum completely swung in the opposite direction.
This triggered a lifestyle of disordered thinking. I would eat unhealthy, comfort foods, and often times, way too much. Then I would feel immense guilt and so I would skip meals to “make up” for the already-consumed calories. I put strict regulations on myself- No eating after 6pm, at least 30 minutes of exercise per day- and I continued weighing and measuring daily.
(This is where I give all thanks to God that I NEVER fell into the pattern of bingeing and purging . . . I told you my parents must have been praying).
I steadily began to gain weight back until I reached the healthy weight of 140. But when I looked in the mirror, in my mind, I had become fat. I became indignant towards how I looked. Not only did I feel out of control with what I was eating, I felt so much self-loathing when I looked in the mirror.
On the WR in 2010 God delivered me from this skewed self-perception. It was not easy. Girls gain weight on the WR . . . it just happens and a girl who says, “I am going on the WR and I am NOT going to gain weight!” is fooling herself . . . I was that girl.
But God began unraveling years of wrong-thinking. For months I struggled with the reality that I was, in fact, gaining weight. Finally one day, I remember my team leader sitting me down in Kenya and she just spoke super bluntly to me,
“You are missing out on so much of what God wants to give you
because you are hanging onto the way you look!
There is so much more depth to who you are
than how big or small you are!”
For years I had not believed that was true. To me, men only seemed to be interested in what was on the outside. I began to think that was all I had to offer and that was all they wanted.
But that day, her words were packed with a punch and I knew she was right. I was missing out on the greater blessings of God because of my near-sightedness. I am so grateful she leveled me in that way.
I can pinpoint the exact day. It was after the Awakening. We were in Romania. I was walking down a gravel road beside a lake, behind our house. The day was gray but the Romanian countryside was BEAUTIFUL. I was listening to worship music and I was overwhelmed with the love of God for me. I began dancing down the road. I AM met me there. I realized He was in pursuit of me and His LOVE was Never Giving Up on me. When I looked full in His wonderful face and saw His love staring back at me, I was set free.
When I buried the realization of His love for me deep in my heart, I was released to love myself in the same way. . . .
