A girl walks the hallways of her new middle school. Only 13 years old. She wonders how long it will take to make friends, and then she wonders what it will take to keep those friends. As the year goes on she decides that being thin is a common denominator in getting and keeping friends in this new world. So she cuts back. She stops eating so much. Then she starts running. Her food intake becomes less and less, while the exercising becomes more and more as the months go by. Her body changes and her friends don’t increase, but at this point she’s stopped caring about the friends. She has a few that are great, that’ll do. But she can’t stop exercising and she won’t start eating. The actions initially started to fit in have become a reality she can’t see past. Like a fog that has settled in and won’t seem to lift.
The years tick by…one, two, three…and then the unthinkable happens. Something that only happens to other people. Her mom dies. Suddenly. Her world is rocked. Thrown into a spiral she can’t make straight. Everything is changing and she has no control. So she digs in deeper. The hunger pains are the keys to her control and the shackles that keep her imprisoned. There is no way out. What she believes is giving her the power is only pushing her farther into her own cell. A cell that starts to resemble a grave. Desolate, cold, void of all feeling and life. The help she so desperately needed was offered, but denied by those above her.
All she wants is to feel. So she runs more, eats less. Praying that the muscle and hunger pains will fill her needs to control, feel, exist. But they don’t.
Year four; a step-mom, a new home in a new state, a new school, new people to make into friends, and still no control. The struggle rages within her. More running, less eating. No one knows her here. She lies and no one knows the difference. Some notice and try to help, but failed counseling appointments leave her feeling more helpless than before. So she retreats. Secretly dying on the inside, smiling to the world on the outside.
Years five,six, and seven roll by. A wedding, her wedding, takes place. The help she so desperately needs starts coming. Hope. Life. A way out of the shackles she has tightened for years. But something doesn’t change. An inward battle in her mind stays. Every single day she wonders how easy it would be to pick up the imaginary control she grasped at for so many years. As the weight comes back on, the battle grows stronger. She tells others that although she is in recovery, this will always be a battle she will fight. For the rest of her life. She will always be stuck in that cell. One shackle still holding her back.
Years eight and nine are filled with counseling for her marriage that seems to be falling apart. The shackles of her past holding her tight. She slowly learns how to slip free. How to be ok. Normal, and ok, but still fighting inside. For the first time in years there is a light. She can see the light, and starts taking the long walk towards it. This time it’s not to end her life, but to find it.
Year ten. Swaziland. On top of a mountain, she prayed, and He spoke. He tells her to take a Sabbath, an entire day to rest in His presence. And then He asks the unthinkable. To fast on that Sabbath day. It has been three years since she withheld food from herself on purpose, always for selfish gain, and never to become closer to the Lord.
How?, she questions, doubts. How could I ever go back and stop eating? What if I fall back? What if I don’t come out again?
The Lord speaks to her heart, “My beloved,” He says, “why do you keep locking yourself in the chains I have already broken? Do you not believe that I died for you too? Give up the fight, My love. I have already won. You are free. I have set you free.”
Ten years of pain coming flooding through her heart and out of her eyes. It is done. She is free. Not because she tried for all those years, but because she accepted what had been true all along. The battle she fought in her mind, a lie from satan to keep her imprisoned, had been won. The fight is over. No longer will she have to tell others that she is in recovery and that this will always be apart of her life. He has already won this battle He has won every battle.
This story is a piece of His story in my life. I pray that it serves as a reminder that no matter what you may be battling yourself, He has already won. Give up the fight and rest in His whole, perfect love for you. Let the shackles fall to the ground and walk away with Him. You are free.
