Fresh after "coming to Christ" at age 16, I lost @20lbs from the high of... No, not being born again, sadly, but rather from having a First Boyfriend sweep me off my feet that summer.
While his friendship was powerful, it was being thin that marked the era. Ahh, the compliments from friends and reassuring comments from adults, especially the parents that hovered before and after Ballet class. I felt like a 'somebody.' After growing up with "Ellie the Elephant", "Baby Huey," and "EllieTheBelly" nicknames, and the good intentioned sympathy from Mom, "Oh, you're not fat, you're just husky," it made sense that being thin was like winning the lottery. It felt good.
Boyfriend stopped coming 'round. Oh, the sorrow. Oh the insecurity! To keep off the weight, I became anorexic, until my Mexican-hot-head father demanded I eat. I binge-purged for the next six years. Four more attentive men came and went: Mike, Bruce, Ed & Jim. I remained chaste by God's mercy, and kept the weight off only by secreting away to purge meals and snacks.
"Being" Bulimic is just that. It becomes who you are. It attaches to your core; to the very center of who you are, like a leech sucking life out of your deepest essence. It is demon possession, in my view, ruling my every thought and action, and nearly my every word. I recall the utter impossibility of becoming free of it. Despite daily desperate prayers for release, I was a puppet on strings, led inextricably back to the porcelain throne, or to this disguting bucket hidden deep within my walk-in closet. Why do secret behaviours always revolve around closets?
When future hubby came along in college, he listened. I confessed the plagued 6 yrs of bulimia to him, & related how desperate I was for a miracle. I got one. The noble chap, a leader in a Campus Crusade for Christ Bible Study, prayed for me and with me. Just weeks later, I experienced the most tremendous healing. When I feel like blending in comfortably and disavowing my love for this Healer, Jesus, I only have to remember His rescue from a six year long nightmare, and I quickly snap out of it. What seemed hopeless became undeserved freedom in the snap of a childlike prayer.
PrayerBoy became boyfriend, but I broke it off 3x, as a new battle line had appeared; but without a healthy habit of daily scripture, I was without a defense. Plus, what chance does a TV addict child of the 60's have after absorbing a decade of anti-marriage drivel ("MaryRichards" on the Mary Tyler Moore Show never married, why should you?" my new demon kept chiding)? We went to the altar 3 months pregnant, 'nary a bridesmaid by my side. Thus explains why my children grew up more without TV than with.
Matthew 12:43-45
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.
Then he says, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he finds it empty, swept, and garnished.
Then goes he, and takes with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
It's twenty five years later. PrayerBoy is still my best friend, but a slightly abused and henpecked hubby. Why? I have dragged our moral failure around like a set of nasty 80's baggage, operating out of a subtle case of remorse & idolatry. The ideal self I had wanted to be, but wasn't, has grown into a mini idol, worshipped like some "unknown and unknowable god."
So, at 50 years of age, it's time to finally reject the idolatry of "putting confidence in the flesh" and start praising a faithful Healer who comes alongside my spirit to comfort and encourage. It's time to believe TheSaviourChrist when He says he really does love unconditionally.
It's time to learn to say, "He loves even me."
This blog is dedicated to finally putting "Christ at the bottom"; to laying a groundwork for healing that will come when I learn to refuse self abasement, and begin to trust God. Putting the past behind...
... I choose to begin. Now.
I offer my story and a listening ear to anyone struggling with habitual sin. I know its destruction. I know Christ's rescue. And I know the powerful possibilities of prayer in His strong Name.
Romans 11:29-36: "...for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their [Israel's] disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Doxology
Oh, the depth of the riches
of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever."
Amen.
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