In high school, I opened the door to life with an eating disorder. With all its empty promises to bring me into a place of beauty, satisfaction and worth–and its merciless routines and obsessions that were such a burden. Even in the good times, they hung like a cloud over my life and always led me back to the same place no matter how hard I tried—feeling restless, unfulfilled and alone. I had to keep working so hard to stay ahead, as I was always just one step away from failure.
In my struggle to overcome the anorexia and bulimia, I tried to “stop doing this” and to “not do that”. I tried so hard to get away from it all–but the more I tried, the more I found myself helplessly falling back into it all over again. It was a cruel taskmaster that lured me with promises to comfort me, to be my friend and to help me become the person I wanted to be. Once I reached out for the comfort it promised, it always turned on me. When it seemed too late to turn back, I would realize that I had yet again fallen into a trap. I would feel tricked, defeated and disillusioned with myself. Overcome with self-loathing and shame, I would continue down the road as a way of punishing myself. It was a cycle that I went through over and over and over again.
Becoming a Christian did not give me instant victory. I held onto the promise in this verse: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” II Corinthians 5:17
At times I doubted that it was really true for me. I tried everything and worked so hard. I knew I did not want to live as a slave to the eating disorder but I just could not seem to break free. There were times when I just had no hope. But one night, for some reason, something clicked when my eyes fell on this verse:
You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24
It seemed so clear to me that in all my striving and struggling to get free I had been almost entirely focused on “putting off” my old self. Trying to “not do” all those things that I knew were wrong with the eating disorder. I would go along and be doing pretty well and then–would fall again. It felt like I was starting all over. Sometimes I hardly had the hope and the strength to try again.
But God gave me something to lead me through the door to freedom.
