WHEN THINGS GET OUT OF HAND, WHERE DO I STAND?

Sometimes, in life, things get out of hand. But that is when we learn on Whose Word and character to stand. 

GOD’s

No matter how many years pass, the Word of God stands firm and His character remains true. 

Speaking of the passing years, this week’s devotion takes us back to being a child. In fact, let’s start with this: think back to being 5 years old again. What do you think of? 

I think of dancing, singing to Sing-Along videos (anyone else remember those?), playing outside and loving my army of stuffed animals and dolls that surrounded and protected me. 

Yet, I also remember that time as being when I started to notice others and care about their opinions. What I share this week may seem wildly far-fetched since it’s been decades but I promise it is what I experienced and why I feel so strongly about teaching our youth the Truth EARLY on. 

I started feeling anxious and having body image issues at this age. I remember it as clearly as 35 years will paint you. It was at that age of five when I noticed that I was taller than other girls. In fact, at dance class, I often thought to myself, I want to be tiny like them. Then, my recital dress ripped at practice leading me to have an accident because of the nerves too. That is when I felt feelings that I didn’t know much about. I just knew I didn’t like them. 

I started to hear lies inside like, 

“If only I was shorter…” 

“If only I was smaller…”

“If only I was prettier…” 

And we know where “if onlys” often take us…

I wish this part of my story had ended as quickly as it started. However, that is not my testimony. In fact, something else was happening around that time too.  The girl who had once been willing to dance by herself for hours at a wedding in the middle of the dance floor, began to save her dancing for behind closed doors. Those Sing-Along videos, still some of her favorites, began to be sung a little bit quieter than before. I felt a darkness trying to set around me and still, I saw life-giving shimmers of light.

I don’t really know why I felt the need to internalize my enjoyment when other people were around. It had never bothered me before. The emotions I felt though, urged me to dim. Around this time, I started to notice and care about the smiles, the laughter, the watching eyes. While I had once sang loudly when I was with my brother, I soon only allowed my voice out when I was alone. In fact, it was around this time that I started to keep most of my questions, fears, and insecurities to myself for fear that I may upset someone or ask/say the wrong thing. I continued to build upon the type of foundation that could not withstand the whispering winds, let alone the screaming storms. I built it on the lie that I felt like I was not worthy of outward joy and that I should be silenced, that I should be dimmed. Around this time, I lost my voice. 

Luckily for me and everyone in this often silencing world, “I was lost but now I’m found.” The truth about our Father is that He mourns at each lost sheep and works endlessly to bring each back. He wants no one left behind. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭53:6‬ ‭NIV‬‬) For whatever is lost, can indeed be found. Losing our way and voice gives us the opportunity to truly be found. Sometimes, we may be stripped to what feels like nothing before we gain life, the life God has for us. 

So my eating struggles continued…

I internalized the feelings as shame. I didn’t want to be me. (Oh how I wish someone had told me that God created me and I could and should stand proudly in that.) All that wishing… more reason why I often say my wish has become my work. 

It was in middle school when I noticed another girl in class eating smaller amounts of food at lunch. She was smaller than me and got more attention from the boys than “plain me.” So I started to limit myself too, not really sure if she was doing that. But, I assumed it and went along with the lies once again, hoping that this would help solve my “issues.” I sought to not feel the way I did about myself. And since she seemed to have a perfect life and I sought the unattainable ideals of perfection, I started to gradually limit my food and increase my exercise. 

Yet, the negative feelings remained and reminded me I was failing. So I started to internalize more lies of unworthiness and now even shame. I sought to gain control of it by counting calories. 

A few years later, at the age of 15, I was hospitalized with anorexia, major depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety. I remember during my intake thinking to myself, What don’t I have wrong with me? I listened to the doctor who had known me for only a couple of hours list my issues and then declare something like this to my mother and me, “Unfortunately most of the time, people with Jen’s condition of Anorexia Nervosa battle with it along with depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anxiety for their entire lives. We can help Jen as much as we can now learn how to live with it. However, statistics show that more than likely she will relapse anywhere from five to ten times in her lifetime. It’s better to try now than never though ...”

In that moment, I cannot begin to describe the emotions that overwhelmed my mind. I wanted to both give up and surrender to what they were telling me but I also was so fired up to prove them all wrong. I felt like I was floating and just hearing echoes around me, silenced by the raging lies playing on repeat in my mind. 

However, I also felt and heard something incredible at the time too. It had been a few years earlier that I had been taught that prayer was having a two-way conversation with God. That was when I started to talk to God more throughout my days and even in my diary at night, now entitled Dear God. So, I started telling God how much shame and guilt I felt, and how anger and hurt were there too. 

No matter how low I felt, I felt a fire within telling me that I could not surrender to what the world wanted me to do and be. I could not listen to the lies of the enemy. I refused to be a statistic. I would prove all of my doubters wrong. Mark my words, I would not be a statistic, now or never. 

If there was one thing I still had, it was my stubbornness. If you told me I couldn’t do something, I would surely do everything in my power to indeed do it. However, I was learning very slowly, it was NOT about my power, but instead the Lord’s. It was NOT about anything worldly like my Zodiac sign telling me I was a stubborn bull that was going to get me through this or anything in life. 

It was God. 

It was always God.

It was the supernatural strength of the Lord and how He is the greatest Author of all of our stories. God was growing in me a resilience and perseverance that I truly knew nothing about at the time. It had always been there but now just covered by life’s contradictory threads. It was in this defining moment that I was reminded by God that I had a purpose. It is when I learned that I needed to be the one, for once, who chose how I would react to life. It was no one else’s job but my very own. Would I believe the lies or learn the Truth?

God defines our chapters even through the ones where the pages seem stuck within our fingers. However, we must let go, leaving no bookmarks in the past as excuses to fall back on. Let go and let God.

He defines our lives. He defines us.

Therefore, I felt within that I would NOT be defined by relapses. I would be defined by their numbers, their studies, their labels. I was made for more and, yet again, at another rock bottom, I felt those words from a greater source, the greatest source of peace. Job 33:4 states, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”

And in that moment, with that breath, I heard within and upon my heart, “You will not be a statistic.” 

I believed it. At the time, I wanted to prove everyone wrong around me. I had no idea what God was going to use from these ashes. I had no idea how He was preparing and using so much of this experience in my life for so much more.

Okay, okay, okay… you may be thinking let’s get to the healing part already. I know in my own life, I certainly was thinking it because it took about 2.5 decades to get there, to get to the point at which I received that promise of “You will not be a statistic” and when I was truly set free. 

While I do not like pain or promote it in any way, I know what the scripture says, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” (John‬ ‭16:33‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

I am not saying I wanted the pain and years of pain. What I am saying is that there is purpose in the pain. 

God completely healed my disordered eating and body image issues and used the lessons along the way to help other areas of my life. 

So here it is: 

I was never hospitalized again for the eating disorder but I had times where I limited myself. And if I’m being really honest, I still counted or estimated calories almost every single day, minus the weekends (for whatever reason and irrational rules I had made up in my mind).

Then, at the age of 31, I had my son and soon found myself breastfeeding him on a strict elimination diet of 21 items due to his potential food allergies. And yes, although no one knew it, I was still counting calories on my phone fitness app.

So here I was a new, first-time mom feeling isolated and alone again because I did not know how to navigate this world of allergies. Because of how much I was limited with, I had to eat so much for him. (People told me I should be excited about it. I mean being able to eat enormous amounts of food without gaining weight is something I was told I should take and appreciate while I could). 

However, it stressed me out. It brought back so many past feelings from my teens and I was still seeking control in the midst of the chaos… still not surrendering and giving it up to the Lord who was in control of it all. 

Soon, the counting became a burden. It no longer gave me any sense of false security that it had for decades. It gave me nothing. Still holding on to my secret though, I didn’t limit the calories but I counted to seek that control. 

That was until one day while in my kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal, I suddenly heard deep within and upon my heart. “Delete the app.” It was like how those words had come back when I was 15, “You will not be a statistic.” 

I knew I had to do it so I tried, but oh how I battled…

I deleted it. 

Then, quickly I added it back.

Delete.

Added back.

And then finally I deleted it for good, 

never counting a calorie again. 

God is faithful to His promises, and the words that He had once placed in my young fifteen-year-old heart saying that I would overcome the eating disorder fully, came true. It was in doing that elimination diet for my son that I longer felt that I needed to keep track of calories. I was free of the addiction! It was gone! It was a moment I will never forget. I remember wanting to tell everyone but thinking no one will ever believe me. And yet it didn’t matter because I’m not sure anyone even knew my inner battle…

But God knew. 

But God heals. 

He is faithful.

I prayed for decades to be free from those chains. I never thought it would fully happen. I wanted to believe it especially since I heard the promise before I truly understood the promise. Yet, for the longest time, I settled for “halfway free.” 

But that’s not FREE. 

That’s not all God has for us. 

Freedom is full and it comes from the Lord. 

It is never too late to experience it. No amount of time is too long or too short for the Lord to set us free. There is no distance that can keep us from that. 

So The Art of a Messy House challenge for this week and every week is this: Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop praying. The feelings are there. Feel and acknowledge them. Talk to someone about them when needed. (I have had many trained therapists in my life that helped me through such times. God gave counselors a gift to help and guide us.)

Through it all, talk to God about it all and remember to listen. Record the prompts and promises so you will never forget them even on the most challenging days and through the roughest waters. Be honest and open with God. Remember that feelings are not facts. They are not truth, God’s Truth. They are flawed because we are imperfect humans and flawed. And continue to ask this: When things get out of hand, where do I stand?

God wants us to experience true freedom. So focus on that freedom. “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” ‭‭(Galatians‬ ‭5:1‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

God can break off every chain! There is power to change every circumstance. There is power to break from every chain and that power is found in the name of Jesus. Some statistics may still say I’ll never truly and fully beat anxiety and mental illness or even that eating disorder. That they are part of my being. That they are part of who I am.

But my life is proof of the complete opposite. I now know that is furthest from the truth if we stay aligned with God and His path, immersing ourselves in His Word and reflecting it through to every aspect of our lives. 

Sure, they are part of my story. But they do not define me. Instead, I am a daughter of the King. I am a child of God. I am who God says I am.

Healing CAN come. Often, we must first acknowledge our weaknesses and sins along the way, that we are imperfect, and most importantly, believe that battle has already been won. Wisdom comes from fear of the Lord and that fear is not the fear the world feeds us on a daily plate of life. Being God-fearing means that we show respect and awareness for God. We earnestly seek Him in adoration, awe and respect. It means we know where to focus and we know Who is in control although we may not understand much more.

Looking back, my experience with counting calories, taught me about ingredients, reading food labels and understanding so much about food and true health. All of which have helped me so much over these past eight years when dealing and living with my kids and their food allergies. That is just one blessing that came from a place of such pain and challenge. 

The darkness lifted and I truly learned about what those shimmers of life-giving light had always been. Jesus 

And now I am pregnant for the first time without anxiety, without depression, without distorted eating and body image issues. When I reflect on this, I cry happy tears. At times, my kids may even see them and ask me, “Why are you crying, Mommy? Are those happy tears?” I tell them what they are. I tell them that they make me so happy and I am so blessed by God. I pray to acknowledge their questions, fears and feelings, while teaching them the Truth, God’s Truth. I pray and believe that cycles have been broken and that God equipped and continues to guide my husband and I to work together to teach them in a way where they won’t walk through what I did.

So yes, they are happy tears because I now know true joy, hope and love. I know freedom, and I am so humbled that God has given me this new chance to embrace this life in His strength and wisdom, in His healing grace and love right here and right now…

as I STAND ON HIS TRUTH.

“God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” ‭‭(1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:9‬ ‭NLT‬‬)

“But as for you, be strong and courageous, for your work will be rewarded.” (2 Chronicles‬ ‭15:7‬ ‭NLT‬‬) 

“The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” (Exodus‬ ‭14:14‬ ‭NLT‬‬) 

Dear God, 

You are the Waymaker. When the world labels us as statistics, You cover us in love. I pray today that more and more people will learn of Your Word. I pray that the Gospel will fill our world and flood hearts. Break chains Lord. Break addictions. Destroy the strongholds. May we surrender all control to Your glorious plans for our lives. May the power of Your Word speak louder to people of all ages. No matter what we are facing, we give it to You. Heal us completely. Heal our families completely. We speak the life-giving Hope of Jesus to the mountains before us. Thank You Lord. We give You all the glory always. In Jesus’ name, Amen.