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I was ten years old, sitting in the back row of my mom's gold sienna van. I looked down at my pink soffe shorts and suddenly had a feeling of discontentment in the ways my leg looked.
This was the beginning of a long road.
The world gives us an image, that even if we believe it is not right, it affects us. For me, at the age of ten, I began to view and judge my body against the standard of what the world deemed beautiful. For many years, those thoughts would come and the thoughts would go. Little did I know, when they came, they were planting seeds deep, deep in me.
As I neared the end of high school and my as my body changed from being a girl's to a woman's, my insecure thoughts became actions. I did not know how to cope with these insecurities, so I would try as hard as I could to eat perfectly healthy and work out as much as possible. Or not eat at all so that I would not have to work out. Or to binge eat and in return, over exercise. These ways consumed every thought and I became addicted to the obsession of self image.
My motivation and mindset was always: If I can just get to "this" size and fitness, I will be able to enjoy life so much more and be over these insecurities.
These ways of thought carried me through high school.
In April of 2013, as I spent time abroad in South Africa, my life was awakened by grace. God put me in a house living with 3 other girls who were following Jesus. These girls took me in at the darkest time of my life and drenched me with grace. They were used as tools to open up the doors of understanding in following Jesus. With a new love battling to have the motivation of my life, I knew it was time to deal with these insecure ways. God gracefully showed me I was not alone, as the girls I lived with opened up with very similiar issues they had walked through. I cried out to them, desperately desiring this part of my life to be behind me. I knew now that I was living for Jesus, not for man. If I was living for man, my desire to be beautiful in the eyes of the world would be ok. But I was living for Jesus now, and my identity was not placed in the standard of the world's beauty. My identity was far more precious and based out of Truth.
As much as you may believe something in your head, living it out is not something that just happens. It takes the power of God and the power of discipline. You can learn things but only God can close the gap between your head and your heart. And He will do it in His own timing. When this gap is closed, there is freedom and new life, but it takes patience and endurance.
After deciding to truly live for Jesus in that April, I gained so much wisdom towards the issues I faced with my insecurities. I started to really put away the lies, and replace them with what was true. I started to try viewing myself through the eyes of my Heavenly Father.
God put so many people in my life to affirm my worth, to tell me I was beautiful, to encourage me, pray with me, to listen, to try to understand, to relate with me.
In Janurary of 2015, I sat down and I made goals for the year. As I thought of this part of my life which had grown a lot but was still such an obssession in my life, I was really challenged in my heart. I was told by many that "this is just something that you live with and deal with, it won't ever go away." I examined this advice next to my great God and I did not settle. I asked God right then for victory. I knew that God was bigger than this and that He could give me complete freedom if He wanted. I continued walking close to the Lord but this part of my life was still so present. I had seasons where I dealt with it quite well and seasons where it would consume me to the core. All throughout-- it was always there in some capacity.
A large turning point and new chapter began when I started dating my boyfriend. My boyfriend is someone whose security and identity is so clearly in Jesus Christ. He chooses to be defined by Jesus and it creates a walk of life for him that shows off the freedom and abundant life in Christ. The year and a half we knew each other before we started dating, it was always something I saw and was impressed by. It was something I desired so badly for my own life. Because he tastes and sees the goodness of the Lord through truly believing who he is in Him, he desires so deeply for all to taste it and walk in it. I have never had someone in my life who so desperately wants me to believe the Truths about who I am, who the Father declares me to be. The way he was viewing me and the things he was affirming as beautiful in me started changing my perspective towards beauty. God was using him to show me the heart of God in the realest of ways.
I was now challenged with this deepening of understanding. It was slowly getting a lot easier to choose God's eyes over mine.
Still, I was enslaved. But now, so frustrated.
I would cry out to God, "God. I see how you see me. I know Your heart for me. Why am I still obsessing over myself and all these insecurities?"
In August of 2015, I moved my life to Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Leading up to the move, I had so much joy in the idea that I would be able to be finally be free and that God would finally answer the prayer I prayed in January and continued to pray. My mindset was-- Mexico is just fresh food, i'll be able to be super active, i'll be in full time ministry-- there will be no time or even ability to be consumed by my mess.
Wrong.
Circumstances do not change heart issues.
It was like this: I had a new, truthful, holy perspective and way to live in. I also had an old distorted, sinful way to live in. And it was a battle in choosing the greater because my way about it was not the way of God's design.
I had a new cycle. I would walk in freedom, setting my mind of what was true but I would come to points where the old would rush in, I would all of a sudden feel trapped because I did not feel my body was anywhere close to what it should be and it would lead me into some deep depression. I had days where this depression consumed me. Not the sucidial kind but the numb kind. I felt nothing. I was again frustrated crying out to God "why!?" I was living the simple life I dreamed of where I got to serve the Lord, be immersed in a beautiful, different culture, live with amazing people. I had no reason to be consumed and held back like this. I would get to school in the mornings and sit in my classroom before my students arrived, so depressed and confused.
As I returned home for a couple weeks at Christmas, I refocused my heart and was refreshed and encouraged to return back to my students and mission here in Mexico.
As I got settled back in Puerto life, I was consumed again by the darkness.
Thankfully, God does not let His children suffer for no reason.
God gracefully gave me a revelation.
I was living an undisciplined lifestyle. I was living lazily and expecting that this way in Truth I desired to walk in would just happen.
Obviously-- it did not work that way.
I think it is easy to believe that as Christian, with the Holy Spirit living inside of you, a righteous, joyful life will just come. Well-- thats a lie that I was awakened to.
Once God revealed this to me, I immediately jumped into a disciplined lifestyle. The littlest things made the biggest differences-- making my bed in the morning, prepping my food, more yoga, more working out, no desserts. I found a very incredible freedom from the insecure issues, and the depression was completely gone.
Little did I know, there was still more for God to reveal.
Two weeks ago, the discpline I was choosing to walk in became harder to choose as our normal routine changed. We had a week of Vacation Bible School with a team from Oregon and my boyfriend came to visit. It was an incredible week but following it, I did not return to that "perfectly" disciplined life that I had discovered.
Quickly, too quickly, the depression and numbness kicked in. An act, that I hadn't acted upon for much time happened: Binge eating. As I sat after doing it, I felt so lost, so confused. I could not understand how this could have happened after everything I have learned.
I gained a lot of wisdom and realized I had just fallen out of step with being disciplined so I got back into it, recieved the grace of forgiveness from God, and moved forward. I mindfully and carefully made it through each day, not eating too much and exercising enough, truly finding balance.
I realized balance existed in my actions but still not in my heart. My thoughts were still obssessing and consumed.
Saturday night I pleaded with God to reveal to me the glue that kept this issue so close to my heart. I put it in His hands. After placing it in safety, I spent time with Jesus, reading about His life in Luke. I was overjoyed by His character and truly in love.
Sunday morning as I sat with my bible being amazed and even more in love with Jesus, I suddenly stopped because God gave me another revelation.
I started writing in the revelation of why this has not stopped-- "I have believed that my life will be more enjoyed if I am smaller and more fit. I will be more comfortable and all will be easier-- seeking the Lord, being a teacher, being a girlfriend, a daughter, a friend-- it will all be better when my body is "this" way."
WHAT A LIE.
I sat in awe that I had not realized that this lie was so deep and was carrying so much power in my life. But as soon as I wrote it down and marveled at it, I knew this was it. Through all the different seasons God had taken me through, this mindset and desire was there.
Before living for Jesus, this was my very motivation to do anything. To exercise was so that my body would be a certain way.
Once I started living for Jesus, I thought "wow, I now have a power living in me that will help me be truly beautiful and pleasing to the world".... haha..
Once I realized I needed discipline, I was so excited because I could now workout and eat well and get this body I had held as an idol in my life for so long.
I faced that depression and darkness again last week because I realized that this image I desired to attain was not here yet. it was not coming. i was so disappointed.
[Usually when you meet diasappointment, it is a good sign that you are putting expectation and faith into something that is not created for your expectation or faith to be put in.]
After realizing that this was the deep lie that was still engrained deep in me, I headed to church.
Mondo, my pastor, taught on Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. Conviction set in as he talked about the seed sowed amongst the thorn. "As for what is sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the decietfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful." Matthew 13:22
I had been sowing seeds for 3 years now. But there was a massive thorn amongst the soil. This thorn was the lie and the motivation I was choosing to drive me. I was listening to the word, I have truly been seeking the Lord's heart since April of 2013. But the beginning of our seeking is only the start of the slow, sometimes painful process of refinement. There are so many ways in us that we have been trained to so naturally and most of the time subconciously carry out. My desire to look a certain way and my ability to believe so deeply that looking a certain way would change my life was not something that I chose to all of a sudden take on. It was one small little lie after another that I chose to believe, in which grew deep and large.
I was completely overwhelmed by this. The presence of God was strong as He showed me what He was doing. He had been and he was answering this prayer and delivering me from this bondage. He was closing the gap between the head and the heart.
This thorn was rooted so deeply in me. This thorn had been planted over ten years ago and in the last ten years has grown and been sustained.
The thing that will make my life beautiful and joyful is knowing the heart and love of my Creator. I will not arrive to a point where I am finally so satisified in my appearance that I can experience fuller life and if I ever do, that seriously sucks because that is a shallow security. That is a false security that I do not want my life to be grounded by.
Fullness of life is found in Jesus. Abundant joy is found in the ressurected life that Jesus offers us to walk in with Him. He is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility." Ephesians 2:14 The Gospel should motivate me to be disciplined, to be a good steward of this life and this body God has given me on this earth.
I was created to live a life that is not about me. And I am able to live selflessly because I am fully loved and fully known by Him. I praise God for closing the gap between my head and my heart. It has taken such time because God desires it this way.
I am not completely over and done with the old way. I know it may come but God has blessed me with deep understanding and a beautiful alternative.
I am walking in freedom.
I share all of this so openly because I am finally at a place where I can. I know God gives us stories to share to encourage one another and offer hope. I know that so many take on the lies of the world and are held back from the very abundant life that God offers. If you ask God, and you seek Him with your whole heart-- in His perfect timing, and in His perfect way, He will amaze you with a beautiful work in your life. He will let you taste and see the goodness. His love is not like anything else. His love will ruin you and rebuild you into something precious and free.