Learning to Love Myself, God, and Ice Cream

Yesterday I got onto the scale and watched as the numbers popped up lower than the day before. A total of 45 lbs lost since last September!! But to be honest, seeing the scale drop is not as satisfying as I would have thought it would be a year ago. There are a number of various reasons for that - some of those reasons are going to stay between my counselor and I and my closest friends. But recently I felt it was time to start giving an honest report on this journey and why I am not in control of the numbers falling off, and that they are falling off not because I've followed the top theories, cutting edge diet solutions, or even the greatest workout routine. Just stick with me here.

This last fall as I started on a journey toward freedom in a different area in my life I woke up one day and looked in the mirror and I saw something there that I have never ever seen before. I saw within my own physical body a depth of longing for connection and intimacy with God. As an embodied being with thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires, wants and needs I am imperfect and broken. I was born that way; comes with the territory of being a descendent of Adam and Eve. The more I looked at myself the more I grew in amazement at the fact that to me at least I started making the connection between the amount of brokenness that was resembled within my broken body was correlated to the depth of desire and longing for God. I saw all the years I had spent tearing myself down in order to deal with the pain that was done to me; the hurt I had done in order to beat myself into being that person up on the pedestal, the shame I carried, and all the ways I tried to fill the void. All the ways my seeking for love and affirmation, even though I knew and loved God, led to more hurt, more bad habits, more vicious cycles, and more weight. I saw with deep sadness how many years I wasted trying to cover and shame this brokenness and shove it to the side instead of embracing it. But when I finally started embracing it I realized my need for God went beyond my spirituality and down to the very cellular structure of the smallest cell in my body. And in that moment that I saw all this I said to myself "Oh my goodness, I love that about me!"I saw something beautiful.

I loved that my weight showed how much I needed and wanted God! I loved the depth of connection that I could have and I loved how day after day my very body cries out for God in every facet of its being. And I saw how deceived I was all these years.

So, for a number of different reasons, I set out on a journey to try to grow as close to God as I possibly could. And what I realized along the way was that my physical needs and longings and desires didn't have such a large pull. I learned to associate that when my body craved something sweet or "unhealthy" that it was OK to have that something sweet or "unhealthy" as long as I practiced turning to God first. I learned to invite God into those moments when my body desired things that were unhealthy. I began to set aside the shame of eating "unhealthy," I learned to love eating ice cream and not being concerned about how it negatively affects my body because I learned to place it in it's rightful place. Instead of a tool to cope with my brokenness and the areas of myself where I was hurting it was simply a treat. And I would enjoy it and celebrate it as a treat. And I would celebrate and enjoy myself as I enjoyed this treat. I held no shame over the foods I ate because when I put God first, my hunger and cravings came into alignment with what honored God.And you know what, I stopped wanting "unhealthy" things as frequently or as much in quantity because my life was filled with healthy and good things - like community, a sense of belonging, safe places to process my emotions, safe people to cherish and love me, and very meaningful ways to spend time with God.  In fact, the other day I went to buy an ice cream cone from McDonalds because it was small and simple, and I ended up tossing away half of it because that little I had was enough.

I learned to take up walking. It started out as a release of my nervous and fearful energy back when I was processing very painful and shame-filled things in counseling, to pour out my heart to God and be alone and listen to His voice. And over time I learned to turn it into my worship time. And over time my walks got longer and longer and more and more frequent. A friend googled the route once after she joined me and said my route that I find is "no big deal" was at least 5 miles long.  I honestly couldn't spend enough time in worship and craved them because they were so filling, so satisfying. I learned to stand on the promises of God, to trust in His protection, His guidance, His love when I was anything but lovable. I learned to process my emotions and brokenness with God, my counselor and my best friends. I learned to surrender control to God and depend on His gentle nudges. I learned to see myself in new and healthy ways - I learned that I am funny and creative, I learned that I am capable of strong declarations of faith that spur others on, I learned that I can carry a lot of emotions from both myself and others.

And when the temptation to fall into old, unhealthy patterns of living would rear it's ugly head I turned to my friends and my counselor, my walks, prayer and worship, and I held onto the promises and the deep trust I had developed towards God. I learned to be sure that when I ate something "unhealthy" that I wasn't doing it to cope or to fill a void but as an enjoyment. And over time I started craving sweets and unhealthy things less and less. And I learned over time to recognize when I needed to worship and turned to that first before anything else to help me deal with things. And friends, let me tell you...some of these things I had to "deal" with were painfully hard.

It was kind of surreal and a bit confusing when the scale kept dropping. I was excited, but not in the same way I thought I would be. Part of that was because it was so easy! I kept thinking this was just a fluke happening, that things were going to come back on, that maybe I was sick. But so many other things that had been physical struggles started working properly, even better than they had before they became struggles. I think a large part of that had to do with the prayer breakthrough that came when I got a Sozo prayer last June. But I also carried a lot of fear about the weight loss. Was I sick? Would the weight come back on? What attention would I get? Would I be "targeted" with evil and hurtful actions towards me again without that "protective" barrier of the weight? How much is this going to cost? Etc...Sometimes people who have been targeted or victims of bullying and other horrible occurrences as children become very overweight later on in life because it's an effort to make themselves less attractive. In my book, and yes I fell into this very thing, I saw it as a form of "self-harm" because you're intentionally going after unhealthy and hurtful things in order to protect yourself and deal with the pain you, that I carry. And although I despised the weight and hated myself for putting on more and more weight (which I later found out was partly out of my control because of a diagnosis I received a few years ago that made me very easily put on the weight) I started seeing that this was true of me, that when the weight fell off I started becoming more and more concerned about "what if I'm hurt again?".

I'm going to take a little detour here and vent some steam now. I HATE HATE HATE weight loss programs, "The Biggest Loser" TV show, and diet plans. I see all these posts on facebook and hear messages from people in my life about the most recent diet solution that is working for them, or how the weight loss TV shows are such good motivators towards a life of "health and fitness." But for me, I've done a lot of the programs and hated how narrow the focus was - that health and wellness will be attained once you can balance your diet and your exercise. OK, that's good but it's not complete, and in fact wont work in the long-run. And I HATE "The Biggest Loser" and here's PART of why...Did you know that there is a strong correlation between childhood sexual abuse and adult obesity? Did you know that some diseases can alter your body's insulin functioning (such as girls who get diagnosed with PCOS having a higher BMI, or hypothyroidism)? Did you know that a lot of "organic" foods are really not all that better for you because the soils they're grown in are less nutrient rich then they were just a few years ago? There's a lot of factors at stake here that are outside of their control, a lot of brokenness and very painful things that have been done towards people who are overweight. And that kind of pressure to get "skinny" is unbearable. The shame, the pain, all adds into a vicious cycle. A cycle that cannot be solved by diet and exercise. Because until you face that fear and pain associated to the harm someone has done to you and allow yourself to grieve and feel the pain fully, to realize how you added to that harm in order to help process and handle the pain, until you let Jesus heal your heart and redeem that deep wound, the weight loss means nothing.  Now I need to also add here, and listen closely, not everyone who is hurt becomes overweight or obese. And not everyone who is overweight or obese has been hurt deeply. But we are all broken people who live in a broken world, and sometimes the dealing with our own personal brokenness comes out in a physical manifestation. But I do believe that the focus on food and exercise is so blown out of proportion in our society. The messages out there say that if you push yourself hard, if you use willpower to choose the healthy measures, if you spend all this time and money on stuff that is not sustainable in the long-run, if you run until your body burns in pain, then you will lose weight and you will be happy. And everyone will praise you.

Because of this sometimes I've come across people who seemed so excited to help me, but I could tell in the back of their minds they were really helping themselves. Sometimes I can just sense that they're thinking "there's my success story." Not everyone is like this, but some are. And that's also why I don't like "The Biggest Loser" show, because it objectifies the people (yes, they've chosen to be on the show, but did you ever consider that maybe they felt pressured to be on there beyond what they really wanted to do? They felt the pressure to lose the weight so much that they were willing to allow themselves to be humiliated on TV, to stand in front of a camera exposing some of their most vulnerable and deeply wounded self because of the false hope that this program works and they will finally be happy in the end). I definitely have. Still do. But I don't want to lose as much weight as I need to lose and then suddenly be happy. I don't want to get "skinny" and then feel better about myself, or suddenly have a healthy sense of identity. I don't want to get "skinny" and only then see myself as beautiful. I'm beautiful now! I'm strong and capable now! I'm no less of a person just because I'm "unattractive". And neither are you!!!

For the love of God, stop shaming yourself! Stop shaming your body! Stop shaming yourself over the food you put in or how much you choose to exercise or don't choose to exercise! Honestly, you cannot make yourself beautiful or live in wholeness by shaming the parts of you that are broken! I did that for too long and it just continued to hurt myself! I had to learn to grieve! I had to get to a point where I looked at Eliana in the wholeness of who she is - the parts of her that are wonderful and the parts of her that are ugly and learn to love the wholeness of who she is! A little compassion friends can go a long way, a little empathy! There is something really powerful about being able to sit with someone in their place of brokenness and just be - not trying to fix anything, but just listening. Because let me tell you, when I felt cherished, when I felt accepted in my places of shame and hurt and deep brokenness, when I learned to cherish myself and have compassion and empathy towards me, that's when things changed.

At the start of my journey I was instructed to read Brennan Manning's Abba's Child and there was an entire chapter on the "imposter." To give a synopsis of what it said, we all have an imposter side. This is the side of us we don't like, we try to bury, we try to chain it away in a closet and starve it to death with the hope of it going away and not affecting our lives. But then we're living as half selves and live in an intense amount of fear that the imposter will suddenly make itself known and people will reject us. And when it does we shame it and ourselves and try to lock it away and bury it again. BUT GOD LOVES AND ACCEPTS THE IMPOSTER and calls us to love the imposter as well. That we are to embrace and honor the fact that the imposter is me, that the imposter is you, that the imposter is us. AND GOD LOVES AND ACCEPTS THE IMPOSTER. He then laid out a beautiful process of bringing the imposter into the light and placing her, placing him, before God and letting God love the imposter unconditionally. And as God's love is poured out on the imposter, the imposter gets smaller and quieter. She/he will never go away, but she/he will be in their rightful and respectful place, the imposter will not be so destructive or influential in our lives and we will be made more and more into the likeness of Christ.

In this journey there were definitely some nights when my imposter went on a rampage, where she was screaming out with gut-wrenching tears the depth of the pain she carried and she was lashing out with a vengeance against me. And at first the intensity of these times and the exhaustion that would come afterwords would be very difficult to deal with and I would become crippled. But as I learned to love myself I learned to grieve when my imposter came out and I learned to love her as well, to look at and embrace her unconditionally because Jesus was already holding her. Here's a snippet of a story I wrote to my counselor and best friends once about this:

The edge softens, the desire begins to dissipate. She's right. I need to surrender. There my Beloved stands with His arms open wide. I fall into those arms - this time a little bit at a time. As I continue to surrender into His embrace I turn to myself. Oh sweet, sweet Eliana. You are so very loved. I embrace the brokenness, I remember the hurt as I'm surrendering into His embrace. I hold that little girl gently, tenderly in my arms. Oh Jesus would you send your love to heal this brokenness? Let your intimacy and connection redeem the brokenness. This little girl relaxes, and as the joy of God's love washes over her I see the makings of a smile.

I turn now to the imposter and embrace her tenderly, gently. She pushes, screams, hits and shoves. I know her, I've seen this before. I used to tackle her and lock her up so no one else experiences her intensity and hurt. But only here between me and Jesus is it safe for her to be real. Oh Jesus, would you pull her close? Would Your tender love, Your light of truth transform her? As I hold her, Jesus joins me. She screams louder "I hate you! You're worthless, you're ugly!" I used to cry and retreat inward at those words. Now I just have compassion. Jesus holds both of us a little tighter, His song of love piercing the darkness; streams of Living Water begin to flow and wash over us. I begin to smile; she begins to weep. Scream weeping. We sit there until she falls asleep out of exhaustion; too many tears spent.

My weight loss journey has incorporated a lot of things that are outside of the normal thought and theories. It includes a deeper intimacy and relationship with God (and honestly when I'm not doing this the weight comes back on). It includes deeper connection and more vulnerability in community. It includes having healthy ways to deal with and process anxiety, stress and my myriad of emotions that I can face in a single day. It includes having a wonderful counselor and being able to finally trust my best friends. It includes doing battle with God on a regular basis. It also includes doing things I enjoy - which I think is half the battle, do I really enjoy and celebrate myself and what I do with myself during a given day? Am I getting meaning from life and from my relationships? Am I mentally healthy? Am I growing and moving in a healthy direction? As embodied beings we are more than just a physical body - we are spirit and soul as well, we have mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, sexual, physical and other holistic entities. 

And our physical problems are VERY often just a physical manifestation of other things in play. To just focus on the body is to miss the bigger picture. Our bodies were made by God to be a representation to the world of who we are, so our bodily cravings and desires and longings and experiences are a symbol, a representation, a signal flare, a flashing neon sign to us to tell us that we need to pay attention to something about us that needs care and attention. They also tell us and remind us to turn our focus on God. That anxiety is a signal to us to turn to depending on God instead of ourselves. That our hunger pains represent our hunger for God. That our sexuality and sexual desires (gasp I said the word!) are a representation of our desire for connection and intimacy with God and a desire for connection in meaningful and deep relationship with others, not just a significant other.

So in my mind, with this understanding, the focus on food and exercise to "get healthy" is very short-sighted and narrow, and honestly it doesn't last. In order to appropriately help your body get healthy all these other factors as being holistic beings need to be met first in order to sustain and maintain the physical changes we desire for ourselves. For me, that's partly why the weight loss isn't as exciting or even as meaningful as the fact that all these other areas of my life are moving rapidly towards being healthy, happy and whole. So I will love eating ice cream every single time, I will love eating pasta once in a while, I will LOVE eating apples (because I really do love apples), I will LOVE LOVE LOVE taking 5 mile walks because I really do love taking long walks. But I will LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE....even more spending time with God, spending time in relationship with others, pouring over my Bible, dancing to worship songs, and deeply searching into myself to find those areas of brokenness and holding them up before God and letting Him heal the brokenness as I tenderly love and cherish my whole self - even the parts I don't like. I let the Spirit of God do the transformation work in ALL areas of my life. This weight loss is all God's doing. And in that I can relax and surrender the journey to Him, I can surrender the control of all the factors that go into losing weight because He is in control, His desire for me is health and wholeness, His desire for me is to have life and have it abundantly. A desire that has no place for shame ANYWHERE in it. So I surrender and I just delight...I delight in His presence, His protection, His provision, His promises, His presents, His providence, and His passion.

To God be all the glory!

On Becoming a Warrior

"Have you ever thought, like really thought, about what you want to be in the Kingdom of God?" I said to my best friend.

It was Good Friday and I had just walked through 6 months of fighting a battle toward freedom from something I was deeply ashamed of; a battle I know now will probably be fought for the rest of my life. I knew exactly, in that moment, what I want to be in the Kingdom of God. I want to be a warrior.

Not just any warrior, a warrior who is personally able to step into the presence of God every day, not because I'm good enough but because He is good enough. And I'm able to go beyond the pain and sometimes deep agony of my shame and focus on the joy of the reality that I can now be in relationship with God. No, not ignoring it or shoving it to the side. Completely putting it off. Picking myself up every single day when I've stumbled, realizing I cannot do this on my own, and going on my face before Him for the strength to keep going. Realizing that the brokenness I carry with me into battle can only be filled by Him alone. Surrendering it all to Him believing that He will give me the victory. That's the kind of warrior I want to be.

The kind that sees the army on the ridge, the sheer numbers of strong forces, armed and ready for destruction, and looks at the small size of those on this side and rises to find the courage to charge wholeheartedly into the fight. Because He is with me. The kind that looks at the chinks in my armor, the parts of myself that are weak from previous wounds - some put there by others and some put there by myself - and is at peace. Because He is with me. The kind that knows that in the toughest point of the battle, when the arrows are flying and I'm weak and exhausted, when I've given it my all, when the voices from my past and the voices inside my head suck the life out of me, that the greatest power move is to my knees. Because He is with me. The kind that knows when fear presses in on all sides, when the threats against me come from both outside and from within that I am safe within the shelter of the Most High, no matter what chaos is going on around me.

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
    so why should I tremble?
² When evil people come to devour me,
    when my enemies and foes attack me,
    they will stumble and fall.
³ Though a mighty army surrounds me,
    my heart will not be afraid.
Even if I am attacked,
    I will remain confident.

⁴ The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.
⁵ For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
    he will hide me in his sanctuary.
    He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
⁶ Then I will hold my head high
    above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
    singing and praising the Lord with music.

Psalms 27: 1-6

In the movie Prince Caspian, there's a scene where Edmund, Susan and Peter are fighting alongside Prince Caspian, giving it their all, and the advancing army just keeps coming. Their only hope is in Lucy running for Aslan to bring him to the battle. At this point they've tried in their own strength to crush the enemy and failed miserably, their trust in each other is hanging on by a thread, and they almost gave into finding victory from other sources other than the King himself. In this particular scene I personally love watching Susan, dressed in her fabulous armor and fighting in a dress! Fiercely attacking the enemy, and yet she knows that her strength is giving way, her faith is in Lucy's faith in Aslan, and the fear is starting to cripple and drain her. And yet it is Lucy who is the true warrior. And when Lucy comes onto the scene at the bridge, just this small, young girl facing the entire Telmarine army. Standing alone until she isn't alone. And she smiles, pulls out her dagger, taunting and daring the army to come against her. Total confidence, a serene peace about her. And the army charges. Then Aslan roars.

Some nights when the battle is the greatest, when I'm standing alone, when I feel like my greatest allies will not respond in time when I blow my horn for help, when the fear of facing yet another fight with no one next to me presses in, I hold onto that image with all my might. The Lion of Judah is with me. And He roars with a vengeance. He roars with such a fierce and intense, passionate love for His beloved. A love that shattered for ever the chains of sin and annihilated death itself. The Lion of Judah roars...

I know that even though I've put myself into the battle, that I'm the one who let the invading army in, He still calls me into His presence. He calls me to seek Him out, He calls me to delight in Him. When it was my sin that nailed Him to the cross and I thought there was no way He could ever love me, He calls me to come away with Him. And He calls me to face the enemies within that seek to take me away from Him. To weaken me and sideline me from the work of His Kingdom.

Yes, I have to fight, I have to go into the battle, but it is He who is with me that will bring the victory. I need to surrender to Him, I need to trust Him. To actively tell my fear that there is Someone greater to whom I listen and obey. That I can be fierce and tenacious in standing up to the enemy; that I can rightly discern between the truth and the lies. That the places where my armor is dented, where I am the most vulnerable are not the weakest points because they've been redeemed and renewed by the power of His blood. Where the deepest hurts, the places where I bleed internally, where Satan was able to get a foothold, have been soothed and healed by the balm of Gilead. Because I'm turning to Him to fill the pain instead of using other things to cope. Where His gentle and tender love has healed and is healing still. In looking back at all the times the enemy tried to destroy me, or make me destroy myself, and almost succeeded, I see the work of the Holy Spirit, the roar of the Lion of Judah that breathed new life into me. And He made me brave. He makes me brave. And what's more, I'm not alone. Never was. But now I'm also surrounded and supported and I know what it is to be cherished. But now I am being fully planted in the house of the Lord, and as Psalms 52:8 says "But I am like an olive tree planted in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever."

This is what it is to become a warrior.

Days of Significance

Yesterday was a pretty significant day in my life. I turned 24 (which is my all-time favorite number! Don't know why, it just is), it was 6 months to the day of when I started my journey towards freedom, it was both Passover AND Good Friday, and it was the birthday that I told God I wanted to be married by BUT am so grateful He didn't listen to me, that He has something better in mind.

Looking back over the last year has brought me to my knees again and again in praise over all that the Lord has done in my life. This time last year I flat-lined in my faith. When I went to do a Sozo prayer that was my last stand. Either God was going to show up in my life in a really powerful way or I was done. I don't even recognize who I was last year. She wasn't even really me; that lady was so bitter, so angry, so scared, so hurting, so self-focused...and yet, she was me. That's hard to grasp. It's even more difficult for me to know that I almost turned my back on the One I love. There was no reason why I deserved what the last year held, all the blessings and favor, all the life and joy, all the freedom God has brought into my life. I had no control over most of what happened, except for my choosing to keep my focus fixed on God. I don't know if I could ever go through another year that held as much change for me as the last year has, especially the last 6 months. Not only were there all these major events that happened, but God brought people into my life that would forever change me. One in particular, my wonderful counselor, came into my life out of nowhere, and has ended up being the perfect person for the job of walking with me through some really difficult and challenging things, and propelling me into God's best for my life. I don't trust men easily, I have good reason not to, but I trust him. And what's more I finally broke through my fear of opening up my heart and really trusting my best friends. And the result was that for the first time in my life I felt so loved, I felt so cherished, I felt like I had finally found where I belong. I found a new church family, and every week they make me feel so valued and so cherished; they allow space and room for me to walk in my giftings. And I'm being challenged and stretched in my faith and how I respond to God, how I interact with Him and experience Him.

I think it was so significant that my journey towards freedom has hit it's 6 month anniversary on the day that Jesus was crucified and died for our sins, the day He paid the full-price of the punishment I fully deserved. The day the veil was torn and mankind could finally enter fully into God's presence. The day God in all of His glory and majesty, righteousness and holiness embraced us, all of us, when we were covered in shame and sin. The timing could not have been more profound for me.

There are so many other ways that this journey has been significant. For one, it has propelled me into adulthood. I have been forced to make choices and decisions that bring me out of childhood and took steps that propelled me into my future. I honestly feel that I have grown up (and will feel it much more once grad school starts and I move into an apartment of my own). I'm really grateful to God for that. That He did not let me stay where I was, that He pushed me to a point where I am now able to stand on my faith, make decisions without dependence on others' approval or acceptance. I can honestly say I obeyed God and God alone. I can honestly say that I heard God and tried to honor Him alone in the best way I could. What a confidence booster!! What a faith builder!!

And now those closest to me are stepping into their own journey that seems very similar to what this last year held for me. I'm now able to turn around and be a support for the ones who have held my arms up in the battle for so long, who have stayed by my side and believed that victory was going to come. The ones who have seen God's hand in my life in the most intimate and precious ways. And the greatest thing for me is that I am now, honestly, strong enough and healthy enough that I can support them in their journeys. I pray every day for God to knock their socks off in even greater ways that He did for me this last year.

Turning 24 for me marks a turning point in my story. It's a marker on the road that holds so much significance of where I've come from and to where I am headed. Some day in heaven I will see the fullness of God's grand design, of God's glorious story in my life. But the glimpse I've seen lately of what that fullness looks like fills me with awe and praise. I don't know what this next year holds for me - there a lot of great and beautiful things planned so far. But what I do know is that going forward I want to live my life in a way that both glorifies God and transforms and impacts others' lives. And at the end of my days I want it said of me that I not only glorified and served God well, but that I truly delighted in my Savior.

Blessings!