His Will, Not Mine (Featured on Finding Balance)

When I first started college in 2004, I was eager to help girls with their eating and weight issues, so going into the nutrition field seemed to be the area in which to pursue. I had already been down that road and was still shakily teetering on the bridge between recovery and affliction. God had other plans for me, however.

In near fatal situations, most people say they see their lives flash before them. I, on the other hand, saw my future...a future I might possibly never get to experience. On October 10, 2004, I had a life-altering car accident. No, I wasn't physically altered, but I took on a change that would forever alter the way I saw myself, my world, and my future. At first, this change wasn't accepted. I did everything in my heart to do what I had originally wanted to do, thinking my plans had first priority. However, after my car accident, God revealed to me that He wanted me to live a life almost the opposite of what I wanted. A teacher? Really?  Is that what you want from me, God?  Being a teacher was not for me. I couldn't wait to get out of high school, so why on earth would I want to go back? It didn't make any sense! And what about this lingering eating problem? How am I going to get rid of it?

From college up until I had been married for a couple of years, I always felt that I was just shy of fully grasping the concept of what God was trying to do in my life. My life was a huge question mark because I couldn't make sense of the past, and the future scared me to death. Sometimes I fought God's plan like a baby fights sleep; even so, just like a calm comes over a sleeping child, a peace rested on my heart when I slowly began to make those changes God had wanted to see. All along God had been preparing me for a life I couldn't even imagine, and only recently have I begun to fully see why God chose me to do what I do. I have the opportunity to positively influence more people each day as a teacher than I would in an entire year with some other careers. It's a huge feat, but God knows what He is doing. He always does. And my eating problems? God showed me that I couldn't help others until I had helped myself first, and that if I wanted to be an influence, I was going to have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for my health.

It goes without saying that if God has you plugged into a life you don't quite understand yet, do not give up. Your primary goals may revolve around your eating and weight issues, but His plans are supreme. They can interweave into your needs and desires--even your career goals--without you even knowing it. There's always a bigger picture. His plans and yours might not make any sense at this moment, but when everything comes together, you will know why it was all worth the wait.

Sweet Forgiveness (Featured on Finding Balance)

I can remember trying to explain to my loved ones that my biggest desire in life was to be normal. I had forgotten what it was like to eat something without knowing its complete nutritional makeup, and I had forgotten what it was like to be active just for the sake of fun. I simply knew too much; I was too aware. Deep within my heart I knew I'd never forget the way I had programmed my mind to compensate for my errors in life, and this is what scared me the most--not being able to forget.

For years I punished and blamed myself for a multitude of mistakes, mishaps, and misguided situations I directed and authored over the course of my adolescence. I silently imploded, and I used my eating and weight issues to handle the regret. I didn't feel as if I should be able to forget what I had done, the things I had said. I didn't feel worthy. My all-or-nothing mentality didn't help matters, either. If I'm going to do something, it's worth doing well, and it's worth doing right; otherwise, why try? My eating and weight issues were no exception. I flip-flopped from one extreme to the other, hoping that each new time I tried to get back on track (diet), I would glide down the yellow brick road to happiness with ease and grace. Year after year, however, I was proven wrong. I fought a losing battle because I couldn't let go. I couldn't get over my mistakes even though God had.

Eventually, the mental anguish and exhaustion took its toll on me. Although I didn't want to, I had to accept the reality of my situation. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done, but it worked. I saw that it was ludicrous to expect forgiveness from others if I couldn't forgive myself. In Ephesians 4:32, God advises us to forgive others just as He forgave us. This includes forgiving ourselves!

My journey to recovery didn't happen over night. There were times I thought I was on my way, and there were times I thought it would never happen. Little did I know, all of those relapses and bad days were being knitted together to form something pretty sturdy and strong. The rigid standards I had set for myself finally began to unravel, and being my own worst critic suddenly lost its zest. It was official. Being the person who treated me the worst, who talked to me the worst, and who downed me the most had finally lost its appeal. I should've known that God's time would make all the difference.

Before I could seek true forgiveness, a few things needed to be established.

1) I accepted that I'm not normal, and I'm not ever going to be normal. I'm better than normal.
2) I vowed that one day, I'd find a way to spread the word and inspire people to change for the better.
3) I elected to let go. Why hold onto the past? I had already freed myself from the people, the places, and the ideas that triggered me for entirely too long, so why was I still attaching my identity to them?
4) I promised to face my fears and break myself free from the ruts I had previously considered structured routines.

We should never under any circumstances let our pasts dictate our futures. God has already taken care of that! Our stories have already been written from a hand who knows and sees all things. God wants us to grow, and this can't happen if we're spiritually stuck in the past. When God forgives us, He gives us the release to forgive ourselves, so what should we fear?

The Blame Game (Featured on Finding Balance)

Why do I have this problem?

This simple sentence flooded my brain almost every day for eight years. I couldn't understand why I saw food differently than everyone else, why it had to be so paradoxical. I loved food so much that I hated it; it was as simple as that.

"Just eat." or "Just stop when you're full." Everyone around me seemed to know how to make it go away. It all seemed so simple to them, but my routines, my beliefs, my truths...I knew them just as the sun knows when and where to rise and set. It doesn't just go away.

Blame. It has to go somewhere, right? I wanted to blame everybody and everything. I needed a reason, and I needed to know why. Why was my mind so messed up, so tainted, so weak?

As a teenager, life seemed so permanent. My day to day life, the way I was treated, the things that I was good at/interested in/involved with...in my mind those were all fixed and would never change. My life was what I saw in the mirror that day. I was a number, a lipstick tube, a brand on a shirt, a "You're not fat; you're just big" from a peer. My identity, bent and twisted, only truly existed when I stripped myself of the makeup, the brand names, the fake friends, and the belittling of others to make myself feel better. It was down there somewhere underneath it all; I just had to find it. I knew that much.

Life's biggest questions revolve around reasons we don't have. We want to know why life isn't always fair and why we have to look, dress, and learn the way we do. We want someone or something to blame for how bad things are...for why we're grouped and classified the way we are or why things had to happen the way they did. Sadly, life doesn't always provide us with these reasons. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?

I've learned that nothing is easy when you're growing up. Between who our parents want us to be and who our friends think we should be, discovering our identities is a grueling, never-ending battle. Without that third factor--God's plan--living and existing in my life, I can't even consider where I would be today. That underlying hope that there was more...that God had a deeper plan...that God would never forsake me...that is what kept me believing. Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." What peace comes from knowing that we don't have to have all the answers; God has them all in the palm of his hand!

God's truth supersedes all of our made-up truths, and with this fact, we have a reason to live a life of freedom, not blame!