A song on Sunday sent me into snake ponderings.

The worship song surged around me in the church pew and I lifted my writhing three year old onto my hip. Unaccustomed to being with us in the service, he was a whirl of energy and motion. Hanging off the chair with one hand and shoulder draped off the edge, he had peered at the floor. Spinning over he cuddled onto his sister’s lap, squeezing her arms for a hug. A grey sandaled shoe jabbed into my side, and I quickly readjusted my shirt.

It wasn’t his writhings that turned my mind to snakes, though. The worship song that we stood and sang back to God said wonderingly,

“You make beautiful things, beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things, beautiful things out of us.”
…
“You make me new, you are making me new.
You make me new, you are making us new.”

My oldest son has an eighteen inch garter snake that he found and tamed. Now the snake often coils comfortably up his arm as he walks the house, or hangs harmlessly around my seventeen year old’s neck as he corrects his math problems.

“Did you know,” my dad said, “that a snake is nearly blind right before it sheds its skin? With eyes that are clouded and dull, it is fearful and aggressive. Feeling vulnerable, it will often strike at the hand bringing it food too.”

My son built a reptile habitat in a glass aquarium, with cedar wood chips and an overturned log.

In order to rid itself of the old skin that is constraining it and hindering it, the snake has to be intentional. It can’t hole up in a safe dark corner, with dull, clouded eyes. Rather the snake has to purposely lean into the hard places between the log and the glass window, and push through the rough patches, intentionally poking into and through dark places. It’s the pressure and the pulling that tug off the dead to reveal beauty below.

We’re standing in the pews and singing and I’m holding my three-year-old in my arms and he’s writhing, and I picture my oldest’s newly-gleaming snake. Pearlescent emerald and gleaming amber striped down the snake’s back, leaving behind a faded, transparent wraith in the aquarium.

I sang “You make me new, you are making me new. You make things new…..

“You make beautiful things, ….

And I realize it’s me that God has been pressing through the tight places, poking into the dark corners, and leaning me into the rough patches to tear off the old, revealing beauty below.

How do we be beautiful? We lean into the rough places. We dare to walk with our Creator through the dark corners, through the tight spaces that’ll pull off the old and make all things new.

You make beautiful things out of the dust
you make beautiful things out of us

(thank you, Jennifer, for this stirring post. please visit Jennifer here at her lovely website)

(please visit kendal at her blog, here)

In college I innocently joined the pastime…
a ritual of sorts…taking place in every dorm
a little exercise…and some Diet Tab (that dates me).
But this “innocent” college pastime apprehended me…
and dragged me down a very dark road…
a road of obsessive exercise…a road of starvation.

This obsessive behavior…
was only fueled by those negative tapes.
But I hid this all pretty well…
from the outside, my life looked really good…
in some ways a life others envied.

But those lies continued to steal, kill, and destroy…
not just my mind but my body as well.

After my first year of teaching…I spent a week in the hospital…
a week to figure out why my body was refusing…
It resisted all the medical attention given to bleed the blood of life…
the blood needed to really be the woman God intended.
While the doctors where figuring out my body…
I lie alone figuring out my faith.
Being very new in my walk with the Lord…
my ears and heart were learning to be tuned to hear His voice.
I cannot say I heard an audible voice…
but oh how clear it was…
this question…
a question not wrapped with judgment nor condemnation…
but a question asked in compassion…
from a heart of love for my brokenness…
”Why are you spitting in my face and telling me you hate who I created you to be? “
I answered back through my tears in a loud cry…
”I do hate who you made me to be.”
This sickness called anorexia is a slow death…
and I was telling the Creator of the universe…
what He created did not deserve to live.
And with that confession…something changed…
I could not bare the thought of spitting in my Savior’s face…
I wanted to be healed.

Did this end all the self-hatred?
Oh, I wish I could tell you yes…
but I did walk out of the hospital changed…
slowly but surely…little by little more freedom came.
Freedom from every bite controlling my thoughts…
freedom from a minimum requirement of daily exercise to find peace.

but the tapes…those tapes…
they were not so easily erased.

I found the healing of the body happens more easily…
than the healing of the heart and mind.
Renewing my mind and transforming my heart was a very slow process.
God came in many ways to heal me… body, soul and spirit.
He patiently wooed me to trust His Love for me.
He showed me what His unconditional love looked like through the love of my husband.
Over time my thoughts toward God were finally finding
a safe place to land…
therefore my thoughts toward myself were becoming
more kind…more forgiving…more safe.

After all these years, I am still surprised …
when I can trace thoughts back to self-hatred…
But now when God comes and tugs on that weed of
self-loathing thoughts…
its roots are no longer wound through very fiber of my being.
Instead, it’s like pulling up a weed whose root system is almost dead.
God has brought a freedom I wasn’t sure was possible.
But praise be to Him …
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. Ephesians 3:20

My heart breaks now when I meet another…
One whose mind if full of these same lies…
At the same time…my heart is so full of hope…
Because…
The same Kind and Gracious God who loved me to healing…
Whose love never grew weary…
whose Light was bright enough to penetrate even the darkest places…
whose Truth was stronger than the lies…
whose blood came and healed my wounded heart.
This same God will meet each woman…heal each heart…
and each one will walk in more freedom than she could ever imagine.

I pray if you too listen to lies…
that you will find encouragement here…
encouragement to let God in…all the way in…
to every lie…every dark place of hiding…to let Him show you and tell you…
of His immense Love for you.. how very precious you are to Him.
you His daughter…you, a daughter of the King.

(thank you, sweet Roseann, for sharing these words today… )

About three months ago to the day, my family celebrated little Zoom’s first birthday. It was a lovely event. Family and friends came over for an elephant themed party. I owe you guys some photos of that party.

There is likely a reason I’ve haven’t posted those photos. When I went back and looked at myself I was shocked.

At the time, I no longer fit into my clothes. In fact, I had gotten so heavy that I did not own a single pair of pants that fit me, and I’d moved on to wearing dresses because it was all that fit.

Now I see that I’d been eating because I was still upset and confused about the traumatic events that surrounded Zoom’s birth. There was so little I could control over those 56 hours. I’d gone in to labor naturally, and then labored for 56 hours. The doctor quickly decided at about hour 54 that I would need a cesarean. When Zoom was born, he had respiratory issues and was in the hospital for six days. He did not come home with us. None of this was in a birth plan, anywhere, except in the back of my mind as the things that just couldn’t happen, ever.

Every pregnant lady probably has one of those “in case” discussions with her partner, husband, coach. I’d told Sean one night “If for any reason they have to take the baby away from me in the delivery room, you follow the baby. I’m strong, I can be alone, I won’t be as scared as the baby. You go with our baby and talk to him. He knows your voice and knows you will keep him safe.” I get tears in my eyes now knowing that something I said as a “not a chance in the world this will happen” discussion is what ended up happening. Just before I went in to the operating room, I told my doctor that I could only do this if Sean was allowed to leave with the baby and my mom or sister was allowed to come in after he left with Zoom. And that is how it happened. My mom came in and stayed with me as Sean took our baby to the nursery.

A year later, food had become a way to control my environment. And based on the terrifying events of Zoom’s birth, the world had become a scary, unpredictable place. Food was predictable. Feeling full was predictable and comforting. I was holding on to what I could to keep going.

Nearly 12 weeks later, I’ve lost 9.42% of my starting weight, meaning I’ve lost about 13 pounds. It may not seem like a lot based on “Biggest Loser” standards, but a 10% loss is good. It means nearly 2 pant sizes on me. I’m 4’10″ tall.

For me, this weight loss has been a great deal more than losing 13 pounds. I’m regaining “Me.” The parts of me that got lost somewhere on September 9, 2010 before Zoom was born, as the cesarean was becoming a reality. The parts of me that battle to re-believe that I am strong, that I am capable, that I am in control. The parts of me that are fierce, unstoppable, and excellent. The woman who excitedly stated to the front desk at Labor and Delivery “I’m here to have a baby,” is re-awakening to all that it means to be alive. She is here, she is brave and she ready to take on the world.

(thank you, Paula, for sharing your heart here today…)

Some days I believe
I am more
When there is less of me,

That my words
Bear more weight
When I bear it less,

That my deeds
Tip scales
When I don’t.

And untruths
Are easy to buy
When I am feeling cheap,

So I bring plates
Filled with lies
As fragrant offerings,

And make myself
A sacrifice
To all the wrong gods.

(please visit Tamara here, at her blog)

I was so dislocated from everyone else. They were all enjoying the meal together and talking and laughing but it was like I was on the outside of a dark glass, looking in, unable to join in, this depressed bubble impermeable. I did not like mealtime–I spent my time closed off in the bathroom–isolated, all alone. Paranoia consumed me. When anyone made a comment about how little or how much I ate, the paranoia wrestled me to the ground and strangled me. I suffocated under the weight of this monster. I couldn’t breathe.

The only comfort to me was the only thing familiar–me–just the way I’d always been. The little girl me was scared and didn’t want to change, didn’t want hips, extra fat, things I didn’t recognize–I was losing me. Maybe I was trying to control a life that felt a little like it was on a runaway train. Maybe this was the way I reacted to the negative things said about me–I self-inflicted pain.

I scratched at the wounds and let them bleed out.

No one had to teach me to throw up; I just had an innate response to emptiness.

Maybe I thought if I hugged the cold round bowl enough and let everything force its way out, I could force-empty myself of the pain. But the more I did, the further I sunk into misery and numbness. As the days went by, I ate less and less.

My mother took me to the doctor to figure out what was wrong…why did I lie on my bed all the time and read? Why didn’t I go outside and play like other kids my age? Why did I drag around, listless, no energy? The doctor said there was nothing wrong–suggested vitamins and a well-balanced diet.

Sliding down the hallway doorpost, 14, I was a slumped mess and tears pouring, a girl completely lost and alone. My father had taken a job as a pastor, moved us to a new state where the girls were mean and didn’t like new-comers and pushed me down a flight of stairs. Every day at school they hounded me hard, wrote cruel poems about me, laid them on my desk, snickered as I read, my face flaming hot. They tried to make me ashamed of who I was, hated me and wanted me to hate myself too.

My only solace was the dark sanctuary and seeking God in music at the piano where a young man too old for me would come in and stand behind, bend down, breathe on my neck, lips close to my ear as I played–wherever I went, he would always find me.

My parents were at the church almost every day working and most of the time my sister was there with me–but I was so lonely for relationship and the safety of home. This day I was there by myself, in a heap in the floor, the wet hot liquid boiling over, no friends, and I huddled and rocked back and forth, home silent and dark.

And dark were the places I went to in my mind.

I lie there in the lukewarm tub, holding the razor and thinking hard on how nice it would be to end it all, the blade to my wrist, Satan hovering, his grip tight.

Then a knock came to the door.

Someone had come to my rescue.

My Father had come to check on me–wanted to know if I was okay. The Holy Spirit had prompted him that something was wrong and to see about me. I got out of the tub and eventually came out of the bathroom.

My parents talked and prayed with me, confronted me about what they felt was going on with me. I was balled so tight with a mix of hurt, abuse, despair and depression, and I broke open and began to shake uncontrollably. My father brought juice to calm me down and my mother looked me right in the eye and prayed against Satan’s tight control over me.

I can’t really explain what happened, but in that moment I was healed. Satan left because God was in the midst. His presence was powerful to save and I was so thankful my parents loved me enough to intervene for me like that. Love drives away all fear.

I still had emotions and habits that tended toward anorexia–but I felt the freedom of what it feels like to recover and get better day by day. I began to laugh and smile. I continued to exercise, and I also ate. My parents encouraged me and kept me accountable.

There were times, even years down the road, of short relapse and I would lie in bed, after only eating grapes that day, happy with my caving-in stomach and the feeling of hunger and the control I exercised over it.

But God’s truth prevailed in my life.

Today, I still sometimes look at myself in the mirror, and I don’t like the girl that I see. The years of self-abuse left its mark on me and the abuse and taunting from others, they cut deep wounds that needed stitching and I see threads of hate woven throughout my life still. I am hard on myself. I judge myself harshly according to society’s strict marginal laws beauty falls within. Our culture with its shallow view of beauty, with air-brushed models in swimsuits, hands us a standard to strive toward that doesn’t even exist. It’s an illusion and my human mind spins to keep up. It’s a mirage and my sight is distorted.

But God.

God’s grid and His definition of beauty are different. There is no specific margin for height, width, number on the scale, or size of clothing with God.

And so, as I grow from girl to woman, and more babies come, and hips spread to give life, skin stretches and sags, I place my identity and my beauty in His hands, and I draw from that deep, deep well of His love and acceptance.

And as I begin to walk out this love and acceptance, it isn’t something that happens overnight, but as with all of life, it is by process that I learn this, extending to the marrow of me–I begin to figure out, as one of my commenters reminded me:

“Your adornment (is) the interior disposition of the heart, consisting in the imperishable quality of a gentle and peaceful spirit, so precious in the sight of God” 1 Peter 3:4….
The Message says it this way: “What matters is not your outer appearance–the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes–but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands.” 1 Peter 3:4, The Message

This is what God says about my beauty, about this frail, human body:
“Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God–you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration–what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life prepared before I’d even lived one day. Your thoughts–how rare–how beautiful! God, I’ll never comprehend them! I couldn’t even begin to count them–anymore than I could count the sand of the sea. Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you! ” Psalms 139:13-18, The Message

“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction in on her tongue. Proverbs 31:25,26, NIV

“Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.” Proverbs 31:30, The Message

My Prayer:
God, I want real beauty. I want to be a servant with worn spots of motherhood on me. Let me wear the work apron in place of fine jewels and instead of being obsessed with lashes lavished with makeup, let me have eyes that are a place of found grace when my kids have fallen into sin, not lingerie-store pushed up and out, but a soft breast for little ones to fall asleep on, and not a perfect hour-glass figure, but a wife and mother that prays on the hour for You to come love them through me, and not a mother who checks herself in the mirror, mumbling insults in front of little ears, but a mother and wife that whispers in the ears of those she loves the beauty that a God-made heart holds….

If you want to read the first part of this story, you can go here to Nacole’s blog…

“whenever i want to either binge or diet, it means that there is some part of me that is deeply afraid. i had been worrying about (my son) more than usual, and only partly because he had just begun to drive. i had been worried sick about Bush for five years now. there was a terrifying epidemic of breast cancer in my county; like so many others, i had friends who were trying to survive. and lately i’d fallen back into my old habit of acting like classroom helper to the world, doing too many favors for people… i had been to a funeral. i had had a molar pulled. i had recently seen the skin on the back of my neck under fluorescent lights in a hotel mirror. i hadn’t seen it in years; not it looked like it was upholstered in a few inches of the Utah desert. everything was too much.

“all i could think to do was what every addict thinks of doing: kill the pain… anyone would understand if you binged every so often… even Jesus would, although somehow i don’t see him ripping open a package of Hostess Ding Dongs for me. but thinking of him reminded me that food would not fill the holes or quiet the fear. only love would; only my own imperfect love would.” (anne lamott, grace eventually, 53-54)

It’s nothing new – Satan has used our emotions and feelings to try to separate us from the truth of God since the beginning of time.

Think back to the garden. Eve was tempted by the serpent to eat the fruit God told them not to. She was tempted by her feelings. She was the only woman on the face of the whole earth – no one else to compare herself to, no one else to tell her something was wrong with her – it was already a part of her, the way God made her that Satan used against her.

He told her God lied. Satan told her God didn’t want her to eat the fruit because it would make her like God – she would know good from evil. He played on her emotions, got her to doubt, made her question.

Maybe I’m not good enough the way I am – the way God created me. I need to eat that fruit to make me better, wiser.

And of course, we all know the choice she made. Rather than taking God at His word, trusting His plan, believing that He wanted what was best for her, she took the bait. She, for whatever reason feeling she wasn’t good enough the way God made her, chose to eat the fruit so she could be better.

And that same old trick still works on all of us today, thousands of years later because we still struggle with our feelings. And in the world we live in it is easier than ever.

We have millions of people to compare ourselves to, a society that tells us we must look and be a certain way if we want to be successful and happy. We let our feelings drown out God’s truth – what He says about us. And then we wonder why we’re not happy, why nothing is ever good enough, why we have unsuccessful relationships, bad habits, why we live in the same old cycles and patterns.

It’s because we are still making the wrong choice. I’ve done it all my life – listened to my feelings rather than His fact. I never felt good enough about anything, ever – that me, the way I was, the way He made me just wasn’t good enough. Just like he did with Eve, Satan pointed out an area of inadequacy. And like Eve, I had to come up with a way to be better.

I didn’t talk to God first. I didn’t ask Him what He thought, I didn’t read His word, or believe His truth over my feelings. I made the choice to trust my feelings – to believe the lies. As a result I began the hardest struggle of my life. Over a period of months I became bulimic.

I had been a Christian since childhood and knew God’s word, but I never really, truly believed it. That’s why it was so easy for me to fall victim to Satan’s schemes. I believed my feelings more than I believed God’s facts.

But thin never led to fulfillment, exercise never brought me peace, a smaller pants size never gave me joy. Those things only came when I truly believed in Jesus’ love for me, when I treated the spiritual problem the right way – spiritually.

We have to choose how to treat our problems and issues – with society’s standards and pop culture values or with God’s word. We have to stop making physical issues out of the things that are spiritual. We are left empty every time we seek to fulfill internal needs with external resources. Feelings are based on perception, circumstances, current location, and situation. Facts are based on truth and proven history. Feelings are fickle and temporary – they constantly change. Fact is permanent, cannot be changed, is solid and stable.

Living by feelings leads to fear, fighting, fluctuation, frustration, falsehood, famine, failure, and flesh. Living by God’s facts leads to faith, freedom, fortification, fulfillment, focus, forgiveness, fertility, favor, and finish. We have to choose. The decisions we make show where our belief lies. Everything about us shows our faith, indicating what we believe and how we make our choices – by feeling or fact. Choosing to live by feelings tells God we don’t need Him. It says that we trust ourselves more than we trust Him.

Scripture is filled with facts. God cannot lie and is only capable of truth. His fact tells us that He loved us so much He sent His son to die for us, that whoever calls on Him will be saved, that Satan is a liar and is defeated, that He will never leave us or forsake us, that He has cast out every fear, that we can have salvation, forgiveness, provision, strength, peace, hope, power, love, a sound mind, that He has good plans for us – to prosper us and to give us a future and a hope.

You choose what you will believe and how you will act. You are in charge. You don’t have to be ruled by feelings. Read His word and find out what He says about you, write down His promises, fill your head and heart with His words. Then when Satan comes at you using your feelings against you, you can quote Scripture – that’s what Jesus did to defeat him – he has no come back for that – God always has the last word.

It takes commitment and vigilance. You can’t fight if you’re not prepared. It takes daily practice. We have somehow come to believe that struggling means we’re failing, but struggle doesn’t indicate failure – it indicates fight. It shows you’re not giving up or giving in. It reveals your determination and character. It proves that you are willing to war against those forces against you. Choose to live in His fact over your feelings. Don’t fight alone – fight with His armor. He works only for your good when you are committed and fully trust in Him.

(please visit Deidra at her blog, The Middle)

I, the no-needs female. I, the stream-lined individual. I know that linear is more efficient than weaving-loom round, that agreeing is smoother than saying ‘No’, that people like me better when I take care of them.

I pretend to not know my mind, that I have no opinion. I close-my-eyes blind, to protect, to hide, to be perfect. I’m desperate to be safe, yet fear hounds relentless, and so I put myself away. At times, the pain of pretending, denying, agreeing, and ‘yes-ing’ to all the bullshit bursts ahead of my fear, and I speak, I explode.

I apologize. I soothe. I polish. I tuck away, I put away this messy Janae. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

I hide, I fight to be thin, an impossible me that does not take up space. Heaven forbid I have hips, they betray me woman, not girl. They betray me strong, capable, full to round with sex-appeal. I live to mold my body straight, to be hidden behind the cliché so that no one will notice me or blame me for filling-out my seat.

I consolidate, negate, ignore, exile. I secure one-dimension living. I find the safe, the sound, the benign, the bland. Outside I could not be more commendable, approve-able, like-able. Inside I am all starve, silence, and be-little. I hide away myself, my many screaming, needing, begging, feeling, selves.

I need neat and I need tidy, because I want safety, I want sure.

I am accustomed to this tiny existence. Me, scurrying around the edges of my life. Me, apologizing for taking up space.

Now, I’m being pulled into more. Now, I’m being grown into, thrown into, more. An expansion, an upheaval, a frightening, take it back, I-don’t-want-this-much-freedom, more. I lament this overhaul. It is all I have ever wanted, and it has been my greatest fear.

Within this paradox, as I fight and ask for a return to small, I am tasting Larger.

Janae is scared of being honest with herself and vulnerable with others. She struggles to flesh out her beliefs, hopes, and prayers. She believes that living is a process, an ongoing cycle of broken-open-weeping and weaving-me-whole. She is trying to learn self-acceptance. Find her here. Image by Janae.

i’m talking about disappointment over at my personal blog, and it’s something i think we disordered eaters struggle with.

disappointment. being let down by those we love.

and so often, we try to prevent it from happening again. we get shocked by the pain in the first place, and then decide that in order to keep ourselves from being hurt like that again, we’ll numb the pain. by starving ourselves, or over-eating, and so we beat the others to it. we hurt ourselves, so they don’t have to.

i am learning a new kind of way of dealing with pain.

i am learning to face it head-on.

as my friend said, “you can always trust in the beauty of moving forward.”

there is beauty in being raw, in exposing your heart to the world and trusting that God has your back. 

i’m tired of not living for fear of being hurt. geneen roth, author of Women, Food and God, said, “Most of us spend our lives protecting ourselves from losses that have already happened.”

i don’t want to be that kind of person. i want to have stories for my grandchildren. i want my scars to be badges of courage, not self-inflicted emblems of fear.

so let’s rise up, men and women, and face the giants. let’s toss those david-stones and trust that God will slay Goliath.

because at the end of the day, pain is beauty. and beauty is courage. and courage is faith.

(painting by e. wierenga)