This is the second in a series of posts where I will share my story and journey with eating, the issues I’ve had over the years and how God is so patient and good.
Click here to read the first post in the series.
So we left off where I had surrendered to my eating. I might have made it sound like I didn’t put up a fight, but nothing could be further from the truth. The truth was, I wanted to be thin more than I wanted anything else in the world and I would have done anything to stay that way. I was trying everything I could think of. Doing Beth Moore’s Breaking Free Bible study in college, I turned to constant dependance on my Truth Cards. These are index cards in a spiral book with Bible verses on each card. I started praying regularly, asking and begging God to help me with this struggle with food.
Every day was the same – praying to God for help, reading my Truth Cards all day long (I even took them to work and read them throughout the day there), but still being overcome with the overwhelming temptation to eat and eat – especially sweets.
The thing was, I was completely confident in my prayers. I knew my binge eating was a sin and I was praying and asking God to help me overcome it – what could be more of a prayer in God’s will than that? I thought I was golden. God would swoop in and save the day, allowing me to stay thin and, oh yeah, saving me from that pesky sin of binging/overeating I was committing.
The binging became worse and worse over time. I would often drive to the store and purchase a bag of cookies and start eating them in the car as I was driving away. I would keep eating them all the way home and often they were gone before I pulled in the driveway. My jaw would often hurt and become sore from chewing so much and so quickly. I would also start making trips to the vending machine at work. Buying candy bars and whatever sounded good for that moment. I hid the food and the binges as best I could.
Unfortunately, everyone could see what was happening. That is the thing with having issues with food – unlike other addictions, everyone can see the weight gain. You can’t hide it with breath mints and perfume or with eye drops and a cup of coffee like you might with other addictions. Binge eating strongholds are shame inducing and overwhelming. And the devil had me right where he wanted me.
I had never prayed more fervently or consistently for anything in my life. I had been praying every day for months and months. I really wanted to stop being tempted with food. I wanted to keep the weight off. I wanted to be thin, I wanted, I wanted, I wanted….
I was sitting in church one day and the scripture passage was out of James. I read along in my Bible, but when the passage the paster read was finished, I kept reading to see what was next. I got to James 4:3, which reads “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
I immediately felt convicted.
The thought popped in my head “you only care about being thin”. It was true. At the end of the day, I knew overeating was a sin, but I only cared about the fact that it made me fat and I wanted to be thin. I didn’t care about the fact that it was grieving the Holy Spirit living inside me. I didn’t care about the fact that I was destroying the temple of the Holy Spirit with every handful of cookies I shoved in my face. I didn’t care about the fact that it was devastating to God and destroying my relationship with Him.
I just wanted to be thin.
Then, I became angry. “OK, God”, I thought… “If my overeating and binging is a sin, which I’m not supposed to commit, yet I can’t stop myself from committing it without Your help, so I pray to You for help, yet You tell me that when I pray, I have the wrong motives, then WHAT AM I SUPPSOSED TO DO? Are You telling me I can’t even pray correctly? I’m doing all I know to do, but it’s not OK?”
I didn’t know what to do in the meantime. I knew the next step was to ask God for proper motives in my prayers and to have godly sorrow for my sin instead of the worldly sorrow I was exhibiting, but what did I do in the meantime? In the time between now – where I’m binging/overeating daily and can’t stop it in my own strength- and the time when God helps me have proper motives to pray correctly for help with my sin.
What do I do then – in the meantime? Should I just keep sinning while I wait for God to answer my prayer?
Clearly, my obsession with thinness had become an idol. And when I was actually thin, for the short time between losing weight and binging back on the weight, I was idolizing my own body as well. I would spend hours in front of the mirror, trying on clothes, just looking at myself.
I was completely down, prostrate on my face, worshipping in complete adoration…GOD? No…thinness.
I spent about a week mad at God. This is not something I had ever experienced before. I had come to the end of myself. I had tried everything I could think of. I would have given anything to stick to my healthy eating habits.
But I couldn’t.
I wasn’t strong enough. Not on my own. The desires overwhelmed me. I had asked God for help and my heart’s desires were so twisted that God allowed me this season of sin without much word from Him. I needed to understand the depths of my depravity.