The day I went to the doctor’s office, I almost didn’t get out of the car. 

A friend drove me, and when she pulled into the parking lot, I didn’t move. I stared at the building, not really seeing it, refusing to move from the safety of my stubborn statue-like position. Then I said, my voice teetering on the edge of hysterical, “I’m not going in.”

Not willing to put the weight of convincing me to keep the appointment on my friend, I gathered myself, unbuckled my seatbelt, and threw open the door. 

It felt like falling off a cliff.

When the doctor handed over a diagnosis of “Avoidant Resistant Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)” (which happened a year ago today) I felt ready.

But I wasn’t.

After the diagnosis.

That first day, I started a journal. It was a journal just for this, just for throwing out all the thoughts and emotions that I needed to process. My first entry was calm…almost scientific. 

My second entry wasn’t.

1/11/24

“Fell apart today.”

That’s the whole thing. “Fell apart today.” (Appropriately dramatic, don’tcha think?)

Then God…

It would be so much easier to write about what God didn’t do than what God did. He’s done so much!

In a nutshell: he healed me.

It wasn’t easy, oh it WASN’T easy.

Night after night of crying into my pillow. Of calling out for help. Of every single bite of food that I put into my mouth an act of worship. An act of bravery. An act of trusting God to be with me. 

I couldn’t have done it without him. I think I would’ve died without him. (Ignoring the fact that every single breath in every single pair of lungs comes from him, so we’d all die without him.)

Not a joke

Food is not a joke to God. It’s his gift to us, like the sun and the moon and the stars and the snow outside my window right now. But it’s not just any gift. It’s a gift that he made necessary to survival. 

At least three times a day, he wants us to accept this gift. 

I don’t think God takes it lightly how we receive his gifts, but especially not the gifts that he made part of every 24 hours for every person. Food, water, sleep. They’re necessary! And he made them necessary for a reason.

And what is that reason?

Because he loves us. 

So many people have asked me…what’s the core? What’s the root problem of an eating disorder?

Love

And my answer is love. Food is a gift from God, and he gave it to us because he loves us. 

When I was in the middle of it, my thinking went along the lines of “I don’t deserve food, I don’t deserve love, so I’m not gonna take it.” But also along the lines of “food is terrifying and will kill me.” But also along the lines of “I’m taking up too much space.” But also along the lines of “I feel out-of-control.”

It’s a complex thing. I don’t have all the answers. 

But what changed everything for me was the moment when I decided that I was just going to go with what God said. I would believe, I would act like I believed it, even when I didn’t really. 

Honestly I’ve had to make that decision about so many aspects of my life. And it’s a decision I will never regret.

A contract with God

What part of God’s plan feels hard to you? Food, water, sleep, relationships, whatever it is…how about making a new start for a new season?

Write a contract with God on a spare scrap of paper or a journal entry in the middle of all your messy thoughts or on a Subway napkin. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to say that you will believe what he says about whatever it is, act on what he says about it, and invite him into it for the rest of your life. 

God honors these things.