Disclaimer: I am not a psychologist and am not trained in eating disorder treatment or prevention. I struggled with disordered eating/eating disorders for 12 years and I am now in recovery. My purpose behind writing these posts is to start the conversation about eating disorders, information pills which continue to be misunderstood and stigmatized, search share my experience with those who have eating disorders or know others who do, and to hopefully give some clarity and understanding about these complicated and dangerous diseases. I also want to give hope that recovery is possible!
Trigger warnings: In all of my posts about eating disorders, I try to be very sensitive and avoid triggering language. However, the reality is that I am talking about eating disorder thoughts and behaviors and recognize that these posts could trigger people struggling with EDs. If you think that these posts could be the least bit triggering for you, please do not read them. The last thing I want to do is to set anyone back in their recovery process.
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Who you are and what you struggle with are not the same thing.
This statement it true, but when you are struggling with an eating disorder, it doesn’t feel true.
When I was struggling with my eating disorder, I lost who I was. I couldn’t separate myself from it—we were the same.
The scariest part of recovery for me was not the idea of gaining weight or losing my long-time coping mechanisms…don’t get me wrong, those things were absolutely terrifying. But there was something that was even harder for me to face and that was the reality that I didn’t know who I was without my eating disorder. I was scared of losing my identity.
And the idea that your eating disorder gives you your identity is such a lie from the Enemy—no one but the Lord gives you your identity. And while I knew that with my mind, I didn’t feel it in my heart. Twelve years of hearing the lies of the Enemy had given them such a hold over me.
As I entered into recovery, the eating disorder and I started to separate. Instead of it being a part of me, it stood right behind me, breathing down my neck. But it was a start. As I walked further into recovery the eating disorder was pushed further back behind me. It could still talk to me, but the voice grew quieter as it was pushed further away. Sometimes it was so far behind me that I couldn’t hear its shouts anymore. And sometimes something would happen that pushed it right behind me again.
There’s an argument between psychologists whether or not people can ever be recovered from their eating disorder, or if they will always be “in recovery.” I absolutely one hundred percent believe that full and final recovery is possible not only because I have met people who consider themselves recovered, but most of all because I love a God with whom all impossible things become possible.
In this post I talked about how God promised me that the year 2013 would be the year of my recovery and praise God it was! I saw such amazing freedom in the year 2013 and as it got closer to the New Year, I got more and more excited about full freedom. But the Lord also warned me—He warned me that just because I knew recovery was coming didn’t mean that the Enemy would respect it one bit. And let me tell you, Satan has not respected my recovery.
On the morning of January 1st, 2014, I got up and was so excited! Yeah freedom! I went downstairs, made breakfast, and when I put the first bit of food in my mouth I had the strongest urge to use an old ED behavior. And you know what I did? I said, “Well, that’s not who I am anymore!” finished that bite of food and the rest of my breakfast, and then I praised God for His faithfulness!
I currently consider myself in recovery, not quite to the point of recovered, only because I have to continue to be on high alert for any ED thoughts or behaviors that enter my life. But I know that the status of recovered is in my future. I am confident of it because in the past year God has taught me who I am in Him. Any anytime Satan tries to tell me otherwise, I can look him in the face and say I am a new creation in Christ! He has made me new and I will never forget my identity in Him. The parts of me that fell away along with my eating disorder were not core parts of my identity. I did lose things with the loss of my eating disorder–I lost depression, anxiety, and bitterness. And it turns out, I was just fine letting go of those things.
Eating disorder recovery statistics are discouraging. But Praise the Lord that He is not a respecter of statistics. After 12 years of battling an eating disorder I didn’t think that I would ever recover. And yet I have :) If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, don’t give up on recovery! No matter how long you’ve been battling this disease, you can win.
If you want to learn more about eating disorders, click here to read more posts I’ve written about the issue :)
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This is Part 1 in a 5 part series. To see all the posts in the Who Rules the World? series, injection
CLICK HERE.
Several years ago, cure when I was in high school, viagra 100mg
I was home alone and someone rang the doorbell. I looked to see who it was and saw an older woman and a young child (I’m assuming her daughter). I opened the door and, without introducing herself, saying hello, or anything, she help up a pamphlet that had this scary apocalyptic picture on it with the question, “Who rules the world?” written on it. The woman asked me, “How would you answer this question?”
I was, naturally, thrown off guard– remember, she didn’t say hi or anything, she just asked this question right away. So here I am, a straight-A, perfectionist scrambling for an answer. I decided to go with the classic Sunday school technique- if you don’t know the answer to a question, just say, “Jesus” and you’re probably right. So I said, “Umm…God?” And her response was, “You would think so, but no! It’s Satan!” And I thought, “Drat! I knew that!”
This incident has stuck with me, first of all, because it was a truly bizarre experience. But also because it illustrates a really important theological issue that, I believe, most Christians get wrong just as I did in that moment standing in my doorway years ago. When asked the question, “Who rules the world? Who has authority here?” most Christians, in my experience at least, answer “God.” But the interesting thing is that Jesus tells us something very different, and what he says forces us to change the way we think about the world we live in.
In John 12:31, Jesus says, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.”
In John 14:30, he says, “the ruler of this world is coming.”
In John 16:11, he says, “the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
In all three verses, Jesus is talking about Satan, the Devil, and calls him the prince and ruler of the world. The word that is translated as “prince” and “ruler” in these verses is the same Greek word “archon,” which means “ruler, commander, chief, leader.”
In the Believer’s Bible Commentary, William MacDonald says about John 12:31:
The world was about to crucify the Lord of life and glory. In doing so, it would condemn itself. Sentence would be passed upon it for its awful rejection of Christ. The ruler of this world is Satan. In a very real sense, Satan was utterly defeated at Calvary. He thought he had succeeded in doing away with the Lord Jesus once for all. Instead, the Savior had provided a way of salvation for men, and at the same time had defeated Satan and all his hosts. The sentence has not yet been carried out on the devil, but his doom has been sealed. He is still going through the world carrying on his evil business, but it is just a matter of time before he will be cast into the lake of fire.
MacDonald draws a good clarification- Satan’s ultimate defeat was sealed by the Cross, yet that doesn’t mean that he stops being the ruler of the world until the time of his ultimate judgment. This is seen when Paul, years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, writes in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Paul says that Satan is the “god of this age.” This is true even after Calvary and will continue to be true until Satan is defeated for all time, as described in the book of Revelation (12:11 and 20:7-10).
At the beginning of Luke 4, Jesus is “led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil” (Luke 4:1-2). And this is what Satan says to him:
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
-Luke 4:5-8
Did you catch that? Satan says that he has authority over all the kingdoms of the world- that authority has been given to him. And does Jesus dispute this claim? No, he does not.
Dutch Sheets writes in his book Intercessory Prayer:
God created Adam and Eve in his own image, in his own likeness, and gave them authority over the earth. They were to represent God on earth, to govern and manage the Earth. So complete and final was their authority over the earth that they, not just God, had the ability to give it away to another.
This is absolutely crucial- the Bible clearly tells us that Satan, the Adversary, the Devil has authority over this world- he is the god of this world, he is the ruler, he is the prince. This truth needs to impact our theology, the way we view this world, and the way we view God, and it reveals three important things:
1. It challenges the view that God is in control/wills everything that happens on earth.
2. It teaches us about the need for prayer, especially intercessory prayer.
3. It tells us about the spiritual warfare that is happening around us and leads us to pick up arms and fight.
In the next three blog posts, I will address and expand upon these three points in the hopes that we will start to have a better understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ so that we can better live out our lives as ambassadors of Christ and bring His kingdom to earth.
So what are your thoughts? How would you answer the question I was asked? Have you ever thought about these Bible passages in this way?
To read the next post, Part 2, click HERE.
