June 23, 2021

The years 2020 and 2021 were full of events, and a pretty big one for me was starting college. In about a month and a half I’ll be a sophomore, and while reflecting back on my freshman year I remember the bad relationship with food that I developed. I’ve always been a “bigger” girl. I’m 5’8 and have been that way since I was in high school. I was never described as “petite”, “small”, or “little”. I was always “strong”, “broad”, or “tall”; and while those are not negative descriptions in any way, they were not the ones I wanted to be attached to my body.

In my junior year of high school I got on birth control and as a result of that (and later quarantine snacking) I gained around twenty pounds over three years, and I could not shake the weight. The feeling got worse when I went to the doctor for a check-up right before I left for college, and the big, scary letters of “overweight” stood next to my BMI. Then, I gained 5 more pounds while at school during my first semester, which is better than the “Freshman 15” everyone talks about, but I still didn’t like that I had gained weight.

Fast forward to the second semester and I start losing weight (which was mostly the result of the exercise I was getting walking around campus, and also due to my birth control not functioning correctly – which I’m off of now). I had dropped seven pounds and I was THRILLED. Those seven pounds turned into eleven pounds gone in just a couple weeks and I notice that I’m not as hungry as I used to be. I’m eating one, maybe two meals a day and maybe some snacks if I’m really “feeling it”. I started shedding more pounds and suddenly, the feeling of losing weight is starting to outshine the gnawing feeling in my stomach. Then I’m going to only eating an apple a day, and then going to work. I almost pass out one day walking to my car to go to work, and I realize that I need to stop treating myself like this.

At this time I’m in a small discipleship group with four other Christ following ladies and we were going through “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life”, by Donald S. Whitney. A book that covers and elaborates on 10 disciplines that we as Christians should adopt to live for God fully (bible intake, prayer, worship, evangelism, serving, stewardship, fasting, silence and solitude, journaling, and learning). That week we were reading about fasting and one line in the book hit me like a truck.

“Those who eat too much and intentionally eat too little are looking for satisfaction in something other than God.”

I went back in my prayer journal and found this written from the day I read that line,

“I just read in my spiritual disciplines book about how intentionally eating less is destroying the body you worked so hard on creating. The body you made that needs food to survive. The body you made – that in your eyes – is perfect. I’m realizing how I’m going against everything that you laid out for me to do when taking care of my body. I pray Lord that you will give me strength to combat my self destructing thoughts. Amen.”

I mean holy cow. It all clicked.

I’m looking for satisfaction in a smaller pant size, not in God. I’m looking for happiness in a flatter stomach, not in God. I’m looking for content in a bathing suit that will always look better on the model – no matter how skinny I get, not in God.

I was looking for satisfaction in MY reflection, not in God’s.

I started realizing all the things God has given me to further His kingdom that I never paid attention to; my two feet for walking and reaching others to tell them about Christ, my eyes and ears to read and hear more about Him, my fingers that are typing this at the moment, and so many other attributes I have that aren’t comparable on social media.

I started challenging myself to look at my body as God would, and I pray you will do the same. We are incomparable in His eyes and that’s because He made us exactly how He needed and wanted to.

One of my favorite verses is Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations”. Before we were even conceived God knew his plan for us. He knew precisely know we should look, act, talk, and feel in order for us to fulfill His plan. He is bigger than our insecurities, our anxieties, our stressors; and He always will be.