Most people upon hearing the word Bulimia usually think of a super skinny girl who makes herself puke to lose more weight that she does not even need to lose. My bulimia however was not like that . Although I really did not even need to lose the weight just like the girl described above , I did not make myself puke instead I went about it in a different way but it is still described as bulimia.
I knew that I wanted to lose weight but I knew that I could never starve myself nor could I ever make myself puke because I cannot even stand the thought of puking but what I did end up doing was just as ensnaring and sinful as both anorexia and the normal bulimia
It started out innocent, I would only work out for a half an hour on the bicycle downstairs every other day. But then I realized that I was not losing any weight that way ( or at least not fast enough) so I decided to begin working out for an hour each day plus on top of that I started eating a lot less than normal cutting out snacks and desserts and second helpings and cutting my first helping in half. I started this in October or November of 2006 I cannot recall exactly , shortly after the pounds began dropping. I started out weighing at a 105 pounds and in just a couple of weeks I dropped to about 94 pounds.
A couple more weeks passed and I found myself at 92. A few weeks thereafter I weighed in at about 89 pounds. Little did I know that what I was doing was a sin! The world tells us that it is just a disorder but it defiantly is not.
In fact bulimia and anorexia are both just a byproduct of a sin that is well known to every one. That sin is Pride, all who have fallen into those sins are just thinking and are focused on what people think of them.
They have turned from seeking Gods acceptance and favor to seeking it from depraved humans. They no longer care as to whether God is being glorified in their bodies but rather if they are getting glory out of their bodies.
Our bodies are the temples of God! How could I have let such a little thing as pride get into my head ( the thoughts of I need to lose weight so then I can gain some compliments) and then let it control my actions ( bulimia)?
I strayed so far from my Father ( God) during those three to four months of my bulimia.
And if it were not for God working through my sister and my mother and my boyfriend I would have kept losing weight and wasted away to nothing and would probably not even be here today.
I can remember back in January of this year I told my sister about how much I weighed. I chose to tell her because I had not gotten any compliments whatsoever on how I looked and so I thought maybe she would throw me one.
Boy was I wrong. She upon hearing that I only weighed 89 got worried and spilled the beans to my mother a few nights later while I was babysitting.
That night after I had put the children I was watching to bed, my cell phone rang. It was my mother, I can remember her inquiring as to if it was true that I only weighed 89 pounds and of course my answer was full of pride when I said yes, thinking that she would compliment me because she too had lost a lot of weight and she looked really good surely she will compliment me knowing how good compliments were cause she had gotten many for her weight loss. Those were my thoughts. Boy was I wrong!
Instead of complimenting me she went on to talk about how dangerous it was and that I could die if I did not quit. I was so built up in my pride I argued with her and I can remember thinking “ She is just jealous both her and Krista.” Wow how far I had drifted ! I was trapped and entangled in a very dangerous sin and I did not even know! I was to blinded by the sin of my pride!
My parents grounded me that night from the exercise bicycle .
Of all things to ground a seventeen year old girl from usually it is not exercising that is most unheard of but that saved my life.
Although my parents grounded me from that I still ate as little as possible without starving myself and I still found other ways to over exercise .
During this time I started gaining a few pounds back even though I was desperately was trying not to. Ir was devastaing for me but it was for the better.
Now I have shared with you how God worked through my sister and how he used my mother but here is how he used my boyfriend.
We started emailing in February even then I was still striving to lose weight but it was not really working I had gained a few pounds then and was up to 92 or so but my mom was still nagging at me to get back up to at least 100 pounds.
I felt like this was an attack , I had gained a few more pounds could she and my sister and father not just be happy with that?
It took my boyfriend to look at a picture and realize that I had lost a lot of weight and it took his encouragement to gain the weight back for me to get to that set goal of 100 pounds . Without him I am afraid that I would have just stayed at only 92 and suffered some severe consequences.
Although I had already suffered some consequences, some of them serious others not so much. I lost a lot of muscle that I had built up the year before falling into bulimia ( which is what happens when you become bullimic or anorexic your muscles deplete even one of your most vital muscles your heart. That is why it is not uncommon for people to die of cardiac arrest when caught in theses sins.) and I felt a lot weaker because of that and also my pants did not fit anymore. But perhaps the worst consequence was the fact that I also drifted and backslid in my Christian walk. Although I still did my devotions everyday and prayed and went to church that sin separated me from my Father in heaven. I felt a huge gap in between myself and God.
Shortly after getting back up to one hundred pounds I went on the internet and looked up some things about bulimia and anorexia. And that is when I learned the other not so famous side of bulimia.
The way of over exercising and that was when I realized what I had been through was not something innocent but rather a sin. I had always heard that anorexia and bulimia were a sin and not disorder but I did not know the other side of bulimia and so I thought that what I was doing could not be a sin but it indeed was and is. And that sin still affects me today, the way I think , I still have a hard time eating in front of people which is a by product of bulimia and I also always calculate as to how many calories are in the things that I eat.
I still have to be rid the rest of the way of this sin.
Also shortly after getting back my weight I went onto a health sight and I came face to face with how serious my situation had been.
I was asked to enter in my height which is ‘5’3” ( actually really i am 5/5 but i did not know that so entered 5/3) and when it came up with the weight should weigh and it was in between like 108 and 115 and then it came up with the weight of severe anorexia for someone the height of 5/3 and that was 94 pounds. I had weighed only 89 pounds at one point and severe anorexia was considered 94 pounds for someone my height! I was defiantly playing with death and fire.
A teenage girl had died from only weighing 87 pounds she collapsed one day and died ( probably cardiac arrest which I mentioned before). Wow again because I only weighed two pounds less then that! And even though i weighed that had my mom not found out i was planning to continue in my pursuit of weight loss and would have wasted away to nothing. Fortunately God got my attention.
I was so blessed cause most girls who fall into that same sin and similar sins usually end up being hospitalized or worse they become infertile or even worse then that they waste away and die.
I am so blessed that I had a heavenly father looking out for me and who came to my aid and not only did that but He showed mercy and I now stand forgiven for that sin! Boy do I know the significance of that parable about the prodigal son. God’s mercies truly are new every morning. He has so much patience and love and grace and mercy my words cannot even come close to praising or expressing to you how GREAT my God is! He truly guides my steps and he truly has restored and my body and my mind!
What I want people to learn upon reading this is not just about the other side of bulimia nor about what happened to me but I want you to learn the signs of bulimia and how to look and what to watch out for in others around you who might be secretly involved in it and when you do find someone involved in it reach, out to them in love ( Romans 13:8) and help them out of it.
I think many people knew that I was stuck in it but they stayed silent because they were afraid to tell me for whatever the reason. But I am glad that God worked through the people closest to me and I am glad that because of him I am still here.
You will never know how much God can and will use you in another’s life whether through encouragement , through your prayers or even actually through you he can help people out of sin. And it is not that he needs us but that he wants us!
Just be willing to serve our father in every way possible, in every way that he wants to use you. In the big areas such as being a missionary or in the small by helping someone else.
God can and does use us he just needs us to be willing and to do it his way not ours!
That is what I hope you have learned from this. Not my parents nor my sister nor my boyfriend helped me out of that but rather an all powerful God working through them so the praise does not go to them nor me but to God and God alone, but I am glad that all four of them allowed God to work through them.
Pride is something that I still struggle with, bulimia the by product of my pride is pretty much gone but the pride itself is still there , but with Gods help on a daily basis through prayer and through his word and even through the people around me I know that I can and will overcome my biggest struggle PRIDE.
God worked through my boyfriend to help me realize that I even had a problem with pride. I thought that I was a fairly good person , I am saved and am living for God but pride gets in the way of me being all I can be for God.
Everyday I am convicted of prideful thoughts attitudes and even sinful actions and emotions that I commit on a daily basis all with pride at the drivers seat of my car.
I know it is wrong and I am desperately trying to turn around and confess and forsake this terrible sin.
Had Jesse not let God use him, had he just kept silent about my pride , and had he just kept it to himself I would never even had known that there was a problem there. So my thanks this thanksgiving goes to God for everything that he has blessed me with which are many , but most importantly for grabbing a hold of my life and for working through people to bring me back to him and for not forsaking me and for his unfailing LOVE , PAITIENCE, MERCY and FORGIVENESS!
I let my body become an idol! Generally that is what prideful people
Do they let there bodies, things and many other things become their idols.
Sadly I still struggle daily with letting my body become my idol.
But God is faithful and merciful and he has let me continue on for a reason!
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I wrote this .... around thanksgiving of 2007. It is just a memoir of what I actually went through in the year 2006.
Some of you may be shocked but that is okay. I just hope that you find it in your hearts to forgive me?
Yes i still struggle everyday with prideful thoughts like i mentioned above so please be in prayer about this with me!
Thanks everyone! My secret is out.
I thought i could hide it from everyone ( who was I kidding).
But my God is an all knowing God and he knew and now thankfully many others know and are helping me!
Galatians 6:1-2 " Brethren if any man is over taken in any trespass you
who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness considering lest you also be tempted, Bear one another's burdens and SO FULFILL
THE LAW OF CHRIST."
JAMES 5:16 " Confess your trespasses to one another and
pray for one another that you be healed . The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."
JAMES 5:19-20 " Brethren if anyone among you wanders from
the truth and someone turns him back let him
know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will
save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins."
Hebrews 3:13 " But exhort one another DAILY while it is still called
TODAY lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 " Two are better than one because
they have a good reward for their labor, For if they fall
one will lift up his companion But woe to him who is alone when he falls
for he has no one to help him up."
Thank God I WAS NOT ALONE!!
I thank Him also that i am not alone now either!
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