Hunger keeps the human body healthy. It reminds the human body that it needs something. That in its current state, it is lacking something.
Hunger takes the edge off for me. I don’t know why, but it does.
I spent my whole life trying.
Disappearing becomes an art if you have Anorexia. You find beauty in it. You find strength in it. You find yourself in it. Or so you think.
You are empty. You are powerful. You are strong. You don’t need food like those other humans. Food weighs you down. It gets in your way.
So you float. You float through your day. You float through your life. And you think you are living, but you’re not.
You are crying out to God, but you don’t really want to hear what He has to say. “Fix me! Make me better.” “I want to child, but you have to come to me. You have to let me.” “NO!” You scream. “I can’t let go, I can’t let go.”
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
Your day is unbearably long, but you don’t even notice because you’re empty. You think nothing, you feel nothing. You’re just a shell.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
Someone is talking to you. You are trying to understand them, but you're lost. Your brain zones in and out these days. No one’s really sure what’s wrong with you. You’re not really sure what’s wrong with you.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
You don’t really sleep anymore. Your bones poke through your skin so laying down in bed is no longer comfortable. You lay there. You stare into the darkness. Your eyes are hollow. There’s nothing behind them anymore. And you pray. You pray like crazy that you will wake up in the morning.
“Come to me, Child.
Because you’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
And then, you are sent away. You are sent to this place. This place that is supposed to help you get better.
This place is in a desert. It is 110 degrees here. But you are still cold.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
The first girl you see is being rolled across the campus in a wheel chair, and you wonder how in the world you ended up here.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
They’re doing intake. Asking you all of these questions. Taking your blood. You hate getting your blood drawn.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
You’re sitting down. You’re eating dinner. You haven’t had a meal in months.
“Come to me, Child.
You’re disappearing.
You’re dying.”
Three days pass in a blur. You’ve cried at least six times each day. But you suddenly find yourself laughing. Really laughing. Not the hollow laugh that you’d taken up recently. The sound is so foreign to you. It catches you off guard.
There is food in your stomach. You are not empty. Some of the fog has lifted from your brain.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You suddenly have this insatiable hunger for God’s word. His truth is jumping out at you.
“Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and well with joy.” Isaiah 60:5
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You spend the evenings sitting outside watching the sunset. You take in the beauty of the desert. Though the road is dusty, the air is hot and sticky, and everything is dry, beautiful flowers somehow manage to grow here. Beautiful June Bugs fly through the air, sometimes landing in your hair. There are butterflies. Butterflies everywhere.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You stop disappearing. You start to become. The scales are lifted from your eyes, and suddenly you understand in the core of who you are, that you are created. You are called. You are chosen. So you stand up. You start to actually say what’s on your mind. You stop letting fear stop you. You start to enjoy.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You stop ignoring the nagging call on your heart to step up into your calling. You start to let God use you. And suddenly you become proud of your gifts. You become proud of who you have been created and called to be.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
And you eat. You eat six times a day. You eat chicken and bacon and bread and cookies. You eat teddy grahams and nutella and about six pears a day. And you gain the weight. And sometimes you hate it. Sometimes you want to rip your hair out. You want to crawl out of your skin. You want to scream.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
But you get used to it. You look in the mirror and you see health instead of death looking back at you. You see the truth God has placed in your heart radiating out of you. You see courage and joy and peace and life.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You get to come home. And the real work starts. You have to walk in your new skin in a place where people are used to the old you. The hollow you. The dead you.
But the lies have been replaced with truth. You have been made new.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You have good days, lots of them. Days where you have never felt more alive. More free. You walk confidently in this world. Then you have bad days. You lose weight again. Then you gain it back. Then you lose it again. It is a struggle. The road is not perfect.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
But you know who you are now. You know whose you are. You are called. You are created. You are chosen. You have value. You no longer want to disappear. You love this season of becoming.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
You are free. You know healing. And now you get to live. You get to live with Jesus. And you realize that that is all that ever mattered anyway. It’s all he ever wanted.
“Come to me Child, and live.”
The enemy wanted to kill you. He wanted you to disappear. To die. But Jesus came to give you life. And now you know life like you never have before.
“Come to me Child, and live."
