My Journey Out of Bulimia with God

Those who've known me for some time, know that i once had bulimia, an eating disorder that distorts your perception of self. It only dawned on me recently to blog on it. I wrote briefly about my experience in one of my reflection papers while i was in SWM last year.

Through my journey of bulimia and God's eventual healing for me.. I came to an awarenes that there are voices that I have heard that have paraded themselves as truth and how i have fallen trap to it. I used to think to myself that i really want to die than keep living the way i did. Truth is: Someone does want me DEAD. But that person wasn't me. Read on to find out what i mean!

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23 Aug 2005 - Missionary Life and Spirituality, Listening Prayer

It was eye opening to know how the author identified the three voices – Self, Satan and God and the words and spoken manner that characterizes them. I feel however, that there is a close link between the self voice and Satan’s voice and I’d like to think that Satan sometimes impersonates himself as us. The author states that self-talk is highly influenced by his culture, which in turn is influenced by the world, and of which Satan is the prince presently. The Self talk then, is an indirect means by which we have allowed Satan to shape our mindsets through the world.

It is important for a Christian to know that in God’s kingdom, a new standard and definition of what is nice, loving, polite or giving is now set. Unfortunately for many of us, we carry it into our new Christian walk until the Word of God renews our mindset and shows us otherwise. Even the concept of love varies from culture to culture and even from person to person. I recall that one of my major stumbling blocks to trusting God was the concept of love. My concept of true love was that if one truly loves another, he must love only that one person. As a result, it was hard for me to understand God’s love because I found it almost impossible to believe that God truly loves me when He supposedly loves everybody else all the same. In this context, the definition of love had to be remolded and it took a breakthrough and the hand of God for me trust Him in that

“Satan’s goal is your destruction. He would prefer you dead, or if not that, at least numbed-out. He has no power over your life, but enjoys convincing you to destroy yourself… Satan intends to destroy your self-esteem. He enjoys making you hate yourself..” - Chapter 5, pp 51

Coming across this reminded me of the time when I was bulimic. I had been bulimic for 3 years since I was 18 years old and even in the months after I received Christ I continued being bulimic, largely because I never saw there was anything wrong with that. I did however, feel like I would die any moment, and feel like dying instead of living like that but I never thought about seeking God for help because I never knew I could.

Thoughts like “You’re better off dead than living like that” would come to mind many times, especially in the year that I had received Christ. I remembered hating myself and my own body so much especially in the binge and purge cycle and there would also be such a strong feeling of condemnation after, especially since I had just become a Christian, and knew I shouldn’t be like that (perfectionist syndrome again). It was only after attending a Bible Study called “Breaking Free in Christ” by Beth Moore that I realized that God didn’t want me to live a life like that and He had the ability to free me. However, because I hadn’t had the courage to tell anyone about my problem, I struggled with it for a long time alone. I became angry with God for not healing me quickly and I could not understand the root cause for my problem. One night, as I was walking in the snow alone, crying out in anger to God when I suddenly heard/sensed a voice saying, “It’s not about you, it’s about Me.” As strange as it seemed, those words had an almost immediate calming effect on me and it dawned on me that I had been struggling in my own strength to “stop” this illness instead of depending on God’s power.

I was eventually healed by the work of God (story is too long to be here) but I will never forget that one incident in the snow. That season of my life became one of the turning points of my Christian walk and it was the first time I experienced the peace of God.

Yet however, since then, I’ve had many moments struggling to discern the voice of God and I am guilty of being one to say “I don’t know” when asked if I heard God. The author’s explanation has helped me a lot.

“We are deceived because what we usually mean by “know” is to grasp with the mind, or to be able to explain. However, knowing happens not primarily in our minds but in our spirits….We can and do know spiritual truth, but not first in our minds.. Spiritual truth is known in our spirits” – Chapter 6, pp 64

Her exhortation using Matthew 13:11 reminds me that I can know the voice of God. Many times, there have been impressions that I get and when people ask me if God said that to me, I wouldn’t be able to say, ‘The Lord said…’ but it was just an impression and it’s hard to put into words. The onus then, is on me, to patiently seek God for a clear understanding of what He is trying to say.

But the most important thing I got out of the readings is that it is certain that I will and can hear the voice of God and I have been hearing the Word of God. I was also reminded of the various times when ideas would come to me on how to organize a certain event or what I could do to bless someone.

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The enemy is surely a deceiving serpent, a Father of lies and unfortunately many people are not taught to recognize his lies as lies but instead hear it as the truth. I believe that learning to listen to God is a crucial skill that needs to be taught to all disciples. Ignorance, contrary to popular belief is not bliss and could instead bring tremendous harm to a sincere, whole-hearted believer.