Manipulation is a strange drug, and one I became addicted to around the age of 10. The mathematical equation of my life leading me to the answer, manipulation, was a ferocious design of type A personality, strong perfectionist ideation, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive tendencies, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and competitive gymnastics. I became skilled at listening to the lies my internal and external circumstances were roaring at me. I took ownership of everything I perceived and turned it into a manipulated truth. Quickly, I became so deceived by the self-manipulation of my thoughts, I also became addicted to the manipulation of my body.
I found myself caught in a destructive lifestyle I was convinced was my identity. Even as I climbed my way out of the pit of behavioral patterns of starving, binging, and purging, I never believed in my mind I’d be renewed to the point of not desiring the destructive behaviors. I relentlessly believed I’d face the reality of food as my enemy every day for the rest of my life. Strive and fail became the rhythm of my life as I relapsed my way to 23 years old.
The comforts anorexia and bulimia brought me were many, and my life without the behaviors lacked the inner healing my soul was writhing in pain for. After 13 years, I found myself at the crossroad I’d been trying to find on my life map for at least 3 of the 13 years I struggled. I call this crossroad Gethsemane. (Read Matthew 26:36-39).
Before paving the way through the cross of sin, shame, and death to audacious life, Jesus knelt alone before His Father. Full of weakness and heavy with distress, Jesus asked God to take the cup of suffering from His hands. I, too, found myself in this place one day; alone, knelt before my King, hands laying lifeless on the ground in front of me. “God, I’ve handed this cup of suffering to You too many times. I’ve reached up and taken the cup back more times than I care to count. I’m too weak to lift my hands up and hand it to You even once more. You have to reach down and take it from my weak and lifeless hands.”
In a moment of complete surrender, with nothing but my brokenness and inabilities to offer God, I found myself being filled with peace, love, healing, and fullness. I walked away from this moment free and changed.
Continuing to enter into the presence of my God’s lavishing love has allowed me to live life more freely each day, growing in my understanding of temptation versus slavery. (Read Galatians 5). I am no longer a slave to the distractions of temptation and my opportunity to choose freedom is available to me every day.
There’s not a formula to your healing. There aren’t perfect words or fancy rituals or intelligent restrictions you can say, perform, or put in place. There’s just a Man who paved a way for you to be free to choose freedom.
