God, what do you want me to know about this situation?
I was curled up under a blanket on the couch, praying for a friend who is struggling with a pattern of behavior. I felt frustrated, honestly. I’ve been praying for her for quite some time, Why is this still a thing for her? In my logical brain it seems so simple. Just stop. Right? I prayed the same things as usual, the same Scriptures, then stopped and asked the question above. God, what do you want me to know about this situation?
And then I remembered.
I remembered a time when I wasn’t free.
It feels like watching another life, it’s so remote. When I 18-20 I struggled with what we’d call an eating disorder. Both ways, falling into both ditches. First under-eating, then over-eating. And while yes, there was about a 30-pound swing from lightest to heaviest, it wasn’t the weight that was the issue. In fact, what’s hard about so many issues of the heart is we over-focus on the outer stuff, when the healing is needed so deeply within in the unseen realm.
But I remember that feeling: Why can’t I just be free? What is wrong with me? Why do I KEEP doing this thing? It was beyond frustrating. It felt beyond hopeless.
Day after day, I never felt free.
In my case, it was a slow process of renewing my mind with Scripture and slowly, bit by bit, making inward and outward choices that honored God. Getting married to Jeff was life-changing, on every level, because his human expression of unconditional love transformed my heart. But I remember even after that disordered season was over, still recognizing that something was off in my mind, and that I came by it honestly — all the females in my family line struggled with weight, food, dieting, etc. In one side of my family line, food was the go-to. It fixed things, it brought comfort, it was the answer. But in the same breath there was the desire to lose weight. Not blaming anyone, but something about that felt off.
And it was in 2012 when Jeff and I began tackling what we identified as family tendencies we wanted to change. I could see what the unhelpful go-to was for my lineage: reaching for food as a stress-release. It didn’t matter if it was a cookie or a carrot (there are no holy foods), it was that after a stressful day I would come home and reach for that, the way some people grab a beer or pour a glass of wine. It’s like Ahhhh…finally.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about hunger. It’s one thing to come home hungry and grab food because you are hungry. That’s healthy! It’s another thing to come home not hungry and grab food because it’s you’re way to cope. And the tricky part for me was it was hard to share this with anyone because I wasn’t overweight. It wasn’t like Oh I have this problem because I need to lose weight. That wasn’t it! It was, There’s something in my brain that’s reaching for this thing as my solution, instead of reaching to Christ.
At this point, Heidi was only 3, and I remember thinking, “There is no way I want my one and only daughter to inherit this. This stops with me. I’ll do whatever is takes to not hand her this thing.”
And in God’s gracious kindness, as I went to him and asked for insight, for truth, for clarity on what to do, He did it.
It’s kind of a long story how that went, and the details don’t so much matter because the prescription God gives for each situation is different, but my point is, now 12 years later, I can barely even remember what it was like to think like that.
It feels like my brain has been literally re-wired. Like I wish I could convey how completely different my brain is. God changed me.
And it happened through a renewal of my mind, slowly. It wasn’t overnight. And now, if I could tell my 18-year-old self, “Hey Kari, when you’re 44 this thing will be so gone you won’t even remember it, until God brings it to your mind” I’m not sure whether that’d be encouraging or not. 🙂 But I hope it would be.
What I’d like to tell my 18-year-old self is that these battles with our flesh, these raging storms in our minds that we face in our efforts to truly follow Jesus and live in the light, often they just take time to win.
Don’t give up because you don’t feel like you’re making progress. Where you are today isn’t where you’ll be 10 years from now. And if you make the right choice today, you are moving toward a glorious future of freedom.
This isn’t just true of phsyical temptations like food or sex, this is true of mindsets: Bitterness, resentment, negativity, gossip, anxiety, fear.
All of it starts in the mind.
And so as I turned my prayers back to my friend, I was reminded that God is not panicked by our struggles with sin. He’s not wringing His hands. He’s with us for the long haul. He’s promised to walk alongside us forever.
And even while we’re battling sin, God still graciously uses us. We’re always a work in progress, and simultaneously God works in us and through us for His glory.
So if you’re one of those still not feeling the freedom, take courage. It might be a while longer until the victory is secured, but you can be free.