Life is hard.

My weekend was harder than it's been in a long time. I cried a lot, and learned even more.

My parents, who love me very much, are pushing me to diet, and be more careful about how I spend my money. It was very hard to hear someone tell me that I'm wrong, and I need to change, but it's what I needed, so I'm grateful for it, regardless of how much it hurt.

But no matter what I think or feel, I don't need to be perfect. Yes, my parents want me to be better. Yes, they want a good life for me. But I don't need to take that to the extreme and say that I'm a disappointment to them, and a failure. With God's help, I will not give into the shame that ed is trying to push on me.

I will instead, choose to trust in God, and His faithfulness, knowing that I am not alone, and that I am loved. With His help, I will work hard, but not expect to be perfect. I will love God, love others, and love myself, and that's what is most important in my life.

I don't need to let the little negative things build up in my life. I can give them to God, and trust Him to sort them out. I can't solve everything. Heck, I can hardly solve anything. I'm so glad that I have Jesus.

Encouragement

I just wanted to take the time to say that God is good, all the time. Even when I don't believe it, or see it, He doesn't change. He is the creator of the universe and beyond, but He still looks at me in loving kindness. He is my King, but He is also my Father, and I can come to Him. His love doesn't have room for shame or condemnation, and His grace is perfect in it's complete freedom.

Take time today to think about exactly how God has blessed you today. Come up with five things, big or small, and thank God for them.

My 5 Things

1) Lexi for agreeing to give me a ride home this weekend.

2) Ingrid Michaelson's music, It's really good.

3) Making it into the Christmas musical.

4) Umbrellas, and refreshing rain.

5) Excedrin migraine medicine, and relief from the migraine that could have taken over my day.

Also, this is random, but I found this verse the other day, and I LOVE it:

He only is my rock and my Salvation; He is my defense and my fortress, I shall not be moved.

Psalm 62:6

I am His and He is mine.

I'm going to let you know that I was very frustrated today. I binged at two meals, and I was basically drowning in shame. I wrote this blog over maybe three times, and each time I got more irritated with myself, and with God. Or at least, I thought I was irritated with God. I was really irritated with ed. I get those two mixed up sometimes, and the result is emotionally crushing. Good thing God is an expert at putting the pieces back together.

So, I was sitting here on my bed this afternoon, begging God for answers. "Why do have this eating disorder? Why do I feel like You've left me? Where do I go from here? How do I recover from this bingeing episode? Why don't I know the answers to these questions right now?!"

And here's what I came up with: I am not God. I will never be God, and I will never be perfect like God. I don't always know the answers, and sometimes I get frustrated. But I can always count on God to be God. And that's where His peace comes in.

I'm continually confronted with the decision to trust God or trust ed. Most of the time, I choose ed, but I'm learning more each day how to choose God. And even though I choose ed sometimes, God always takes me back, because it's not about what you DO, it's about who you are. And who am I? I am God's daughter, a display of His splendor. I am a sheep, following my Shepherd. I am a treasure, beautiful in every way. I am His, and He is mine.

He Just Loves.

I just wrote two long paragraphs about how selfish I can be when I realized that something was amiss in my thinking. So, I hit the delete button and decided to start over.

See, I am selfish and humanly flawed. But the thing is, God doesn't sit there and stare at that part of us. He doesn't condemn us or point fingers. He just loves.

Yes, I need to get my head up and away from myself. Yes, I need to be more grateful. But I can't expect to do that by myself. And I certainly can't expect to do it right away. It's okay to be imperfect, because that's the part of me that NEEDS God so desperately. I think God blesses us in our neediness because that's when He is able to show His perfect Grace.

Instead of sitting here, thinking about how wrong I am, my focus needs to be on how right He is.

It's okay to be imperfect, because through all of that junk, He just loves.

All Campus, Off Campus

This weekend, I went of the ACOC retreat. It was mostly a good time, but some of it was a struggle.

It was kind of thrown into plain light that I don't have a "core" group of friends. I have Joelle, who I absolutely LOVE, but that's about it. And it started to really bother me because I felt like I was tagging along with some other people, but not really being a part of their "group" thing. So I left what we were doing at the time, and just sat and talked with God.

Here's what I came up with:

A: I am not going to come to college and instantly have an awesome group of friends like I have back home. It may happen later, but certainly not immediately. Friendship takes TIME, quality time. So what I'm feeling is normal.

B: This is a perfect opportunity to place my heart in Gods hands, where it's safest. He knows my emotional needs, and He is only doing what is best for me right now. So my best bet would be to just TRUST HIM, and lean on His understanding rather than my own.

C: I am where I am for a reason. God loves me insane amounts, and because of that, where I am is where I'm supposed to be.

D: If you ask, He will provide.

So I asked God for friends. I actually pretty much BEGGED God for friends. And do you know what happened the very next day? A wonderful girl named Claire pretty much landed in my life. She lives on my floor, and I'd met her before, but this was the first time when we were able to really talk. And I found out that she's really cool. We like a lot of the same stuff, and she kind of reminds me of my friends back home.

I could have cried.

God is SO faithful to His children. He provided a friend for me right when I needed it most, and really just showed me His love through her.

Whether or not we become "best friends forever" is really up to God. But this really showed me in a tangible way is that yes, He is taking care of me, and yes, he does love me.

On an aside, the sugar-free life is WONDERFUL. I absolutely love it. It's not always easy, but it's showing me that I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me. And the human support doesn't hurt either. I don't know whether I'll be doing it forever, but for right now, I am confident it is what I need to be doing.

Thanks for reading!

Easy As Pie... So far.

Before I do anything else, I want to thank those of you who were there for me last night. It meant the world to me to know that you care, and I'm just so thankful to God for you.

Today is day 1 of me giving up sugar. To be honest, it hasn't been that bad. I now have a response to my cravings: I can't have that because I gave up sugar. So in that sense, it's made things easier.

It's still a struggle to wake up in the morning and choose to trust God, but I think He's teaching me how to do that, so I'm hopeful. I think that's the difference between today and yesterday: I have hope. And that is such a HUGE thing. I think God knows exactly what we need when we need it. I needed to have a meltdown in order to come back to Him. I needed to really feel the pain that I'd been stuffing down, in order to find relief. His plan is always better than ours, and I'm finding that out more and more each day.

God, thank you for everything you've given me. Thank you for the family and friends that I have that always support me. Thank you so much for being exactly what I need when I need it. You are beautiful and holy.

God, I need you.

I just devoured 2 candy bars.

I'm sitting on my bed, crying harder than I have in a really long time.

I feel like for the past three weeks, I've been trying to climb a craggy mountain with just my fingers. And my fingernails are breaking, and my knuckles are bruised. I've been trying SO hard to be perfect, and act like I have it all together, but I DON'T. Not even close.

To be honest, I'm SO sick of being imperfect. I'm sick of this eating disorder. I'm sick of myself. And I can't help but cry right now, because I feel like I will never be free. I'm SO afraid that I will never be free.

I know God has a plan for all of this, and that it is all good, because He wants nothing but good for me. But I'm having such a hard translating that from my head to my heart.

Oh, God, I've been trying so hard to do this all by myself, and I just realized that I need you so bad. I need you from the depths of my heart. My neediness is so great, that if it were water, it could take the place of an ocean. Please just take my heart and hold it. Hold it, and make it into something beautiful. Because I can't do that. Only You can.