Years ago, I was a sometimes anorexic, but mostly bulimic, church secretary/Bible-college student/pastor’s wife. Wow, that reads pretty rough, even now. Then, on September 10, 2008, I called my pastor-husband from a Starbucks parking lot and told him I was going to die. Exhausted, I’d just ordered a double espresso so I could sit up straight, but then my heart began beating too fast. I kept looking at my eyes in the rearview mirror, wondering why the whites of them looked so gray. Actually, they’d been looking gray for a while.
Up until that point, being dysfunctional with food was my secret life. I’d always thought of myself as an honest person, but I was desperate to hide my secret—so I became deceitful. Nearly every waking moment was spent lying and then trying to cover up the lies. Even at that time, I was familiar with every passage listed in today’s reading. I knew James 5:16 by heart: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”
But I couldn’t confess. I wouldn’t confess. I just wanted to be healed. I wanted the healing part without the confession part. Hiding seemed safer than sharing because I was convinced confession would bring the opposite of healing: humiliation, destruction, and ruin.
Still, God’s Word kept telling me that His kingdom was different. That keeping silent would brittle my bones (Psalm 32:3), but sharing would bring life, not death. God repeatedly led me to one verse in the Bible that I could find right now, blindfolded and upside down. It was like a weight hanging around my neck for all those miserable years when I was caught in this sin.
The one who conceals his sins will not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy (Proverbs 28:13).
I can’t really think about it without crying. Mercy. I’d never wanted anything so much, yet nothing felt further away. But on that September day, with the espresso and heart palpitations and gray eyes, I just knew something had to change. My sin and disobedience and hiding were going to kill me. With a sliver of surrender and a mountain of God’s grace, after three-and-a-half years proving I just wasn’t strong enough to stop on my own—I obeyed. I made a phone call to confess my sin and my struggle. First, to my husband, and then, to a counselor.
And I felt a release. I’m not sure of the exact moment, of where or when. Maybe it was there in my car, sitting in the Starbucks parking lot, my heart racing. Or in the lobby of the counselor’s office. Maybe I felt the release in my confession. The exact moment doesn’t matter so much. What matters is that God heard my cry and confession. He met me in my brokenness. His healing, however He chooses to give it, is always miraculous. It’s always a kindness and mercy.
Thank you for sharing your sin and process to confession! Your story really opened my eyes to how harboring sin can definitely withhold God’s promises for our lives.
Heather, I could have written this myself. “I need a new workout program, I need a new diet regimen” but in all honesty, they aren’t working because I’m not working. And same as you, I eat when no one else can see and then say I can’t lose weight. While that’s an issue, hiding it is also an issue.
If you haven’t ever heard of it, Made to Crave by Lysa Turkerst. So good & im going to start it today.
After reading all 85 comments, I have to speak up. Scarlet Hiltibidal thank you for your honesty and bravery. Too often Christians put pastor’s wives on a pedestal and expect them to be perfect. I felt your pain as you confessed to the hiding and lying and understood that those were your guilt laden sins. Thank you again for sharing your life altering testimony.
@Bethany. I read it as the fact that she was hiding it was the sin. The eating disorder wasn’t the sin, but hiding it and being dishonest with her husband was.
@Harper — I agree with you that eating disorders are diseases of the body. From the reading and the comments, what I took saw was confession of the sins we commit to hide our illness. The eating disorder isn’t the illness it’s our actions because of the shame, guilt that we’ve tied to it.
It can’t be healed if it stays hidden!
As a healthcare professional and someone who has personally struggled with disordered eating and body dysmorphia I want to emphasize that eating disorders are a mental illness, not a sin. I agree that it is important to be vulnerable and transparent in order to get help and healing, and I believe God can heal this like anything else, but it is not something that should be condemned by Christians. There is no biblical basis for this. I’ve never disagreed with a devotional in 5 years of reading SRT, but I have to say that I think this one is a little dangerous, because it may make the shame and fear of confronting this even worse. We need to encourage vulnerability and hope, not point fingers.
Anorexia and bulimia are an illness often secret in nature and I just want to encourage anyone who is suffering from this, not to blame yourself or get wrapped up in any kind of guilt trips or self condemnation but to seek help from trusted advisors. Too many believers have been given very faulty theology in regard to seeking medical intervention because we have the ultimate healer Jesus, forgetting that Jesus has raised up healers among us. As sisters in Christ we need to bond and stick together united by faith, accepting our own weaknesses and failures knowing that God knows, we are fully known, cherished and loved by him. And only through him he will bring us through our bitterest nights to a brand new day. It’s ok to be you, by our very nature we can’t get it right, we just can’t be perfect, but I think we need to be kind to ourselves confessing first to ourselves that things might not be how we want and then let God be the loving and caring father that he is.
I see myself in your words Monique. Thank you for your honesty and for challenging me to seek god first too.