Anorexia & the Sanctity of Human Life

I’ll tell you what, you’ve never watched a presidential debate until you’ve watched one in a bar with a bunch of Europeans on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

I promise, I’m not getting political…

But let’s just say, they don’t mince words about how they really feel about Trump and Hillary. The term “Satan’s Spawn” was definitely used….and I’ll let you decide who they were referring to.

ANYWHO.

I sat down to write this post tonight, and I felt like I needed to update you on my date, but honestly, after watching the debate tonight, and everything that has gone on this weekend, from Hurricane Matthew, to the shooting in Chicago, to the political climate, I just felt like…there are more important things to talk about than my love life….

So, to answer that first question, I had a lovely time on my date. Truly. He had me laughing the entire time, which I fully appreciate. Kind. Smart. Handsome. There will be a second date.

And thank you to everyone “rooting” for me on the big night. Honest to goodness, it meant so much. 🙂

OK.

Now onto the important stuff.

I’m going to publish a post that I’ve had in my drafts for – literally 9 months. I haven’t worked up the courage to publish it…until now.

I thought it timely to discuss something that has been on my heart for a long time.

Part of the reason why I have been hesitant to write this is because I don’t want to offend anyone. Especially since it is election season, discussing “hot button issues” is always a recipe to rustle a few feathers.

But anywho…the Good Lord knows I haven’t minced words up until now, so this won’t be any different.

I am pro-life.

And here’s why:

During my adolescence, for a good two years, I had severe anorexia. You know this.

Although I never would have said, “I’m trying destroy my life,” I was doing just that. Compulsively exercising, barely eating, and lying about the whole bit, I wasted away to a mere 78 pounds as an 18 year old female. I was on death’s doorstep.

And though I would have never said, “I’m choosing to die,” my actions communicated otherwise.

Healing from an eating disorder is no small feat. The weight loss is merely a symptom of an internal battle being waged. And in order to overcome and heal, you have to get to the root of the internal issue. You’ve got to identify The Lie. And it’s different for everyone.

For me, I believed The Lie that I was not worth love. That the only way I was worthy of love was if I were perfect. Seems so trivial, but I believed it to my core. Enough to nearly die for.

And in order to heal, I had to replace that Lie with the Truth.

Which is this: I have worth because I am a child of God. 

I am made by the King: His precious daughter. And because of this fact (which I did nothing to earn) I have incomprehensible worth. My life has immeasurable worth.

The hardest thing for me to accept, was that my worth had nothing to do with my achievements. It wasn’t influenced by anything I did or won. Read: I didn’t have to be perfect. Which, frankly was a hard pill to swallow. Because I wanted it to be. I wanted to earn love and worth. That’s what I had grown up with in a family of overachievers. We earned success and the opportunities we had. But this was not the case with God.

And conversely, my worth and value was not decreased because of any shortcomings. I have a lot of “dirty laundry” and a past full of secrecy and lies associated with the disease. Hello — it was anorexia for pete’s sake. But even that had no effect on my worth as a human being.

I was made by God. His fingerprints are on me. And he loves me unconditionally.

And He proved my worth when He chose the cross.

That fact saved my life. It made me choose life. Choose recovery. Choose to live.

So how, then, can I not extend that truth to others? To the child in the womb? To the elderly on their deathbed? To the disabled or homeless? If I had worth at my 78 pound, emaciated shell of existence, simply because I was created by God, then so too, do all those other souls.

So too, do they. The only difference is that the unborn child, the elderly woman with dementia, the child with a disability that has left him unable to speak: those children of God are unable to use their voice to stand up for their worth as sons and daughters of our Creator.

So I must.

Human life is not disposable. And the only reason I have the authority to say that is because I nearly threw mine away. I took the gift that was my life, and abused it, despised it, spat on it, and pillaged any and all hope. So only having nearly lost it, do I now know how truly precious it is.

That is all.

I’m not going to try to change your minds or try and bash you over the head with statistics and figures about the unimaginable number of children lost to abortion in the United States since Roe v. Wade (58.6 million).

I’m just here to tell my story. And to tell how the only reason I’m standing here today is because knowing my worth in Christ made me choose life.

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