Jesus is Faithful

                                   Well, I really don’t know how to start this. I don’t know how to dress this up and make it sound all beautiful and poetic. Use the words cryptic or agonizing, maybe?

                  Maybe another reason I don’t know how to start this is because it’s drilled into my brain that this is so cliché. That so many thousands of others have shared their stories and-heck!-what’s one more to deal with?

                  I suppose just because thousands are struggling with this doesn’t mean it isn’t any less important.

                  Yeah, I’m talking about body image.

                  My little (clandestine) story begins at age thirteen-almost-fourteen, sweeping up the dust and crumbs in my kitchen. I remember my hand gripping the counter as my mom said it.

                  “You’re getting overweight.”

                  Everything froze. I looked down at my stomach. Sure enough, it pooched out a little bit. That was a bad thing.

                  “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you struggling with weight and food for the rest of your life.”

                  My hand still gripped the counter as I rested the broom on a nearby stool, still avoiding my mom’s eyes.

                  “oh-kay,” I mumbled.

                  Inside, a thousand and one things tumbled around and around. Logically, I understood exactly what she was saying. Food had become an idol in my life, and I was eating and eating without listening to my body. But at the same time, dark lies rooted themselves in the truth and I dared listen to them.

                  You’re fat.

                  You’re ugly.

                  No boy will ever, ever want you.

                  What friend would want to hang out with a fat girl?

                  Later that day, I curled up in a ball behind my bed and sobbed. I remember furiously writing in my journal and wanting to scream.

                  Ever since that day, the devil found a way into my soul. He teased me with food, the promise of sweet and saltiness to give me pleasure, which I happily indulged in. Then he would mock me with my lack of self-control, and point out the softness of my body. Your stomach rolls. Your thighs are thick. And I would cry, because I wanted food and I wanted skinny and I wanted love and acceptance and to be done with this agony.

                  Fast-forward a year and a half. I had lost over twenty pounds. Some might say, “Wow! That’s amazing! What’s your secret?”

                  Sin. Lust for acceptance. Trying to find my worth outside of Christ.

                  I got to a point where I looked sick. My mom began worrying about me. “You don’t look healthy, Keels,” she told me one day as I was reading on the couch. She paused. “I hope I didn’t bring this on.” Her eyes were big and glassy.

                  I shook my head. “No, it’s not you. It’s not your fault.” I averted my eyes. “It’s all me.”

                  And the funny thing is, at that point, I still felt big and soft and anything but skinny. I kept encouraging a smaller and smaller number on the scale, but in the process I was neglecting all the relationships God gave me: my family, friends, and Jesus himself. My body and weight and food became my central focus from my waking moment to the time I went to bed.

                  I’m ashamed to say that. I wasted so many precious hours by running from God and running from Truth and running from God’s love and distancing myself from the special people in my life.

                  Yet, I prayed over and over for God to free me. I would set goals, like “I’m not going to weigh myself any more” and “I’m not going to criticize my body in the mirror”, only to break those goals in the next 24 hours.

                  I was in my parents’ bathroom (where the scale is) stripping off my clothes to weigh myself. But I felt this heavy, heavy ache settle on my heart and I began weeping. This is not what Jesus wants for me. I could feel his sadness and disapproval for what I was doing.

                  And by God’s sweet, sweet grace, he has rescued me. I cannot say I am completely in the light yet: I still wrestle with fat-talk and seeing other (real) girls and becoming discontent or envious. But He is so good, so much greater than my sin, and he is carrying me out of the darkness and into the light.

                  Since that day when I looked “unhealthy”, I have gained a lot of my weight back. Sometimes I ask God, “Why did you bring me through that dark time, when I practically lost weight and gained it back?”

                  Stupid question, right? The answer is so obvious.

                  To change you on the inside, my daughter. To show you that the world’s standards are unachievable, and they will tax you until you are dead inside. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

                  I’ve really struggled about whether or not I should post this on the internet, for several reasons.

1.     Every one has already read/heard about body image struggle stories, why read another?

2.     What if boys read this?

3.     What if girls read this?

4.     What if anyone reads this, and they judge me?

                  But I truly believe with all my heart that spilling some of my ugliest parts will somehow illuminate God’s grace and faithfulness. I think Jerry Bridges gives the illustration of how our sin is like those dark, velvet cloths that shine diamonds. God’s grace is like that diamond. Our black cloth (our sin and ugliness) is that cloth.

                  I also have come to the conclusion that I am resting on God alone, living for Him alone, so that whoever stumbles across this little post on the ugliness of my heart will see God’s grace. They can laugh at me, judge me, slap labels on me: but I am resting in the beautiful love of Christ.

                  And one more thing: I hope this encourages those who also struggle with body image or food (or both). I hope this shines a ray of light on Christ and how he is 200% able to powerfully lift you out of your black situation. He is so, so good. Please trust in him, and don’t grovel and waste your life and waste your beautiful energy.

                  “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

                  1 Corinthians 1:9

                  

On Writing

                  It’s been my dream since age nine to write a book. Not just any book, mind you—a best seller: a book no-one would be able to put down, a book to last decades, a book to be read at bedtime. First and foremost, a story that would live in many hearts.

                  I wrote my first full-length story (perhaps only ten pages) on a dilapidated laptop, typing clumsily every day at the kitchen island. Fast-forward a few months, and I was writing a new story. And the next month, another. Ideas shot through my head faster than I could write.

                  Maybe somewhere around age fifteen, I began writing only in my journals: personal accounts and thoughts about life. Not long after I began, I stopped. Journaling was hard. My wrist would ache as I squeezed my pen. I couldn’t write as fast as I thought. Sometimes I couldn’t think of the right word. And I never could write exactly what I was thinking or feeling. It became immensely frustrating.

                  Writing still has been frustrating and very difficult for me. But when I get going and my fingers fly, everything feels oh so right.  

                  I lay awake last night pondering the future. What I will do. Where I am going.  And I realized I didn’t really want to do anything else but write, even if it meant wading through fire and ashes getting there. Perhaps writing is truly difficult for me, but it is my dream, my passion, my God given gift.

                  I thought about the parable Jesus told concerning the tenants, where the master goes on a journey and gives each tenant some money to keep for him until he returns. Some go and invest in it, others find unique ways to grow the money he gave them. But one tenant buries the money. Maybe he doesn’t want a risk, or maybe he’s lazy. When the master returns, he’s so proud of the tenants who grew the money he gave them and so unhappy with the lazy tenant.

                  I’m sure the faithful tenants worked hard. It was difficult to not be passive, but actively get out there and take risks and use that which was given them.

                  It terrifies me that I might wake up one day and look in the mirror and see that unfaithful, lazy tenant.

                  Something Jesus said sticks to my heart: “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much.”

                  I so often talk of changing the world, but I neglect what God has set before me. This is my lot, let me praise Him for it.

                  I want to change lives, but I can’t break free from the mirror, from what others think of me, from a longing to be in a relationship.

                  I want to glorify God in all that I do, but I continue to daily waste my time on trivial talk, Pinterest, Instagram, and worrying about followers and stupid things like style and what I need to buy and blah blah blah.

                  So this ended up being a really ramble-y post. But to summarize, I’m going to write. I’m going to (by God’s grace) make a commitment to be faithful to grow and develop this gift. Even when no-one is watching. Even if no-one ever reads this blog. Even if I never publish a book.

                  So I can stand before God and shiver with child-like delight as he beams over my weak attempts to glorify him.

            I have to have everything figured out.

            I must be completely organized in every area of my life, from my finances to my Pinterest boards to my schedule to my stuff—

            I have to have everything under control.

            I’ve never really classified myself as a worrier. Whenever there are sermons,  lectures or books written on worry, I just sort of shrug them off and whisper in my heart, “That’s not me.” And yet, the more I try to know myself (and the more it makes me sick in the head and drunk on selfishness; glutting on my own sin) the more I realize how worried I am. I am worried about losing control, of watching my fingers being pried away from every area of my life. Not being able to say, “I’ve got this” any longer.

            I’m beginning to realize that this crazy, maniac cycle of control and introspection and worry and self, self, self is turning my life into an island. I’m distancing myself from my people, my closest friends and family and those I’m supposed to be serving. And God. My relationship with God may be suffering the most.

            This control cycle is truly rebellion against God. And what’s really interesting is that I pray all the time, “I’m surrendered to you, Lord. Take my life.” And sometimes I do really mean it. But the next moment, I take back what I gave in faith. I take the huge burdens and tie them yet again onto my aching back. I can do this, God. But the truth is (and He knows this better than anyone else) that I can’t do it. I can’t carry my sin and I can’t pretend that I have control. I can’t keep living in this fantasy world where everything obeys and acts accordingly to my plan.

            “I can’t let go, because it requires a little death. I know that tightening my grip will strangle what I’m holding, but I’m afraid of the sting that little death will produce. But the kind of life I want so badly lies on the other side of death.”

            -Jennie Allen  
            I must begin with surrender. I don’t think I’m called to surrender myself and then proceed to ‘undo’ that said surrender by snatching back my life from God’s hand. I’m called to trust him, no matter the cost. Nothing else can begin until surrender happens. It will hurt, but I’m so sure it will be worth it in the end.

the small and broken prayer

Father,

I come to you broken and battered by my heart and my desires and my own pride. I have refused time and time again to surrender everything to you. I have refused to give you my money. I have refused to give you my time. I have refused to give up sleep and energy and material things and priorities. I have been holding back from you. I feel like there is no way out of this pit of sin and struggle, this cycle that seems to have no end. I’ve been searching for approval in this world, in my friends and in strangers I don’t even know—and it’s really hard to believe that you will forgive me after running from you so many times. So. Many. Times.

But I look at Hosea’s wife, Gomer. He never stopped pursuing her. Your forgiveness to Peter after he denied you time after time after time. And you gave him grace, every time. And in your Word it says, “If I confess my sins, you are faithful and just to forgive me and cleanse me from all my unrighteousness.”

I do want everything in my life to speak of your grace and glory. Every moment I have breathing I want to it to be lived for you, you alone.

Forgive me, Jesus, for running. For stubbornly and rebelliously choosing to not come to you. For living as a hypocrite. For singing with my lips only in worship. For giving in during the battle. For not watching my thoughts. For greed and selfishness and anger and impurity in my heart, for gluttony and pride, even saying that I could do this whole life-thing on my own.

I don’t ask for you to give me the ‘feeling’ of forgiveness, the ‘feeling’ of peace or whatever I’ve been waiting for for so long. Just take my sins and put them far from you and far from me so I can move forward in victory and surrender and in obedience.

May all my hopes and dreams and plans and life itself be shaped and molded by you. I can’t do this in my own strength. Make me like your Son, no matter how it will look to this world.

Love from

your daughter

death by living

I.    I had a dream about dying, once. It was nonsensical and as odd as dreams come, but what felt like hard reality was this: driving with two people I loved in the front seats and knowing in the pit of my stomach that I was on my way to die. Everything I saw was vivid and colorful through my glittering vision. My eyes now felt the weight and sacredness of all I saw. A feeling I can’t even begin to describe leapt in my heart in this dream world, something that felt as real as watching a golden lit sunset that sticks in your mind and memory for years to come. This dream and that feeling are like that. They’re glued in my heart.

II.    One of my friends died when we were both eleven. My papa died of cancer when I was four. Some friends of our friends died in a house fire. One of my dear elderly friends died just last year. Surrounded by death, my heart felt cramped and terrified and I often couldn’t sleep at night. Sure, I was a Christian and certainly wasn’t going to hell, but was heaven as good as all of this? I wept into my sheets and shook my tightly closed fists at God. You can’t take this life from me, I said over and over.

And I’m not exactly sure how it happened—if it happened gradually or all at once—but my fingers got pried open and I learned to breath. And trust God with this whole life thing. I haven’t yet been able to shake this sharp awareness of death from my body and soul but I’m not scared of death anymore. I’m willing to part with this life, for he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

III.   I have so much to say and do and be and so little time to do it in. But God has given me all the time I need to do everything I was destined to do. Maybe this is all too personal and uncomfortable to read and to put way out there in cyber space. Maybe I was dead wrong to post this scrap of honesty. But the thing is, we all need a wake up call. A mighty trumpet to blast in our hearts that WE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY and we can’t go on living like we’re going to be here forever. We don’t have a lot of time. So the question of the day is this: How are we going to use our precious time here on planet Earth? Hoarding it for ourselves? Grabbing grabbing grabbing and never letting go? Or seeing how much we can give away while our hearts are pumping? Laughing as hard as we can and gripping the Gospel in our fists and loving God and loving people with all our hearts?

You get to decide how you use your time. The spotlight’s on you.