You Must Be So Important

It’s November! And with November comes a specific milestone in my life that used to produce melancholy, but now only brings rejoicing! Yes, folks, on November 19th, 2006 I puked on a bus and laid my eating disorder at the feet of the high King.

I always second guess myself when I say that I ended my eating disorder on that day when I still struggle with anorexia to this day. For some strange reason my first instinct in reaction to stress is to starve myself. I would say it’s a survival instinct, but no. Starving yourself isn’t Darwinian by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless, I still claim that day as a day of victory for one fact and one alone: That was the day that Jesus conquered my sin and became Lord of that area of my life. Do I covet his lordship and try to take it back? Absolutely. Does my sin and disobedience make him any less Lord? Never.

The months that followed that fateful night were hard, to say the least. I think I’ve recounted this numerous times on this here bloggasaurus, but I never really get tired of sharing God’s work in my life, so I’m going to reiterate. November 20th, 2006 was the day that Satan started attacking me. By God’s grace I was given discernment between the voice of God and the voice of Satan. Without this maybe I would have taken the pills. For what felt like months the devil whispered in my ear “This isn’t worth it. You’re worthless. The only way to make the pain go away is to end your life.”

For all of you recovering anorexics out there maybe you can relate to the pain I’m talking about. Aside from the obvious emotional pain that was happening in my life, there was the “I haven’t eaten this much in years, but I’m so hungry” pain. It’s like the discomfort of eating too much at a buffet amplified by a thousand. It’s the pain that makes you want to throw up in the slight hope that it might alleviate the pressure.

So night after night I would lie in the fetal position on my bed, the devil whispering in one ear and my savior whispering in the other. Satan telling me “You’re worthless.” and my heavenly father telling me “You are so valuable, I have so much planned for you.”

In my anguish I turned to reading through the Psalms over and over again. Psalms 40 became my daily reading.

1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.

I cried out to God and this passage gave me confidence that not only did He hear me, but that he was going to pull me out of it.

As I grew in my faith and relationship with God the spiritual warfare didn’t lessen. If anything it grew worse, but my attitude was completely different.

The harder Satan tried to get me to end my life, the more I realized how important I am to God.

“I must be so important to God that the devil hates me this much. God must really have big things in store for me since Satan is trying so hard to kill me.”

On a day not long afterward God met me during a worship service. I rushed to a closet to meet with my God, and there He wooed me. He said “Grace I have a plan. You are so important. Will you do it.”

and like a fool I asked “God how big is this? How much of me do you want?”

God’s response “Dream your biggest dream, my plan for you is bigger. Give me everything. Totally surrender to me.”

And that’s how I got the name for my original blog.