My Deliverance From The Rain

Yesterday I wrote about the rain. I hope you read it. I have experienced first hand how the rain and storms of life are invaluable tools in the hand of the sovereign Lord for the chiseling of our lives. If there's anyone out there struggling under relentless rain or chains of oppression or addiction, this story is for you:

Though I was raised in a Christian home with a “normal,” stable childhood, I was fully invested in the lies and compulsions of anorexia by the age of 12. My body and image were of utmost importance – an idol – and therefore food was an enemy. Anorexia morphed into bulimia once my low weight began to cause difficulty in everyday functions. I lived in a world consumed with self. I knew nothing other than food, exercise, calorie counting, and the torment of the scale. My weight went up and down numerous times; between 88 and 180 pounds. The cycle of bingeing and purging robbed me of a normal or enjoyable high school or college experience. These years were marred by deep depression, loneliness, isolation, and the destructive relationships that logically result when a person lives in disgust with himself and looks to others for love and fulfillment. I was utterly unable to undertake the vital task of investing in and studying for my future because of the chains that enveloped me – from age 12 to age 22. In the latter years, food simply became my best friend. In my thwarted perception, it provided the friendship, satisfaction, acceptance, purpose, and intimacy for which I longed. I desperately needed and wanted freedom from the bondage that was controlling my life, and I even spent over a year in different Christian treatment facilities. During these times, I grew to know my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in increasingly deeper ways, but the freedom and deliverance that I saw promised in His Word continued to escape me. Each time I left a treatment program to return home, I walked right back into a lifestyle of destructive eating and destructive relationships. I didn’t want to. I desperately didn’t want to. But, I had to. I craved to. I was hooked. Many people tried to help and intervene, but my life remained only and always a battle. I was defeated and hopeless.

Then, as impossible as it sounds, my life was completely transformed in the course of four months. One September Sunday morning at church, my dad introduced me to a gorgeous, curly-haired guy named Nick.  At the time, I assumed Nick would be just one more guy whose affection would provide temporary escape from the emotional pain of my daily life. I could not have been more wrong!!! By December of that year Nick and I were deeply in love, and the freedom for which I longed had quickly become reality. Compulsions that were woven into the very fiber of my being loosed their grip with miraculous speed. The only conceivable way to explain those four months is that my merciful Heavenly Father finally looked down upon my brokenness and said, “I will not let you and Satan ruin your life any longer!  It's time to get on with the plans that I have for you!” Just like God sent Jesus (the heavenly bridegroom) to earth to save and deliver us all, He symbolically sent Nick (my earthly bridegroom) to help save and deliver me from my bondage.

Nick and I have now been married for 4 ½ incredible years, and Jesus Christ is the Lord of our marriage. I love my life! It is full of purpose. I walk in consistent victory over the sins and behaviors that once paralyzed me.

My message to anyone wrapped in chains of addiction and hopelessness is this: the power of God is available to you, just as it was to me. He is able to deliver you from bondage of any kind, no matter how deep and no matter how dark. If you want to know more, I’m happy to talk….